Discrimination & Employment!

It has always been said that your gender and race has some affect on whether you have a better chance of being employed or not and what you will be paid if you are employed.  In this post, I want to take a closer look at the actual facts and statistics of this saying.

Gender: In the 1970’s women started off being paid $.52 to every $1 a male worker made, then it got raised to $.72 for every dollar when the EEOA (Equal Employment Opportunity Act) was enacted; since 2000, a woman’s salary has drifted back to $.58 per every male’s dollar. But is this soon to change? Young woman are starting to be paid more than young men. As a seasonal lifeguard we obviously start at a certain wage and get a raise of about $.25 every summer.  When I started 4 years ago I made $7/hr. flat. My co-worker, a male, took the same lifeguard class at me, interviewed in the same week, worked at the same pool, and started on the same day; however he made $6.50/hr. Why is this happening? Is it due to the issue of supremacy amongst the genders? Unfortunately I do not have the answer to such questions, but I do find it strange and will continue to keep up with the issue.

Race: Along with women, non-white males are also discriminated against when it comes to salary.  In order to show you some statistics, I will have to use teenage examples. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, African-American teens experienced an unemployment rate of 33.3% in 2005 as compared with 14.2% for white teenagers and 12.4% for Asians. Also, in 2005 African-American men, with a 10.5% unemployment rate, were considerably more likely to be out of work than Hispanic men (5.4%), white men (4.4%), or Asian men (4%).

Taking into account race and gender when it comes to finding jobs and the wage you will receive, the wage gap still exists because many women and people of other races continue to be segregated into low-paying occupations (of which there are many). More than half of all women workers hold sales, clerical and service jobs. Studies show that the more an occupation is dominated by women or people of other races, the less it pays.

It is sad to see how far our country has come in so many other levels; however we still have the audacity to discriminate against different genders and races to decide who gets the job and who gets to bring home the bacon!