This article focused on a prediction made by Liza Mundi, a writer for the Spectator, that Britian's next generation of women will actually be making more money for the same work and same qualifications as their male colleagues and counterparts. Mundi says this increased pay is due to several factors including the rising level of female graduates, more stay-at-home dads and a new generation of career minded females born after 1985. Also, industrial work, dominated by a male work force is declining, largely due to globalization and the competion in as well as for new markets, such as technology, science, and energy. Mundi also found in this study that currently women ages twenty-two to twenty-nine are making two and a half percent higher in median hourly rates than men. These findings are almost revolutionary since the pay gap between women and men has been in the nine to ten percent range. Mundi also holds several reasons as to why even the realization of the pay gap has been so prolonged. Part-time employment, accomodations to family life, the movement of women in and out of the workplace throughout their careers, and the simple reluctance of women to ask for equal pay and their managers, who are more often than not male, to abide by such wishes, are all mentioned reasons for the prolonged pay gap between men and women in the work force.
The expansion for career and education opportunities for women, not only in Britian, but in other developed countries especially can be explained by changes in international ideals held by the first world and also by globalization. The fight for women's rights has been going on since the early twentieth century with first the foundation of women's suffrage and then to other key areas such as equal pay rights. The developed world is working towards a more income equality oriented society regardless of gender. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 addressed such concerns in the United States and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 further addressed such issues concerning equality in compensation for the same work, qualifactions, and hours among men and women. Social norms have made it so that women seemed less qualified for equal pay, such as the notion that women simply belong in the home and should be concerned with their domestic environments more than anything else. However, since women have more access to education at the university level and beyond and because of the changing global political economy has introduced new markets vital to the continuing success of developing nations, women have reached the same qualifications for work as their male counterparts. With stay-at-home dads also becoming more common and socially acceptable, women have more career opportunities. Therefore, in conclusion women in the developed world are most certainly working towards a society that promotes equality where it almost hasn't before, in the workplace. This is due to changes in social norms and also the process of globalization.
Ketsia Masse, Women 9/8/2012 8:05 PM
http://www.economist.com/blogs/leviathan/2012/09/ending-pay-gap?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/payingthepriceforwomen
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