The existing research on gender income inequality indicates that gender income inequality has a negative impact on the society. Building up on the points mentioned earlier, this part of the research will try to highlight the impact of gender pay gap in the society and suggest alternative solutions.
Gender pay gap causes discrimination based on gender. Every year, thousands of genders based discrimination cases are brought before the Federal Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC, 2015). This figure clearly shows the prevalence of the problem. It is also important to note that these are cases brought to the attention on the justice system.There are many more female workers subjected to discrimination but who didn't speak up for different reasons.
Recent data shows that, in the United States, half of all households with children under the age of 18 have a breadwinner mother, who is either a single mother, or is a married mother who provides at least 40 percent of the couple’s joint earnings (Anderson 2016). Hence, inability to improve the earning of women to the level where their male colleagues are getting leads to less family income. The sad truth is that, it will mainly affect working …show more content…
For example, a study shows women whose income was lower than their male counterparts had a nearly 2.5 times higher risk of depression. Not only this, their likelihood of developing an anxiety was four times higher than that of male counterparts. (Jonathan M. Platt, Seth J. Prins, Lisa M. Bates, Katherine M. Keyes 2016). With wage inequality, women are also forced to do more irregular shifts. This will also have a long term impact since it will lead for a diminished entitlement on areas like pension and health insurance, and overall lower job security and high job dissatisfaction. (Fligstein and Shin