Your Salary Depends on Your Gender to Some Extent…but Why?

salary money genderWhat is your annual salary? Do you think your gender plays a role in the amounts you earn? Actually, it does and Harvard researchers feel the same. For quite some time, a gap has always existed between the earnings of men and women. Studies claim that women only earn 77% of what men do, which is significantly less. So why does this discrimination exist? Is it truly based on your gender? Seemingly it may seem like this, but when you delve down, you will realize that none of this is because of your sex. It just depends on many other factors that have nothing to do with your sex. In fact, the two primary factors are job flexibility and the hours you put in.

Harvard researchers claim that this pay gap between men and women can cease to exist if employers stopped offering more rewards to individuals who can put in longer hours. This is very prominent in industries like science, technology and health and not so common in other sectors like law and finance.

Considering the past couple of decades, the pay stats have significantly improved, but they have yet to get better all around. In the 1980s, women earned only 50% of what men did. 20 years later, this value increased to 75%, but after that there has not been a significant change. Research states that these differences are easy to explain when you consider things like experience and education. One of the Harvard team members added that it does seem like gender discrimination, but it is all about flexibility. Generally, as individuals age, the gap becomes bigger. Why? Because women stop putting in the same number of hours they did initially as they have to take time off when they get involved in family and have children to take care of.

So how can the issue be addressed? Maybe if employers start focusing more on flexibility, the pay gap can be minimized. Instead of evaluating the time that has been spent in work, rewards should be based on the quality of work and the results that were achieved. Some of the most prestigious organizations have already developed their programs based on this, and have been able to minimize the gap that persists. So as they give their employees enough flexibility to focus on their personal lives, they also get them to produce results and march ahead in their careers.

Source: www.dailyfinance.com

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