Gender Pay Gap In The Workplace

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REASONS GENDER PAY GAP STILL EXIST IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WORKPLACE INTRODUCTION Gender pay gap is the difference between women and men’s earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings ("What is the gender pay gap?” 2017). Discrimination is one of the reasons that the gap still exist in the workplace in Malaysia (Siew & Johnes, 2012; Othman & Othman, 2015). Discrimination can be in different forms like in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination and compensation (Othman & Othman, 2015; Blau & Kahn, 2017; Shen, 2013). These discriminations can be intentionally or unintentionally (Freund et al., 2016). Some of the discrimination and bias occurred due to the motherhood penalty of female workers (Jagsi et al., 2013; Blau & Kahn,…show more content…
by employers, co-workers and customers or clients. Discriminatory employers will only hire women at a sufficient wage discount that compensates them for the disutility of employing women. Discriminatory male workers will demand a wage premium to work with women thus raising men’s relative wages. Lastly, discriminatory customers or clients reluctance to buy goods or services provided by females will make women less productive in terms of revenue thus depressing their relative wages. Moreover, this phenomenon is more rampant in sectors of economy that are not competitive (Blau & Kahn,…show more content…
Women tended to be employed in firms that provide low wages for both sexes across all occupations. Conversely, men tended to be hired in firms that provide high wages to both sexes (Blau & Kahn, 2017). Women are underrepresented in highly paid fields and overrepresented in poorly paid fields (Doucet, Smith & Durand, 2012). The labour market can be divided into two segments, i.e. primary and secondary. Primary sector’s jobs are part of the internal labour market of a firm. Its wages and employment outcome are co-determined by institutional and social influences rather than market forces. These jobs are paid handsomely and provide chances for promotion. On the other hand, secondary sector’s jobs are less attractive in terms of pay, promotion, etc. From employers’ perspective, women tend to be weak in labour force attachment than men; they have lower interest in economics reward, etc. Thus, employers tend to crowd women into second sector (Siew & Johnes,

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