Gender Pay Gap: United States and Canada

This action project is about "Equality". In my Humanities Class, we've been discussing and studying Equality. We talked about specific areas on equality like gender equalities and inequalities. We went on a field experience to "The Center on Halsted" and we took a walk throughout the neighborhood surrounding GCE. We discussed how we see equality and inequality in our lives. Areas where we commonly see gender inequalities are from the media and throughout social media. One thing that stood out to me in gender inequality was equal pay.  Professor Hewit from Oakton Community College and Scout Bratt from the Chicago's Women's Health Center also came to GCE to talk to us about Anthropology and Sex and Gender. These things we studied, learned, and experienced is important because we didn't just learn about these subjects for a grade, we wanted to dig deeper into these topics by experiencing the topics and discover how and why they exist and what's being done to fix some of the problems we learned about.

U.S. Census Burau (20)  77 Cents for Every Dollar

Haven't you heard ? The gender pay gap is a big problem. The gender pay gap is a man to woman pay ratio. It represents how many cents a woman makes to every man’s dollar and also represents how women get paid less than men. The United States gender pay gap is very similar to Canada’s gender pay gap. It is a problem in today's world because it shows how women are treated and looked upon differently compared to men just because of their gender and it also shows how equality has not been achieved yet.

The gender wage gap in the United States affects women across the nation. Equal Pay Day was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity in 1996. It was a public awareness event to represent the gap between men's and women's pay wages. The United States implemented the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires that men and women are given equal pay for equal work in the same job but women still earn 18.2% less than the median wage of American men. According to "History.com", the Equal Rights Amendment was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.  It also aims to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of a divorce, property, employment, and other matters. Women earned only 77 cents for every dollar that men earned in 2012, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.  "The gender wage gap has hovered at about 77 cents on the dollar since 2007" according to the Huffington Post.

The gender wage gap in Canada has a big effect on women in Canada. Women in Canada still earn 18.2% less than the median wage of men and 26% less for a full time full year-round work that men do, despite the Canadian Employment Standards Act. The act prohibits wage discrimination on the basis of sex and employment status in Canada. Canadian women still make 74 cents to every dollar that a man earns. According to "canadianwomen.org " women, workers in Canada earned an average of 69 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2016. According to catalyst.org "women in Canada earned 83.1% of what men earn on average, based on the weekly wages of full-time workers in 2017."Canada's wage gap has overall increased and decreased over the years.

The United States and Canada both have similarities and differences when it comes to the gender pay gap. Some similarities are that they both have a gender pay gap in their countries that affect many people and both countries have implemented Acts that focus on equality. Certain states and provinces in the US and Canada have legislation which prohibits discrimination in employment. The United States now has a gender pay gap of 18.2% out of the 100% of pay men receive. Women in the United States earn 77 cents for every 1 dollar made by me while, women in Canada now earn 87 cents for every 1 dollar made by men. The United States gender pay gap is worse than Canada's gender pay gap.

In conclusion, The gender pay gap affects countries all over the world and has been a problem for a very long time. I can see how this one subject ties in with equality and the different views on equality. I learned how the US and Canada both have similar problems and both have their own ways of fixing those problems. There are things being done to fix to help to close the gender pay gap but there have not been any noticeable or shown improvements towards ending the gender pay gap.

Works Cited

“Gender Wage Gap | Canadian Women's Foundation | Gender Equality Advocates.” Canadia.
Women's Foundation, www.canadianwomen.org/the-facts/the-wage-gap/.

“Home.” ERA: Home, Alice Paul Institute, www.equalrightsamendment.org/.

Sanders, Katie. “PolitiFact Sheet: The Gender Pay Gap.” PolitiFact, 15 July 2017,
www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/jul/15/politifact-sheet-gender-pay-gap/.

Racco, Marilisa. “Gender Equality in Canada: Where Do We Stand Today?” Global News,
8 July 2017, globalnews.ca/news/3574060/gender-equality-in-canada-where-do-we-stand-today/.

Venessa. “Women in the Workforce: Canada.” Catalyst, 10 Oct. 2018,
www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-workforce-canada.