Inequality Final Paper

Inequality Paper Step 2

Leila Bazzi

University of Michigan-Dearborn

The Widening Black-White Wage Gap Among Women

The title of this journal article is “The Widening Black-White Wage Gap Among Women”. The co-authors of this journal article are J. D. Fisher, & Houseworth. The name of this journal in which the source was published is the Journal of Economic Equality.

The women at the age of 30 are likely to be in an income-generating job. A cohort of ladies of this age were examined and the disparities in their wages established. Literature has found that at around this age in a baby boom cohort 1, the wage gap is estimated at 5 percent in favor of white women while the gap for their daughters was found to be 15%. First, a cohort of a woman aged between 26-31 was initially selected and studied, then later a bigger cohort involving those with 25-55 plus younger cohorts was used.

It was found out that young women, for both black and white were more likely to work, as compared to their older counterparts. In addition, black women were more likely to be selected for the job and that young white educated women were unlikely to exit the labor force during childbearing age. White women could be selected on a positive basis. White women were more educated than black counterparts (Fisher, & Houseworth, 2017).

The Gender Wage Gap

The title of this journal article is “The Gender Wage Gap”. The co-authors of this journal article are F.D. Blau and L.M. Kahn. The name of this journal in which the source was published is the Journal of Economic Literature.

The established per capita income variables give little information on the disparities in the wages between different gender despite it being a very important factor in the occupation and industry. The differences in the women workforce as indicated by per capita values could be attributed to work interruptions and shorter working hours but discrimination cannot be discredited in regard to role differences, a division of labor and occupation difference. This paper seeks to identify the existing gender pay gap and whether it has an impact on the difference in the workforce. It was found out that women had more wage bargaining power as compared to men and a decrease in wage hit men harder than female counterparts. However, there was a wage gap between females and males with the same qualifications. There were no clear reasons as to why the gaps exist but it observed it could be due to unmeasured productivity, or compensating differentials while occupational different could be accounted for by discrimination. In addition, many of the traditional explanation for wage gap continues to dominate the reasons but some have reduced in importance (Blau, & Kahn, 2017).

The Power of Lump Sums to Women

The title of this journal article is “The Power of Lump Sums to Women”. The author of this journal article is G.D. Morton. The name of this journal in which the source was published is the Journal of World Development.

This study identifies the influence income contributes to a peaceful existence in a family and the processes through which the influence occurs. It looked at the women who are beneficiaries of two social programs in Brazil. Basically, this program disbursed a considerable amount of money to pregnant mothers and looked at how they invested the amount. The study stipulated that women spend the monthly money to purchase items like clothing and furniture while giving them lump sum empowers them. Ideally, the findings of this research concurred with the stereotypes that feminine property in which purchasing of assets such as cows and fields. However, unlike monthly money that encouraged spending on items, lump sums could be spent in the purchase of assets. On the contrary, women had a perception that assets they purchased will typically be owned by men. Therefore, lump sums could help in re-gender households, bring equality and possibly enable a peaceful coexistence (Morton, 2019).

References

Morton, G. D. (2019). The power of lump sums: Using maternity payment schedules to reduce the gender asset gap in households reached by Brazil’s Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer. Journal of World Development, 113, 352-367.

Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2017). The gender wage gap: Extent, trends, and explanations. Journal of Economic Literature, 55(3), 789-865.

Fisher, J. D., & Houseworth, C. A. (2017). The Widening Black‐White Wage Gap among Women. Journal of Labour, 31(3), 288-308.