gender wage gap conflict theory
gender wage gap conflict theory
They are the dominate sex who is seen to be smarter, better and more powerful in making decisions for himself, his family, his business, and etc. The social sciences students are embedded in a structural context in which relevant resources are not (or less) correlated with gender, and therefore, gender is unlikely to become a status characteristic in their daily interactions. The contribution of this paper is to apply the theoretical explanations offered by Berger et al. Zeitschrift fr Soziologie 38, 350357. Each vignette provided information on at least the gender, age, education, and occupation of the recipient described, among other dimensions in more complex vignettes, together with gross earnings. Young women are more likely to be enrolled in college today than young men, and among those ages 25 and older, women are more likely than men to have a four-year college degree. 42, 639651. This indicates that respondents reward seniority and potential work experience. doi: 10.1177/0001699308090039, Jasso, G., and Rossi, P. H. (1977). The wage gap is an important topic in many sociology classrooms, but it can be difficult to convey the accumulated disadvantage experienced by women and racial/ethnic minorities to students using in-class discussions, lectures, or Usually, the official statistics reporting the unadjusted gender pay gap use the arithmetic mean or the median of hourly or monthly wages of men and women. doi: 10.1086/344125, Blau, F. D., and Kahn, L. M. (2006). This week have examined three key social institutions: family, religion, and medicine. In a subpopulation with resource inequality (equality) between men and women, it is likely that male and female observers will (not) attach a status value to the characteristic gender of the recipient. WebAccording to conflict theory, society is a struggle for dominance among social groups (like women versus men) that compete for scarce resources. Res. In other words, respondents produce with their ratings a just gender pay gap favoring men, as found by Jasso and Webster (1997). Kevin J. Mitchell, Ph.D., "Sex on the Brain" published by Aeon Magazine, https://aeon.co/essays/the-gender-wars-will-end-only-with-a-synthesis-of-research, 10. Inequality lasts because those who control the unbalanced portion of societys supplies; forcefully defend their benefits. Table 8. This paper only focuses on five dimensions that were included in all studies5. I acknowledge funding from the German Research Foundation (grant number: HI 680-4-1) and the Dutch Research Foundation (grant number: 4510-17-024). Statistical Software. ^D-efficient designs (Kuhfeld, 2005) are built using a computer algorithm that specifies a sample characterized by a minimal intercorrelation between dimensions (main effects and interaction terms) while also ensuring a maximal variance and balance of the frequency of the dimensions levels. (2019, April 10). Labor Relat. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements. In both models, there is a significant interaction effect between the gender of the vignette person and the subpopulation (student vs. non-student). To link the justice evaluation process to the structural context, a closer examination of the referential structure of comparisons in justice judgments is in order. Therefore, men can be seen as the dominant group and women as the subordinate group. (1972), judgements based on comparisons between two individuals are not justice evaluations (e.g., both individuals could be underpaid). Models 4 to 6 show the coefficients for population sample 2. Post-Commun. All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. Nevertheless, many high-positioned, wealthy and powerful men can and are willing to help women in coping and improving this situation. 30, 219232. Accounting for the sources of the level and changes in the gender pay gap will provide guidance for understanding recent research studying gender and the labor market. Figure 1. Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der Studierenden in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2009. CS conducted the survey and wrote the paper. Rather, handful believe that the formative system reinforces real perpetuates social inequalities that arise of distinguishing in class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Moreover, the study examines how human capital Sauer, C. (2014a). 175. First, all interviews in the SOEP-Pretest are programmed as computer-assisted personal interviews, in contrast to the paper and pencil questionnaires mostly used in the main survey. While students are undoubtedly socialized in a gender-unequal society and gender inequalities also exist at universities, the gender bias based on daily experiences should at least be lower than in other subpopulations. If women keep advancing and taking away their jobs, then these men feel insecure and men are inclined to penalize these progressing women., Conflict theory sees society as a dynamic unit constantly changing as a result of competing for scarce resources. (1972) and Jasso (1978) to derive hypotheses about the direction and size of a just gender pay gap in observers' evaluations. It is commonly calculated by dividing womens wages by mens wages, and this ratio is often expressed as a percent, or in dollar terms. The question is now how inequalities between men and women influence the existence (10), sign (10) and size of a just gender pay gap. Microeconometrics Using Stata, Vol. Gender theory and theorizing universities as gendered organizations provides the theoretical framework of the study. 10, 393430. The subjective gender bias in evaluations of earnings describes complementary differences in justice evaluations of men and women. A first version of this paper was presented at the Conference of the American Sociological Association in 2011 in Las Vegas (Regular Session: How Do Organizations Bring Markets Back In? ^In the computer-assisted personal interviews, additional information was collected about the interviewer, e.g., work experience and training attendance, and the interview situations in interviewer questionnaires after each interview. Homans, G. C. (1974). The impartiality (Jasso et al., 2019) of these reflexive judgments is therefore hardly given. First, respondents had to judge whether the earnings of a worker were just or unjust. The social issue of the inequality of the pay signifies how women are treated with bias in their workplaces. Eine Ursachenanalyse auf Grundlage der Verdienststrukturerhebung 2014, in Wirtschaft und Statistik 2/2017, 4362. Rev. Jasso and Webster (1999) interpreted this finding in comparison to their previous study (Jasso and Webster, 1997) as a possible consequence of changing actual gender pay gaps over time. It has also been found that career-people of the STEM field with young children face more "work-family" conflict, as the demands of the rigorous STEM field and those of their young children overlap. Illogical cases are, e.g., medical doctors without a university degree. Attention is placed on class, race, and gender in this perspective because they are seen as the most important bases and long-term struggles in society., Whether we like it or not, history is repeating itself. doi: 10.3200/JOEB.84.6.339-349, Sotan, K. E. (1981). The conflict theory comes from the work of Karl Marx where there are different kinds of groups competing for dominance. First, the focus is on the effect of the gender of the vignette person on the justice evaluations for each sample. doi: 10.1007/BF02683292, Kugler, K. G., Reif, J. KZfSS Klner Zeitschrift fr Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 63, 3359. doi: 10.1086/226706, Jasso, G. (1980). Figure 3 shows the transformed b-coefficients of the regression models with the 95% confidence bars for each sample by gender. The only exception is the gender of the vignette persons, which was not important for students but crucial for the respondents in the two population samples. (OECD). The effects of vocational and university degrees are also significantly negative. The factorial survey as a method for measuring sensitive issues, in Improving Survey Methods: Lessons From Recent Research, eds U. Engel, B. Jann, P. Lynn, A. Scherpenzeel, and P. Sturgis (New York, NY: Routledge), 137149. (2016). Fairness judgments of the distribution of earnings. Thus, male and female students did not account for gender similarly in their justice evaluations as it would be the case when it was a status characteristic for both groups. Although only a share of respondents participate in the labor market, these status differences are shared beliefs in wide parts of society because they have spread throughout the population. Distributive justice and CEO compensation. Valet, P. (2018). The third model shows the coefficients of the three-way interaction with respondent's gender for male (2 = 6.17;p = 0.013) and female (2 = 3.60;p = 0.058) respondents separately. Engels suggested that the same owner-worker relationship seen in the labor force could also be seen in the household, with women assuming the role of the proletariat. The legitimization of gender differences due to biased referential structures could be one reason for the slow reduction in the actual pay gap. It is crucial to obtain a stable referential structure in which the comparisons are embedded. For example, only a small fraction of people evaluate themselves as being overpaid (Sauer and Valet, 2013). doi: 10.1007/s11211-013-0182-2, Schomaker, C. (2010a). Because in Germany, as in many other countries, the gender differences are remarkably high (more on this below), it is likely that gender is perceived as a status characteristic that is attached to higher earnings for men. Making regression tables simplified. Thus, it is possible to investigate justice evaluations of people embedded in differing gender inequality structures. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. Jasso, G., and Meyersson Milgrom, E. (2008). Sociol. Models 1 and 2 report the coefficients for the student sample. Status Characteristics and Social Interaction: An Expectation States Approach. Therefore, they also experience gender inequalities in other contexts. Sociol. doi: 10.1086/226826. The main differences are that respondents in general samples are on average older and less well educated. The observers produce in this case no just gender pay gap. WebThe theoretical perspective that explains the issue of gender wage gap inequality is the conflict theory. Correlations of vignette dimensions for the population sample 1. Under the structural condition of resource equality, it is likely that gender has no status value; therefore, gender is unimportant for the evaluation process. (1996). Having men and women share equal footing on these boards will mitigate the concepts of superiority and inferiority., The effects of the pay gap are overwhelmingly negative. Inequity and Social Exchange, ed L. Berkowitz (London, UK: Academic Press), 267299. (1997). While gender inequality is manifested in the German labor market, the situation is somewhat different for university students, especially social sciences students. To illustrate the differences in evaluations between samples and male and female respondents the transformed b-coefficients estimated in Equation (5) will be presented in Figure 3. Thus, the new scale runs from 100 to 0 to +100. Discovering the mechanisms behind why people perceive certain income levels to be appropriate or fair for male and female employees sheds light on these processes. Reward expectations are formed based on status characteristics and a referential structure. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World. 52, 862873. Therefore, their approach is normative in that it prescribes changes to the power structure, advocating a balance of power between genders. J. Sociol. doi: 10.2307/2095066, Jasso, G. (1986). The Conflict Perspective by Boundless, Boundless Sociology, http://oer2go.org/mods/en-boundless/www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/index.html is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Distributive justice and earned income. 2, eds J. Berger, M. Zelditch, and B. Anderson (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company), 119146. Factorial Survey Experiments, Vol. Rev. The effect of the SIOPS has a significantly negative value, meaning that those vignette persons described by working in occupations with higher prestige scores were evaluated as more under-rewarded than those with lower scores (occupation status reward). Model 1 includes the structural variables of average gross earnings and gender pay gap per federal state. 81, 11611189. The gender gap in negotiation may in part explain why women in the United States earned only about 83% of mens median annual earnings in 2021, according to the Institute for Womens Policy Research. J. 144, 198222. Non-reflexive judgments, on the other hand, are not affected by conflicts of justice perceptions and individuals' own interests because people judge rewards by which they are not affected (especially when people evaluate fictitious others, as is the case in factorial survey studies). KEY POINTS Conflict theory asserts that social problems occur when dominant groups mistreat subordinate ones, and thus advocates for a balance of power between genders. On average women are paid 80 cents for every dollar paid to men. Models 5 and 6 show the coefficients for population sample 2. Rev. The 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using the Delta method (Hole, 2007). (2009, 2014). 45, 168193. Additionally, on 2 days, training courses were provided by the researchers to show the interviewers how the respondents had to rate the vignette task and how the interviewers had to behave as the respondents rated the vignettes and how to react in the case of questions. The result is in line with previous research (Jasso and Webster, 1999) that also found only marginal differences in the ratings of male and female students. The other coefficients and their interpretation are reported briefly as follows: the effect of a vignette person's age is negative and highly significant, meaning that older vignette persons were evaluated more often as under-rewarded than younger vignette subjects. The gender pay gap can refer to differences in mean or median annual earnings, weekly earnings, or hourly wage. The figure shows how much more (in percentages) the fair earnings would be for male vignette persons compared to female vignette persons. Until relatively recently, women in Western cultures could not vote or hold property, making them entirely dependent on men. 5. The second model includes the interaction term between the vignette person's gender and the gender pay gap in the federal state. doi: 10.1177/0003122416683393. It has been evident that women head the top-performing organizations in the world. 84, 541564. Intersectionality - The Feminist Perspective, 29. (2012). Further details on the methodical setup of the factorial survey can be found in Sauer et al. The specification assumes comparisons as a central mechanism within justice evaluations. Non-reflexive judgments are, therefore, well suited to investigate justice attitudes and unconscious gender bias in judgments [for a review of the research on non-reflexive justice attitudes using factorial surveys, see Liebig et al. According to conflict theory,societyis defined by a struggle for dominance amongsocial groupsthat compete for scarce resources. Berlin: Bundesministerium fr Bildung und Forschung (BMBF). This is a mandatory requirement to investigate gender bias introduced by the respondents. The men try to remain the dominant group in order to maintain the already established social order. Moreover, the student sample used in this study revealed no gender differences in study success (meanm = 1.26; meanf = 1.15; T = 1.27; p = 0.20; nm = 697;nf = 998) measured via self-assessment on an eleven-point rating scale (5 to +5). Psychol. SOEP Testerhebung 2008: Persnlichkeit, Gerechtigkeitsempfinden und Alltagsstimmung. In the computer-assisted personal interviews, the interviewers gave the laptop to the respondents and sat opposite them to preclude having the opportunity to view the evaluations. Soc. 3 In 2022, Black women earned 70% as much as White men and Hispanic women earned only 65% as much. Table 6. Moreover, three out of 81 interviewers had a tenure of one year or less and did not appear on one of the two training days. Siegel, N. A., Stocker, A., and Warnholz, S. (2009). 28, 415434. Germany is a country in which a significant gender gap in earnings and income persists; therefore, the German population is an example of a structural context of substantial inequality between men and women. 25 Jahre Sozio-oekonomisches Panel - ein Infrastrukturprojekt der empirischen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsforschung in Deutschland. 34, 334423. The gender pay gap has been observed for decades, and still exists. The U.S gender pay gap in the 1990: slowing convergence. Stratificat. Early formulations of justice evaluation processes identified comparisons as the key mechanism how actors assess the justice or injustice of their rewards. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in It is assumed that the gender gap in just wages found in earlier studies (Jasso and Webster, 1997; Jann, 2008) occurred because gender had a status value, dividing people into status-low and status-high groups. Previous studies on reflexive justice find a gap between the evaluations of men and women, with men expecting higher wages than women (Liebig et al., 2011, 2012; Valet, 2018). The effects are very similar to those described above; again, the interaction effects in Model 5 and Model 6 are negative.
