A pledge has been signed by 29 new private sector companies committing to close the pay gap among the genders. Those companies, who are going to be paying women the same as men include Microsoft, Facebook, General Motors and Target.
“Women employees at Apple earn one dollar for every dollar male employees earn,” Apple said in a statement. “We’re now analyzing the salaries, bonuses, and annual stock grants of all our employees worldwide. If a gap exists, we’ll address it.”
In the United States, women earned an average of 79 cents for every dollar made by a man. African-American woman experience a much steeper gap, as they are only paid 63 cents for every dollar made by man. Similar issues can be seen in many areas of the world.
Some of the gender wage gap can be attributed to outside issues, such as women periodically leaving the workforce to care for children or choosing lower paying careers. There have been many studies recently that still show pay discrimination is an issue. A survey of recent college graduates in 2014 found that women and men with the same college major were dealing with an unexplained 7% wage gap one year after graduation. The gap continued to grow to 12% over the next 10 years.
Another study found that male doctors with the same “age, experience, specialty, faculty rank, and measures of research productivity and clinical revenue” earned about $20,000 more a year than their female colleagues.
There have been efforts to close the gap in the past, including a law that would require harsher penalties for pay discrimination. Those efforts continued to be blocked.
In January, an executive order was signed by US Pres. Barack Obama without the help of Congress. It required businesses with 100 employees or more to report pay data, broken down by gender and race. There is also the White House Equal Pay Pledge, which has been signed by more than 50 companies.
“Towards that end, we commit to conducting an annual company-wide gender pay analysis across occupations; reviewing hiring and promotion processes and procedures to reduce unconscious bias and structural barriers; and embedding equal pay efforts into broader enterprise-wide equity initiatives,” the pledge says. “We pledge to take these steps as well as identify and promote other best practices that will close the national wage gap to ensure fundamental fairness for all workers.”
Many businesses have already signed the pledge and are doing their part to working in that direction. One company, Patagonia, goes above and beyond for its female employees. Their CEO is also a woman.
We believe women shouldn’t have to make the unnecessary choice between family and career and they can grow a career at the same pace as a family. At Patagonia, thanks to onsite child care, nursing mums are a few feet away from their babies versus miles apart. New mums and dads take paid time off to bond with and care for infants and families can eat breakfast and lunch together daily. We have an equal number of women and men at every level of the company, including among executive positions and the boardroom. Women and men are paid equally for comparable work. All of these things amount to a work environment where 100 percent of women return to work from maternity leave, 100 percent of dads take paid time off from work to bond with their new babies, and the business thrives as a result of the working families we support in our business.
Via: Huffington Post
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