Cost of Gender Inequality

http://stream.goodwin.drexel.edu/womenincoaching/2012/01/03/gender-equality/

     Gender inequality in the United States is one of the major problems affecting the economy. The National Partnership for Women and Families has found that women in the United States women earn $10,784 less than their male counterparts each year. According to their calculations, if women earned equal pay for equal work, they could purchase 1.7 years worth of groceries in Washington state, an additional 2,746 gallons of gas in Colorado, and 3.7 extra years of health insurance premiums in Connecticut. Men earn more money in this traditional form of economy based on sexism. This is the modern day form of sexicism that seems to go by un-noticed Women are not being payed at the same rates as men are and that's causing households with women as the head to suffer more and cause women to be more likely on government funding like SNAP and welfare than men.

    People show that gender is an important variable and that gender relations can affect economic development and growth. Gender relations such as job segregation within the paid labor market, labor that is paid or unpaid, the distribution of income and resources within the household and credit in financial markets. The effect of gender based economic opportunities is that women and men on average are in different classes. Women more likely to be poor, malnourished, less educated, and overworked in relation to men. This is based on a number of different things such as the difference in wages between the genders and employment rates, hours of paid and unpaid work, rates of unemployment, educational attainment, life expectancy rates and the ratio of females to males in the population.
     Women in the workplace always make less money than a man even though they have more experience than the man.  Studies show that gender  inequality has grown significantly since the early 1970's. People argue that the majority of the wage gap is due to women's choices and preferences. Women are more likely to consider factors other than salary when looking for employment. On average, women are less willing to travel or relocate, take more hours off and work fewer hours, and choose college majors that lead to lower paying jobs. Women are also more likely to work for governments or non-profits, that pay less than the private sector. According to this perspective certain ethnic minorities and women receive fewer promotions and opportunities for occupation and economic advancement than others. In the case of women this concept is referred to as the glass ceiling keeping women from climbing the occupational ladder.
     I feel that saying that because women are picky is what is preventing them from getting the same amount of pay as men is another sexist way of talking. Whether or not women are picky should not affect them getting equal pay. Gender inequality I believe is affecting the economy because if women were getting paid the same as men, they would be able to spend as much as men on things that aren't considered a necessity to survive. Women getting less pay than men mean that they would not be able to spend a percentage of their paycheck on something that would boost the economy. Women should get paid the same amount and maybe then, the economy may start to get better slowly.