The Income Gender Gap Sociology Essay Example

There’s no doubt that there are still many gender bias and things being in favor of men and while woman are still taking action to solve this issue it’s still on going.Gender determines employment and professions to a great extent in  todays society like woman getting paid less and less woman in STEM.

Firstly,gender in todays community determines how high or less someone gets paid in their career.When analysing the data from Text 1 “Gender Gap INDEX for New Zealand”, it shows how females had a estimated income of 30k and males of 50k.This clearly shows how big of a difference gender had on the income which is a big part of employment. This can be  due to men applying in higher paying jobs and woman in lower paying jobs as well as woman working less.One reason for why woman work less is that they also have to take care of the house chores and their kids because men are “don’t do those stuff” due to a big stereotype between woman and men that now woman are the ones that are supposed to be doing the housework. Woman being commonly housewives has made people assume and believe they don’t occupy the same skills that man don or aren’t as hardworking when they don’t even have gave them a chance. Either way housework can still be challenging and if you were to put a men to do housework he probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.Also in Text 2 it states, “…but although the pair had the same skills and background, Mr Edwards was give the more highly paid position.”In this case we know that both individuals had the same skills and backgrounds as stated in the text but somehow the man still managed to get the higher paying job and why was that maybe because as they also said the woman was given the lower paying job because she was a “Woman” stereotyped as weak, and more easy to give up on the other job. So somehow even when the genders have the same characteristics one is till chosen over the other.

Another way in which gender has a big impact in employment is the minority’s and the reason why there might be less woman in STEM. “ In teams where there’s 50 per cent woman or when woman are in the majority, these females engineering students feel much more confident…” ( Text 2) Already due to this big gender gap in employment and majors,careers etc woman  feel like they’re in minority when they decide to join a major which is mostly composed of men and their confidence just leaves making them choose another path. So what if there’s actually more woman out there who are interested in doing jobs “for men” but they don’t because they feel threatened. The study shows that when woman were in a group of majority they felt much more confident and feel more much empowered to pursue their career in engineering.Text 1 says, “…government policy can help increase…”. To accomplish more kids especially woman to join STEM and make it exciting for them. Many kids mind can be close minded because they’re expected to do choose a specific kind of job or dream but if we can make woman and kids experience about careers in STEM then they can understand it and it may become their passion.

In conclusion, todays employment is highly influenced by gender. We should make people more open minded and put an end to these stereotypes about each gender and let people become what they desire in life.Encourage kids at a early age and support.