Question

Question: Do you agree or disagree with comparable worth advocates' perspectives on the gender wage gap? Explain.

Answer 1

In the labor market, in general, the wages are largely determined by the demand and supply of such labor. However, it is still observed that in spite of the labor being worth more, the female fraternity gets to earn relatively lesser wages than that of the male fraternity in the market, owing to the presence of male gender prominence in the market. To narrow this gap of gender inequality in terms of payment of compensations, the comparable worth advocates’ perspectives have come into picture. Accordingly, the employers are required to weigh the worth of the job by evaluating the same on its intrinsic measures, instead of relying upon the market forces.

To me, it does make a lot of sense because it helps in doing away with the misconceptions that certain jobs are male-dominated only. If a female can undertake the same job, then she deserves the same compensation scale as that of a male in the fraternity. The differences that otherwise arise is only because of the fact that there has been a skewed gender-ratio in the labor market that further distorts the demand-supply condition of the want of female labor in the market. This can be taken care by comparable worth perspective and can help increase the pay in certain jobs more than what the market mechanism weighs it to. Besides, it shall help reducing the gender wage gap in the economy, giving everyone a fair chance to be compensated equally. Hence, I agree with comparable worth advocates' perspectives on the gender wage gap.