The recent reports show that gender discrimination predetermines the low share of women working in the industry. Today, the number of females working in the computer science industry is even lower than it was in 1985. Moreover, IT and other technology-related branches remain male-dominated and provide neither equal job opportunities nor equal payments to women. The current paper aims to focus on the gender pay gap and analyze how gender discrimination predetermines unequal positions regarding promotion and higher compensation in the computer science and information systems industry.
The above-mentioned sphere is rapidly developing and is very demanding nowadays. However, being highly updated it is not deprived of the stereotypes that have become strongly embedded in the American economy. The governmental report shows that the payments of females in this industry are not equal to men who perform the same tasks. About 49% of the wage gap is not explained by objective characteristics like educational level, experience or job type. Consequently, gender discrimination needs to be discussed.
The gender pay gap in the US since 2014 is 21%. Even though it was bigger previously, the higher participation in the workforce and education has reduced this gap but stopped on the above-mentioned point regardless of any further actions on the female part. One can assume that such a situation is predetermined by maternity and inability to work full-time day. However, this is a deception. Nowadays, not all women choose children overwork. Hence, the studies analyze the workers of different gender, who perform the same amount of work under similar conditions. The research-based on the MBA graduates’ analysis, shows that such a gap tends to appear with time. Referring to the post-graduation period and the beginning of the career, the payments were approximately equal. However, after a decade of work, the age gap has reached 60 %. Such injustice touches women of all backgrounds, ages, and professions to a particular extent.
The salary of the females mustn't be likely to grow with time with the same tendency as the males’ one. Moreover, when it goes about the negotiations related to the salary expectations, females are more likely to fail. Women are more often penalized for initiating the wage-related talks, in contrast to men, who often succeed in such negotiations. The underlying reasons for that are related to the violation of prescriptive sex stereotypes. Women’s negotiations about salaries are perceived negatively because it contradicts the caring and subordinate behavior prescribed to a woman. For this reason, the experimental research that focused on investigating the valid behavior of a female while salary negotiations proved that the ability to relate the request to the prescribed female qualities like devotion to the company and caring about work lead to more successful outcomes.
The evidence shows that the salary of females really can be unjustified and decreased due to several stereotypes. For this reason, the researchers focus on the following solutions that can become helpful to equal the reward for the men's and women's work. Firstly, the organization CEOs must monitor the gender-pay difference and the objective reasons for it. Secondly, women have to learn communication strategies that would make their position more successful. Finally, the law and particularly the Paycheck Fairness Act needs some improvements that would contribute to equal payments.
Consequently, any industry, especially computer science and information systems, has to provide a more equal opportunity to genders in case of the employee’s and employers’ raised attention to the existing gender pay gap and consider it as the rights’ violation and discrimination.
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