Statistics shows
that women income rose faster than men’s during the past decade. However, the “glass
ceiling” still exists for women in the work place. In economics, glass ceiling
means that the unseen barrier that keeps minorities and women from getting ahead,
regardless of their qualifications or achievements.
Ms Williams, of the
Women’s resource Centre, called on Government to establish a Fender Unit and to
strengthen legislation to prevent discrimination against women. The 2010
Employment Survey indicated more females were in higher paying jobs compared to
their male counterparts. However while females are generally better off
in terms of income, males continue to enjoy higher salaries in occupations
grouped as senior officials, managerial and professional. As we learned in
readings in last week, at every level of academic achievement, women’s median
earnings are less than men’s median earnings, and in some cases, the gender pay
gap is larger at higher levels of education. Claudette Fleming, executive director
of Age Concern, responded to the report.
“It is important
that we include ‘age’ as a basis for discrimination within the human rights
legislation so that those seniors who need to can continue to work and earn an
income past 65 years old,” Ms Fleming said.
However, the
statistics also show that working age people must prepare to finance their
retirement as early and as much as they can. The appropriate balance is related
to personal responsibility and government support. “We are hopeful that the
Government will soon have CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women) extended,” Ms Williams said. CEDAW is known as an
international Bill of Rights for women. CEDAW is about eliminating
discrimination against women and promoting equality. I agree that government should
establish a Gender Unit to oversee policy formation, training and monitoring of
policies to identify and correct gender deficiencies in every aspect of
community life.
I liked that you included ‘ageism’ in your post because it’s a very prevalent thing. It’s so unfair that when a man gets to be 65, he’s treated with dignity and respect at his place of work and the possibility of him continuing to work remains. Whereas if a woman is 65, she is treated with disdain in the workplace—unless of course it’s a female dominated area of work, then she’s a veritable matriarch provided that a man isn’t around to nab the higher salary. To be old and female in this country is to essentially be unhireable, which is a disgusting standard.
ReplyDeleteThe Glass Ceiling is a huge issue and it ties in with the Gender Wage Gap. It is a great idea to have some sort of reinforcement (such as the Gender Unit). At the same time, if they do not get laws into affect that will support the reinforcement then there is nothing to reinforce. It is that cycle of oppression that keeps running through our daily lives. It is very frustrating that we do not have a country to support this. Women's rights are almost nothing if we do not have the support we so desperately need.
ReplyDeleteThe glass ceiling is undoubtedly still a big issue in the United States. Unfortunately it is not a problem that can simply be resolved overnight. For example; If all hiring practices miraculously started employing with true equality tomorrow, it would take decades before these equality biased hiring practices would show demographically in the workplace. For this ideal worker demographic to exist in true equilibrium the generations of people hired in previous generations must be “purged” from the system. Because of this phenomenon we must look closely at any statistical numbers portraying percentages of men and women in in different positions and therefore different pay scales. This is not to say that there is not still a large discrepancy between the wages and hiring practices from men and women, just that we must keep the statistical numbers in perspective to where we are at in this great “purging” of inequality in the job pool.
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