Title VII and other laws relating to gender discrimination - Equal Pay Act

Equal Pay Act (EPA) is an Act that prohibits pay discrimination based on sex and states
that men and women must be paid equally for substantially equal work performed in the same
establishment. This Act allows individuals to file complaint for pay discrimination claims under
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Employers are legally barred from retaliating against employees
who take action against discriminatory practice at work. However, the law allows for pay
differentials when employees are evaluated based on criteria such as seniority, production levels,
and experience. This act is administered and enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (Cho R. & Kramer. A 2013).
Relevance of Equal Pay in Current Time: Till today, the gender pay gap, is prevalent and
persistent in the U.S. When the EPA was signed in 1963, women earned on average 59% of what
men were paid which was, 59 cents for every dollar men made. After more than fifty years
from then: women on average earn 77% of what men are paid, or 77 cents for every dollar men
make (Hayes J , 2013) .
The reason for this Gap is the highly gendered look of s workplace, which is also
known as occupational segregation. Men work in industries predominantly occupied by men, and
women work in industries where largely most women are. Male-majority industries tend to offer
more better-paid positions versus more poorly paid positions in female-dominated industries this
is known as jobs gap. A recent study in 2011 found women are highly observed to participate in
positions like receptionist or administrative assistants occupying majority of the workforce.
Higher paid positions like supervisor or manager of sales, accounts and finance depart often
belong to Male employees (Hegewisch. A. and Williams . C, 2011). According to economists this
gap exists because of two reasons one is Human capital theory that suggests some workers are
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paid less because, they lack the required level of education, training or work experience
compared to their competitors, and other is Discrimination theory which says discriminatory
practices induce differential treatments to different groups of people, which leads to biased
assessments and expectations on productivity, performance evaluation, and appraisal towards one
group of workers over others (Blau. D. F. and Kahn. M. L,2007 ).
The wage gap varies considerably across occupations, but overall, women earn less than
men. The wage gap knows has no bounds, and invariably, women are met with disparities in pay
in all sphere of occupational categories. Occupational segregation, just like wage discrimination,
is an issue of inequality. Reducing both inequalities will mean reducing more barriers to
economic security and good middle class jobs. This means not only enforcing and strengthening
laws, but also promoting systems and practices that value and compensate women as equal
participants in the labor force. On Equal Pay Day April 15, 2015 the U.S. president requested
congress to pass a law that ensures woman is paid the same as that of man for doing the same
work in this age (Lyles . L. 2015).

Reference:
Blau. D. F. and Kahn. M. L, (2007). The gender pay gap, have women gone as far as they can?
Standford University. Retrieved from
https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf on
September 20, 2015
Cho R. and Kramer. A(2013). Everything You Need to Know about the Equal Pay Act. Retrieved
from http://regender.org/EqualPayAct1 on Sept 20 2015
Hegewisch. A. and Williams . C, (2011). The gender wage gap by occupation, Institute of
Women Policy Research. Retrieved from http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/thegender-wage-gap-by-occupation-updated-april-2011 on September 20 , 2015
Hayes . J. (2013) Gender wage gap projected to close in year 2058: most women working today
will not see equal pay during their working lives. Institute of Women Policy Research.
Retrieved from : http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/gender-wage-gap-projected-toclose-in-year-2058-most-women-working-today-will-not-see-equal-pay-during-theirworking-lives on September 20 , 2015
Lyles . L. (2015). Its time for equal pay now. U.S. Department of Labor blog. Retrieved from :
https://blog.dol.gov/2015/04/13/its-time-for-equal-pay-now/ on September 20 , 2015