Discrimination and Wages Inequality Case Study

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Women. The discrimination of women in workplace happen in situation when gender wage differentials prevail in the labor market, where male workers are usually paid comparatively higher wages than their female counterparts. This is a universal phenomenon arising from the perception of employers that females are less productive. In a perfect competition labor market, employers will pay wages according to workers’ productivity in order to maximize profit. However, in an imperfect labor market, where information is scarce, the wages paid may not be justified as they are based on perception. The unequal treatment women face in the labor markets is based on gender discrimination, before and after their entrance in the workforce. The result of this research will allow all women in workforce to fight their inequality based on their pay wage.

To increase the awareness of employer and employee towards this issue. Besides that, to give and let our community know about this discrimination and wages inequality. So, they will know what suppose they must do when face it.

- Scope and Limitation of the Study

This research does focus attention on gender comparisons, looking for progress (or the lack thereof) towards the goal of gender equality in the world of work and identifying where and why blockages to equality continue to exist. However, discrimination is an extremely difficult phenomenon to measure. The differences between groups are not all necessarily attributable to discrimination. Multivariate analytical techniques can be used to control for differences in gender, sexual orientation, racial or ethnicity, education, work experience, accreditation, language skills, but even using these methods, all residual differences are not necessarily discrimination. Furthermore, it is difficult to measure with a predefined set of indicators, since it is a very malleable phenomenon. One indicator or one set of indicators will not necessarily work under different contexts. It is happening in both sector, government and private sector.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Introduction

In this literature review, we have found a good representative literature discussing the discriminations and wages inequality in labor market. However, there is little information or written about how to overcome discrimination and wages inequality in labor market. The other hand, we really grateful to some journal and authors among 20 journals that we had read, our main reference very helpful “Discrimination and Inequality in the Labor Market” written by Kamasheva Anastasia, Kolesnikova Julia, Karasik Elena and Salyakhov Eldar in 2013. By studying the relevant literature, it will help us understand more fully how the phenomena discrimination and wages inequality can occur in labor market. Also, how other factors play a big role in the phenomena of discrimination and wages inequality and the great solution to overcome this issue.

2.2. Concept of Discrimination

According to the journal Discrimination in Employment and Task Delegation at Workplace in the Malaysian Context written by Discrimination is the differentiating and giving preferential treatment to certain people over others. It is associated with unfairness and being biased while making decisions or treating people based on their demographic features. (Riesch & Kleiner, 2005). There are two kinds of discrimination for which a company can be sued for: disparate treatment and disparate impact. Disparate treatment is where the employee is discriminated because the employer does not like his/her age, gender, race, etc. disparate impact is where the policies and regulations of the company are discriminatory (Kapur & Kleiner, 2000). For example, flight attendants must be within a certain weight, height and age group. Ratsamy Phomphakdy and Brian H. Kleiner (199) conducted a research on ways to eliminate discrimination in a workplace. In this study they described workplace discrimination by using factors such as the race, age, gender, cultural background etc. as basis on which employees are hired, dismissed, given raises and bonuses, promoted and delegated. Similarly, other researchers have found preferential treatment towards employees as discriminatory based on age, race, religion, and gender as well (Supateera & Kleiner, 1999).

A study was conducted on the discrimination on religion particularly for Muslim women in the workplace and their decision to wear to headscarves in the USA. The research showed that even though Islam in the second largest religion in the world, the stigmatism associated with women wearing headscarves has led to hostile discrimination in the workplace. In addition, Muslim Americans faced the most discrimination by their claims due to the relation of their religion and the extremist terrorist attacks faced by the country. Forms of discrimination are also associated with bullying which includes name calling, avoiding eye contact, refusal to serve, acts of intimidation and staring. (Reeves, McKinney, & Azam, 2012). These attitudes effect the victims psychologically which can result in low job satisfactory and eventually effects the victims’ self-esteem. The discrimination against Muslims arose greatly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Most organizations refused to hire any Muslims and the ones who were already hired were bullied and mentally tormented as mentioned in the research (Schulze & Kleiner, 1999).

Another study on gender discrimination in Greece showed that women in Greece are hired in large numbers but are kept in contingent job positions such as lower managerial levels while the male population is easily promoted. Males who are promoted over the women share equal levels of qualification. The findings concluded that gender discrimination was primarily the impact of the employees’ attitudes towards their own gender. (Mihail, 2006). This proves gender discrimination in delegating tasks by managers. The chances of promoting a male employee are higher than that of a female due to their gender. (Quak & Kleiner, 2001)

Booysen & Nkomo, (2010) mentioned that racial and gender discrimination in South Africa exists generally due to the historical and political background of the country. The percentage of both black and white men think that males should be managers while the black women strongly disagree. This shows that factors of managers discriminating while delegating tasks is due to the persona created by the society of two main variables; gender and race.

A research on age discrimination showed that is it common to associate