Comparable worth is the setting of wages according to a theory of the value of completing the job at hand regardless of who is performing it. Proponents of comparable worth claim that women's average salaries are 75 percent of men's; therefore, increased wage regulation of the labor market is required. Supporters say that the only way to eliminate this average wage gap is to mandate equal pay. However, some say, the average salary differentials exist not because of discrimination, but because many women have less work experience and tend to choose jobs that give them the flexibility to combine work and family and therefore pay less. In effect, penalizing them for taking time out of the workforce to bear and raise children.
"The glass wall metaphor describes occupational segregation attributed to employment barriers that restrict the access of women to certain types of jobs or that trap them within certain types of jobs.
Barney Miller
English: This is a chart illustrating the inequali...
English: Glass ceiling the Louvre. Français : Mus...Glass walls are likely to persist when: (1)organizational cultures create impediments to change; and/or (2) skills necessary to perform jobs in a given agency are not highly valued elsewhere" (Miller et al., 1999, p. 2). The glass ceiling is an expression used to describe the inequalities of men and women within the workforce. It seems that women can become employed in a company but then run into an invisible barrier when they try to move up the ladder of hierarchy within the organization (Baxter &Wright, 2000, p. 1). "Although women held half of all federal government jobs in 1992 and made up 86 percent of the government's clerical workers, only a quarter of them were supervisors and only a tenth senior executives (Baxter &Wright, 2000, p. 2)." Several studies in the employment of women conclude that women continue to face glass walls and glass ceilings within...