Trends in Gender Wage Gaps: A Qualitative Study

摘要

Using equity theory as the theoretical framework and baseline for this study, this researcher utilized a qualitative descriptive design to analyze the perceived experiences and behaviors of employees with three years of working experience in the private sector in the state of Georgia related to gender wage gaps. Equity theory was used in previous research when evaluating gender wage gaps showing that when the inputs (contributions) and outputs (rewards) of individuals were not perceived as equal, individuals' motivation at work diminished and people adjusted their behavior to find equality. Since gender wage gaps continue to be present in the workplace today, it was important to study the perceptions and experiences of employees to provide scholars, companies, psychologist, and managers in the field up-to-date data along with the insight of the individuals. The results of this study showed that employees perceived gender wage gaps as an issue that negatively affected individuals in the workplace when perceived as unfair. The participants in the study were recruited using social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The platform from SurveyMonkey.com, Microsoft Word, Excel, and government records was used to collect and analyzed data findings. The participants perceived discrimination, wage inequalities, negative psychological behaviors, biases, stereotypes, unlawful hiring practices, lack of compensations and rewards systems informative data, and lack of procedural and distributive systems in the study. Moreover, the findings showed that the participants perceived gender inequalities in pay, especially among women and younger employees under the age of 35. Furthermore, occupational segregation among younger male and female employees was evident in this study. Individual knowledge about compensation systems and rights was limited. Younger employees were more vocal about speaking out regarding their rights and were open to finding new jobs if they found inequality. Older employees were quiet about disclosing wage inequalities due to fear of losing their jobs. Managers lacked or had limited knowledge about gender wage gaps, compensation systems, laws, and rights. The findings of the study showed that negative behaviors from individuals and lack of knowledge about gender wage gaps affected the performance of workers in the workplace. This study agreed with previous studies about equity theory whereas individuals find equity by taking necessary behaviors that compensate unfair compensation practices such as negative (underpayment) and positive (overpayment) inequalities. For future research, this researcher recommends more studies by regions, industries, work status, and positions to be able to develop more strategies and procedures to increase equal pay among genders and workers. More long-term studies should also be done about gender wage gaps with males to find their perceptions and behaviors related to inequalities in the workplace. Younger employees should also be studied since they are the fastest growing labor force in the U.S. Human resources managers must be included in future studies to be able to perceive if they are providing a fair and equitable work environment that is just and fair for males and females in the workplace. Finally, a quantitative and mixed methods study would be useful to be able to measure the effects of gender wage gaps in the economy.