Female Discrimination in the Labor Force
In the past decades there has been a dramatic increase in the number of
women participating in the labor force. This expansion has unfortunately shown
how women are still being treated as inferior citizens when comparing their
wages and the jobs they are hired for to that of men. Many women in similar
occupations as men, and having the same qualifications are only paid a fraction
of what their male counterparts are paid. The only reasonable explanation that
can be found for this income gap is discrimination. This unfair treatment shown
throughout the handouts illustrate how far people still have to go before equal
treatment becomes standard.
The increase in female participation started occurring during the 1970's.
The number of women in the civilian labor force jumped from 23 million in the
1960's to 31 million in the 1970's. This leap would continue and increase in
the 1980's and on into the 1990's. The result, in 1995, is a female labor force
that numbers over 60 million. This comprised 46 percent of the civilian work
force (10).
A reason for the rise in participation by women may be in the way women
saw marriage and children. Fewer women saw marriage as a settling down. Women
who had children began to return to their jobs. The number of working women
that were either married or had children or both increased dramatically. In
1965, women with children under 18 years of age numbered 35.0 percent of the
labor force. This number increased to 47.4 percent in 1975. In ten years it
was 62.1 percent and finally in 1995 it h ...