An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that gender inequality
exists in the U.S. But there is stark disagreement about how pervasive
the issue is and what should be done about it, according to a
TIME-commissioned survey conducted by SSRS last month.
Respondents offered opinions on multiple aspects of gender
inequality, including the wage gap, representation in government and
unpaid work. The survey, conducted in partnership with Equality Can’t Wait,
polled a nationally representative sample between August 19 and August
29, and found that men don’t consider the problems of gender inequality
to be as severe as women do.
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| © Provided by Time USA, LLC |
For example, 75% of people who took the survey believe that female
workers are paid less than their male counterparts who do similar work.
That may seem like a consensus, but only 62% of men held this belief,
compared with 86% of women.
The disparity isn’t a surprise to survey respondents who have witnessed unequal pay first hand.
Take
Erica Kaczmarowski, a 40-year-old accountant at a law firm in Buffalo,
N.Y. Her job gives her insight into salaries at the law firm, where, she
says, female paralegals earn less than male paralegals.
“I think
most people don’t talk about what they make, especially at work,”
Kaczmarowski says. “Some women may feel they might get fired or not get
raises, depending on who their boss is. There’s a risk in bringing it
up.”
Women working full time make 81% what their male counterparts
make, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It could take
another four decades to close the gender wage gap, according to
projections from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, based on
Census data. And it will take more than twice as long for women of color
to reach parity.
Jessica Girard, a 32-year-old database developer with a master’s degree in computer
and information systems, works at a mid-sized education firm in Tampa,
Fla. She is the only black woman on her team of eight people.
When she asked her manager for a raise last year,
he dismissed her, saying that they would eventually schedule a meeting
to talk about it. That meeting never happened, despite her repeated
requests.
After noticing that her colleagues got meetings to
discuss salaries, Girard went to the company’s CTO, who said that her
request had never been formally submitted. The CTO quickly approved the
higher salary.
“I had a very legitimate case for getting a raise,”
says Girard. She concedes that racial and gender discrimination is hard
to prove, “but it was oddly coincidental that I was the one not getting
heard.”
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| © Provided by Time USA, LLC |
The TIME poll found a similar pattern for labor outside the
workplace. Overall, 82% of respondents think that women spend more time
than men performing unpaid tasks, such as managing a household and
caring for children. But based on the poll, men generally underestimate
the extent of that inequality.
U.S. women spend 67% more time
doing unpaid work than U.S. men, according to the OECD, an
intergovernmental economic organization. The majority of male poll
respondents say that women do 20% or 40% more unpaid work. The majority
of female respondents say 60% or 80% more, which is closer to the OECD
figure.
Pamela Johnson, 52, has years of experience juggling
career and caretaking. When her son was born 12 years ago, she was
working full time in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She recalls waking up at 3:30
a.m. to make bottles and do laundry before leaving for work at 5:30
while her husband, a law enforcement officer, was asleep. After putting
in a full day, she cooked dinner and did the dishes. When her older
relatives got sick, Johnson chipped in to help her mother care for them.
“Women step up,” she says. “They sleep less.”
For the last two
years, Johnson has commuted to Houston from Fort Lauderdale, where she
works at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Due to her regular travel
away from home, her husband has assumed many of the household
responsibilities. “Now he sees all the housework is hard,” she says.
There
is no silver bullet to achieve gender equality in the U.S. According to
the TIME survey, 40% say closing the wage gap is the most important
first step. But among parents, more than 1 in 3 say that parental
support systems, such as universal childcare and federal paid parental
leave, are more critical.
The average cost of child care in the
U.S. is $9,000 per year, according to a 2018 report from Child Care
Aware of America. But this is highly variable, as care for infants tends
to cost much more than for older children, and certain states are more
expensive. For example, in Massachusetts, the annual cost of an infant
in a child care center is $20,400—or 17% of the median income for a
married-couple family. The cost becomes even more prohibitive with
multiple children.
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| © Provided by Time USA, LLC |
The federal government’s current initiatives are insufficient for
many American families. For instance, the Head Start programs are
intended to serve children under age five who live below the poverty
level. But among those eligible children, the programs serve 42% of
pre-school children and only 4% of babies and toddlers, according to the
Child Care Aware report. The federal government did, however, double
the child care tax credit in 2017, from $1,000 to $2,000 per child.
Ryan
Swadley, 35, from Green Bay, Wisc., recalls the challenges he and his
wife faced when his kids, now ages 8 and 9, were born. The family was
lower-income, receiving government assistance from the Women, Infants,
and Children (WIC) program. They relied on family to help out. And his
wife, who was studying for her master’s degree, took a job at a daycare
in order to get a discount for the kids.
“It was a nightmare,”
says Swadley. “If we had universal childcare, it would be so much easier
for parents to work, and that’s something that hits mothers the
hardest.”
Swadley recognizes that some large firms have recently
started to offer longer paid leave for mothers and fathers. It’s a step
in the right direction, he says, but notes that real change needs to be
broader, through a state or federal initiative.
“It has to be more
than just a hodgepodge of companies doing the right thing,” he says. “A
lot of people in lower income, like we were, are not at those
companies, so people who need it most are less likely to get it.”
Looking
forward, about half of all respondents believe that gender equality
will be reached within the next 50 years. But blacks are more skeptical:
only 37% anticipate equality that soon, while 23% say it will take
longer and 29% predict it will never happen.
While a majority of
men see some level of inequality between the genders, a full quarter of
surveyed men say that the country doesn’t need to take any steps to
fight gender inequality. This may explain why progress is so slow: It’s
hard to address a problem when so many don’t believe it exists.
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