Interrelation Between Household Income and Degree Attainment and Gender Wage Gap

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Interrelation Between Household Income and Degree Attainment
The Wage Gap Between Female and Male Analysis
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Education is often seen as a way to success in most families today. Thus, it is a crucial aspect of the social setting. However, equal access to learning has not yet been attained in a society where multiple factors affect how kids access education. Household income is one of these issues that is assumed to play a crucial role in access to education. Thus, family earnings and their correlation to education achievement are critical topics that have been discussed severally (Bartik & Hershbein, 2018). In addition, these domestic earnings are essential in defining the family’s status both economically and socially, hence determining the kind of edification the children will acquire in their lives. Apart from that, other factors that affect children’s schooling include the gender, race, and political stability of a country (Bartik & Hershbein, 2018). This paper seeks to review how household income affects educational attainment and the wage gap between females and males and its reasons.

Interrelation Between Household Income and Degree Attainment

Various types of household income affect educational attainment in different ways. These earnings can be grouped into well-paid or high-income homes and poorly paid or low-income families. Well-paid households have been ascertained to have a high degree of accomplishment of their kids in college (Wolla & Sullivan, 2017). This can be attributed to factors such as most of the parents being educated, the children being more accessible to more learning materials, and children being taught soft skills that will complement hard skills trained by the education system (Bartik & Hershbein, 2018). The above can be explained by two theories: the ‘Investment theory,’ which postulates that high-income parents translate to comfortable housing, a well-balanced diet, books, other training materials, and refreshing holidays for their children (Cooper & Stewart, 2020). This would, in turn, make the children free of stress and focus more on their studies and perform better. The ‘Family stress theory’ suggests that in high-income households’ parents have less or no financial stress, which influences the conceptive and physiological outcomes that positively impact the children’s performance in education (Cooper & Stewart, 2020). These families have the optimum environment that favors better education attainment.

Moreover, parents with higher incomes are most likely to become public figures and very influential figures. Thus, they have access to human capital and could help schools by offering such resources (Cheang & Goh, 2018). These parents can also influence government institutions and push policymakers to pass policies to provide more resources for schooling and put more emphasis on education (Cheang & Goh, 2018). This could, in turn, enhance the education sector. Thus, the children of such individuals will, in the end, obtain better training. In addition, such public figures could also empower learning institutions to develop a better social culture in schools, which will directly affect their children’s health positively hence, higher degree attainment (Cheang & Goh, 2018). This places students of high-income parents in a better position to excel in their education.

Low-income household students have been associated with low degree attainment (Wolla & Sullivan, 2017). These children are denied access to crucial resources in learning; hence they struggle from kindergarten to college level and may drop out at the college level due to financial constraints. College requires well-prepared students in academic and time management skills (Copper & Stewart, 2020). Learners with low incomes are likely to begin school behind their age mates from high-income households (Copper & Stewart, 2020). This has led to students from low household incomes having poor education foundations and substandard cognitive ability. They also hardly possess soft skills such as time management which affects their college education and may lead them to drop out of college. Insufficient finance causes disadvantages to students hence low degree attainment in low-income households.

However, parents’ income on students’ performance may not overly correlate with degree attainment in every case. A comprehensive systematic research done by Copper and Stewart in 2020 reveals that other factors could also affect the student’s performance. The study resulted in some of the students from low household incomes excelling without many hindrances related to finances. Despite that, there was a significant interrelation between household income and degree attainment. Copper and Stewart proposed that more expert teachers could be posted to schools with students from low household incomes to develop some conscientious framework for these kids. This would then aid in preparing these students for college education and acquiring more financial grants, thus, increasing the number of students attaining degrees.

The Wage Gap Between Female and Male Analysis

There are multiple influences that contribute to the wage gap between genders. The female gender earns eighty-three cents for every dollar a man makes (ILO, 2019). According to the ILO (2019), these factors include a few women in leadership positions, duration of work shift, maternal leaves, level of education knowledge, and women-dominated profession. There are about 50% more men than women in high-level management positions (ILO, 2019). This is because this group tends to concentrate on human resource managerial positions than other administrative spots, lowering the salary compared to their male counterparts in different executive positions. This is still causing a salary rift between women and men.

The salary margin between men and women is due to the different working hours outlined concerning different genders. Males and females are paid differently according to the number and time of working hours. Women are paid lesser than men as they leave early to go home to nurse their older folks or children and do the unpaid home chores (ILO, 2019). This dramatically reduces their salary scale or level as compared to men who can work for longer hours. Therefore, society should step up its efforts to ensure both genders play equal roles in family responsibilities to give more time to women to work and narrow the wage gap.

Women in the employment sector are forced to leave the workforce for various reasons. Women leave employment for maternal leave or nurse their ill loved ones or children as society expects them to do (ILO, 2019). This reduces their time in the workforce, and by the moment they are back to their workstations, their male counterparts have increased their salaries, thus, widening the wage gap. These career breaks can force other women to opt for part-time employment since full-time occupation may not be available, as employers prefer male employees as they rarely have career leaves (ILO, 2019). This disadvantages women in terms of wage pay as part-time salary does not offer packages with full-time employment.

The difference in education levels also contributes to the wage gap. A higher level of education means more excellent pay. However, 45% of women with advanced degrees in the USA earn lesser than their male colleagues with just a bachelor’s degree (Coron, 2021). This is attributed to women making decisions to pursue lower-paying advanced degrees. For example, regarding females and males with MBAs, females are likely to pursue advanced degrees in marketing and publicize low-paying fields. In contrast, males will pursue higher-paying areas like financial work (Coron, 2021). This contributes to the gender rift despite being in the same career field.

Decreasing the way gap would be so profitable to both the genders and the government as well. It is projected that a decrease in the salary rift between men and women, according to the continuing trend, would result in an increase of six trillion US dollars in taxes by the year 2025 (ILO, 2019). This would be a tremendous boost to the global gross domestic product (GDP) since it is the purchasing power of the entire population (ILO, 2019). This could be done by enterprises developing a genderless professional culture and offering equivalent stipends for male and female employees.

Conclusion

In conclusion, parents’ level of income influences the parenting obligations of some individuals, which, in turn, affects how a child behaves, thus impacting the kid’s educational performance directly. Most high-income parents provide a better environment and chance to their children to excellently attain their education in better environments. Low-income parents also impact students’ self-esteem and cognitive and physiological behavior that influence their performance and future decisions. The gender wage gap is still a critical issue despite improvements from previous years that need to be tackled. Additionally, society and enterprises play some crucial part in ensuring equality in gender is exercised in regard to wage distribution.

References

Bartik, Timothy J. & Brad Hershbein. 2018. “Degrees of Poverty: The Relationship between Family Income Background and the Returns to Education.” Upjohn Institute Working Paper 18-284. Kalamazoo, Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Web.

Cheang, C. & Goh, E., 2018. Why some children from poor families do well –an in-depth analysis of positive deviance cases in Singapore. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 13(1), pp. 15-25.

Copper, K. & Stewart, K., 2020. Does household income affect children’s outcomes? A systematic review of the evidence.Child Ind Res, 14(2), pp.981-1005.

Coron, C. (2021). Measuring the gender pay gap: The complexity of HR metrics.Employee Relations: The International Journal, 43(5), 1194-1213.

ILO. (2019) Global wage report 2018/2019. Geneva.

Wolla, S., & Sullivan, J. (2017). Education, Income, and Wealth. Page One Economics, 10(3), 1. Web.

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Interrelation Between Household Income and Degree Attainment and Gender Wage Gap

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