Gender Inequality In The Insurance Industry

Have you ever wondered if men and women who poses the same qualifications receive equal pay within the insurance industry? If so, do you believe that in the 21st century men still receive higher pay than women, even if a woman’s qualifications exceeds or are equal that of her male coworker? If you answered yes, you are correct. Gender inequality in the insurance agency has been an ongoing issue over many years and still exists today. Gender inequality began over time as a result of women becoming more qualified for well-paying jobs with great benefits. In which these jobs were at one point only given to men. Since the law states, that a job employer cannot decline a person a job offer because of ones gender, more women are being hired in the
work place but unfortunately aren’t receiving the same benefits, pay raise, and promotional opportunity as men. For example, if a female and a male are hired for the same job and possess the same qualifications it’s a strong possibility that they will receive an equal starting pay rate.
But as time goes on the male is more likely to make more money and receive a promotion to a position of higher authority. Even if his work quality is equal to or less than that of his female co-worker. Although many job industries are becoming more diverse, allowing women to hold more senior positions, the problem of gender inequality still exists. This problem is most common within the insurance industry. The insurance industry is known to have the lowest number of females holding management and senior positions compared to all other job industries. The insurance industry began only hiring males, today there is an equal amount of male and female employees with majority of the women holding low paying positions. The reason many women hold positions of lower salaries, are as a result of societal influences dating back to over 50 years
ago.
There are many different social influences which contribute to gender inequality in the insurance industry including the sociological theory of gender essentialism and the American culture. Dating back many years ago, the American culture associated the workforce to be predominantly male. Actually there was point where if a woman had a job she was only allowed to work as either a nanny, a maid, or a cook. In some cases one woman could do all three. Any woman who did not work, was expected to be a housewife. She was expected to stay home; take care of the kids, cook, and clean. During this time women were paid close to nothing compared to men because it was a belief that women did not work as hard as men. Over the years, many things have changed including women’s role in the workplace. Women are becoming more educated and seeking better job opportunities which offer higher pay, paid time off, health benefits, and opportunities for growth. With many women seeking jobs outside of house work the ratio of pay and promotional opportunity for men and women still remains the same. Men continue to be paid more than women and women are less likely to be promoted. This gap between men and women is a result of many corporations being unintentionally bias toward women. In such, these male dominant corporations do not believe that women are good candidates for positions outside of the home, they see no benefit of a woman running their company. This belief comes from many generations of women only being useful in the home environment. America has painted this image that women are meant to be nurtures and are too emotional to be as successful as a man in the work force. Associating work ethics with bias traits that only women or men poses.
The belief that women and men are born with specific traits is associated with a theory called gender essentialism. Gender essentialism is the belief that certain traits or personality types or characteristics are; innate, in born, natural to a certain group of people. Gender essentialism is an unintentional bias belief that society has taught many people to believe as true. Many corporation leaders still believe in and make promotional decisions based off of gender essentialism. Many heads of major corporations within the insurance industry believe that more men should hold senior and management positions because they are stoic and can get the job done, closing all the necessary deals. Whereas they believe women will make decisions based off of emotion and aren’t equipped to close a deal or steer the company in the right direction, as a man can. This belief has been proven to be in fact untrue based on the growth in female’s holding senior positions and succeeding at the same rate, if not better than their male coworkers.
Women being hired in the insurance industry has rose tremendously over the past years.
Although the insurance industry is more diverse there is still a huge gap between women and men when it comes to equal pay and promotional opportunities. As stated by Wojcik (2013), “Only 6% of top executive positions across the insurance industry are held by women, and only 12.6% of board seats belong to women” (p.0015). The percent of jobs held by women in the insurance company is extremely low, while most companies percentage of women in senior positions are well above 40%. Also women make approximately 20% less than men of any other industry based off of research mentioned by Wojcik (2013), “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the pay disparity is greater in the finance and insurance services sectors than all other industries, with women's earnings averaging 62.2% of their male counterparts, compared with 82.2% for all other industries” (p.0015). Wojcik believes the cause of unequal promotional opportunity and pay raise within the insurance industry is a result of the insurance industry being predominantly male in which the men who run these companies believe women’s abilities to succeed are far less than that of a man, stating “Because male-dominated senior management teams set the tone for their organizations and often determine who gets promoted and who does not, they tend to select protégés resembling themselves. Such unconscious biases have a tendency to undermine
the success of women, challenge the effectiveness of their leadership, and diminish their ability to receive objective performance evaluations, promotions and compensation packages that are equitable to men” (p.0015). Nevertheless, with women being paid excessively lower than men within the same field and being less likely to receive a promotion, many women believe that more opportunities for women within the insurance industry is on the rise. Holebrooke mentions that, within the past 20 plus years more women have been not only been hired in large corporations within the insurance industry but they have also been promoted to more senior positions. Holbrooke’s (2015) quotes an employee of met life, for over 20 years stating, “She started with the insurance giant in 1989; the only woman in an office of 20 men. Today, 17 percent of the advisors at her MetLife Premier Client Group of New York City are female” (P.1). As a result of more women being hired in the insurance industry more women are becoming hopeful for change within the insurance industry. According to Hersch (2015) based on research study, “72 percent of women occupying leadership in insurance roles believe the industry is "making progress" toward achieving gender equality. In addition, more than two-thirds (68 percent) of women said their organization is working to promote gender diversity” (p. 1). Although this study shows that more women are being given the promotional opportunities available, that does not mean that gender inequality in the insurance industry is coming to an end. Many women of this industry still believe that the insurance industry has a long road ahead of them before gender inequality is completely removed from the workforce. I believe that over the years the gap will continue to decrease, but as long as corporations are allowed to get away with a gender gap existing there will continue to be one. Furthermore, I believe that most corporations are allowing women to hold more senior positions because having a predominantly male corporation is seen as bias and is frowned upon.
I believe that until the government passes a law that enforces women and men to receive equal pay and be considered for job promotions based off of performance levels instead of gender, gender inequality will still exist. Meaning, men will still make more money than women and are going to be more likely to receive a promotion over their female coworker. Also proof must be provided to support that performance level was in fact the indicator for an individual’s promotion or raise. Such as proof that the employee who is getting the promotion or raise is more successful than his or her coworkers. An alternative that can be offered until the government passes a law ending gender inequality is allowing an equal amount of female and males to hold senior job positions. If the decision making process is left up to only one gender a gender gap will always exist. If both men and women are given the opportunity to make promotional decisions together more women will receive the equal rate of pay and opportunity for growth as deserved.