{"id":811,"date":"2015-09-07T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=811"},"modified":"2015-09-07T09:00:23","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T13:00:23","slug":"the-latina-wage-gap-its-the-worst-what-employers-may-be-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/the-latina-wage-gap-its-the-worst-what-employers-may-be-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latina Wage Gap (It\u2019s the Worst!): What Employers May Be Missing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/business\/2015\/07\/28\/for-low-wage-latina-workers-gender-pay-gap-vast\/Tfym9meXAkvAfDKHdhpqiK\/story.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-814\" src=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/latina-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"latina\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/latina-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/latina.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>New research from the University of Massachusetts Boston<\/a> on workers in Massachusetts finds that while a gender wage gap exists across all occupations for women, the gap becomes a chasm for Hispanic women, especially for low-wage workers. Here are some facts from the research:\n\n\n<ul>\n\t\n\n<li>White women make 83 percent of what white men make in the same occupations.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Hispanic women make 56 percent of their male equivalents.<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nMore specifically, here are some numbers for low-wage workers:\n\n\n<ul>\n\t\n\n<li>Latinas who work as cleaners make 54 cents on the dollar compared to all male janitors and 59 cents compared to their Hispanic male counterparts.<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nAnn Bookman, the study\u2019s author, notes, \u201cthe earnings gap for women of color is wider than for women as a whole, and for Latina women it\u2019s egregious.\u201d\nThe wage gap for Latinas is particularly damaging for mothers. Women are the primary breadwinners in slightly more than half of all Hispanic households in Massachusetts with children under eighteen. Of these female breadwinners, 49 percent are single mothers. Many of the research participants complained that they are seldom offered promotions when openings occur because they are not seen as having leadership potential. They also report difficulty in being considered for higher-paying jobs as single mothers because they are assumed to be unreliable. These assumptions reflect misunderstandings about Latina culture.\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.simmons.edu\/about-simmons\/centers-organizations-and-institutes\/cgo\/publications\/cgo-insight-briefing-notes\">Evangelina Holvino conducted research<\/a> on Latinas and found eight cultural scripts that can be leveraged as strengths if employers understand them. Holvino defines cultural scripts as commonly held assumptions shared by a cultural group that are learned beliefs about how to be in the world. The eight scripts she discovered for Latinas are\n\n\n<ol>\n\t\n\n<li>Familismo\u2014valuing close family relations<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Simpat\u00eda\u2014avoiding conflict and disharmony<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Colectivismo\u2014putting the needs of the group before those of individuals<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Personalismo\u2014forging meaningful and trusting relationships<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>El presente\u2014being in the here and now<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Respeto\u2014respecting authority, age, and power<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Machismo-marianismo\u2014strongly differentiated gender roles<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Espiritualismo\u2014trusting in a higher power\/being<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\nHolvino\u2019s research offers us a way of understanding Latina cultural scripts as strengths that employers should appreciate and leverage. For example, instead of assuming that a single mother is unreliable, her value of familismo means that she is driven to work hard to support her family. She will do what it takes to perform well and keep her job. The scripts of simpat\u00eda, colectivismo, and personalismo give her an important leadership framework and capacity for building and leading teams.\n\n\n<h2>What Employers Can Do to Close the Wage Gap and Value Latinas in Their Workforce<\/h2>\n\n\nWith these new wage-gap statistics and Holvino\u2019s research in mind, here are some suggestions for employers:\n\n\n<ol>\n\t\n\n<li>To begin with, employers can look closely for pay disparities by occupation in their organizations and make adjustments in pay to close the gaps. Pay disparities are often invisible and unscrutinized and reflect unconscious bias.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Employers should become familiar with the cultural scripts, or cultural assumptions, that guide hiring and promotion decisions in their organizations. For example, the dominant criteria for leadership in Anglo culture, which focuses on valuing individual achievement and a direct communication style, runs counter to strengths in Latina culture.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Employers can become familiar with Latina cultural scripts and develop appreciation for the value they can add.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Employers can expand their definitions of leadership to include strengths in Latina cultural scripts, such as building relationships.<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\nUnderstanding and including cultural differences can enrich us all and add capacity to our organizations. And it\u2019s past time to close the gender wage gap for everyone.\nImage credit: Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net\n&nbsp;]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[130,171,225,332,333,523,605,612,628],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-cultural-differences","tag-employers","tag-gender","tag-latina","tag-latina-wage-gap","tag-sexism","tag-wage-gap","tag-women","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}