Demographic Factors and Their Impact Upon Gender Wage Discrimination in Different Organizational Settings

Abstract

DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS FUNCTIONING AS SALARY DETERMINANTS The salary structures are regarded as one of the most important aspect of human resource management and the salary decisions are affected by numerous demographic factors. One important factor affecting salary is the level of educational qualifications attained by an individual. As the degree of complexity and technicality increases, the education levels also increase. Klein and Maher (1966) state that as large percentage of population is drifting towards white collar, specialized jobs, the degree of technical training is also increasing. Large no. of studies point out the negative relationship between education and salary, which show that as individuals study more, their expectations and aspirations regarding pay also increase simultaneously. Since college education can be regarded as a measure of evaluation, its presence or otherwise is hypothesized to have an impact on salary. However, the large dissatisfaction with pay as the education levels increase does not necessitate the presence of negative relationship between education and pay, rather, it may also show that education does not have any significant impact on salary, in case, individuals have unrealistic expectations, which ultimately increase the dissatisfaction (Klein and Maher (1966)). Lawler and Porter (1966) also found no significant relation between satisfaction with pay and education and the partial correlation between actual pay and education led to insignificant positive relationship.