Throughout my life, I have been able to see gender roles in my family. Both my grandmothers didn’t go to college or do any formal work as it was expected that the family income would come through my grandfathers. As a result, both my grandmothers were responsible for taking care of the house and helping to raise their children. This trend continued with my parents, uncles, and aunts but to a lesser extent. My mother and aunts all went to college but were influenced to not work/work more flexible and lower-paying jobs compared to my father and uncles. An example of this is my mother who was influenced to become a physical therapist instead of a doctor due to societal norms that existed as there were very few female doctors in India. Another example is how one of my aunts became a teacher due to this being a common job for women that allowed them to make money while also dealing with family responsibilities. On the other hand, both my uncles own businesses while my father works in computer science due to the fact that these are high-paying jobs. 

These gender stereotypes don’t just exist in India, but all across the world and help to contribute to the gender pay gap. Gender discriminatory practices continue to exist in America and these practices can be attributed to past history, where men were the primary breadwinners of the family while women were the primary housemakers. Clearly, these gender roles have slowly diminished, as seen through my family experience. However, they still continue to play a role in how much income men and women earn. As a result of my experiences seeing gender roles first-hand, I would like to research how gender roles continue to affect the wage gap today, despite all the changes that have been made in order to allow employers to not discriminate between men and women when hiring employees.