Gender at Work

Gender and Society

Week 4

Recap

• Briefly outlined the development of western feminism

• Outlined the social construction of gender

• Considered the role of the media and schools in the construction of gender

Outline

• Look at the ways in which work in structured by gender

• Impact of ethnicity on gendered segregation

• Emotional and sexualised labour

Growth of women’s employment

• Women’s employment levels have been increasing since the 1950s

– 1959 34% employees were women

– 1995 49.6% employees were women

• Feminization of the workplace

Economic changes

• Not just shift in attitudes

• Since 1970s major changes in employment base of the UK

• Moved from manufacturing to service economy

• Decline ‘masculine’ jobs (heavy industry, mining)• Rise in ‘feminine’ jobs (service, leisure)

Occupational Segregation

• Although increasing numbers of women are working occupational segregation is an issue

– Vertical segregation – women at the bottom• (glass ceiling)

– Horizontal segregation – women/men confined to particular jobs

Vertical segregation

• Over 50% of women are in routine non-manual jobs

• Women make up only about 1/3 of managers and senior officials

• Women are much less likely to be promoted

At the Top?

• On the FTSE 100 companies, only 11% directors are women

• Although this an increase, at the current rate of change, it will take 73 years to

achieve equality

Horizontal segregation

• Employees by occupation 2008

• From

National

Statistics

online

Horizontal segregation

• Women are predominately found in the service and retail sectors

• The five ‘C’s of women’s work • Cleaning• Catering• Caring• Cashiering • Clerical work

• Why do you think gender inequalities at work persist?

Nuclear families

• The model of the male breadwinner and female carer still persists

• It was build into the structures through the welfare state – Married women’s paid reduced national insurance – Their right to claim most contribution based benefits

such as an old age pension was through their husband’s contributions

– Child benefit was paid directly to women.

Part-time working

• The total number of employees also hides the growth in part-time work

• Majority of ‘new’ female jobs are part-time– Between 1971 – 1995– 3% more women in full-time work – 75% more women in part-time work

‘Pin money’

• The assumption that women are supported by men is related to the gender pay gap.

– Women work for ‘pocket money’

so don’t need a living wage– Men have ‘breadwinner’

responsibilities so need

more money

Domestic work

• Women’s responsibility for the home means that they are more likely to work part-time

• Women still have prime

responsibility for the

household chores

and childcare

Double Shift

• Women do nearly double the hours of housework that men do (3 hours/ 1 hour 40 mins)

• Men do work longer hours in paid employment

• Women spend longer looking after children– 2/5 men never wash or

iron clothes (1/12 women)

Double shift

• ‘I always do my washing on Sunday and then Monday it’s ironing. Tuesday is my night off and I won’t touch a thing. Thursday I do the bathroom and if it is 3.00am I won’t go to bed until its done. I hoover the bedrooms on Wednesday and the other rooms Friday. Friday I go up to town and pay the bills, do the shopping and get the 4.40 bus home. I get in and make the tea and, while Les sits and has his, I unpack the shopping….’

From Westwood S (1984) All Day Every Day London; Pluto Press

• Discuss with your neighbour the interrelationships between gendered occupations, part-time work and domestic responsibilities

Ethnicity

• So far we have looked at men and women as separate social groups

• Patterns of paid and unpaid work are also structured by ethnicity

• Ethnicity and gender interrelate to structure work differently

Occupational segregation

• Some minority-ethnic communities are concentrated into particular occupations– 65% Bangladeshi men and 53% Chinese men were in

just 5 occupations in 1991 census

• For some occupations (eg catering) this means less gender segregation

• For others (eg nursing) the higher numbers of minority-ethnic women results in higher levels of gender segregation

Ethnicity and Work

• Why do you think large numbers of minority-ethnic men are employed in the catering industry, a traditional female job?

Emotional Labour

• Increasingly workers are expected to perform emotional labour

• Corporate expectation that

correct emotions will be

displayed

– Deep emotion work

– Surface emotion work

Sexualised labour

• In many service industries, women are employed to ‘please’ male customers

• Expectation that flirting and sexual attractiveness are part of the job requirements

Summary

• Gender impacts on all areas of work

• It is also interrelated with ethnicity

• Service industries increasingly expect emotional labour

• Some occupations are also sexualized