Showing papers on "Women's work published in 2016"

Attitudes Toward Women’s Work and Family Roles in the United States, 1976–2013:

Abstract: We examine time period and generational differences in attitudes toward women’s work and family roles in two large, nationally representative U.S. samples, the Monitoring the Future survey of 12th graders (1976–2013) and the General Social Survey of adults (1977–2012). Twelfth graders became more accepting of working mothers and equal roles for women in the workplace between the 1970s and the 2010s, with most change occurring between the 1970s and the late 1990s. Acceptance of dual-income families and fathers working half-time or not at all (stay-at-home dads) also increased. Thus, for the most part, Millennials (born 1980s–1990s) have continued trends toward more egalitarian gender roles. However, slightly more 12th graders in the 2010s (vs. the late 1990s) favored the husband as the achiever and decision maker in the family. Adults’ attitudes toward working mothers became more egalitarian between the 1970s and the early 1990s, showed a small “backlash” in the late 1990s, and then continued the trend tow...

Women’s Work Pathways Across the Life Course

Abstract: Despite numerous changes in women's employment in the latter half of the twentieth century, women's employment continues to be uneven and stalled. Drawing from data on women's weekly work hours in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we identify significant inequality in women's labor force experiences across adulthood. We find two pathways of stable full-time work for women, three pathways of part-time employment, and a pathway of unpaid labor. A majority of women follow one of the two full-time work pathways, while fewer than 10% follow a pathway of unpaid labor. Our findings provide evidence of the lasting influence of work-family conflict and early socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages on women's work pathways. Indeed, race, poverty, educational attainment, and early family characteristics significantly shaped women's work careers. Work-family opportunities and constraints also were related to women's work hours, as were a woman's gendered beliefs and expectations. We conclude that women's employment pathways are a product of both their resources and changing social environment as well as individual agency. Significantly, we point to social stratification, gender ideologies, and work-family constraints, all working in concert, as key explanations for how women are "tracked" onto work pathways from an early age.

Is managing academics “women’s work”? Exploring the glass cliff in higher education management

Abstract: Sweden is among the countries with the highest per cent of women university Vice Chancellors in Europe. In She Figures 2012 the average proportion of female Vice Chancellors in the 27 European Union countries is estimated to be 10 per cent. In Sweden the number is much higher: 43 per cent. Swedish higher education management has witnessed a demographic feminization during the last 20 years. Which factors can explain that women have been so successful in gaining access to these senior management positions in Swedish academia? This paper discusses the demographic feminization, drawing on qualitative interviews with women in senior academic positions in Swedish higher education. The paper suggests that women’s position in higher education management can be analysed using the concept “glass cliff”. This metaphor describes a phenomenon when women are more likely to be appointed to precarious leadership roles in situations of turbulence and problematic organizational circumstances. The findings illustrate that ...

Women's Work, Men's Property: The Origins of Gender and Class

Abstract: To some a book on the "origins"of sexual inequality is absurd. Male dominance seems to them a universal, if not inevitable, phenomenon that has been with us since the dawn of our species. The essays in this volume offer differing perspectives on the development of sex-role differentiation and sexual inequality, but share a belief that these phenomena "did"have social origins, origins that must be sought in sociohistorical events and processes. In this way Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson introduce a book which fills a yawning gap in Marxist and feminist theory of recent years. "Women s Work, Men s Property"brings together specialist historical and anthropological skills of a group of American and French feminists to examine the origins of the sexual division of labor, the nature of pre-state kinship societies, the position of women in slave-based societies, and the specific forms taken by the oppression of women in archaic Greece. "Men s Work, Women s Property"will be welcomed by teachers and students of women s studies and anyone with an interest in the biological, psychological and historical roots of sexual inequality."

Women's Work In Homestead Gardens: Subsistence, Patriarchy, And Status In Northwest Bangladesh

Abstract: Women's status and economic contributions in rural Bangladesh have been the focus of considerable debate. The present study, based on fieldwork in Chuchuli, a village in northwestern Bangladesh, illustrates how the success of women in managing home- stead gardens may not positively affect their socio-economic status vis-a-vis males in their households. The income generated by the sale of garden produce typically is handled by the men of the household rather than by the women, especially in the circumstances in which both Muslim and Hindu women are restricted in their participation in the local marketplace. The consequences of these male-dominated arrange- ments for development programs focused on homestead gardens and women's roles are also discussed.

Women's Work Choices in Kenya: The Role of Social Institutions and Household Gender Attitudes

Abstract: This study considers the factors that influence women's work behavior in Kenya. In particular, it examines whether gender attitudes and certain types of social institution influence the probability of employment or type of employment for women. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2008–9, it finds that religion and ethnicity are significant determinants of women's employment in Kenya. While personal experience of female genital mutilation is insignificant, spousal age and education differences, as well as marital status (which reflect attitudes both in women's natal and marital families), are significant determinants of women's employment choices.

Don’t tell them I can type: negotiating women’s work in production in the post-war ABC:

Abstract: This article examines the pervasive mechanisms of discrimination in Australian public broadcasting in the 1950s and 1960s and considers how concepts of femininity were engaged to maintain the sexua...

Restructuring women's work; labour market and household gender regimes in the Greater Latrobe Valley, Australia

Abstract: This article examines the impact of economic restructuring on gender relations. It examines the implications of labour market change for households within a region, in this case the Greater Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia. The argument is that the unchanging gender structures of the labour market constrain the intentions and efforts of individuals within households to significantly alter household gender relations. The analysis considers how restructuring has reshaped the regional labour market since 1996, changing opportunities for both men’s and women’s employment. Despite these changes, the regional labour market continues to be underpinned by a ‘male breadwinner’ gender regime and significant occupational and industrial gender segregation. Drawing on four vignettes, the analysis shows that the impetus towards greater gender equality in the household is constrained by a stagnant and stable labour market gender regime.

Informalisation of Women's Work: Consequence for Fertility and Child Schooling in Urban Pakistan

Abstract: Female employment is considered an important means of lowering fertility through ways such as raising the age at marriage, through influencing desired family size and also through better knowledge and use of contraceptives. Increasing female labour force participation is frequently recommended as a critical policy measure for reducing the birth rate. However the significant inverse relationship between employment and fertility found for developed countries is weak or absent in the case of developing countries [Rodriguez and Cleland (1980)]. More recent evidence indicates that it is not so much employment per se but type of employment which is a critical determinant of reproductive behaviour [United Nations (1985)]. It has been shown that while high status professional jobs are associated with greater influence on women's domestic autonomy and fertility, low paying jobs lead to an increasing burden of work with entirely different implications for fertility and other household related behaviour. In the context of Pakistan, despite two decades of industrial growth and development, official data sources show stagnant and low levels of female labour force participation rates (LFPR) in urban Pakistan. The LFPR for urban women ranged between 3 and 5 percent for the period between 1971 and 1988. Data collection methods of government agencies are known to greatly underestimate female labour force participation (FLFP) particularly in rural areas and in the urban informal sector where the distinction between productive and domestic activities tends to be ambivalent. Evidence from micro surveys indicates, on the contrary, an increasing influx of women in the urban labour market, particularly in the informal sector [Sathar and Kazi (1988); Shaheed and Mumtaz (1981); Bilquees and Hamid (1989)]. A large number are shown to be working in home-based piece-rate employment while domestic service mainly as sweepers, washerwomen, maids, etc.

Gender, rhetoric and regulation: Women's work in the Civil Service and the London County Council, 1900–55

Abstract: Introduction 1. Work for women? Challenges to the gendering of routine work in the LCC and the Civil Service, 1914-39 2. Trying to get equal opportunities: women in the higher grades of the LCC and the Civil Service in the first half of the twentieth century 3: 'Endless arguments about sex and salaries': the First World War, reconstruction and the campaigns for equal pay, 1914-24 4. 'As a matter of justice': the equal pay campaigns from 1924 to 1939 5 The slow road to victory: the equal pay campaigns from 1939 to 1954 6. Lark rise to spinsterhood? Women, the public service and marriage bar policy, 1914-46 7. Disabled husbands, deserted wives, working widows: the marriage bar in public servants' private lives until 1946 Conclusion Index -- .

Underpaid and Undervalued: How inequality defines women’s work in Asia

Abstract: Rising economic inequality across Asia is threatening poverty reduction and slowing down the fight against gender inequality. Although the region has experienced economic growth, the bottom 70% have seen their income share fall while the share for the top 10% has increased rapidly. Low wages and a lack of rights at work, particularly for women, are at the heart of this scandal. At the same time, women are subsidizing the economy with a disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care work. Achieving living wages and recognizing, redistributing and reducing unpaid care work could support both economic and gender equality in Asia and should be prioritized by both governments and businesses.

From Margin To Mainstream: Microfinance, Women's Work And Social Change In The Philippines

Abstract: Since the 1990s, microfinance has become the leading development strategy adopted by NGOs and government agencies for supporting microenterprise projects that can alleviate poverty and empower participants, especially women. Views differ, however, on whether microfinance addresses the symptoms or the social causes of poverty. This paper engages these debates by analyzing the microfinance program established by the Center for Women's Enterprise Development (CWED) in Laguna province, southern Luzon, Philippines. I argue that increased access to credit, the current focus of CWED' s program, does not transform the social and economic infrastructure within which women work and live and thus falls short of institutional claims to empower beneficiaries and improve their quality of life. I suggest that the extent to which microfinance develops transformatory initiatives to meet women's real needs depends on how programs enfold social change objectives beyond credit and enable political advocacy for individual and collective action.

Knowledge work and flexible working: helping or hindering working women?

Abstract: Women’s workforce participation and advancement still lag behind those of men. This is true despite two recent trends that could have been expected to facilitate women’s careers: the rise in knowledge work and the increase in flexible working. This chapter contrasts the potential of knowledge work and flexible working for facilitating gender equality at work with an analysis of their hidden and lesser discussed gendered implications. Certain characteristics of knowledge work pose challenges that women find disproportionately more difficult to deal with than men. Flexible working, especially when undertaken from home, often results in gendered practices and stigmatisation that hinder women’s careers. The chapter brings together empirical evidence from a broad range of studies to discuss these hidden consequences of knowledge work and flexible working for women’s workforce participation and advancement and to identify implications for research, practice and policy.

"The Coming of the Projectionettes”: Women’s Work and Changing Modes of Spectatorship in British Cinemas in the Second World War

Abstract: This article investigates women9s roles as cinema projectionists, and transformations in women9s spectatorship, in Britain during World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 the British Cinematograph Exhibitors9 Association (CEA), among other organizations, encouraged women to train as projectionists when the government conscripted men into the armed forces. The “projectionettes” experienced unequal pay, often chaotic training programs, and patronizingly sexualized portrayals in contemporary press reports. Yet without women projectionists, British cinemas would not have been able to operate during the war. This essay traces their histories and daily working lives through archival materials and the trade press. Moreover, by situating their work in a broader narrative about gendered spectatorship, the article proposes that owing to changing labor conditions, women gained new perspectives through their experiences in the movie theater. Investigating women projectionists is a valuable strategy in a broader reexamination of British film exhibition, points of view, and the proliferation of “women9s cinema” during wartime.

Business and Politics as Women's Work: The Australian Colonies and the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Women's Movement

Abstract: Female political activism and economic engagement in the Australian colonies are usually located within the last decades of the nineteenth century, yet a reexamination of the 1850s reveals that the twin issues of women’s political rights and activities within the public sphere were raised much earlier. This article shows that as the Australian colonies achieved self-government and manhood suffrage and experienced the upheaval of successive gold rushes around the Pacific, there were heated debates about women’s roles within the public sphere. Evidence drawn from the law, trade directories, passenger lists, newspapers, and contemporary fiction reveals the extent of both women’s work and the debate. The participation of women in business and the articulation of demands for political rights were part of a transnational midcentury phenomenon but had distinctive Australian qualities, preparing the ground for later suffrage success.

Differences in men's and women's work, care, and leisure time

Abstract: The economic crisis has profoundly affected the labour market and private life of men and women. This study examines the interrelation of policies with the ways women and men allocate time to paid work, care and leisure and the gendered outcomes produced in different socio-economic and cultural settings. It shows that policies are powerful tools which cn contribute to a better work-life balance and transform gender roles in accordance to the targets of EU2020 strategy and EU28 commitment to gender equality.

Women’s work in urban Bangladesh: do types of organizations matter?

Abstract: Purpose Women’s participation in the formal labour force has increased over the past three decades and continues to do so in Bangladesh. This paper aims to look at trends in that phenomenon and how it has been influenced by privatization in the economy and the social transitions that have occurred during this process. Design/methodology/approach The findings are based on a survey of women in large formal sector organizations in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The study focuses on the adjustment of women in various ranks to work in different organizations – public, non-profits, and private – and makes comparisons among these workplaces. Seven individuals were interviewed and filled out questionnaires on work–life balance and job satisfaction. Findings Results show that although private organizations pay better, non-governmental institutions evoke a greater sense of employee commitment to organizational mission and public organizations provide women with a greater perception that their work is valued and respected. It is found that stated and implemented policies with respect to family-friendly work environments are variable. Research limitations/implications The sample size has some limitations that were addressed through interviews. Practical implications Each type of organization has its own set of advantages and setbacks with respect to work-life balance and job satisfaction, pointing to the need for concerted policies that could encourage women to choose and remain in their professions. Originality/value Work–life balance is a new concept in developing countries. As they go through the second phase of demographic transition, this is a key factor in stabilizing population growth. A comparison of the three types of organizations as workplaces for women has not been done. The phenomenon is not unique to Bangladesh and has lessons for many developing countries.

Women's Work: Engendering Economic

Abstract: Economic anthropologists have been slow to take advan- tage of the new scholarship on gender relations in society. Although there have been some positive developments in the direction of incorpo- rating gender analysis in research in economic anthropology, the main- stream of the subdiscipline has rarely appreciated the significance of gender as a primary category of analysis. Following a general discus- sion, this paper draws from research on the informal economic sector in the Peruvian Andes to argue that studies are incomplete and often dis- torted when they disregard gender, and they are enriched to the degree that they examine the differential experiences of women and men in the society and the economy.

The Scholarship on Working-class Women’s Work and their Child Care Models

Abstract: This chapter will deal with the long, complex trajectory of women’s waged and unwaged work. Studies show that women have historically provided for their families and the family economy to a considerable degree. As a high IMR coincided with northern women’s introduction to industrialisation, contemporaries made, and historians have continued to make, strong connections between women’s work and a high infant mortality rate, with particular emphasis being placed on the culpability of factory work.

Verbal art forms as poetic licence for women: the case of ilima – women’s work songs

Abstract: Cultural songs are one of the highly formulaic verbal art forms through which African women mediate contradictions by commenting on their personal fortunes and tribulations in their married lives. In this medium they may express sentiments that go against the principles of modesty where utterances expressed in everyday social interaction are condemned but where the same ideas expressed in songs are viewed as extraordinary leading to sympathizing with the opinions conveyed. By means of oral melodic forms, therefore, women express true feelings that would otherwise in terms of hlonipha custom be perceived as violating their moral code had they been expressed in an everyday ordinary language. The basis for this article is my PhD study that was carried out between 2004 and 2007 and which interrogated the nature of women’s songs (Zondi, 2008) This discussion only focuses on songs gathered at one of the five women’s social event referred to as ilima - a collective word referring to a group of women who come together with an aim of assisting a fellow woman complete an otherwise time consuming and laborious home based activity. The shared labour manifests ubuntu which is one of the philosophies of life among Africans.