How many hours do you have to work to be integrated? Full‐time and part‐time employment of native and ethnic minority women in the Netherlands

Labour market integration of ethnic minority women is central for economic integration, as they may experience a double disadvantage: both as a woman and as a migrant. This presumed double disadvantage has recently become the focus of both Dutch integration and emancipation policy. To test several assumptions underlying this, we analyse to what extent labour market participation of different groups of women and the hours they work are influenced by human capital and household characteristics. Our results show some remarkable differences in employment patterns. Controlling for educational level, partnership and the presence of children, it was found that native women more often work in part‐time jobs than ethnic minority women. For native Dutch women, the number of children influences both the employment decision and the number of hours worked, whereas for ethnic minority women, this only effects full‐time employment.     

Gender inequalities in pensions: different components similar levels of dispersion

While the average gender gap in pensions is quite well documented, gender differences in the distribution of pensions have rarely been explored. We show in this paper that pension dispersion is very similar for men and women within the French pension system of a given sector (public or private). Gender differences are less marked among retired civil servants than among former private sector employees. However, the determinants of these inequalities are not the same for men and women. Using a regression-based decomposition of the Gini coefficient, we find that pension dispersion is mostly due to dispersion of the reference wage for all retirees but gender differences exist. For women, in particular, pension dispersion is also due to the dispersion in contribution periods. We also decompose the Gini coefficient by source of pension to measure the impact of institutional rules (minimum pensions, survivor’s pension) on the extent of pension inequality. Unexpectedly, we find that the impact of minimum pensions is limited, although slightly larger for civil servants than for private-sector employees. Survivor’s pension schemes, on the other hand, contribute positively to pension dispersion among retired women.     

Pension norms and pension reforms in Europe – the effects on gender pension gaps

Pension levels in the EU15 are significantly gendered. Various reforms to pension systems explicitly aim at improving women's opportunities to build up pension entitlements. These reforms differ from country to country. We see so-called work–life balance policies to increase women's labour market participation by facilitating part-time employment in particular as well as pension entitlements for care periods outside the labour market. At the same time, however, other seemingly gender neutral reforms generally tend to have the opposite effect. These measures include changes in pension calculation norms and pension composition, increasing the importance of non-public pensions. Therefore, future female pensioners will not be significantly better off. However, for women to be better off is necessary in times of pension retrenchments and individualization.

Based on recent life-course theories and studies, this article analyses the multiplicity of reasons for gender differentiated pension levels. It shows that the numerous direct and indirect pension determining factors related to life courses and welfare arrangements are interlinked on many fronts. Their cumulative effects finally result in (continued) significant gender gaps. It is argued that there are no quick fixes for reducing the gender gaps in pensions but that this will require attention to the degendering of labour market and the reformulation of life course norms.     

The costs of sharing: wives' employment and husbands' mental health.

Although there is general concern about the psychological effects of gender stratification, we know relatively little about the particular aspects of inequality that affect men and women's mental health. This paper proposes that inequalities in power and demands associated with gender are particularly consequential for well-being. Previous analyses on married women support this perspective: wives' employment is positive for women's well-being to the extent that it increases their income relative to husbands and decreases their domestic demands, particularly through husbands sharing in domestic labor. The present analysis extends the test of this perspective to men by examining the effects of wives' employment on husbands' psychological well-being. Results show that insofar as it decreases husbands' relative income and increases their share of domestic labor, women's employment is negative for husbands' mental health.     

Intersections on the road to skills’ transferability: The role of international training,gender, and visible minority status in shaping immigrant engineers’ career attainment in Canada

This paper focuses on the engineering profession in Canada, a regulated field with a large proportion of internationally trained professionals. Using Canadian census data, this study addresses two main questions. First, I ask whether immigrant engineers who were trained abroad are at increased disadvantage in gaining access (1) to employment in general, (2) to the engineering field, and (3) to professional and managerial employment within the field. Second, I ask how immigration status and the origin of training intersect with gender and visible minority status to shape immigrant engineers’ occupational outcomes. The results reveal that immigrant engineers who were trained abroad are at increased risk of occupational mismatch and this risk is two-fold and intersectional. First, they are at a disadvantage to enter the engineering field. Second, those employed in the engineering field are more likely to occupy technical positions. These forms of disadvantage intensify and diversify for women and racial/ethnic minority immigrants. The paper concludes with a discussion of immigrants’ skills transferability in regulated fields from an intersectional perspective.     

ETHNIC LABOR MARKETS, GENDER, AND SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITY:

The research examines the way in which the economic structure of the Arab labor market in Israel, coupled with gender-linked occupational segregation affects gender differences in socioeconomic attainment. The analysis is based on the 1983 Israeli Census of Population. The concept of ethnic labor market is discussed in a comparative perspective, shifting the focus to public sector employment which is central to the Arab labor market in Israel. The analyses led to a twofold conclusion: first, the Arab labor market in Israel operates as a protected labor market, and second, it interacts with gender in the determination of socioeconomic outcomes. In the absence of competition minority workers are able to achieve in the ethnic labor market high status occupational positions that are typically denied them in the wider society. The occupational advantages are especially pronounced among Arab women. For men, employment in the ethnic labor market increases occupational status but provides lower earnings than employment outside.     

Women and pensions: a decade of progress?

This Issue Brief compares changes from 1989 to 1998 in pension participation, accumulation, and allocation for employed women, versus employed men, ages 18-62. In addition, it provides an estimate of the gender "pension gap" in defined contribution accumulations, contrasts this with the gender "earnings gap," and provides explanations for these differences. Between 1989 and 1998, the percentage of employed women with a pension or retirement plan at their current job increased from 43 percent to 45 percent, compared with a decline from 53 percent to 52 percent for employed men. For both women and men, the percentage with defined contribution retirement plans increased dramatically, while the percentage with defined benefit pension plans dropped sharply. Between 1989 and 1998, the ratio of women's to men's defined contribution plan accumulations increased from 40 percent to 44 percent, indicating a narrowing of the gender pension gap. However, the narrowing was concentrated among the cohort ages 45-53 in 1998. The gender pension gap increased for women in other age groups. Gender differences in defined contribution plan accumulations can be attributed to differences in earnings and job characteristics. Between 1989 and 1998, for workers with defined contribution plans, the ratio of women's to men's earnings remained unchanged at 57 percent. Employed women with defined contribution plans are more than twice as likely to earn less than $25,000 per year than employed men with defined contribution plans, but almost five times less likely to earn more than $100,000 per year. From 1989 to 1998, the percentage of employed men with defined contribution balances invested mostly in low-risk, low-return assets declined much more than the percentage of employed women who followed that investment strategy. Whereas the percentages of men and women with retirement plans invested mostly in bonds were nearly equal at 31 percent and 32 percent in 1989, respectively, by 1998, 20 percent of women (compared with 14 percent of men) had their retirement plans invested mostly in bonds. The trend toward defined contribution plans and riskier retirement portfolios has resulted in significant wealth accumulation over the decade. In real terms, both men and women have greater retirement plan wealth, but increases have been larger for men than for women. Since there is no evidence that plan provisions vary by gender, improvements in the gender pension gap will come only with changes in women's labor force experience and investment decision-making.     

Die wahrgenommene Gerechtigkeit des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens: Geschlechtstypische Muster und die Bedeutung des Haushaltskontextes

The rise in female labor market participation and the growth of ??atypical?? employment arrangements has, over the last few decades, brought about a steadily decreasing percentage of households in which the man is the sole breadwinner, and a rising percentage of dual-earner households. Against this backdrop, the paper investigates how household contexts in which the traditional ??male breadwinner?? model still exists or has already been challenged affect individuals?? subjective evaluations of the justice of their personal earnings. In the first step we derive three criteria used by individuals to evaluate the fairness or justice of their personal earnings: compensation for services rendered, coverage of basic needs, and the opportunity to earn social approval. In the second step, we apply considerations from household economics and new approaches from gender research to explain why men??s and women??s evaluations of justice are determined to a considerable degree by the specific situation within their household. The assumptions derived regarding gender-specific patterns in justice attitudes are then tested on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) from 2007 and 2005. The results support our central thesis that gender-specific patterns in the evaluation of personal earnings are both reduced and increased in dual-earner households. They are reduced because women in dual-income households tend to have higher income expectations that challenge the existing gender wage gap. At the same time, gender-specific patterns are increased because men evaluate the equity of their personal income in relation to their ability to fulfill traditional gender norms and thus their capacity to live up to corresponding notions of ??masculinity.??     

Discrimination and pension income among aging women.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience, Mature Women's Cohort, this study examined the extent to which discrimination influenced pension receipt and levels of pension income among women aged 55-69 in 1992. It found that discrimination affected the level of pension income beyond that of demographic and human capital variables, when controlling for wage-related income, only among moderate-to-affluent near-elderly women. No relation was found between discrimination and receipt of pension income.     

Explaining the Gender Gap in Help to Parents: The Importance of Employment

Although it is well established that adult daughters spend more time giving assistance to their parents than do sons, the sources of this gender gap are not well understood. This paper asks: To what extent can this gap be explained by structural variation, especially the different rates of employment and kinds of jobs that women and men tend to hold? Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 7,350), the paper shows that both employment status and job characteristics, especially wages and self‐employment, are important factors in explaining the gender gap in the help given to parents, and that these operate similarly for women and men.     

MOBILITY FROM PRERETIREMENT TO POSTRETIREMENT JOB

While the normative pattern of retirement is complete cessation of labor force activity, approximately one-third of men work during their retirement. This research focuses on such "working-retirees" by investigating the prevalence and patterns of occupational mobility from pre- to postretirement job, as well as the impact that institutional constraints on (re)employment in later life may have on the chances of occupational mobility. Using data from the older men's cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys, a sample of working-retirees was extracted from men who retired between 1967 and 1978. Results showed a substantial amount of occupational mobility among the working-retired. The structure of mobility was found to be similar to younger labor force participants in that most mobility consists of moves to adjacent occupational categories. Unlike career mobility of nonretired workers, however, the large majority of moves constituted downward mobility. Using the economic segmentation perspective, log-linear and logistic regression analyses indicated that working-retirees whose preretirement jobs were in the core sector were more likely to experience occupational mobility. As a more specific indicator of bureaucratic control of the labor force, industry-level pension coverage rates were used in the logistic regressions and higher rates of pension coverage were found to result in a greater likelihood of mobility. These results indicate that the considerable occupational mobility experienced by working-retirees is partially the result of structural constraints on the employment of older men.     

Variation in Perspective: The Employment Success of Ethnic Minority Males in the Netherlands, 1988–2002

This article investigates the job chances of ethnic minority males in the Dutch labour market. Using information from the Social Position and Use of Facilities by Immigrants (SPVA) surveys for the years 1988, 1991, 1994, 1998, and 2002, we trace the employment pattern of various ethnic minority groups and Dutch natives, and study some determining factors for the job chances in the Netherlands during this period. The analysis reveals a clear variation in the employment patterns for different ethnic minority groups. Individual characteristics, such as marital status and especially educational level, turn out to be important factors in explaining the job chances for all groups. Moreover, support is found for the effect of the regional demand for labour on the employment chances for most of the analysed ethnic groups, which implies that no support is found for the queuing theory.     

WOMEN'S ACCESS TO PENSIONS AND THE STRUCTURE OF ELIGIBILITY RULES:

Because many older women lack access to private pensions and rely solely on social security income, they are significantly more likely than men to have incomes below or near poverty level. Liberal feminists attribute women's failure to attain pensions to their discontinuous work histories, which preclude them from meeting requirements for length and continuity of service. Such a conclusion ignores the invisible gender-based distinctions arising from the organizational logic of the workplace. The key issue is not why women fail to satisfy pension rules but rather why the rules are structured to penalize women for their reproductive labor. This historical case study of the pension negotiation process in two unions, the United Auto Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, indicates that the price women pay in the market for their domestic labor is a social construction that arises from specific decisions in the workplace. The analysis suggests that women can improve their status relative to men if they are able to reveal the hidden dimensions of gender in societal institutions but that they cannot attain full equality until the distinction between social production and reproduction is eliminated.     

Heterosexuals' attitudes toward bisexual men and women in the United States

This paper examines heterosexual adults’ attitudes toward bisexual men and women using data from a 1999 national RDD survey (N = 1,335). Ratings on 101‐point feeling thermometers were lower (less favorable) for bisexual men and bisexual women than for all other groups assessed—including religious, racial, ethnic, and political groups—except injecting drug users. More negative attitudes toward bisexuals were associated with higher age, less education, lower annual income, residence in the South and rural areas, higher religiosity, political conservatism, traditional values concerning gender and sexual behavior, authoritarianism, and lack of contact with gay men or lesbians. White heterosexual women expressed significantly more favorable attitudes than other women and all men. A gender difference was observed in attitudes toward bisexuals and homosexuals: Heterosexual women rated bisexuals significantly less favorably than they rated homosexuals, regardless of gender, whereas heterosexual men rated male targets less favorably than female targets, regardless of whether the target was bisexual or homosexual.     

Heterosexuals attitudes toward bisexual men and women in the United States

This paper examines heterosexual adults attitudes toward bisexual men and women using data from a 1999 national RDD survey (N = 1,335). Ratings on 101-point feeling thermometers were lower (less favorable) for bisexual men and bisexual women than for all other groups assessed--including religious, racial, ethnic, and political groups--except injecting drug users. More negative attitudes toward bisexuals were associated with higher age, less education, lower annual income, residence in the South and rural areas, higher religiosity, political conservatism, traditional values concerning gender and sexual behavior, authoritarianism, and lack of contact with gay men or lesbians. White heterosexual women expressed significantly more favorable attitudes than other women and all men. A gender difference was observed in attitudes toward bisexuals and homosexuals: Heterosexual women rated bisexuals significantly less favorably than they rated homosexuals, regardless of gender, whereas heterosexual men rated male targets less favorably than female targets, regardless of whether the target was bisexual or homosexual.     

Family Policy and Fertility Intentions in 21 European Countries

European countries show substantial variation in family policy and in the extent to which policies support more traditional male‐breadwinner or more gender egalitarian earner–carer family arrangements. Using data from the European Social Survey, the authors implemented multilevel models to analyze variation in fertility intentions of 16,000 men and women according to individual‐level characteristics and family policy across 21 European countries. Both traditional and earner–carer family support generosity were positively related to first‐birth intentions for men and women. In contrast, only earner–carer support maintains its positive relationship with second birth intentions. Family policy is not in general related to third and higher order parity intentions.     

Man Up,Man Down: Race–Ethnicity and the Hierarchy of Men in Female‐Dominated Work

Scholars have largely overlooked the significance of race and socioeconomic status in determining which men traverse gender boundaries into female‐dominated, typically devalued, work. Examining the gender composition of the jobs that racial minority men occupy provides critical insights into mechanisms of broader racial disparities in the labor market—in addition to stalled occupational desegregation trends between men and women. Using nationally representative data from the three‐year American Community Survey (2010–2012), we examine racial/ethnic and educational differences in which men occupy gender‐typed jobs. We find that racial minority men are more likely than white men to occupy female‐dominated jobs at all levels of education—except highly educated Asian/Pacific Islander men—and that these patterns are more pronounced at lower levels of education. These findings have implications for broader occupational inequality patterns among men as well as between men and women.     

A Privileged Pole? Diversity in Women's Pay,Pensions and Wealth in Britain

Is gender on its own becoming redundant in the analysis of employment experiences? There is a growing interest in economic diversity amongst women within the social sciences, with commentators suggesting, firstly, that a polarization in women's labour market experiences is occurring. Secondly, economic diversity amongst women may even be so distinct that a privileged pole is faring substantially better in wage and occupational terms than most men. This article uses data from the Family Resources Survey to explore these two suggestions. It concludes that the success on the labour market that has been achieved by an economically privileged pole amongst women supports the decline in the power of gender to explain variation in occupational patterns and wages, but it is clear that gender (tempered with awareness of the ways that it is cross‐cut by class, ethnicity and other social divisions) remains an invaluable explanatory variable for our understanding of economic security in its fuller sense, not least in the pension positions of women.     

Acceptance of Foreigners: Ethnic and Gender Differences Among Americans

This study examined American students' (N = 207) attitudes and behavior towards students of various nationalities. The findings suggest that, while these students rated Africans lower than Westerners, and Asians no differently than the other two groups, there were ethnic and gender differences among the Americans. Female students rated Westerners as being better liked than Africans, and minority students rated Westerners both as better liked and better adjusted than Africans. Males and Whites rated the three groups equally. Overall ratings by women were more favorable than those by men. In terms of volunteering hospitality, these students were as generous to the Asian and the African foreigners as to the Westerners, but in general, a greater proportion of ethnic minority students was willing to be hospitable.     

The Effects of Parenthood on Workforce Participation and Income for Men and Women

This paper examined the effects of parenthood on workforce participation for men and women in the Christchurch Health and Development Study, a 30-year longitudinal study of a birth cohort of 1,265 individuals born in New Zealand in 1977. The findings suggested that the effects of parenthood on workforce participation were different for men and women. For women, parenthood was associated with decreasing participation in paid employment and fewer hours worked. For men, however, parenthood was not associated with decreased workforce participation and in some cases was associated with increased working hours. These findings had consequences for personal income, with 83–90 % of the total gender income gap in this cohort being attributed to gender differences in the effects of parenthood. These findings suggest that parenthood has markedly different effects on workforce participation and income for men and women.