Employment Breaks,Pay, and Career Development among Australian Women

Career breaks may be associated with women’s relatively poorer pay and promotion prospects. To test this and other hypotheses, a sample of Australian women was asked to review their lives as paid and unpaid workers. About half of the women reported that they were currently working at the same skill level as in their first job, a quarter had improved, while about 20% were currently in lower-skilled work than in their first job. Tertiary education and further education after first entering the labour force is associated with continuing to work at the same skill level after a break. Breaks from working were found to last typically for up to one year and were thus unlikely to account for a sustained skill loss. Women’s responsibilities for household tasks rose during breaks, and persisted at a higher level after the return to work. Different models are appropriate for the analysis of earnings of continuous workers and those with breaks. There appear to be no relative pay penalties for broken work experience for the highly educated or those in highly skilled jobs. Continuous workers in ‘women’s’ occupations receive a higher return than others to their human capital.     

Girls’ Jobs for the Boys? Men,Masculinity and Non‐Traditional Occupations

Occupational segregation by sex remains the most pervasive aspect of the labour market. In the past, most research on this topic has concentrated on explanations of women’s segregation into low paid and low status occupations, or investigations of women who have crossed gender boundaries into men’s jobs, and the potential impact on them and the occupations. In contrast, this article reports on a small‐scale, qualitative study of ten men who have crossed into what are generally defined as ‘women’s jobs’. In doing so, one of the impacts on them has been that they have experienced challenges to their masculine identity from various sources and in a variety of ways. The men’s reactions to these challenges, and their strategies for developing and accommodating their masculinity in light of these challenges, are illuminating. They either attempted to maintain a traditional masculinity by distancing themselves from female colleagues, and/or partially (re)constructed a different masculinity by identifying with their non‐traditional occupations. This they did as often as they deemed necessary as a response to different forms of challenge to their gender identities from both men and women. Finally, the article argues that these responses work to maintain the men as the dominant gender, even in these traditionally defined ‘women’s jobs’.     

Technological change and employment in Brazil,Colombia and Mexico: Which workers are most affected?

This article adopts a task-based approach to analyse employment patterns in terms of skill distribution and occupations in the urban labour markets of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico during 2002–15. The results suggest that employment fell strongly for some medium-skilled occupations, and increased slightly for both low-skilled and high-skilled occupations. Decomposition results suggest that the decreasing share of employment of secretaries and stenographers is fully explained by changes within industries (routinization hypothesis), whereas the decrease in machinery operation and handicraft jobs is mainly explained by changes between industries. By socio-demographic group, technological changes negatively affected women but benefited younger workers and those with higher educational attainment.     

Why Third World urban employers usually prefer men

Males outnumber female employees by 3 to 1 in the modern sector of developing countries; moreover, women tend to be concentrated in a limited number of occupations. This underrepresentation of women in employment in Third World countries is generally attributed to the restricted supply of qualified women willing and able to work away from home in modern sector occupations. However, this approach pays insufficient attention to the demand for labor and the recruitment policy of employers. Employer concerns and perceptions that limit the overall demand for women workers and thereby reduce their employment opportunities include the need for pregnancy and maternity leave and protection, absenteeism, turnover, and cultural restrictions. Among the factors that contribute to the sexual segmentation of the labor market are protective legislation that excludes women from certain sectors of the labor market, sex-typing of jobs, and employer perceptions that women lack muscular strength, are not effective supervisors, and cannot work well with men. At the same time, women are preferred for certain jobs because of their greater docility, acceptance of lower wages, household-type skills, and sex appeal. The general factor limiting employment opportunities for women is the employer's perception that women are more costly and less productive than male employees. This perception is directly related to women's role in childbearing and rearing, and is reinforced by legislation that places the costs of maternity leave, nursing breaks, and child care directly on the employer. Thus, women's childbearing and family responsibilities not only limit their availability for work but also discourage employers from hiring them.     

Social Protection for Retirees

Jobs are changing in ways that will reduce benefits for retirees. This paper explores the variety of pressures that will tend to produce this result. One major factor is that employers have been responding to cost pressures and the need for flexibility by redesigning jobs. There has been a trend-which is likely to continue-toward more part-time and temporary jobs, more subcontracting, and more contingent-pay systems. The consequences are complex and not all bad, but for retirees the tendency will be toward fewer, less generous, or less secure benefits. As workers approach retirement age facing the prospect of diminished benefits, increasing numbers of them will have to choose work to maintain their standard of living. At the same time, demographic pressures will gradually push employers to seek new pools of workers, including retirees. Gradually, employers are likely to provide fewer social-protection benefits to older people, but more employment opportunities.     

Social protection for retirees: the diminishing role of employers

Jobs are changing in ways that will reduce benefits for retirees. This paper explores the variety of pressures that will tend to produce this result. One major factor is that employers have been responding to cost pressures and the need for flexibility by redesigning jobs. There has been a trend--which is likely to continue--toward more part-time and temporary jobs, more subcontracting, and more contingent-pay systems. The consequences are complex and not all bad, but for retirees the tendency will be toward fewer, less generous, or less secure benefits. As workers approach retirement age facing the prospect of diminished benefits, increasing numbers of them will have to choose work to maintain their standard of living. At the same time, demographic pressures will gradually push employers to seek new pools of workers, including retirees. Gradually, employers are likely to provide fewer social-protection benefits to older people, but more employment opportunities.     

A Feminist Trade Union Agenda? The Continued Significance of Class,Gender and Race

During the 1990s attempts to identify a feminist trade union agenda have focused on both the content and process of such a potential agenda. In a period in which trade unions have changed significantly, the general national agenda appears to be changing, acknowledging issues of importance to women. UNISON, Britain's largest trade union, has enshrined proportionality and fair representation in its constitution, developing national initiatives aimed at improving opportunities in work and in the union for women, black workers, manual workers, disabled workers, etc. who traditionally have been less well represented. Many issues affecting women generally have moved to centre stage, yet issues affecting women ancillary workers seem as excluded as ever. Through a study of cleaners in the National Health Service this article argues that workplace interests reflect wider social divisions, but in a variety of patterns depending on the social organization of work. Despite thewidening trade union agenda, particular interests — more specifically the workplace interests of working‐class women and black women — continue to be neglected.     

How Does Occupational Access for Older Workers Differ by Education?

To assess the employment opportunities of older job-changers in the years prior to retirement, this study examines the how the breadth of occupations in which they find employment narrows as they age past their prime working years and how this differs by gender and educational attainment. The results indicate that workers who change jobs in their early 50s find employment in a reasonably similar set of occupations as prime-age workers, with opportunities narrowing at older ages. They also indicate that job opportunities broadened significantly for better-educated older workers since the late 1990s. While job opportunities now narrow significantly for less-educated men in their late 50s, this narrowing primarily occurs in the early 60s for women and better-educated men. In contrast to previous research, the study finds that employer policies that emphasize hiring from within are less important barriers to the hiring of older job-seekers. The study also finds that the narrowing of job opportunities is associated with a general decline in job quality as measured by median occupational earnings, a decline associated with differences in occupational skill requirements and the underlying economic environment. These results suggest that older hiring is not as limited to a select few occupations as it had been in previous decades, and that policy reforms aimed at increasing opportunities and improving labor market fluidity might best be served if they focused on less-educated men.     

Time to care: socioeconomic,family, and workplace factors in men and women’s parental leave use

ABSTRACT

Parental leave has important benefits for women, men, and families. This study examines how individual, family, and workplace factors are associated with the length of parental leaves taken by workers in diverse jobs and work contexts, but with the same employer, focusing on gender differences in the factors associated with longer parental leaves. The data are the result of a collaboration between university researchers and a municipal employer. We find that gender was a major driver of the duration of parental leaves for these workers, who must use their accumulated paid time off or take unpaid leave for parental leave; women’s leaves were almost three times longer than men’s. We also find gender differences in the factors associated with leave duration. For women, socioeconomic status seemed to matter most, while for men, family and workplace context influenced leave length. The results indicate the centrality of financial considerations in parents’ leave decisions, reinforcing the importance of having a dedicated paid parental leave policy. We argue that paid parental leaves would help reduce disparities between and within genders at work and in the family.     

In search of family-friendly careers? Professional strategies,work conditions and gender differences in work–family conflict

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether women in a dual-earner context acquire family-friendly jobs as a strategy to keep work–family conflict down. The analysis is based on a survey of newly graduated highly educated men and women in five occupations in Sweden (n?≈?2400). The sample was stratified by occupation and gender to minimize the influence of factors other than gender. The results show that women are more family-oriented, but also more career-oriented than men in their professional strategies. In their jobs, women have less control over work and schedules than men but a similar level of work demands. However, women face lower requirements for employer flexibility (e.g. frequent over time) and this is related to their professional strategies. Finally, women report a higher level of work–family conflict than men in the same occupation, but this gender difference becomes non-significant when accounting for women’s lower level of control. In sum, women in this sample clearly aim for both family and career and do not acquire family-friendly jobs, but aim to avoid ‘family-unfriendly’ requirements for constant availability. To some extent, this enables them to limit their work–family conflict but due to their lower control over work, women still experience more conflict than men in the same occupation.     

Salesmen,Saleswomen, or Sales Workers? Determinants of the Sex Composition of Sales Occupations

This study examines determinants of occupational sex composition in an expanding area of the economy—sales occupations. We used census data to determine which worker and occupational characteristics predicted the percentage of women in sales occupations in 1980 and in 1990, and which variables contributed to changes in the percentage of women in sales occupations over time. Although sales occupations experienced a disproportionate decline in occupational sex segregation during the 1980s, we found that the same variables predicted the percentage of women in sales occupations in both 1980 and 1990. Average years of schooling, average hourly pay, the percentage of unemployed workers, and the percentage of self-employed workers influenced the percentage of female workers in sales occupations in 1980 and in 1990, both for cross-sectional and dynamic models. In addition, a worker characteristic index that combines percentage White, percentage married, and average age of workers shows surprising effects on the percentage of women in sales occupations. We discuss the implications of these findings for occupational sex segregation, and suggest that a multidimensional queuing perspective offers the most useful interpretation of our results.     

Why are we more likely to tip some service occupations than others? Theory,evidence, and implications

Ideas about why consumers tip some service occupations more often than others are tested using occupation scores derived from online ratings of 122 service occupations. Results indicate that U.S. consumers are more likely to tip occupations for which (i) workers’ performances can be more easily evaluated by consumers than by managers, (ii) workers provide customized service, (iii) workers’ income, skill and needed judgment are low, and (iv) workers are less happy than customers during the service encounter. Occupations with greater frequency of customer patronage and/or greater likelihood of encountering the same service provider on multiple service occasions are not more likely than other occupations to be tipped. These findings support some and disconfirm other expectations derived from a theory that occupational differences in tipping are attributable to occupation characteristics that more strongly/consistently evoke motives for tipping. They also identify types of services for which counter-normative tipping policies are more or less likely to be successful and suggest sources of resistance that must be overcome if those policies are to succeed.     

Women Caring for Our Aging in Place Seniors Will Lose Out because of U.S. Immigration Policies

Most older people experiencing chronic health problems, physical disabilities, and memory losses are still able to age in place in their own homes. However, they often need help from others to enjoy healthy, active, and independent lives. They turn mostly to family members, mainly women and usually their daughters, daughters-in-law or wives. But caring for frail elders has become more demanding and complex, and these family members often feel physically and emotionally overwhelmed and burnt out. They concede that they cannot do it alone. Others find it more difficult to hold full-or even part-time jobs. Hiring home (direct) care workers to assist their loved ones can be an effective solution to ease their caregiving responsibilities. However, these personal care aides, home health aides, and nursing assistants are already in short supply. Moreover, going forward the aging of the baby boomer population will result in an even greater demand for their services even as these jobs are often unattractive to American-born workers and turnover is high. This country’s immigration policies will make it even more difficult for women caring for older persons to hire these workers. Over 25 percent of home care workers are low-skilled immigrants or foreign-born. However, the Trump administration’s policies reduce the number of immigrants entering the U.S. and specifically choke off the various pathways that enable low-skilled persons to be hirable in the home care sector. Female caregivers seeking relief from their caregiving responsibilities will lose out unless we remove these immigration barriers.     

Work time. Leisure time. On women's temporal and economic well-being in Europe

In the study of work time, a wealth of influential ideas has emerged about the potentially damaging impact of too many hours in the labour market on the rest of peoples' lives, as well as about the negative economic ramifications of short hours working. The paper focuses on the temporal and economic well-being of female employees in Europe, stimulated by the importance of work time in debates over time poverty and work life integration. It asks whether women in shorter hours jobs are happiest with their time for paid work and leisure, but also what might the lower wages from reduced hours working mean for women, particularly those in low-level occupations. The paper shows first that although working fewer hours contributes to women's satisfaction with their time in many countries, it is long full-time hours that have the strongest (negative) relationship with women's temporal well-being across Europe. Second, the paper demonstrates the damaging impact of working in low-level occupations – both part-time and full-time – on the economic well-being of women's households. It stresses the importance of a combined work time and occupational class approach in the ongoing analysis of women's working lives.     

Work/Care Regimes: Institutions,Culture and Behaviour and the Australian Case

Increasingly around the industrialized world, labour markets rely upon the paid work of women, many of whom have dependents. Such changing patterns of paid work by women — and by men — are located within work/care regimes that are more or less hostile to the needs of paid workers who care for others. This article sets out a model of work/care regimes and locates the Australian case within international and historical contexts. In Australia, the unchanging normative male worker archetype dominates institutions of work and care, while the cultures of motherhood and fatherhood remain stoically resistant to renovation. In the meantime, the behaviour of working women runs ahead of these unchanging cultures and institutions, creating a policy interest in ‘reconciling’ work and care, but a failure to provide it. The reasons for this failure are outlined.     

Access to Networks in Genderized Contexts: The Construction of Hierarchical Networks and Inequalities in Feminized,Caring and Masculinized,Technical Occupations

This article aims to contribute knowledge on how access to hierarchical networks of communication is constructed through organizational contexts associated with the gendered nature of feminized, caring work and masculinized, technical work, respectively. The article is based on interviews with 43 middle managers. Both men and women in male‐dominated technical occupations and female‐dominated caring occupations were interviewed. Eight interviews with politicians and strategic managers were also carried out. The results show that middle managers' access to hierarchical networks differs between feminized and masculinized contexts; hierarchical networks between organizational levels are common in male‐dominated technical jobs, while such networks are almost non‐existent in female‐dominated caring occupations. The results illustrate how organizational conditions follow the gender segregation in organizations and the labour market and, further, how these contexts shape men's and women's access to hierarchical networks. The results also illustrate how the patterns of networks create and reproduce inequalities in sex‐segregated organizations.     

Maternal Employment,Nonparental Care,Mother‐Child Interactions,and Child Outcomes During Preschool Years

This study examines the relationships between maternal employment, nonparental care, mother‐child interactions, and preschoolers’ outcomes. Data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (N= 1,248) show that maternal employment during the previous year, especially full‐time employment, was related to care by nonrelatives, longer hours in school settings, fewer positive mother‐child interactions, and less reading with parents at ages 2 and 4. Controlling for these mediators, maternal employment was related to children’s lower hyperactivity, more prosocial behavior, and less anxiety at age 4, although little relationship was found at age 2. The results indicate that preschoolers may benefit from maternal employment, but benefits may be offset by long hours of nonparental care and fewer positive mother‐child interactions.     

Der Einfluss der beruflichen Geschlechtersegregation auf den „Gender Pay Gap“

Occupational sex segregation is generally seen as an important determinant for the gender specific wage differential (“gender pay gap”). Therefore, the present study examines factors explaining wage penalties in typical women’s occupations in Germany. Dealing with sociological and social psychological status theories it is assumed that women’s occupations are paid less because of typical feminine work content that is devalued on the labor market—whereas typical masculine work content dominating in men’s occupations is monetary highly valued. Hypotheses are tested with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) 2000–2010 applying linear fixed effects models. Occupational characteristics, like gendered work content, are merged from the BIBB/BAuA-Erwerbstätigenbefragung (Employment Survey) 2005/2006 and the Microcensus to the SOEP. The analysis reveals the mediating effect of gendered work content on wage penalties in gross hourly wages for employees in women’s occupations—but only for men. This gender specific effect is explained with different expectations for competence and effort concerning gendered work content with which women and men are confronted. Lower norms for overwork in women’s occupations partly explain wage penalties in those occupations especially for women. Finally, an Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition shows that gendered work content explains the “gender pay gap” significantly.     

Upgraded to Bad Jobs: Low‐Wage Black Women's Relative Status since 1970

Labor market changes complicate the analysis of black women's status relative to white women because education, occupational attainment, and race–gender are now less predictive of earnings. Low‐wage black women's relative status has improved somewhat from 1970 to 2000, contrary to the well‐documented decrease in relative status reported for all black women wage earners since 1980, but their dramatic occupational upgrading was not responsible for the trend. White‐collar occupational positions formerly responsible for white women's relative earnings advantage no longer deliver that reward, as restructuring has produced a proliferation of bad jobs across occupational groups. This study argues that increasing exposure to precarious work is crucial to understanding changes in low‐wage black women's relative economic status since 1970.