Debating Eco/Feminist Natures

This article discusses the experiences in municipal politics of indigenous women in Oaxaca, Mexico. The data base includes in-depth interviews with the eighteen women who have been elected mayor since 1995, when the Government of Oaxaca legally recognized indigenous self-government. By looking at the women as in/outsiders of their own culture, the article examines the ways in which they question various components of the indigenous autonomous project as well as the performance of western political institutions such as political parties and the educational system. Women's views go beyond the tradition/modernity dichotomy, where tradition is associated with backward, patriarchal institutions and modernity with progress and gender equality. Both tradition and modernity are redefined in order to identify the elements that may contribute to gender equality in the indigenous self-government project of Mexico.     

Gender and Migration in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca

In this paper, we examine the gendered nature of international and internal migration that originates in the central valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. Our goals are to define migration patterns and outcomes for Oaxacan women from the central valleys region and note the differences that mark migrant men and women. We use ethnographic data from anthropological research in 12 of Oaxaca's central valley communities to argue that local concepts of what defines correct behaviour (for both men and women) are critical to the outcomes and the differences that exist in the practices of migrant men and women.     

Gender Differences in Unemployment Dynamics and Initial Wages over the Business Cycle

Using administrative data from Spanish Social Security for the period 2002–2013, we explore differences between unemployed men and women in: their probabilities to find a job, their initial wages if they find a new job, and the likelihood to fall back into unemployment. We estimate bivariate proportional hazard models for unemployment duration and for the consecutive job duration for men and women separately, and decompose the gender gap using a non-linear Oaxaca decomposition. Gender differentials in labour market outcomes are procyclical, probably due to the procyclical nature of typically male occupations. While a higher level of education protects women in particular from unemployment, having children hampers women’s employment and initial wages after unemployment. There are lower gender gaps in the public sector and in high technology- firms. Decompositions show that the gender gaps are not explained by differences in sample composition. Indeed, if women had similar characteristics to men, the gender gap would be even wider.     

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.     

Earnings,Effort, and Work Flexibility of Self-Employed Women and Men: The Case of St. Croix County,Wisconsin

Data collected on self-employed women and men in one county allow examination of work effort, housework effort, housework hours, and preference for flexible work on earnings. Regressions indicate housework effort of self-employed women contributes to their lower earnings. Housework hours do not supporting the view women select self-employment to find flexible work. Housework hours do reduce the earnings of self-employed men, which could reflect their stronger commitment to housework combined with less flexible work. A Oaxaca decomposition suggests less tenure and greater housework effort are important contributors to lower earnings of self-employed women. Ranges that measure earnings may contribute to the insignificance of work effort, normalized work effort, and preference for flexible work hours. (J16, J23)

Is There a Motherhood Penalty? Decomposing the Family Wage Gap in Colombia

The aim of this paper is to provide an estimation and decomposition of the motherhood wage penalty in Colombia. Our empirical strategy was based on the matching procedure designed by Ñopo (The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2), 290–299, 2008a) for the case of gender wage gaps. This is an alternative procedure to the well-known Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method. Using the cross-sectional data of the Colombian Living Standard Survey, the wage gap was decomposed into four components, according to the characteristics of mothers and non-mothers. Three of the components are explained by differences in observable characteristics of women, while the other is the unexplained part of the gap. We found that mothers earn, on average, 1.73 % less than their counterparts without children and that this gap slightly decreased when the group included older women. It is observed from the results that, once schooling was included as a matching variable, the unexplained part of the gap considerably decreased and became non-significant. Thus, we did not find evidence of wage discrimination against mothers in the Colombian labor market.     

Self‐Selection in Migration Between Developing Countries: The Role of Unobservable Skills of Gauteng's Migrant Population

The present study investigates the presence of self‐selection among internal and international migrants in Gauteng, South Africa and further disentangles the effects of observed and unobserved characteristics in the self‐selection of migrants by conducting Oaxaca‐Blinder decomposition on overall employment and self‐employment outcome variables. Our analysis, based on system‐GMM analysis of pseudo‐panel data, indicates that international migrants experienced markedly higher levels of employment than both locals and internal migrants driven by higher rates of informal and self‐employment. International migrants were also found to outperform their South African‐born counterparts on various variables indicative of well‐being like total household income, per capita household income, higher life satisfaction, and lower debt levels. Even though international migrants did not have higher levels of education, the Oaxaca‐Blinder decomposition provided evidence of the positive selection of international migrants to Gauteng, based on unobservable characteristics, to achieve higher levels of employment and self‐employment.     

Authoritarian neoliberal rescaling in Latin America: urban in/security and austerity in Oaxaca

ABSTRACT

There is an increasing consensus that, across the globe, austerity policies have often relegated fiscal pressures from the state to the urban scale. These are sometimes discussed under the label ‘austerity urbanism’. This article explores urban authoritarian neoliberalism through an examination of spatial and scalar manifestations of neoliberal restructuring. It asks how austerity urbanism’s rescaling takes effect in spatially variegated ways in the intermediate city of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. I argue that Oaxaca’s austerity programmes and its rescaling of security provision are two intertwined, rather than parallel, processes. The paper builds on and aims to advance the authoritarian neoliberalism literature by linking it to literatures on the postcolonial Latin American state and urban studies. The article makes two contributions: first, it identifies and carves out multi-scalar aspects of authoritarian neoliberalism (by speaking to the urban realm); second, it contributes to the authoritarian neoliberalism literature on the ‘South’. Hence, the aim is to reveal the multi-scalar aspects of authoritarian neoliberalism and to illustrate its explanatory power in the global South.     

Race and Gender Inequality in Homeownership: Does Place Make a Difference?*

Abstract Racial differences in homeownership have long been a topic of sociological study. Previous studies, however, neglected to consider differences in levels of homeownership between nonmarried black and white women in the context of place. Accordingly this paper focuses on the interaction between place, race, and gender and its impact on homeownership for nonmarried persons. The study employs the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and logistic regression analysis to address the following questions: Has the racial differential in homeownership for nonmarried women changed from 1970 to 1990? How do place, race, and gender interact to determine the levels of homeownership for nonmarried women? The findings reveal that, although black women were less likely than white women to own homes, the racial differential declined dramatically in rural areas over the two‐decade period. The overall trend of decline was opposite to that for urban areas.     

Does Gender Still Matter? A Study of the Views of Women in the ICT Industry in New Zealand

Using data from in‐depth interviews with female information and communication technology (ICT) professionals from New Zealand's four main cities, this article uses a social constructivist framework to investigate the women's perceptions of their ICT work place. The results show that there are regional differences in organization type, job category and salaries, as well as in the perceptions of the women towards their environment. Most women did not actively seek to be employed in ICT — rather their entry was serendipitous. While they enjoyed working in the environment, there was an obvious gendering of the workforce with most technical positions being held by men and women working mainly in the softer side of ICT. The women perceived their gendered roles to be a highly important and an integral part of ICT and believed their salaries were equitable with their male colleagues. Having a greater understanding of how women view their ICT work place will contribute to attracting and retaining them in an industry where a shortage of skills is envisaged in the near future.     

Cultural stereotypes and the gendering of senior management

This paper asks whether place is significant in understanding the gendering of senior management and how it might be integrated into existing theories. Drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with women and men in senior management in Wales, it compares the gendering of senior management in Wales with other regions of the UK. The situation in Wales is explained by the historical legacy of a peripheral economy dependent on male‐dominated heavy industries and the gender relations and stereotypes associated with this. There is a relative lack of senior managerial positions, for both women and men, and women are under‐represented in middle management compared with women elsewhere. There is evidence that paternalistic masculinites are widespread in managerial cultures and that although women may find this form of masculinity easier to deal with than a more aggressively 'macho' masculinity, it casts them in a subordinate role at work. Cultural stereotypes such as the 'Welsh mam' operate in contradictory ways, in some instances holding women back and in others furthering their careers, and there is evidence that women are challenging existing gender stereotypes. A lack of geographical mobility and associated attachment to place affects progress into senior management and creates stability at middle‐management level. Place needs to be taken into account in explaining the gendering of senior management because of the spatial distribution of production and the cultural patterns and stereotypes associated with different economic structures.     

Contrasting Socialization of Igbo and Hausa Women and Political Efficiency

The early childhood socialization of women in two very different Nigerian societies, the Igbo and the Hausa, is discussed to illustrate that first impressions may not always be accurate in seeking to understand the nature of women's subordination to men in nonwestern cultures, and consequently the nature of likely challenges to it. This discussion adds case material to the separate place/separate pwer hypothesis in suggesting that secluded Muslim Hausa women may have greater potential for political efficacy than more overtly aggressive, assertive, and largely Christian Igbo women because the near total separation of Hausa women from men allows them to perceive their interests as distinct more clearly.     

A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO THE IDENTIFICATION PROBLEM IN DETAILED WAGE DECOMPOSITIONS

Oaxaca and Ransom (1999) show that a detailed decomposition of the coefficients effect is destined to suffer from an identification problem since the detailed coefficients effect attributed to dummy variables is not invariant to the choice of reference groups. It turns out that the identification problem in the decomposition equation is a disguised identification problem of constant and dummy variables in a regression equation. This article proposes a simple and natural remedy for this problem by using "normalized" regressions, which enable me to identify the constant and estimates of each dummy variable. (JEL C20 , J70 )     

Older Women in the Workplace and Implications for Retirement:

More women are in the work place than ever before. Job opportunities continue to open up for women, especially in nontradiuonal professions, for example, medicine, law, administration. While these facts seem optimistic, for today and many years to come, an alarmingly vast number of women are living in post-retirement poverty. The poverty is due in part because women of all races remain over-represented in lower paying occupations and industries, a phenomenon which directly affects retirement. Employee assistance programs have a particularly unique opportunity to assist women in helping to eradicate inequities in the marketplace and in averting post-retirement poverty.     

RUNNING OFF-TACKLE THROUGH THE LAST BASTION: WOMEN,RESISTANCE, AND PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

This article discusses the mechanisms that must be in place in order for women to successfully resist institutionalized gender norms. This research draws on over 200 hours of observations of and 20 in-depth interviews with women playing full contact football, a sport traditionally dominated by men and firmly planted in the culture of the U.S. as synonymous with masculinity. Following the work of recent calls by gender scholars to treat gender as a social institution, this research shows that at least four components must be in place for sustained, successful resistance to a social institution. First, resistance must be a conscious activity. Second, any resistance must involve engaging in an abnormal activity. Third, any deviant or abnormal activity must take place in an otherwise legitimate social context. Finally, as the creation and maintenance of a social institution is an inherently social enterprise, so, too, is institutional resistance. This research contributes to scholarship on gender and social institutions by showing some strategies for increasing possibilities for personal expression.     

Equally unequal: gender discrimination in the workplace among adults with mental retardation

Gender discrimination in the work place has been widely reported. Women are usually discriminated against both with respect to level of occupation and salary. The current study explored the correlation between gender and employment among adults with mental retardation, specifically, whether gender discrimination in the work place is as prominent among people with mental retardation as in the general population. Level of occupation and salary earned were studied in 227 adults with mild and moderate mental retardation residing in institutions, hostels, and sheltered homes in Israel. The findings suggest a correlation between gender and employment similar to that in the general population. Women were found to be employed mainly in sheltered workshops and lower levels of occupation, and to earn significantly less than the men. However, closer examination of each work place revealed that within each level of occupation there were no significant gender differences in salary. The finding suggests that while women with mental retardation earn lower salaries than men, this is mainly the result of their lower level of occupation. Rehabilitation efforts should therefore be directed toward ensuring higher levels of occupation as well as community employment among women with mental retardation.     

Research in the service of society: Women at the institute for research in social science

This paper examines the place and contributions of women at the Institute for Research in Social Science from 1925 to 1945. Founded by Howard Odum at the Unviersity of North Carolina in 1924, the Institute provided an environment in which women could pursue social scientific work free from the gender discrimination found at most universities during the period. Research and publications by the women made important contributions to sociology and related fields while fulfilling the Institute’s primary mission of promoting regional understanding and development.     

The politics of gender in the UN Security Council resolutions on women,peace and security

Women’s groups have worked diligently to place gender and women’s vulnerability on the transnational security agenda. This article departs from the idea that negotiating and codifying gender and women’s vulnerability in terms of security represent a challenge to mainstream security contexts. By contrasting the UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security with feminist theory, this article aims to analyze what is considered to be threatened when women’s vulnerability is negotiated. The article identifies two approaches to the gender/security nexus: gendering security, which involves introducing ideas regarding gender-sensitive policies and equal representation, and securitizing gender, which proceeds by locating rape and sexual violence in the context of war regulations. We demonstrate that, although these measures are encouraged with reference to women’s vulnerability, they serve to legitimize war and the male soldier and both approaches depoliticize gender relations.