MGMT4007 Contemporary Issues in Management : Occupational Sex Segregat

As put forward by Webster (2014) egalitarian values toward women have increasingly spread throughout several facets of American culture.  In spite of the increasing number of females having college degree as well as joining the workforce, women are largely crowded into small number of occupation as nursing and teaching. One of the major reasons for such segregation in the workplace is belief that women are highly skilled in interpersonal communication. The individual employee can consider of the influence of gender essentialism on organizational as well as occupational segregation as organizational as well as employer level and the choice. Many essentialists’ views are embedded in institutional practice and internal personal system through the policies that usually favor prioritizing men in significant positions and women in others. As mentioned by Cohen (2013), the women are usually being favored in customer interaction role. This could further carry down the range of individual managers and supervisors. In this context, Bygren (2013) commented that if an individual internalizes gender essential stereotypes, she/he could be fired, hired as well as promoted based on the certain above-mentioned belief. This could occur without an awareness of absolute discrimination on the part of the organization and the employers might not observe women’s actions that do not conform to gender expectation.

In this context, Heilman (2012) commented that employees also involve themselves in practices that support the gender segregation in the workplace. For example, the young females could internalize an essential belief, which leads them to express the preference for work in certain occupation. In this context,  Stier and Yaish (2014) commented that internalization is generally subconscious, but it might create the gender segregation in work preference as well as other facets of life. Additionally, a significant of women expressing a preference for particular roles that could be tied to a self-evaluation of their skills. On the contrary, the essentialists tend to believe that women internalization could lead them to believe that they are more qualified for particular work positions as well as male type employment. Therefore, it is essential to note that perceived thought of essentialists could affect the choice of women. Another significant fact is that when the individual doses not believe in the essential thinking, they could convince women to accept inequality. Thereby, women could express preferences work role on the basis of perceived essentialist thinking of others, instead of their own belief and perception about the gender role.

Emotional Labor 

As mentioned by Walsh and Bartikowski (2013), interpersonal communication, with the essentialist belief that women progress in areas of personal service dealing with nurturance, which can be considered as the form of emotional labor. It is also identified that emotional labor often remains different from emotional management as it is implemented for wages in the public sphere. There are many occupations such as nurse, bank, teller and other that involve significant amounts of emotional labor. The central similarity of these occupations is that emotional displays remain as the core job functions and the emotions should be done in such a manner that customers believe it is authentic and genuine. In this context, Gruys (2012) commented that there are major characteristics that occupations requiring large amount of emotional worker must have frequent voice as well as facial contact with the public in common.  In this context, Huppatz and Goodwin (2013) also mentioned that about one-third of all occupations as well as half of women’s jobs need substantial amount of emotional labor. The recent studies have indicated that emotional labor is involved in the majority of all workplace communication in a particular range of field.

Gender and emotional labor

Huppatz (2012) identified the link between emotional labor as well as gender by estimating that nearly 30% of women employees are in jobs that involve significant amount of emotional labor. Here, Hsieh, Yang and Fu (2012) also commented that emotional labor has special relevance for women and compared to men women put emotional labor on the market. The women know more about the personal cost. However, many studies have proved that women have less social power as well as independent earning compared to men. In this context, Cha (2013) commented that women have fewer resource compared to men; thus, they could turn their emotions and feelings into marketable commodity. It is studied that in the airline industry, the women are flight attendants, while the men are bill collector.

Thus, even though both forms-flight attendants and bill collectors are the forms of emotional labor, female colleagues are placed in the role of emotional labor where being nice is an emotional labor. On the other side, Antecol and Cobb-Clark (2013) mentioned that as women are in a less social stratum, they could become the victims of the feelings of others. It is found that female flight attendants are more likely to become of the victims of verbal abuse from dissatisfied customer or passengers than their male colleagues are. Eventually, women are more likely to use their emotional labor in the context of sexual charm as well as rational skills as the defense mechanism. In addition, they could become estranged from the component of femininity. Thus, men and women tend to come to observe emotion-based work in several ways on the basis of biological sex.  The secondary emotions also indicate that women involve themselves in more frequent emotion management compared to male workers.

The studies focusing on the relationship between emotional labor and gender focus on the poor protection women possess the as the result of their lower social status. It is also found that women more frequently have to hide negative emotions at work; however, the relationship was not found to necessarily related to the burnout. The studies also demonstrate that the emotion of women could work in the family setting lead to increased burnout at work; however, this finding cannot assure whether or not the emotional labor of jobs is controlling to the burnout. Nevertheless, the study conducted by Gruys (2012) confirm that emotional labor demands on the job that are higher for occupations dominated by female but the findings are not related to the  fact that men in the same jobs subject to the same extent of emotional labor demands. Walsh and Bartikowski (2013) commented that the involvement of large amount of emotional labor observed a “wage penalty” as compared to men in jobs with low amount of emotional labor. However, this effect has not been proved as true in several cases.

Understanding gender differences in productivity and earning 

It is studied that gender differences in productivity as well as earning remain as systematic and persistent. More specifically, whether in agriculture or off the farm, the women tend to demonstrate lower average productivity and earn low wages compared to women. Both in developed and developing nations, these differences have been recorded; even though, they have been declared over time, they could remain significant. In addition to this, female farmers have lower productivity compared to men on an average range. An estimated yield gaps on the basis of female-male comparison across the household remain largely.  Similarly, Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey (2012) also commented that female entrepreneurs show low productivity than male entrepreneurs and the value added per worker is less in the companies managed by women in the urban areas of the nation. In addition to this, some significant differences have also been found in the profitability between female owned as well as male owned business operating in rural areas or in poor nations. The female-owned firms tend to perform less effectively compared to male-dominated or male-owned enterprises in other dimensions. The female-owned firms are often less profitable and they generate lower margin of sales. In addition, it is also identified that survival probabilities also less among the female-owned organizations. According to Husso and Hirvonen  (2012), differences in average wages between salaried male and female have been extensively recorded and documented in developed and developing nations.

Figure 1: Difference in Women’s productivity

(Source: Grissom,  Nicholson-Crotty and Keiser 2012)

The gaps are decreased over time but they remain significant in both formal as well as informal sectors, where female workers tend to do causal and piece work.  Guy, Newman and Mastracci (2014) found three significant differences behind such systematic gender difference in productivity as well as earning. The differences are such as the differences in the characteristics of female and male employees, differences in the forms of tasks and occupations that both men and women continue and differences in the return to male and female as well as characteristics of jobs. The scholars argue that while the differences in worker’s characteristics as well as returns are significant issues, however, it is the primary difference in the jobs (that consider gaps in productivity and earning).

Gender gaps in education and experience

As mentioned by Webster (2014), women are less educated as well as more likely to face the barriers in the corporate fields.  The differences the in educational context is still significant among the aged workers in some nations but these differences have been disappeared among the young workers.  On the contrary, Cohen (2013), the number of years an employee has been hired in the firm is larger for men in 14 out of 29 nations.  It is also found that gender differences in experience could be more prominent among men and women (age 26-39) indicating that they increasing largely at the time of childbearing years. This happens as the education as well as work experiences are significant and valuable inputs into production , the differences in gender along these range could contribute to the differences in productivity as well as earning. The organizations run by educated as well as experienced individuals tend to demonstrate higher productivity compared to the related business. Therefore, the differences in human capital are converted into the differences in agricultural productivity. Likewise, the less education as well as lack of access to business training among the female owners of business could hold their productivity down.  Moreover, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, the differences in human capital have conventionally been a major contributor to the gender wage gap. According to Heilman (2012), the ongoing gap in the education system has contributed to the identified gender wage gap. However, it has destroyed the explanatory power of educational differences for the remaining gap.

Employment segregation by gender

Stier and Yaish (2014) provided some systematic and significant differences between the occupation of men and women across the industries. A large percentage of women have been observed to be working in agriculture but the percentage of men is less in this context. While focusing on the corporate environment, it is also identified that women are over-presented among the unpaid. It is also identified that women operate micro, small and medium size organizations and the percentage of female ownership decreases with the firm size. This decreases become even sharper when the organizations use restrictive definitions of ownership. Moreover, the female-owned firms are more likely to be home-based as well as operate within the household. As put forward by Walsh and Bartikowski (2013), the female owners compared to male owners are more likely to be “necessity entrepreneurs” and less likely to be “opportunity entrepreneurs”. In addition to this, it is also observed that in United State, the women are under-presented among the high-growth organizations, where the entrepreneurs can measure the growth orientation.  On the other side, in the developing nations, the women tend to cite more the requirement to supplement household earning as their ground to get into the entrepreneurship but male employees cite this intention to exploit the market opportunities.

 Furthermore, the fraction of female entrepreneurs decline with the development of economy because more economic opportunities are available for women. In this context,  Gruys, (2012) also commented that men as well as women work in different sectors and occupation. Internationally, women represent nearly 50% the overall employment in communal services such as public administration, health and other social service. The segregation patterns in the industry are more similar when one does look at the firms instead of workers. In both developed as well as under-developed nations, the female-owned organizations tend to operate in a limited number of industries that are populated by the smaller organizations as well as characterized by low value added and less growth potential. In addition to this, the women entrepreneurs are largely focused on the service sector as well as the business that conform to female responsibilities. So, these differences in gender in employment is more likely to work in sectors and jobs with lower productivity. On the other side, gender gap in agricultural productivity decreases significantly when the gender differences  in the range is controlled.

Figure 2: Employment segregation by gender

(Source: Huppatz and Goodwin 2013)

Occupational sex segregation and gender difference in the quality of employment 

Many accounts have been proposed for the relation between rewards as well as occupational gender segregation. As mentioned by Huppatz (2012), women select specific occupation due to some specific attributes they provide. The occupational choice of women could compensate for the earnings and for the poor opportunities for upward mobility. These jobs could require less working hours as well as a flexible work schedule as well as entail lower penalties related to the work separation. The female employees, limited by their dual roles as providers as well as caregivers, could select these occupations to fulfill the family-based responsibilities. In this context, Hsieh, Yang and Fu (2012) also commented that most women tend to prefer a balanced work-family based life; thus, select occupations that permit an effective combination of the two responsibilities. Notwithstanding, these preferences do not significantly reflect on a choice that has no limitation. Alternatively, Antecol and Cobb-Clark (2013) mentioned that women select occupation for the characteristics that they possess because of the gender essentialism. Hence, Walsh and Bartikowski (2013) also mentioned that women choose occupation populated by women as they prefer to or are comfortable in working with other women. It is also observed that women value job attributes that permit the social contacts that have less level of stress. Based on this perspective, it can be added that even though the occupations or jobs of women are poorer than the material rewards, the women should provide effective work conditions such as time, security and autonomy.

This is genuinely true for the female-dominated the occupation, as they offer condition that female worker accepts. This is because, the women as group could influence the work conditions to enable themselves to receive a better fit between the paid work as well as care work. The employers do not allow women to effective labor market positions. It is because of their inferior power positions in society and their work is devalued. As the consequence, they are pushed into low quality jobs.

The theories of discrimination as well as devaluation of women’s work consider a general detrimental effect of occupational sex segregation on the market rewards. The access of women to formerly male-dominated jobs occurs when work conditions in these occupations deteriorate.  Here, the concentration of women in any job will probably have a strong impact on the quality of jobs. In addition to this, the gender gap in female occupations could be larger compared to neutral occupation because men are much stronger positions than women are. The above-mentioned discussion implies that the quality of employment could be lower than the quality that men possess.

Conclusion:

On the completion of the report, it can be mentioned that the gender segregation in the labor market is a product of women’s preferences for specific types of occupation, which enable the women to combine work and family demands with a least amount of penalties. Based on the gender essentialism, it can be added that men as well as women prefer different qualities in their employment. Therefore, the women largely concentrate in occupations that are more attractive and interesting to them. These concepts could lead to the expectation that women are engaged in occupations that compensate for the lack of monetary rewards as well as the opportunity for advancement. In addition, it is further expected that the concentration of women is associated with enhanced employment conditions. The above-mentioned discussion also helps to learn that employment quality of women is projected to become lower than the qualities that men have. It is also anticipated that monetary rewards as well as other employment characteristics such as gender segregation in the labor market could be partially the outcome of choice developed by the women. Nevertheless, this does not make women’s position effective in the labor market.

References:

Antecol, H. and Cobb-Clark, D.A., 2013. Do psychosocial traits help explain gender segregation in young people's occupations?. Labour Economics, 21, pp.59-73.

Bygren, M., 2013. Unpacking the causes of segregation across workplaces. Acta Sociologica, 56(1), pp.3-19.

Cha, Y., 2013. Overwork and the persistence of gender segregation in occupations. Gender & Society, 27(2), pp.158-184.

Cohen, P.N., 2013. The persistence of workplace gender segregation in the us. Sociology Compass, 7(11), pp.889-899.

Grissom, J.A., Nicholson-Crotty, J. and Keiser, L., 2012. Does my boss's gender matter? Explaining job satisfaction and employee turnover in the public sector. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.

Gruys, K., 2012. Does this make me look fat? Aesthetic labor and fat talk as emotional labor in a women's plus-size clothing store. Social Problems, 59(4), pp.481-500.

Gruys, K., 2012. Does this make me look fat? Aesthetic labor and fat talk as emotional labor in a women's plus-size clothing store. Social Problems, 59(4), pp.481-500.

Guy, M.E., Newman, M.A. and Mastracci, S.H., 2014. Emotional labor: Putting the service in public service. Routledge.

Heilman, M.E., 2012. Gender stereotypes and workplace bias. Research in organizational Behavior, 32, pp.113-135.

Hsieh, C.W., Yang, K. and Fu, K.J., 2012. Motivational bases and emotional labor: Assessing the impact of public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 72(2), pp.241-251.

Huppatz, K. and Goodwin, S., 2013. Masculinised jobs, feminised jobs and men’s ‘gender capital’experiences: Understanding occupational segregation in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 49(2-3), pp.291-308.

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Walsh, G. and Bartikowski, B., 2013. Employee emotional labour and quitting intentions: Moderating effects of gender and age. European Journal of Marketing, 47(8), pp.1213-1237.

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