Introduction
Gender Inequality in the Workplace Allegra McNeill SOCI 3322 this portion of the proposal takes a view of the background information of the study, statement of the research problem and the study purpose. These three elements are discussed in the details to follow. Background of the Study According to public information that was compiled by The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the issue of gender in the work place has recently become a matter of concern. The global gender ratio of the work place is 53% male workers to 17% female workers. More so, the percentage of women represented in this labor force bracket is mainly concentrated in industry as casual workers. In other areas of employment such as the health care sector, trade and entertainment, statistics show that women have better opportunities to showcase their abilities to contribute to the development of the economy. However, it is a clear that the overall unemployment rate among women is much lower than that of men. Gender in the work place is such an important area that relevant policies must be put in place to address these issues, if globally, we are to achieve a social balance of income distribution between males and females.
Women have been a victim of common stereotypes that discourage them from occupying jobs compared to their male counterparts. This research paper therefore aims at examining the critical issues that contribute to these common trends of gender occupation in different sectors in the economy. The main focus would be looking at the response into which firms have created an environment that would allow for gender equality in the first place. This research also aims at establishing the correlation equal rights between men and women in the work place. It also aims at assessing the criteria in relation to gender sensitivity at which different firms incorporate their work force. The research also aims at examining the criteria used to reward men for job performance compared to their women counterparts. There has been extensive research on this subject, as many others have tried to cover this sensitive issue. The majority of research has not yielded satisfactory findings, especially issues concerning the recruitment and the general balance of men and women in the work place. This proposal will utilize the quantitative method as the basis to arrive at its findings. The American economy is characterized with the scarcity of women in workplaces. This happens even through women are among the most qualified professional. Workplace management and organization in most firms in the US is project based.
Many consequences are associated with this kind of organization. They include unpaid overtime, tireless working in long hours and high expectation of flexibility among employees. This is due to the expectation to meeting the demands of clients. This is also accompanied by the need for arrangement to negotiated flexible conditions (Nelson et al., 2002). The project managers often subject to much discretion on whether to accommodate or ignore incorporating such situations. Therefore studies suggest that women are particularly looked down upon and disadvantaged in such systems. This could be the basis to explaining their under representation in particular jobs. Studies have established women experiences in various work places. This is because they have often understood the nature the complexity that women face. Categorically, they categorized the problems in to three major categories.
The first problem is the general tendency of men dominance in the places of work. Women feel isolated. This creates conflict between them and a scientist that establishes explores such awareness. This constitutes to the second and third problems respectively. Negative perception and ideologies overwhelm various workplaces and also in the family. At exactly during their initial career stages, women efforts capabilities are doubted. For instance, no female deans existed in the early days. This covered almost every institute of learning. Furthermore, there were norms and beliefs that generally oppressed women. Female positions of director were unthinkable. Statistics suggest that concentrated efforts are of much need in analyzing the experiences of women. This includes efforts from scientists and collectively, women’s problems will be addressed (International labor organization, 1999). Women get paid very lowly in their job designations. Such jobs include the cleaning industry, child care and house helpers. As a result, recent trend show that women are considering joining ordinary and traditionally jobs that are projected to be some male kind of jobs. This includes engineering among other.
In the United States of America, Women that are breaking with tradition and aspire to have male dominated careers are exposed to discrimination and other matters that create a hostile work environment that could impact their health. For instance, their mental health may be directly affected by the stresses caused by the work environment. Women feel being forced to taking jobs that are related to high risk conditions. They do this desperately to prove their capabilities in performing tasks that is in equal measure to their counterparts. Many researchers have specifically examined all social and cultural determinants that contribute the low women representations in various top managerial positions. This has been analyzed across the entire globe both in public and private firms.
The findings reveal that in all scenarios, both female and male correspondents are carried by the perceived societal culture. This has a big impact to influencing their general thinking and how they perform things in their day to day routine. The culture and society organization is reported as being favorable to the male. Furthermore, the male respondents reported to uphold the belief of hierarchical relationships. This proves the evidence of the societal beliefs leading to the economic structure in the United States of America. In many locations across the globe, there is the general belief that male have a commanding and assertive characteristics. Women on the other hand do comply and remain obedient, submissive and always docile (Philips et al., 2003). This has lessened their aggregate chance to exist in a competitive environment in relation to their male counterparts. It is due to negatively designed structured policies in the American economy that oppresses the opportunities and contributions of women in the labor market. This research has keenly observed and analyzed the reforms and the extent of gender expression. This was successfully done at work places and findings were based on various dimensions including career, sociological and legal aspects. Randomly collected information constitutes to the composition of data from education and medicine sectors. Other sectors include administration, health and media. These sectors were identified to give a base of the reality about the situation of gender equality in reflection to various job designations. The data interpretation was made in relation to the variance and constructs manifestation in actual situations. Concrete findings and results are the main focus of the research. Again, the data composed of 50 samples of respondents who were randomly drawn. They represented the sectors as mentioned above and various variables were attached in them. The questionnaire and structure of the questions focused more on the reflection of the background knowledge of the sector working places as mentioned above.
Unskilled sectors of the economy were left out of this research. This is because, findings and responses was going to be collected electronically and not manually. Both external and internal validation was composed in a consistent manner to give and allow room for changes. This was also high relied in giving out consistency. Under the hypothesis as projected in the initial stages, results shows that there exists a very significant correlation between perceptive reality and gender equality on bases of career and the other dimensions mentioned above. However, though this was evident enough, there are also some limitations of this criterion. This is because the correspondents were merely selected only direct from elites and middle level workforces. Therefore, going by this trend, the research could reflect a variation results in the two levels. This method of collecting data proved to be very efficient. This is because it projected the best possible results that portray the actual situation on the ground. It further one among the best ever method for analyzing and proving ideologies. The sequential organization is likely to provide a more comprehensive finding that can effectively be relied upon to understand the structure of gender issues in the work place.
References
Nelson, D. L., & Burke, R. J. (2002). Gender, work stress, and health. Washington, D.C: American Psychological Assoc.
Pfeffer, J., The human equation: building profits by putting people first, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Business
International Labour Organisation, ‘Women, gender and work’ (Part I), International Labour Review, Vol. 138,
No. 3, Geneva, ILO, 1999.
Phillips, A. and Taylor, B., ‘Sex and skill: notes towards feminist economics’, Feminist Review, No. 6, 2003.
