Employment System

1. Employment System Gendered characteristics: highly sex segregated by type of work; jobs are differentially valued (males valued more, females less), wages are differentially paid (men make more, women less)

2. Gender typing • Jobs and people in jobs get “gender typed” • Gender-typing results from the social processes through which meaning is collectively generated and reinforced in workplaces, jobs, occupations (Wharton, p. 199) • Value and worth of job gets economically represented in wages, also in status, prestige that privileges masculine jobs and subordinates feminine ones

3. Reasons for Job Sex Segregation • Individual Choices and Socialization Theory • Human Capital Theory • Interaction Theory • Institutions/Organization Theory

4. Individual Choice Theory • Men and women sex segregate into jobs because they choose to; they make personal choices and find jobs that best suit individual needs/preferences. • They fill jobs that fit skills/abilities as individuals. (Wharton: only wet nurse/sperm donor fills this criteria) • Gendered socialization practices create preferences. Choices shaped by prior experience (from childhood)

5. Criticism of choice theory • Focus on individual ignores roles of institutions and culture • Idea of individual choice begins as a “sameness” theory but gendered socialization turns it into a difference theory • Socialization focus ignores processes of development and individual change (a person’s childhood choice is not their adult choice—individuals can/do change) • Research on career development breaks link between aspirations/skills-interests—”sex-typed preferences” are fluid and opportunities or events create interests • Women/men share same work values—want feeling of accomplishment, high income, chance for advancement, job security, short working hours. • People in atypical jobs still perform culture’s traditional gender roles/markers (women Marines wear make-up)

6. Human Capital Theory • People invest in them selves to increase their marketability and productivity in the capitalist marketplace through education, work experience (on-job-training), skill development, building social networks • Sexes begin with different capital because women have children and men do not (children are capital but it’s indirect). Women’s home roles reduce women’s human capital because time out from work for child bearing/rearing reduces human capital investment for women but not men. Reduces time spent on job getting training/experience—reduces productivity • Employers respond to differences and don’t create them (not discrimination just facts of market performance). • People look for jobs to match their investment (women for child-friendly jobs, men for capital appreciation jobs) hence creates sex segregated markets

7. Criticism of Human Capital Theory • If theory true then women with no kids or never married would function like men and want jobs like men’s jobs—research shows these women still work in sex segregated jobs • If theory true then women dominated jobs should be more child friendly to women (easier to re-enter after childbirth)—research shows not true • Again, men and women share values of wanting schedule flexibility and job performance ease in reducing work/family conflict—neither female/male dominated jobs better with these values • Human capital differences—1) investment in education measure; education gap closed with women majorities in higher ed. Yet still sex segregation in education and jobs; 2) work experience years women and men more alike in things that make productive employees yet persistence of sex segregation • Little evidence to support causes of sex segregation as sex differences in job-related preferences, skills, abilities. An essentialist difference theory.

8. Interaction Theory • Informal Behaviors: theory suggests that on-the-job social interactions of the employer are important causes in the perpetuation and maintenance of sex segregation: how employers select employees as they are the gatekeepers of the job and then how employers treat employees at the everyday level • Includes how employers formulate and structure opportunities for people informally • Includes subtle sexism theories and sex discrimination behaviors—subtle/overt discrimination seen in Lois Jenson class action case (Bingham and Gansler) seen in North Country 2005 film.

9. Jencks’ Discrimination Typology • Myopic: employer is short-sighted in their segregation/discrimination (easy way out economically irrational) • Principled: employer believes in male or female superiority for job (only men should be firefighters because of superior strength; only women should be nursery school teachers because of superior nurturing abilities). Economically irrational because limits candidate pool, decreases available supply could artificially drive up wages. • Statistical: employers assign group averages in performance to individuals (statistical calculation of needing height on job excludes everyone short—end up with predominately men) becomes economically rational expectation where group characteristics (sex/age) become screening devices to identify and exclude workers. Has meant that women more likely to be excluded from jobs requiring large employer on-the-job training investment (mothers/women need more time off). Example: finding women in finger dexterity jobs, men in spatial skills, nonrepetitive task, eye-hand-foot coordination jobs reflect employer views of sex abilities, turnover costs, work orientations • Consumer-Driven: employers believe will lose customers with another sex. Example: Abercrombie’s beautiful clerks with less beautiful hires • Worker-Driven: worker resistance to working w/opposite sex

10. Institutional Theory • Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act made it illegal to formally reserve some jobs for men and some for women (old newspaper job ads were sex segregated—”Looking for a good man to wash our windows” This is illegal today. Hooters?) • Formal Social Structures: how does differential treatment between women and men get institutionalized into organizational structures and policies—like hiring and promotion policies? • External Labor Markets: structures for hiring into an organization--employment • Internal Labor Markets: structures for advancement within an organization

11. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Claims Department: Technical Employees Lines of Supervision/Promotion prior to 1970Court case: Wetzel v. Liberty Mutual (Bergmann p. 108)

12. Institutionalized Barriers • Different hiring rules or practices—role of homophily in social network development—prefer and hire “people like themselves” • Rules for promotion differ between women/men (Liberty Mutual Example) • Seniority systems differences (get seniority based on time/productivity on the job—time off for childbearing counts against women) • Tools/technologies used on job may favor one sex or other (heavy equipment disadvantage to women) • Informal work norms differ for women/men affecting expectations (women need to be more physically appealing than men)

13. Social Closure • Processes by which one group closes off or monopolizes desirable positions for themselves, includes both exclusion and segregation—the “glass ceiling” effect, 5 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. • Men seek to preserve advantageous work arrangements, hence social closure more likely when job is more desirable, attractive, rewarding to men—better jobs will be reserved for men and women will be excluded • Men in predominately male jobs perceive entry of women as a threat to their power—resistance to women includes hostility and (sexual) harassment: quid pro quo—trade boss sex for promotion, hostile environment—offensive behavior • Male resistance to taking orders from women—sex role spillover—process of sex role expectations affect workplace behavior (women as wife/mom) • Men in women’s jobs more economically rewarded—Williams’ glass escalator (uses psychoanalytic theory about male needs to distinguish self from female) • Women gain status in men’s jobs, men lose status in women’s jobs

14. Occupational Ghettos • Gender typed occupational ghettos find women in less desirable jobs nonmanual (sales, service, clerical)---hypersegregation • Segregation studied most extreme in egalitarian, family friendly policy countries (Sweden, Norway). Compatibility of egalitarian ideals with essentialist beliefs where nonmanual work “default” home for part-timing women/mothers • Segregation regimes have logics: vertical segregation (men up/women down) of women in subordinate manual/nonmanual sectors due to logic of male primacy that represents men as more status worthy than women; horizontal segregation maintained through logic of gender essentialism (men/women have different tastes, capacities: women better at nonmanual service, men better at manual, Charles & Grusky) • Gender essentialism seen in deconstruction of emotional labor of jobs (service friendly, litigators mean); authority=male, deference “nice”=female; expectation of women as emotional managers affirming, enhancing, celebrating well-being of others (Hochschild)

15. Organizational Structure/Culture • If jobs/occupations structure in inequality through gender-typing, individual organizations can structure it out through changing practices (all women construction crews) • Highly formalized, bureaucratic hiring practices make it more difficult to enforce sex segregation because practices require accountability in decision-making processes (ex. Governments’ civil service) • With legal structures of affirmative action guaranteeing certain numbers (quotas?) mitigate sex segregation • Organizational re-formulations—collectivism, matrix structures, emphasis on teamwork working together may mitigate segregation impulses

16. Wage Differences • Overall everywhere women earn less money than men • Gender wage gap: ratio of women’s earnings to men’s earnings. Measured by comparing the median earnings of women/men who work full-time, year-round. In 2000—gender wage gap .72—means average full-time woman earning slightly less than ¾ of average full-time man. • Gap declined since mid-1970s, rose between 1995-2000. • In 1990 U.S., African-American women had ratio of 81% to African-American men, younger women (ages 25-29) earned 81.8% ratio to younger men but older women (45-49) 57.8% of men—cohort differences • In 1997 Sweden—women earned 89% of men, Greece and Netherlands 71%.

17. Job Worth • Why are men’s jobs worth more than women’s jobs? (Elementary school teachers make less than college professors) • Process of determining worth of job is gendered • Factors determining worth: skill level, productivity, employer investment needed (on the job training), employee investment needed (level of education), supply of workers vs. demand for workers • “Comparable worth” social movement sought to compare job tasks and wages and re-evaluate sex segregated labor

18. Job Evaluation • Method used to determine how pay is assigned to jobs and to justify (or critique) relative pay rates • The requirements of the job not the performance of a single individual on that job • Individuals differ in merit and seniority but pay range confines individual variation • Evaluation systems—simple ranking of “payworthiness” or wages assigned based on a point system assigned to tasks but female jobs given fewer points than they merit and male jobs given boost in ranking—stacked system

19. Social Change • Comparable worth lawsuits tried to address problem of female jobs systematically paid less than male jobs—the well-established research finding—with less judicial success but public/private organizations attempt to rationalize job evaluation and wage policies to reduce gender bias • Charles & Grusky argue that the ideals of liberal egalitarianism will undergird a decline in vertical sex segregation—women will aspire to higher status work with more educational attainment, discrimination against women should decrease with liberal beliefs but maybe more with the logic of “reward equalization” • Sanctions against gender atypical work declining although more women still may not want to desegregate manual sector • Since horizontal segregation depends on essentialist ideology the question is will there be the politics and will to overcome the ideology? Social conservatives and liberals hold essentialist views that undergird segregation—women in combat.

20. References • Wharton Chapter 6 • Barbara Bergmann, The Economic Emergence of Women (1986; 2nd edition 2005) • Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler, Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law (2002—basis for North Country 2005 film) • Maria Charles & David B. Grusky, Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men (2004) • Katharine T. Bartlett, Angela P. Harris, Deborah L. Rhode, Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary (2002) • Arlie Hochschild, The Managed Heart (1983)