differenceblog, posts by tag: workplace - LiveJournal

John Carvel (2007), writing for the Guardian (UK), discusses the final report of the UK's Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). The EOC's latest and last campaign, the "Gender Agenda" includes eyecatching graphics and an online quiz on how sexual inequality affects your life: Sex Equality MOT. (Note: you can not get results without answering that you live in England, Scotland, or Wales.) The EOC's final report "Completing the Revolution" (2007), warns that equality in Scotland is still "generations away", estimating it will take 200 years to close the "power gap" in Parliament. Other "fun facts" provided include:

• Women do 78% more housework than men.
• Part time female employees earn 34% less than their male counterparts.
• Full time female employees earn 14% less than their male counterparts.
• Men are only 60% as likely as women to have a "flexible" work schedule.

The EOC will be incorporated into the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) on October 1, when the new organization will also absorb the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission. See Madeleine Bunting (2007) (also Guardian) for more on the history of the EOC.

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The Sex Equality MOT is a nice idea, but a brutally bad implementation. All of the questions are based on the taker's subjective feelings about the environment of sexism in their own lives. I'm not immediately thinking of a better way to handle the questions, but the scoring could certainly be improved by providing a scale. I scored a 15, but I don't know if that's out of 15, 20, or 100 points. The questions on the MOT also leave me concerned about the questions used in the EOC's research. For example, the first question and available answers are: "Where you work, do you think women and men have an equal chance of getting the better paid jobs? Yes equal, fairly equal, fairly unequal, very unequal." While I do think that circumstances in which this question could be answered in the opposite manner that it is intended are rare, the phrasing of the question is obviously more of a "consciousness-raising exercise" than a survey.

Gay men and women have many challenges in the workplace. Some are similar; some are different. Chung and Harmon (1994) suggest that gay men are more likely to be interested in traditionally feminine careers than straight men, although they found that masculinity/femininity was not a predictor (as determined by BSRI). Adams et al (2005) did not find that Latino gay and lesbian youth felt restrictions on their career choices based on either their gender or sexual orientation.

Nam Cam Trau and Härtel (2004) suggest that the extra energy needed by gay men to explore and consolidate their gay identity takes away time that straight men have available to put towards career exploration. In addition, they suggest that the lack of a female partner at business social events makes personal bonding with those in a position to help these men advance difficult. Nam Cam Tau and Härtel feel that these are challenges that probably face lesbians as well. However, this study included both out and closeted gay men. Peplau and Fingerhut (2004) work from the assumption of openness in their study of lesbian workplace issues. They find that stereotypes about lesbians depict them as more competent and committed workers than their straight counterparts.

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In the 1995 movie Jeffrey, Nathan Lane's character "Father Dan" says: "I'm a Catholic priest. Historically, that falls somewhere between chorus boy and florist." The idea of traditionally gay careers is well established (at least for men). However, given the general artifact of lesbian invisibility, I was very surprised by Peplau and Fingerhut's results based on a survey of heterosexual undergraduates. In the study, the students were given written examples of a "straight woman" and a "lesbian", but in real life, that distinction is rarely so straightforward.

Another issue I had with the studies used today was the sample sizes. Adams interviewed eight people; Nam Cam Trau and Härtel interviewed five. Finding a reasonable sample of willing participants for gay and lesbian studies is a constant issue.

Morgan et al (2001) found both men and women ranked "interesting work" as a high priority when determining their career choices, as determined by college major. However, the two groups seemed to find different things interesting: men were more likely to be enrolled in math or physical science programs, whereas women were more likely to choose education or arts/humanities. No difference was found in the fields of health care, social sciences, or business. Morgan et al also found that women listed interpersonal goals as more important, and status goals as less important, than their male counterparts.

Fernandez et al (2006) suggest that sexism is related to college program choice. They found in undergraduates at the University of Vigo (Spain) that both men and women in technical programs expressed more sexist attitudes than those in other programs. Nadya Fouad's 2006 review on vocational psychology calls gender and sexual orientation "contextual influences" on career choice, but notes that little research has been done on sexual orientation. More discussion of sexual orientation's influence on career development will follow tomorrow.

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My college career was just as mixed up as the rest of my life has been. When the application asked for my "first choice" major, I answered "mathematics." My second-choice major was listed as "theatre." Unsurprisingly, I got my first choice, although I ended up changing majors from math to theatre a mere three months into my college career. Two years into that program, I switched my concentration from "performance" to "technical" (although my course load was so mixed up by this point that I ended up graduating with a "generalist" degree -- a "Bachelor of Science in Theatre Generalism", actually). A decade later, I find myself two years into a psychology program, but increasingly drawn to (and intimidated by) biology.

Zhang (2007), in a report for Statistics Canada reported that Canadian women were now no more likely to quit a job than men. The data analyzed were from the Longitudinal Worker File (LWF), an ongoing survey of a 10% sample of Canadian workers. In 1984, 5.5% of Canadian men quit their jobs, compared to 7.0% of women, but by 1994, the women's quitting rate had dropped to 5.6% while men's quit rate remained stable. In 2002, 7.6% of men and 7.7% of women had quit their jobs. While the study suggests that maternity leave is a major factor (4.2% of women took temporary maternity leave in 2002), it does not say whether Canadian legislation has changed the availability of maternity leaves during the period studied. The study also does not attempt to explain the dramatic rise in both men's and women's quit rates between 1994 and 2002.

In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a similar tool to the LWF, the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY). NSLY data is collected from a "nationally representative" cohort. (12,686 in 1979, and 9,000 for the 1997 cohort). Royalty (1998) concluded from NLSY-79 data that gender differences in voluntary job-to-job and job-to-unemployment mobility were due to the behaviour of less-educated women. The differences in job mobility were significantly different for less educated women than from more educated women, and men in both categories.

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I never quit a job for pregnancy and never missed a day of work or school due to menstrual issues, but thinking about this article, I realize that I did quit a job to follow a lover. It seems like many of the heterosexual couples I know relocate based on the man's job prospects more readily than they do for the woman's job prospects. When the man is making more money than the woman, increased priority to his job seems to make financial sense, but if the woman's income is hampered by increased job leaving, then what does that prove?

Despite ample evidence that women tend to have worse jobs, studies find that women report equal or higher levels of job satisfaction as men. While many studies seem to focus on the women's relative happiness, asking "Why Aren't Women More Dissatisfied?" (Hodson 1989) or "Why are women so happy at work?" (Clark 1997), few studies seem to examine why men are so unhappy. An HR Solutions 2007 survey suggests that job fit and career development are predictors of job satisfaction among women, whereas feeling included in decisions and senior management's concern for employees were predictors for men. These sorts of results suggest the hypothesis that locus of control would have a differential effect on men's and women's job satisfaction; however, Muhonen and Torkelson's 2004 study examining this relationship had mixed results.

Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza (2003) suggest that gender differences in job satisfaction are decreasing. Hodson (1989) suggested that when job characteristics, personal expectations, and family responsibility are controlled, these differences shrink. Andrew Clark (1987) goes further by pointing out that young, educated professional women and women in male-dominated fields do not show a boost in job satisfaction, which he suggests is due to similar job expectations to their male counterparts.

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Hodson also suggests that men may be more willing to "verbalize dissatisfaction"; however, we discussed the socialization of complaining in December ("Valid Complaints" 12/1/06), and found that in couples interaction, women were more likely to complain. This suggests to me that the acceptability of complaints is situationally dependent. I personally have a bad habit of bitching about my jobs. It's bitten me in the ass more than once. However, I don't think my level of complaining has decreased since my transition, but I do think people are less offended by it.

Connie Llanos (2007), reporting for the L.A. Daily News, says that "men are ignoring the social stigmas associated with nursing and finding that the job is not just women's work." The medical industry is actively recruiting men to combat the nationwide nursing shortage. Jerry Lucas, editor of Male Nurse Magazine, told Llanos he "felt compelled" to get men interested in nursing after working in New York City after September 11th. Progress, however, is slow. Jean P. Fisher (2007) reporting for the NC News & Observer says that 3% of RNs in North Carolina were male in 1985. Twenty years later, men still make up only 7%. "The biggest challenge is still getting men to see nursing as a masculine role," Billy Bevill (VP of recruiting at NCCN) told Fisher.

Simpson (2004) reported that men in female-dominated careers "adopt a variety of strategies to re-establish a masculinity that has been undermined by the ‘feminine‘ nature of their work." Beck et al (2006) found that boys were less comfortable than girls in entering into a non-traditionally-gendered career. Gender stereotypes do have a significant effect on the workplace conditions for male nurses. Evans (2002) suggests that the stereotype of males as sexual aggressors impacts the ability of a male nurse to do his work. Yassi et al (1995) did not find significant gender differences in workplace injury rates between male and female nurses, despite Floge and Merrill's (1986) observation that male nurses were asked to lift things more often than female nurses.

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As I've mentioned before, I gravitate towards other-gendered fields. There may be some truth to my mother's insistence that I have to put myself in the minority. However, I think that the important thing to look at between yesterday's Girl Geeks! and today's post is the implication that women are empowered by entering into male fields, whereas men are weakened by entering into female fields. This inherent sexism is probably too obvious to be worth stating, but I don't see any obvious solution.

Ichino and Moretti (2006) suggest that a substantial portion of the wage gap between men and women can be tied to menstrual cycles. Ichino and Moretti conclude that 11.8% of the earnings gap can be explained by absenteeism on a 28-day cycle. Slap's 2003 review suggests that 75% of adolescent girls suffer from problems associated with menstruation as well, and that this is a leading cause of doctor's visits among this group. In contrast, Hardie (1997) found no differences in absenteeism or work performance between women pre- during-, or post-menstrually and men.

Whether menstruation can or should be optional has been under investigation for some time. Loudon et al (1977) reported "enthusiastic" tolerance of an oral contraceptive regimen that reduced the number of periods nearly 30 years ago. More recently, Kaunitz (2000) pointed out that in modern society, women menstruate up to 3 times as often as in "primitive societies." Archer et al. (2006) reported this month that continuous oral contraception has similar safety and efficacy rates to cyclic oral contraception, a result that Reuters reported as meaning that ending periods was safe for most women (although this interpretation may be too broad).

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Patri Friedman drew my attention to Ichino and Moretti. I am interested to see how their research translates cross-culturally, since I can't speak to working conditions in Italy. Hardie's study, which focused on actual reported cyclic data, as opposed to Ichino and Moretti's 28-day assumption, feels more likely to be accurate to me, but I'm aware of a bias in my own thinking, since my menstrual symptoms were rarely severe. Hardie did find that "self-diagnosed" PMS did correlate with health and work problems, so these results obviously require closer scrutiny.

It's worth noting that in the last post about menstruation, it seemed that women were at their closest to male responses during their periods, which makes it seem odd that avoiding it would decrease the gender gap.

Mirowsky and Ross's 1995 meta-analysis found that in addition to expressing distress more openly, women also experience more distressing emotions, including anger, while men and women score roughly equally on happiness. (If adjusting for the total emotion load, women appear to be less happy than men). However, Hess et al. (2005) found that social expectations are for men to express anger and women to express happiness. In other words, women experience more anger and men experience more happiness, but they are expected to display the opposite.

Davis et al (1992) suggest that the perception of confrontation has significant gender differences. Women may be less confrontational because they find confrontation more upsetting. However, another contributing factor may be related to predicted results. Cole (2004) found that in disciplinary interactions with employees, women tended to be fairer than men. If these findings are correct, it may be that people expect interactions with women to have better overall results, leading to less conflict escalation.

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[note: Article and commentary will appear in one post from now on.]

One of the first times that I made a serious misstep as a man was in supervising a student worker at my job. She'd come in late, and copped an attitude because I didn't trust her to accomplish something on schedule, so I'd started it for her. She snapped at me; I snapped back. Now, I'm able to see now how I was wrong in more ways than just the male-female interaction, but at the time, the disciplinary action taken against me felt entirely out of proportion. It seems to me now that it was because I had reacted like we were both women. A man yelling (even a short, effeminate one, apparently) is socially different than a woman yelling. Even now, although I'm probably one of the least threatening guys you'll ever meet, I still have to work to take into account that my temper has different connotations than it had before.