Krahn and Lowe, Work, Industry and Canadian Society:
Lowe and Krahn (eds.), Work in Canada: Readings in the Sociology of Work and Industry:
Krahn and Lowe, Work, Industry and Canadian Society:
Lowe and Krahn (eds.), Work in Canada: Readings in the Sociology of Work and Industry:
Think back to some of the readings in Unit 1, on the impact of industrialization on women. Think back to the articles you read by Cohen and Lowe, which directly addressed this question. The brief sketch of women's work on pages 150-152 of the textbook reveal the continual interplay between waged and unwaged work. Women's essential role in maintaining the family economy took many forms, as the studies by Cohen and Bradbury show. The concept of a family wage helps us understand the influence of social values in reinforcing existing, patriarchal, and therefore subordinate, patterns of women's work. But note how Parr's research in two Ontario manufacturing towns cautions us against adopting sweeping generalizations in this regard. According to her detailed research, women's employment was far more acceptable in some communities than others. Whatever women's position in the local labour market, it was justified by community-based gender ideologies. So within an overall framework of patriarchal attitudes and behaviour, there was considerable variation in women's employment.
The next issue considered in the reading is a familiar one from Unit 3: rapid rises in female labour force participation rates. As you can see in the figure on page 154, by international standards Canada has experienced remarkable changes in this respect in just two decades. Perhaps one of the key points in this discussion is how female labour force participation is interconnected with many other social and economic factors. The overall result, according to research by Jones, Marsden and Tepperman (pages 154-155), is that women's lives have become highly "individualized". Look at the wide variations in labour force participation rates in Figure 5.2 on page 155 for evidence of this individualization process.
The integration of women's private and public lives, or of household and labour force work, is most graphically seen in the "double day". This is the concept that feminist scholars developed to describe the fact that the domestic division of labour between male and female partners has lagged behind women's rapid entry into paid employment. Despite the fact that a large majority of Canadian families have two earners, the time budget research discussed in the reading (pages 157-159 of the textbook) documents the glaring inequities which still persist on the home front. Not surprisingly, work-family conflict is becoming a big concern now among employers. When reviewing the two studies on page 160 of the textbook, ask yourself how employer's policies -- which clearly are needed -- will address the "double day".
Change and continuity -- these are the paradoxes of women's work. The international comparison of labour force participation suggests that women in Canada, relatively speaking, have made considerable progress. Yet, at the same time, the sorts of inequities just discussed persist. So too do traditional forms of labour exploitation, such as the homework arrangements documented in the article by Dagg and fudge in Work in Canada. Recall from Unit 1 on work organization during the industrial revolution that industries, such as textiles in England, used a "putting out system". Today a version of this industrial homework is still common in the garment manufacturing industry. What is key, you will note from the article, is the pyramid subcontracting structure of the industry. The result is a hierarchy of exploitation, where at each link further down the chain working conditions and pay deteriorate. The women Dagg and Fudge studied are at the bottom of the pyramid. They and therefore the most highly exploited, unprotected by labour legislation or standards. Think about this research next time you go shopping for clothes!
The discussion of job ghettos, contrasting them with labour market shelters, invokes elements of labour market segmentation theory, from Unit 4. The women homeworkers described by Dagg and Fudge are unquestionably trapped in a job ghetto. The larger point made in this reading, on page 161, is that the higher probability of women being in such subordinate positions at the bottom of the labour market greatly increases their risk of poverty. Also note that the wider social context has to be brought into the analysis at this point, given that deeply entrenched social values and ideologies support this division of work along gender lines.
In the next part of the reading, you are given details of exactly how the labour market is organized into predominantly male and predominantly female occupations. A close inspection of the table on page 163 will soon reveal that a large percentage of all women workers are concentrated in a few occupations, the major one being clerical work. But when you turn to the next table, on page 164, you will discover that at the turn of the century clerical work was a male occupation. This feminization of clerical occupations demonstrates that gender labels and labour market structures are not permanent, a point also reiterated later in the discussion of women's entry into some of the professions. The other main observation to make about these trends is how the degree of segregation is decreasing, as women become more widely employed across the whole labour force.
These shifts in the gender composition of specific occupations and professions is also worthy of attention. It is here that we find a major paradox: women are making considerable headway entering high-status jobs, such as law, medicine and management, yet their mobility within these areas has been limited. One of the major reasons for the weakening of entry barriers to these occupations is the dramatic increase in women's educational levels, documented by the chart on page 166. Part of the explanation for this paradox is that, even though women are entering high-status occupations they run into a glass ceiling which prevents them from advancing to the top. In the next Section we will explore how factors such as the male culture of organizations and professions, combine with the lack of family-related policies (reviewed in the previous Section), that combine to form subtle barriers.
No doubt the most visible sign of gender inequality is the wage gap. One figure that may stick in your mind is that women working full-time year-round earn 68% of similarly employed males. But here is where human capital theory, which you will recall form Unit 4, falls down. It simply can't account for the continuing wage gap, as documented in the table on pages 169 and the chart on page 171. Nor, for that matter, can it explain why women, who are on average now better educated than men, still are underrepresented in the highest paying occupations. Something else that may give you pause is the systematically lower incidence of job benefits received by women, as documented in the graph on page 172. These wage and benefit patterns should be linked back to the reading you did in Units 3 and 4 about non-standard work, often found in lower-tier service industries. As Reiter's case study of Burger King documents, women are typically employed in this part of the economy.
The Unit ends with a discussion of how labour market gender segregation underlines the wage gap. Some of the research on this issue, exemplified by Gunderson's work cited on page 173, is a strong refutation of human capital theory. Observe that even after taking into account any potential differences in human capital, women still earn less than men.. The discussion then returns to the question of the pay-offs to education for women. But again, education does not open the doors to all occupations. While women's educational attainment has been steadily rising, their enrollment patterns by faculty is still limited. Take for example engineering, where a combination of social, cultural and organizational factors have created formidable barriers. In the remaining two Sections we will examine what these barriers are, how they operate, and how they can be eradicated.
Krahn and Lowe, Work, Industry and Canadian Society:
Lowe and Krahn (eds.), Work in Canada: Readings in the Sociology of Work and Industry:
A related contribution of feminist analysis is to reveal the limitations of other theories, such as labour market segmentation theory. We have already critically assessed human capital theory, for example by pointing out its inability to account for how women consistently earn less than men despite their high educational attainment (in Section 2). Now we briefly turn our attention to additional theoretical perspectives that take us beyond the structural focus of the labour market segmentation model. Remember how studies of segmentation emphasized the barriers that had become build into (institutionalized, or structured) labour markets and firms. Unit 4 identified the role of social attitudes on occupational gender segregation, essentially by labeling some jobs as "women's work". Now we expand this notion of stereotyping, to show how the socialization of girls and boys creates images in their minds of appropriate jobs. In this way, society reinforces existing labour market structures. As a result. women "choose" nursing or clerical work because other jobs -- such as engineering, as we shall soon see -- are not considered viable options.
A third perspective, focusing on job content and the organization of work, adds another crucial dimension to our analysis of gender inequality. The importance of integrating both structural and attitudinal factors into a unified explanation comes across in the discussion of Kanter's research, reviewed on pages 177 to 179. Try to follow the logic of her argument that "the job makes the person". Consider the various examples from her research of how women are victims of the very limited organizational roles into which they are recruited, and how male (and white) managers socially "clone" themselves. These are the organizational dynamics which ensure that women remain as clerks and secretaries, and men as managers. Kanter's perceptive organizational research shows how the glass ceiling, introduced in the last Unit, actually is erected. Perhaps her main point is that the structure of opportunities for individuals in organizations reinforces existing patterns of authority, inequality and rewards. In this respect, Kanter's research neatly clarifies how sociologists use the term "structure".
A useful exercise at this point in the Section is to review each of the perspectives discussed so far -- labour market segmentation, gender role socialization, and organizational -- and carefully consider how they help to answer questions about the origins, maintenance and recreation of male-female work inequalities. Look for the unique contributions of each perspective, then see how a far deeper and complete explanation of gender inequalities emerges when all three used together. This is not meant to suggest that once we have made this theoretical integration we have achieved a complete explanation. Far from it! Feminist scholars are continually pushing the theoretical frontiers by posing new research questions and offering fresh insights. An example would be Pingle's investigation of sexuality in organizational relationships in her study of secretaries (pages 179 - 180 of the textbook).The obvious connection here is with the problem of sexual harassment, to which we will turn our attention in the next Section.
The final reading in the Section is an article by McCormack, dissecting the cultural context which has made it difficult for women to pursue engineering careers. Even today engineering is the most male-dominated of the major professions. A quick glance back to the tables on pages 167 and 169 of the textbook will corroborate McCormack's data on this point. (The term "major" professions is used because, as the table on page 169 shows, there are proportionally fewer women working as pilots, but this is a much smaller profession than engineering). It is essential to remember the context in which McCormack's article was written: the aftermath of the massacre of fourteen female engineering students in December 1989 at Montreal's École Polytechnique. This tragic event sparked a national discussion about the social and cultural factors which have created a male "mystique" to engineering work. Clearly, by understanding the male "culture" of engineering it is possible to design policies that will make the profession more women-friendly.
McCormack's article is exemplary of the kind of probing feminist analysis that characterizes scholarship on and about women today. There are two basic themes in the article, both worthy of careful reflection. One is the idea of a male culture of science, technology and engineering. Culture is the appropriate term, because as you can see from the article, the world of nature and of things has been social constructed as a very masculine one. This point directly connects to the earlier discussion of gender role socialization, but it goes deeper, into the very conception of science and technology. The second theme is a challenge by McCormack for readers to imagine an engineering profession that operated according to feminist principles. The implications of this "feminization" for women's career opportunities and for society as a whole merit serious attention.
Krahn and Lowe, Work, Industry and Canadian Society:
Lowe and Krahn (eds.), Work in Canada: Readings in the Sociology of Work and Industry:
As you read the material for this Section, review in your mind how adequately the three sets of policies tackle the root causes of work-related gender inequality. In other words, to what extent is there a correspondence between the theories and research findings, reviewed in earlier Sections and in Unit 3, and the assumptions these policies make about the nature of the problem. To judge your own response to this reading, ask yourself what kinds of policies you would design to create greater gender equality in labour markets and workplaces, based just on the theories and research we have examined.
Employment equity is the major policy initiative that aims to remove the barriers which four historically disadvantaged groups have faced in the labour market. Women are the largest of these groups, with visible minorities, native Canadians, and the disabled making up the others. So when reading pages 180 to 182 in the textbook, it is important also to keep in mind the problems these other groups face, as compelling portrayed in the articles by Reitz, Calliste, Waldram, and McKay in Unit 4. Pay special attention to the passage quoted from the Abella Commission Report, which set the stage for federal employment equity legislation. Also note that the Canadian approach is to remove systemic discrimination, which refers to barriers built into employment systems which have the unintended consequence of giving one group an advantage. The goal is to ensure that all employment-related decisions are made solely on the basis of a person's ability, not their personal characteristics such as race or sex.
When you read the short description of the Bank of Montreal's employment equity policy, on page 182 of the textbook, you may wonder why such a large and fairly conservative institution would embark on such a change strategy. The answer, which applies increasingly to other employers as well, is that the full use of human resources is seen as creating more productive organizations. In what may appear to be a major shift in thinking, the bank now considers it a problem that so few of its well-qualified female employees move into senior management positions. For the bank, only tapping the male component of its staff means that it is overlooking the management potential of women employees. This is cold business logic -- get the best possible person into top positions -- and it does seem to be slowly creating more opportunities for women. An obvious question that arises, however, is what about the kind of women described by Dagg and Fudge in their article on homeworkers? So far, these highly exploited workers do not benefit form employment equity, or any other kind of policy described in this section. Thus, the main beneficiaries of employment or pay equity legislation are women employed in core sector firms or in government, often in sheltered internal labour markets, and who already have relatively decent working conditions.
As you detected from the reading, the thrust of employment equity is equality of opportunity in hiring and promotion. It addresses the kinds of organizational barriers that Kanter describes, in Section 3, that create gender stratification within firms. To close the wage gap, which you will recall from Unit 2 results from the gender-segregated structure of the labour market, an entirely different strategy is needed. In short, the problem pay equity tries to address is the fact that male-female pay differentials are due to the sexes being concentrated in entirely different occupations. Women are clerks or nurses; men are maintenance technicians or police officers. So pay equity legislation sets out a method for comparing different male and female jobs in the organization along four basic dimensions -- skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions -- and assigns points accordingly. This approach to job evaluation has been used for decades to set salaries for different jobs in an organization. Now it is being adapted to close the wage gap.
Pay equity claims to use a gender-neutral approach to job evaluation. As such, it questions the assumptions on which skill and other job attributes are based. This is the main point of Gaskell's article. In an insightful sociological analysis of the social basis of skill, Gaskell reveals how skill is "socially constructed." Even the pay equity evaluation system cannot fully escape the biases of assumptions about what is and isn't viewed as skilled, mainly because these notions are embedded in our culture. She argues that skill categories are not neutral, but have a social and a political content, meaning that they reflect the power structures and gender ideologies of the larger society. Gaskell's example of clerical work, on pages 208 to 212 of Work in Canada, raises this crucial issue of what constitutes skill.
The final policy deals with sexual harassment. This addresses one symptom of a much larger problem: that in patriarchal societies, men's domination of women takes many forms in many places, including the workplace. This point was the focus of the public discussions (and debates) that ensured in the aftermath of the murder of the 14 women engineering students, discussed in McCormack's article in Section 3. Recent research and media attention on the problem of violence against women, especially by their partners or husbands, therefore has a direct connection with the problem of sexual harassment. Again, it is essential to locate problems in the workplace within their wider social context.
Wishart's article in Work in Canada reflects the response of a major union (the Canadian Union of Public Employees) to the problem of sexual harassment. The article defines the problem in a way that can lead to solutions. While most instances of harassment may stop short of physical assault, the kinds of sexual coercion and annoyance Wishart describes create a "chilly climate" pervaded by fear, stress, and in which it is difficult for women to work. The issue is how a healthy work environment can be created, one in which all workers receive the full respect they deserve as human beings. Note again the role of the state in this issue. While Wishart is critical of the lack of effective legislation, recent court decisions she outlines show that slowly the legal system is responding to the problem. Unions can play an important role, educating their members about the problem and working on many fronts to eradicate the practice. Whether it will lead more women to actually join unions, as Wishart suggests on page 189, is an open question you may want to give some though to.
Canada, Report of the Commission on Equality in Employment [the Abella Report]. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1984.
Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Re-Evaluating Employment Equity: A Brief to the Special House of Commons Committee on the Review of the Employment Equity Act. Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1992.
Canadian Committee on Women in Engineering. More Than Just Numbers: Report of the Canadian Committee on Women in Engineering. Fredericton: Faculty of Engineering, University of New Brunswick, 1992.
Cockburn, Cynthia. In the Way of Women: Men's Resistance to Sex Equality in Organizations. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1991.
Cuneo, Carl. Pay Equity: The Feminist - Labour Challenge. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Fudge, Judy and Patricia McDermott (eds.). Just Wages: A Feminist Assessment of Pay Equity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Gunderson, Morley, L. Muszynski and J. Keck. Women and Labour Market Poverty. Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1990.
Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. New York: Viking Penguin, 1989.
Jones, Charles, Lorna Marsden and Lorne Tepperman. Lives of Their Own: The Individualization of Women's Lives. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books, 1977.
McIlwee, Judith S., and J. Gregg Robinson. Women in Engineering: Gender, Power and Workplace Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
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