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Family vs Work

Gender Differences In Employment

By SNROCINUTAFPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Family vs Work: Gender Differences In Employment

Written by: Abisola Ogundiran - February 11, 2021

Across the world, getting a job is more challenging for women than it is for men. In most cases, when women are employed, they tend to work in inferior jobs and vulnerable conditions.

Despite the significant effort made over the years in reducing gender inequalities in the labour market, gender gaps in employment rates remain. Furthermore, women keep on being consistently overrepresented in low-paid jobs as well as in temporary and part-time jobs.

And while it seems in the long term, there would be a convergence in employment opportunities – setting aside for now considerations on employment quality and conditions – it is important to note that recent advancements were majorly driven by a relative worsening of the male employment rate due to considerable job losses in male-dominated sectors during the economic crisis.

So, what's holding women back?

If you ask people why women remain so significantly underrepresented, you will most likely hear from the vast majority a complaint—an inevitable but unfortunate “truth”—that goes something like this: High-grade jobs require dedicating too long hours. But women’s dedication and devotion to their family makes it impossible for them to put in those long hours, and as a result, their careers suffer.

We describe this explanation as the family/work narrative. In a 2012 survey of more than 6,500 Harvard Business School alumni from many different industries, 73% of men and 85% of women invoked it to explain women’s stalled advancement. No matter how reasonable this explanation might sound, it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Women are wired differently. According to the family/work narrative and broader societal notions, their devotion to the family by nature is primary, so their commitment to work has to be secondary. Women are expected to adopt an intensive, “my family is everything” approach to parenting. Unfortunately, this family-first stance comes at a tremendous expense to their careers and creates limitations to their professional ambitions.

Most women that have tasted professional success would resist the idea that they belonged solely at home. Of course, the family-devotion schema is extremely important, but the idea of women splitting off the work component of their identities is very limiting.

Societal and cultural frameworks are insidious. At a lot of firms, the core problem was the ludicrous long work hours, and the substitute problem was the firm’s inability to promote women. This has adversely affected the rate at which women get promotions at their place of work.

According to many economists, career interruptions caused by the family-work narrative can undermine women’s economic prospects in numerous ways, by promoting the gender wage gap and by streamlining the pipeline that feeds top-level jobs. Although, for a lot of women, these interruptions may serve as the motivator to attain a more balanced life which may in turn exceed any lost financial benefits. Moreso, among young adults with children, women are much more likely than men to say being a parent makes it more difficult for them to get ahead at work. ]

Of course, women and men are affected by the family/work narrative. But in most cases, women pay higher professional costs. If we want to solve this problem, we must re-examine what we are willing to permit the workplace to demand all employees. Such a re-examination is absolutely possible. As employees and individual families stand up against overwork, they will pave the way for others to follow.

And as more research reveals the business advantage of adopting reasonable work hours for employees, employers will begin to question the wisdom of gruelling work schedules. If those forces gain traction, neither men nor women will feel the need to sacrifice the work domain for the home/family. And hence, women may begin to achieve workplace equality with men.

Resources: https://hbr.org/2020/03/whats-really-holding-women-back

Editor Note:

TJ Hyland February 11, 2021

It’s important to remember that the fight for equality does not mean eliminating all gender imbalance in the workplace. It means, eliminating discriminatory practices that cause people to select men over women for roles in which they’re perfectly qualified. It’s also about resolving the toxic notion that this stigma only negatively affects women too. Men are the highest percentage of labor exploitation in the world, but why is labor exploitation of men okay? It should not matter whether a person is a man or woman, being exploited is harmful to us all. When our society glorifyies exploitation it’s perpetuating the problem. Men also need family time, and time to themselves away from work for a healthy worklife balance. The employers requiring long hours, weekends, and holidays from all their workers are only trying to avoid hiring more people to do a workload that is too high. When will people be able to reclaim their time, reclaim their lives, and when will we stop assuming family life is only for women?

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SNROCINUTAF

Anti-Authoritarian Making Gandhi Sound Like Rush Limbaugh

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