an article by Margaret Robertson (Retired, Scotland) and Andy Clark (Newcastle University, UK) published in Work, Employment and Society Volume 33 Issue 2 (April 2019)
Abstract
Current understandings of worker mobilisation against factory closure and capital migration in Britain are dominated by the perspectives of male industrial workers. The narratives of displaced miners, shipbuilders and steel workers are prominent in the historiography and collective memories of deindustrialisation.
There is considerably less understanding of the response of female manufacturing workers to these processes and the ways in which women mobilised in opposition to the free movement of capital.
This article presents the testimony of Margaret Robertson, shop steward at the Lee Jeans factory in Greenock, Scotland, where the predominantly female workforce conducted a successful seven-month occupation in opposition to proposed closure beginning in February 1981.
The contribution highlights the specific gendered challenges encountered by women workers. The occupation occurred in a period of accelerated factory closure in Britain, yet supporting female unionists resisting job loss was not a priority for the male-dominated union executive.
Full text (PDF 9pp)
Showing posts with label occupation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label occupation. Show all posts
Monday, 18 March 2019
Wednesday, 14 December 2016
Skill composition of immigration flows and the measurement of education-occupation mismatch
an article by Jacques Poot (University of Waikato and IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor) and Steven Stillman (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor) published in IZA Journal of Migration Volume 5 Article 18 (2016)
Abstract
Recent papers have found that often immigrants are overqualified relative to native-born workers when comparing an individual’s education to the ‘average’ education in their occupation. We show that these results are sensitive to differences in the education distribution between immigrants and the native born.
Using data for New Zealand, which has an immigration policy that favours skilled immigrants, we find that this approach leads one to conclude that immigrants are, on average, overqualified for their occupation. However, once we account for the fact that immigrants are on average more skilled than natives, we find that immigrants are, in fact, less over-educated than natives.
JEL classification: F22, J21, J61
Full text (HTML)
Abstract
Recent papers have found that often immigrants are overqualified relative to native-born workers when comparing an individual’s education to the ‘average’ education in their occupation. We show that these results are sensitive to differences in the education distribution between immigrants and the native born.
Using data for New Zealand, which has an immigration policy that favours skilled immigrants, we find that this approach leads one to conclude that immigrants are, on average, overqualified for their occupation. However, once we account for the fact that immigrants are on average more skilled than natives, we find that immigrants are, in fact, less over-educated than natives.
JEL classification: F22, J21, J61
Full text (HTML)
Monday, 20 October 2014
Being occupied: An embodied re-reading of organizational ‘wellness’
an article by Karen Dale (Lancaster University, UK) and Gibson Burrell (University of Leicester, UK) published in Organization Volume 21 Number 2 (March 2014)
Abstract
‘Organisational wellness’ has become a high profile issue for businesses. We argue that a ‘wellness movement’ has sprung up around a particular coalescence of economic, ideological and organisational interests.
In this article we re-read the discourse of this ‘movement’ through the lens of ‘organised embodiment’. We argue that organisational wellness operates as a rhetorical device which masks contradictory power relations. It serves to hide differential occupational effects and opportunities for workers, and obscures the relationship between wellness and its necessary Other, unwellness.
The article suggests that employee unwellness is often produced — and required — by the different forms of organised embodiment that arise directly from occupations and employment. It analyses this corporeal ‘occupation’ in terms of the extortion, exchange and embrace of our bodies to the coercive, calculative and normative power of the organisation. Thus, our organisational experiences produce an embodied individual who is ‘fit’ for purpose in a rather more circumscribed fashion than prevailing discourses of wellness might suggest.
Abstract
‘Organisational wellness’ has become a high profile issue for businesses. We argue that a ‘wellness movement’ has sprung up around a particular coalescence of economic, ideological and organisational interests.
In this article we re-read the discourse of this ‘movement’ through the lens of ‘organised embodiment’. We argue that organisational wellness operates as a rhetorical device which masks contradictory power relations. It serves to hide differential occupational effects and opportunities for workers, and obscures the relationship between wellness and its necessary Other, unwellness.
The article suggests that employee unwellness is often produced — and required — by the different forms of organised embodiment that arise directly from occupations and employment. It analyses this corporeal ‘occupation’ in terms of the extortion, exchange and embrace of our bodies to the coercive, calculative and normative power of the organisation. Thus, our organisational experiences produce an embodied individual who is ‘fit’ for purpose in a rather more circumscribed fashion than prevailing discourses of wellness might suggest.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Masculinised jobs, feminised jobs and men’s ‘gender capital’ experiences: Understanding occupational segregation in Australia
an article by Kate Huppatz (University of Western Sydney, Australia) and Susan Goodwin (University of Sydney, Australia) published in Journal of Sociology Volume 49 Number 2-3 (June-September 2013)
Abstract
Australia features a highly segregated workforce where certain occupational spaces appear to privilege particular gendered dispositions. While research on gender and work highlights the association between occupational segregation and gender inequality, conventional explanations of why men and women continue to be concentrated in different occupations, and in different roles within occupations, can be considered problematic.
This article argues that we may be able to achieve a deeper understanding of gendered occupational segregation than previous explanations have offered by appropriating Bourdieu’s concept, ‘capital’.
Drawing on qualitative research with Australian workers we explore men’s ‘gender capital experiences’ within masculinised and feminised occupations.
The article discusses how male, masculine and feminine embodiments can operate as capitals which may be accumulated and transacted, perpetuating horizontal gender segregation in the workforce but also vertical segregation within occupations.
In doing so, we expand the work of feminist Bourdieusian scholars who have reworked Bourdieu’s approach so that gender, as well as class, may be understood as a central form of stratification in the social order.
Abstract
Australia features a highly segregated workforce where certain occupational spaces appear to privilege particular gendered dispositions. While research on gender and work highlights the association between occupational segregation and gender inequality, conventional explanations of why men and women continue to be concentrated in different occupations, and in different roles within occupations, can be considered problematic.
This article argues that we may be able to achieve a deeper understanding of gendered occupational segregation than previous explanations have offered by appropriating Bourdieu’s concept, ‘capital’.
Drawing on qualitative research with Australian workers we explore men’s ‘gender capital experiences’ within masculinised and feminised occupations.
The article discusses how male, masculine and feminine embodiments can operate as capitals which may be accumulated and transacted, perpetuating horizontal gender segregation in the workforce but also vertical segregation within occupations.
In doing so, we expand the work of feminist Bourdieusian scholars who have reworked Bourdieu’s approach so that gender, as well as class, may be understood as a central form of stratification in the social order.
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Do psychosocial traits help explain gender segregation in young people's occupations?
an article by Heather Antecol (Claremont McKenna College, USA and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Germany) and Deborah A. Cobb-Clark (Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Germany and University of Melbourne, Australia) published in Labour Economics Volume 21 (April 2013)
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of psychosocial traits in the occupational segregation of young workers entering the U.S. labour market.
We find entry into male-dominated fields of study and male-dominated occupations are both related to the extent to which individuals have “masculine” traits and believe they are intelligent, while entry into male-dominated occupations is also related to the willingness to work hard, impulsivity, and the tendency to avoid problems.
The nature of these relationships differs for men and women, however.
Psychosocial traits (self-assessed intelligence and impulsivity) also influence movement into higher-paid occupations, but in ways that are similar for men and women. On balance, psychosocial traits provide an important, though incomplete, explanation for segregation in the fields that young men and women study as well as in the occupations in which they are employed.
Highlights
► We study the effect of psychosocial traits on occupational segregation among labour market entrants.
► These traits affect entry into male-dominated fields of study (occupations) differentially by gender.
► Psychosocial traits also affect entry into higher-paid occupations in similar ways for men and women.
JEL classification: J24, J16, J31
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of psychosocial traits in the occupational segregation of young workers entering the U.S. labour market.
We find entry into male-dominated fields of study and male-dominated occupations are both related to the extent to which individuals have “masculine” traits and believe they are intelligent, while entry into male-dominated occupations is also related to the willingness to work hard, impulsivity, and the tendency to avoid problems.
The nature of these relationships differs for men and women, however.
Psychosocial traits (self-assessed intelligence and impulsivity) also influence movement into higher-paid occupations, but in ways that are similar for men and women. On balance, psychosocial traits provide an important, though incomplete, explanation for segregation in the fields that young men and women study as well as in the occupations in which they are employed.
Highlights
► We study the effect of psychosocial traits on occupational segregation among labour market entrants.
► These traits affect entry into male-dominated fields of study (occupations) differentially by gender.
► Psychosocial traits also affect entry into higher-paid occupations in similar ways for men and women.
JEL classification: J24, J16, J31
Monday, 23 August 2010
Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages
an article by Deborah A Cobb-Clark (The University of Melbourne and IZA) and Michelle Tan (Australian National University) published by ScienceDirect: Labour Economics as an accepted manuscript on 6 August 2010
Abstract
This paper examines whether men’s and women’s noncognitive skills inuence their occupational attainment and, if so, whether this contributes to the disparity in their relative wages. We find that noncognitive skills have a substantial effect on the probability of employment in many, though not all, occupations in ways that differ by gender. Consequently, men and women with similar noncognitive skills enter occupations at very different rates. Women, however, have lower wages on average not because they work in different occupations than men do, but rather because they earn less than their male colleagues employed in the same occupation. On balance, women’s noncognitive skills give them a slight wage advantage. Finally, we find that accounting for the endogeneity of occupational attainment more than halves the proportion of the overall gender wage gap that is unexplained.
This paper uses confidentialised unit record file data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (MIAESR). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to FaHCSIA or MIAESR.
Abstract
This paper examines whether men’s and women’s noncognitive skills inuence their occupational attainment and, if so, whether this contributes to the disparity in their relative wages. We find that noncognitive skills have a substantial effect on the probability of employment in many, though not all, occupations in ways that differ by gender. Consequently, men and women with similar noncognitive skills enter occupations at very different rates. Women, however, have lower wages on average not because they work in different occupations than men do, but rather because they earn less than their male colleagues employed in the same occupation. On balance, women’s noncognitive skills give them a slight wage advantage. Finally, we find that accounting for the endogeneity of occupational attainment more than halves the proportion of the overall gender wage gap that is unexplained.
This paper uses confidentialised unit record file data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (MIAESR). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to FaHCSIA or MIAESR.
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