From evidence to action: Applying gender mainstreaming to pay gaps in the Welsh public sector

an article by Alison Parken and Rachel Ashworth (Cardiff University, UK) published in Gender, Work & Organization Volume 26 Issue 5 (June 2019)

Abstract

Progress on reducing gender disparities remains painfully slow, despite efforts to identify the determinants of gender pay gaps and specify size and shape.

Recent studies highlight the need for a more nuanced account of the way that public policy shapes organizational responses and insights into the types of organizational practices that diminish pay disparities.

In response, this research reports on an action research intervention in three large Welsh public organizations, subject to a unique statutory equality duty. Data demonstrate how an evidence‐based gender mainstreaming approach facilitated the development of a ‘no blame’ strategy, which legitimized organizational proactivity through collaborative and empowering change management processes.

The research contributes to the study of gender pay gaps by demonstrating that gender mainstreaming, with facilitative local conditions and supportive public policy, shapes action on gender segregation, with particular success in women's low‐paid employment.

Conclusions highlight theoretical and policy implications arising from the research.

Full text (PDF 20pp)

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How do occupational norms shape mothers’ career and caring options?

an article by Tanya Carney and Anne Junor (University of New South Wales, Australia) published in JIR: The Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 56 Nuber 4 (September 2014)

Abstract

Occupationally-differentiated patterns of paid work arrangements help shape the extent to which mothers of children under the age of 16 have access to both career and caring security (stable paid jobs with career prospects that also guarantee the ongoing capacity to provide and arrange high-quality care for children). Five sets of conditions critical to mothers’ work and caring security are:

• contracts providing two-way mobility between full-time and part-time work;
• actual hours worked;
• work scheduling; 
• work location; and 
• contractual security.

Occupations can be clustered into ‘shapes’, based on the relative mother-friendliness of different ways in which they combine these conditions. Some shapes provide both employment security and caring security; others involve types of flexibility focusing a trade-off between the two types of security.

Data for 64 occupations, taken from early waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) Survey, were used to identify statistical norms for key aspects of each employment condition, and also the strength of these norms – that is, how flexible they were, for better or worse. These occupational norms and strengths were assumed to reflect regulatory standards or commonly accepted organisational practices. The 64 occupations could be grouped into five shapes that were associated with different concentrations of mothers.

Occupational ‘shapes’ may thus act as barriers or enablers to mothers’ labour market transitions. They may tend to exclude mothers by denying caring security; allow employment maintenance based on a trade between caring and career security; or enable full occupational integration by providing both forms of security.

The concept of shapes aids theoretical understanding of the mechanisms of occupational segregation and labour market segmentation, and may aid the targeting of regulatory interventions to improve mothers’ access to both career and caring security.

The Women and Work Commission legacy in the age of austerity

an article by Rosalie Ward (Social Researcher, Policy Analyst and Writer, UK) published in Local Economy Volume 27 Number 8 (December 2012)

Abstract

In 2006 the UK Women and Work Commission found that significant pay inequalities between men and women in the workplace continued.

Many of the contributory factors were complex but, crucially, occupational segregation, lack of vocational qualifications, discrimination and fewer quality job opportunities enabling women to combine their work and care roles, needed to be addressed in order to close the gender pay gap.

Through the viewpoint of three senior women trade unionists, this article examines the findings and recommendations of the UK Women and Work Commission as set out in the first report 2006 and final report 2009. It assesses the progress made against the final recommendations and discusses the impact that the change in government policy direction, with its focus on deficit reduction, is having on closing the gender pay gap.

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Understanding the ethnic pay gap in Britain

an article by Malcolm Brynin and Ayse Güveli (University of Essex) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 26 Number 4 (August 2012)

Abstract

The pay gap between white British workers and other ethnic groups is largely in favour of whites, which suggests that discrimination might be a factor.

However, discrimination can occur at two points, at entry to the job and within the job.

In the former case non-whites might find it difficult to work in well-paid occupations; in the latter they obtain the same sorts of jobs as whites but receive less pay. There is therefore predominantly either job or wage discrimination.

We use the British Labour Force Survey 1993–2008 to show that much of the pay gap is explained by occupational segregation while within occupations the ethnic pay gap is far less substantial.

Occupational segregation therefore has strong negative effects, but if minorities are over-represented in occupations with a positive wage gap, then there is also a ‘protective’ element to segregation.

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