‘Surfing on the ironing board’ – the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German newspapers

Despite extensive attempts to enhance women's entrepreneurship in Germany, a gender gap continues to exist. This article sets out to analyse the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German media, by analysing how it is depicted in newspapers and how this changes over time. Images transported in media might regulate the nature of women's entrepreneurship, as they contain information about ‘typical’ and ‘socially desirable’ behaviour of women as well as of entrepreneurs. This article contributes to developing an understanding of the relevance of media representation of the entrepreneurship phenomenon for influencing the propensity towards entrepreneurial activity.     

The Sorting of Female Careers after First Birth: A Competing Risks Analysis of Maternity Leave Duration

A number of contributions have found evidence that motherhood is a critical life event for women's employment careers. This study presents a detailed analysis for the duration of maternity leave in which young mothers can make a transition into different types of employment, unemployment as well as the next birth. We provide a comprehensive picture of the sorting mechanisms that lead to the differentiation of women's employment careers after birth. Our empirical evidence is derived from large‐linked administrative individual labour market data from Germany for a period of three decades. We obtain unprecedented insights into how women's skills, the quality of the previous job match, firm level characteristics, labour market conditions and leave legislation are related to the length of maternity duration. Expansionary leave policies, e.g. are found to be a key factor for the rising share of women who have their second child out of inactivity.     

Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages

This paper examines whether men's and women's noncognitive skills influence 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.     

Is positive action ‘positive’? Collective bargaining and gender relations in the Irish civil service

Participation in the EC has given Irish unions the clout to press for equality policies. However, economic factors combined with an entrenched sex-gender system hinder women's progress in achieving employment equity. Within the civil service, positive action policies have tended to perpetuate women's marginal status and discourage their labour force attachment.     

The impact of guanxi networks on the employment relations of rural migrant women in contemporary China

Based on qualitative data collected from Beijing, Shantou and 30 villages in Hebei and Henan with rural women migrants, their family members and employers, this article examines how guanxi networks influence rural migrant women's employment relations, and how they are exploited by their employers through guanxi. Research on guanxi often demonstrates its positive side, whereas this article examines the other side of guanxi—the abuse of such connections in the process of employment relations.     

Equal opportunity? Women's managerial careers in governmental organizations in China

There is very limited knowledge about women's management careers in China. This paper examines the opportunities for and barriers to women's careers in China, using governmental organizations as an example in which the State is not only the advocate of equal opportunity policies but also, in practice, the gatekeeper. One of the greatest disparities between male and female occupational patterns in China is in the sphere of government employment where only one in five employees is female. The aim of this paper is to understand the Chinese characteristics of gender inequality in management careers. In looking at the factors that influence women's upward mobility, the intention is to identify the barriers to the appointment of women to top jobs. Some barriers will be unique to governmental organizations and so will require special attention if they are to be eradicated. However, women also face more general barriers to success which transcend differences of occupational sector or society. It is hoped that this paper will lead to a greater understanding of how career barriers for women in China may resemble and differ from those faced by their counterparts in the West.     

Work–family conflict and the commodification of women's employment in three Chinese airlines

In the East, where gender is mediated by different family structures, societal institutions and economic development, the work–family conflict (WFC) metaphor remains appropriate. This paper investigates Chinese women's experiences of WFC in the fastest growing commercial airline sector in the world. It finds that, in contrast to the West, work-to-family, rather than family-to-work, conflict dominates. Liberalization, competition and commercialization have also had a significant gendered impact on jobs. The latter resulting in the commodification of women's aesthetic and emotional labour, job segregation, employment insecurity, poor career opportunities and increased WFC. We explore reasons why HR policies and practices in airlines fail to address women's workplace concerns and find that occupational status and lack of organizational power, together with the prevalence of traditional gendered norms and attitudes, play important roles     

Earnings volatility in America: Evidence from matched CPS

We offer new evidence on earnings volatility of men and women in the United States over the past four decades by using matched data from the March Current Population Survey. We construct a measure of total volatility that encompasses both permanent and transitory instability, and that admits employment transitions and losses from self employment. We also present a detailed decomposition of earnings volatility to account for changing shares in employment probabilities, conditional variances of continuous workers, and conditional mean variances from employment entry and exit. Our results show that earnings volatility among men increased by 15% from the early 1970s to mid 1980s, while women's volatility fell, and each stabilized thereafter. However, this pooled series masks important heterogeneity in volatility levels and trends across education groups and marital status. We find that men's earnings volatility is increasingly accounted for by employment transitions, especially exits, while the share of women's volatility accounted for by continuous workers rose, each of which highlights the importance of allowing for periods of non-work in volatility studies.     

Support for part-time work as a channel to female employment: the moderating effects of national gender empowerment and labour market conditions

Using a multi-source data set collected across eight European countries, this article examines how characteristics of both the organizational environment and the larger national context relate to the organizational-level variable of women's employment. Our study revealed that, in countries that were high in gender empowerment measure (GEM), establishments that were more supportive of part-time work options also employed a higher proportion of women. One reason for this relationship may be that in high-GEM countries offering part-time employment is a way for an organization to signal its support for work–life balance, something that makes it more attractive to women. In countries with low GEM, an establishment's greater support for part-time work was associated with employing a greater proportion of women only when establishments experienced recruitment difficulties. Key differences in gender empowerment between countries are discussed.     

Women's occupational status in Britain,France and the USA: explaining the difference

Using directly comparable data this article explores the lower occupational status overall of British employed women indicating the importance of social and employment policies to the amount of part-time working by women and the occupational status of women's part-time jobs in the three societies.     

Exploring servant leadership across cultures: comparative study in Australia and Indonesia

Several problematic aspects of women's paid employment - e.g. low pay and lack of promotional opportunities - are exacerbated by the segregation of women and men into different occupations. In this article, the potential of in-store equal opportunities policies to break down such gender segregation will be explored, through consideration of the existence and implementation of these policies in twenty-two multinational retail companies in Dublin and Paris. It will be argued that, with one notable exception, the instore equal opportunities policies are effectively neutralized, and furthermore are neutralized in nationally specific ways which can be related to differences between France and Ireland in the organization of labour-market regulation and in women's labour-force participation (LFP). The case-study findings also suggest that the 'country' variable has a stronger effect on the existence and implementation of these policies than the extent of a shop's links to an overseas headquarters. The findings of this study have implications for both the equity of women's incorporation into the paid labour force and understanding of aspects of HRM in branches of multinational companies.     

Women in banking: a study in inequality

As a major area of employment for women, the banking industry provides considerable scope as a case study of equal opportunities in employment. This article aims firstly to analyse the extent and the various aspects of inequality in the English clearing banks and, secondly, to examine the extent of women's participation and influence within the major TUC-affiliated trade union in this field—BIFU.     

Women's attitudes towards trade unions in the UK: a consideration of the distinction between full‐ and part‐time workers

This article considers the attitudes and experiences of female full‐ and part‐time workers towards trade unions. Expanding upon previous research it suggests that while the attitudes of full‐ and part‐time workers towards trade unions are similar, experiences of trade unions are not: they depend upon the employment context and work history. A life course perspective is advanced, which examines women's employment contexts and transitions between full‐ and part‐time work in order to further explain female part‐timers’ lower likelihood of unionising.     

Women as philanthropists: Leading the transformation of fundraising

This paper provides an overview of women's motivations and potential as philanthropists. It includes demographic information that can help fundraisers approach and communicate with women of different generations and life stages. The conclusions are based on qualitative research conducted by the author and others. It explores some of the barriers to women's giving and offers specific recommendations for involving more women as donors. Finally, it explains how women as donors will help transform the fundraising profession and prepare nonprofit institutions for a changed funding environment in the future.     

The Twenty‐First‐Century Quest for Feminism and the Global Urban

The purpose of this essay is to initiate a conversation about the production and analysis of knowledge on women and the urban. Starting with a brief overview of how women have been addressed in the field of urban studies, I turn to their treatment in works by critical urban scholars, revealing how women fall away from urban theories. The dismissal of women from theory construction and the impact on women's lives of the imbrication of the gendered subject into neoliberal discourses about the city adds urgency to a feminist intervention. A feminist analytic requires the promotion of a new kind of global urban studies that takes seriously women's struggles, strategies and everyday desires.     

Women as employees and entrepreneurs in the Polish transformation

The article examines the experience of women compared to men in the new Polish job markets with special emphasis on their participation in the explosion of entrepreneurship that has occurred in the country since 1990. Tightening laws related to gender discrimination would have some limited impact on women's employment opportunities. Promotion of entrepreneurship is proposed as an important solution to joblessness – especially for women with general secondary education living outside major cities     

Gender differences in competitiveness: Empirical evidence from professional distance running

A large body of literature documents the existence of a considerable and persistent gender gap in competitiveness. Using longitudinal data from professional distance running covering a period of nearly 40 years (1973-2009) I first confirm the findings of most previous studies by demonstrating that on average the women's races were - for most years - indeed less competitive than the men's contests. Closer inspection of the data, however, reveals that the women's races over distances with large amounts of prize money and/or prestige at stake (5000 m track, 10,000 m road, half marathon, and marathon) have always been particularly “balanced”. Moreover, although it still exists, the gender gap has considerably narrowed over the years. These findings are not compatible with the hypothesis that gender differences in competitiveness reflect evolved biological differences and/or psychological predispositions. It is, however, compatible with two other (complementary rather than substitute) hypotheses: due to changing socio-cultural conditions boys and girls are today socialized similarly in many parts of the world and due to the increasing returns to success (i.e. identical prize money levels and distributions) women are nowadays motivated to train as hard as comparably talented men.     

Connecting Time and Space: The Significance of Transformations in Women's Work in the City

Growing numbers of women with children living in western cities are entering the labour market, raising new questions about changes in the allocation of the tasks of social reproduction between household members and others and about the effects of the increasing time women now spend in the workplace. As Manuel Castells noted over 25 years ago, women's unpaid labour has long been essential, not only in the domestic arena, but also in patching together facilities separated in space. The spatial layout of cities, with its specialized and segregated land‐uses, only works, he argued, if women's unpaid labour is available to connect urban locations. But many women now spend many more hours in the labour market, replacing their former domestic labour with a range of commodified goods and services as well as by help from a range of related or unrelated others, sometimes but not always remunerated and/or by state‐provided or supported services. This article examines the consequences of the growth of women's employment in Britain and the concomitant decline of the old breadwinner family, the growth of workfare policies that assume all individuals are available for waged work and the rise of commodified caring. The arguments are illustrated by empirical examples from interviews undertaken with middle‐class mothers in waged work in London and Manchester in the UK.     

Towards redressing historical inequities?

Abstract

This article examines women's positions at senior management levels of South Africa's civil service given its affirmative action policy that attempts to tackle women's historical marginalization in public sector organizations. It examines ‘women's empowerment', gender and race inside the public service within the context of South Africa's historical inequities within the civil service, and the post-apartheid government's attempts to correct these. It concludes that women's positions inside the civil service have improved gradually since the demise of apartheid, an initial step towards substantive equality with their male counterparts, but recognizes that much still needs to be done if women are to be represented proportionately in senior civil service positions. It argues that this might help to improve the implementation of gender sensitive programs at various policy levels. Information for this article was gathered from various sources including interviews with civil servants in selected national and provincial departments.     

Management Women in the Corporate Workplace: Possibilities for the Year 2000

This article considers what corporations' attitudes toward women will be in the year 2000, and what women's attitudes toward corporations will be at that time. Women's current position in the workforce is characterized. Consideration is given to the direction today's workplace is taking as it transitions to the start of a new century. Based on current observations and trends, the article explores the needs and desires of the twenty-first century woman. Four major tools available to U.S. corporations preparing to enter the next century are discussed, including family issues, a commitment to innovation, training, and women's contributions to the management of transition.