Public sphere of work and social life and in private sphere of family life and relationships, males and females often encounter different experiences
These can translate into social inequalities
Men have reported wishing to spend more time with their children but being unable to do so as of the expectations that go with their role as main breadwinner
Gender inequalities can be seen in a range of areas
Gender Inequalities in Work and Employment
Over past 40 years the number of women in employment has steadily increased while the number of men in employment has decreased
There are other significant differences in employment patterns of men and woman relating to the type of work they do, how much work and their pay and conditions of employment
Facts and Figures: Woman in the Labour Market
A study of office national statistics 2013
- Men with children are likely to work than those without – opposite of the picture for woman
- More men tend to work in the professional occupations, which are associated with higher levels of pay than woman
- Woman dominate employment within the caring and leisure occupations
- Female graduates are more likely to work in a slightly lower skilled occupation group than men
- Men make up the majority of workers in the top 10% of earners for all employees but the gap is lower for those under 30
Evidence from a range of sources develops the points found by the ONS and indicates that though here is more woman in the labour market, they suffer significant inequalities in their experience compared to men,
- In private business sector of employment, the gender pay gap is 24.8% compared to the public sector which is 17.1%
- Self-employed woman earns around 40% less than self-employed men
- Woman make up 20.4% of directors on FTSE 100 boards and just 11.1% of UK bank CEOs are woman
- It will take 70 years at the current rate of progress to see an equal number of female and male directors of FTSE 100 companies
- Up to 300’000 women are sacked each year due to being pregnant and 440’000 women lose out on pay or promotion as a result of pregnancy
- Woman who work, with or without children spend 15 hours a week on average doing chores, while men spend only 5
Gender Inequalities in Income and Wealth
Significant differences in the pay that woman receive and the amount of wealth they hold
- Cuts to state benefits disproportionately affect woman as benefits as opposed to a tenth of men’s
- 22% of woman, compared to 14% of men, have a persistent low income
- Income of retired woman is less than 40% of retired men
- 70% of people in national minimum wage jobs are woman
- Estimated that in each year a mother is absent from work, her future wages will reduce by 5%
- Woman’s comprise more than 50% of the world’s population
- In 2016 a study by London School of economics concluded that fewer than 1 in 5 Britain’s top earners were woman and females accounted less than one third in top 1% earning bracket across European nations
Looked at tax data and income from work and other sources such as investment and found that there had been a growth in number of women in top 10%
Evidence suggests woman on average had a lower income for than men for a variety reason
Average paid less than men as they are likely to be in part time or temporary casual employment
Take more time out of work than men
Woman can re-enter the workforce as full-time workers
Woman have to give up work to care full time for aged, disabled or acutely ill parents
Retired woman has less income than men as they are less likely to have occupational private pensions as they have taken significant time out of work
Fawcett society saw woman rely on state bene fits and tax credits more than men as of their caring responsibility and their relative economic inequality and poverty
Cuts to state benefits disproportionately affect woman’s income
In 2014 they found a clear disparity between woman and men in who owns the most houses, pensions, cars and stocks
Average for men was £63’000 compared to £34’800 for woman
Gender Inequalities in Poverty
Range of evidence suggests that woman is more likely than men to experience poverty, both in UK and globally
- According to a survey of more than 10’000 adults so 1 in 4 women will be living below the poverty line when they retire compared to 12% of men
- Woman make up half of the world’s population and yet represent 70% of world’s poor
- Chant (2011) of London school of economics argues on her blog that woman is particularly prone to experience time poverty as a result of multiple areas of work that they are engaged with either unpaid or underpaid
Woman are more likely to be poor as they experience time poverty while men spend their younger years building up their career and working their way up the pay scale
These activities make it difficult for them to get out of poverty through engaging in activities that would give them higher returns
- 2009 figures produced for the department of work and pensions show that 52% of children living in lone-parent families are poor and 90% of lone-parents headed by woman
- According to woman’s budget group (2005) so mothers frequently go without food, clothing and warmth in order to protect children from full impact of an inadequate income
- Trussell trust (2014) found that food poverty affects woman and men differently with many women going hungry in order to feed their children
Some claim vertical segregation in the workplace has resulted in feminisation of poverty
About a ¼ of woman will live in poverty when they retire compared with about 1 in 10 men
Gender Inequalities in Social Mobility
Movement of individuals, families or households within or between social strata in a society
Clear variations in the levels of social mobility experienced between men and woman from different ethnicities:
- Li and Devine (2011) woman are still less likely to be upwardly mobile and more likely to be downwardly mobile than men
- Variations in mobility by gender and ethnicity have been noted by researchers Health and Li (2014) this showed that for second-generation south Asian groups in UK men had benefitted more from upward occupational mobility than woman
- 2014 Global Gender Gap report published by the world economic forum which ranks countries according to how well they divide resources and opportunities among male and females puts Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden
Britain lagging behind in 26th place
Four pillars used for assessment, the UK is ranked 33rd for political empowerment, 32rd for educational attainment, 46th for economic participation and opportunity and 94th for health and survival
- Savage (2011) studied social mobility in 2000s and found men were 40% more likely to climb the career ladder than woman
- Research conducted by the equality and human rights commission in 2011 found a decrease in woman’s participation in ten sectors of employment, most of which related to a positions of high reward and/or status, including:
Numbers of the cabinet
National assembly for wales
Local authority’s council leaders
Public appointments
Editors of national newspaper
Contemporary sociologists tend to believe that it is useful to take a multi-dimensional approach when studying the experience of inequality
Allows us to see the interplay between factors such as gender, social class, age and ethnicity to gain a valid picture
Li and Devine used a range of sources including census data and general household survey etc…
Black African and black Caribbean woman have experienced a 15-20% fall in full time as white woman have remained stable
39% of Bangladeshi men work part-time, double the levels of 2 decades ago
Rates of part time employment for Chinese and Indian men have doubled in last ten years
53% of self-employed Pakistani men and transport industry, compared to 8% of the rest of the population
Young British Muslim woman have highlighted how employer discrimination has been a significant barrier to employment for those who wear the hijab and niqab their high levels of graduate and post-graduate qualifications
Social mobility and child poverty commission concluded that relative social mobility rates for men have flat lined whereas odds ratio for woman has improved
- So, girls born in 1940s to middle class parents were 8x more likely than working class to grow up to be middle class
- Middle class girl born in 1970s were only 4x more likely than working class to achieve middle class status
- Suggests relative social mobility rates for working class woman have caught up and overtaken those of men so it remains they still face challenges
Gender Inequalities in Other Areas of Social Life
Paper one
Males and Gender Inequalities
Evidence on key indicators relating to life chances shows that men do better than woman on most measures
Gender inequalities appear to disadvantage woman more than men and are a persistent feature of life in the UK
Sociology involves taking a multi-dimensional approach to gain a valid picture across different social groups
Applied to the experience of males, there is evidence that working-class men have experienced a change in their circumstances over a recent year and in many cases a decline in their life chances
Mac and Ghaill (1994) referred to a crisis in masculinity brought about by a number of social and economic changes including de-industrialisation and feminisation of the labour market
Concern that young men have no clear identity or path in life as a result of the growing equality of woman, the lack of traditional male jobs and expectations placed on men today
Resulted in many men displayed their masculinity in anti-social and criminal ways
Argued that males, particularly from the working class, have become unclear about their identity and role in society
Explain educational underachievement among working class boys
Education
GCSE results consistently over a number of years show that girls in UK gain more A* – C grade GCSEs compared to today
Government data shows that boys are twice as likely to have a special educational need and twice as likely to have literally problems
They are also four times more likely to be excluded from school
Department of education figures since 2008 have shown that white working-class boys are the largest underachieving group in education
Head of Ofsted said in 2012 that this was due to their anti-school subculture
Tests conducted in 2009 by the programme for international student assessment carried out by the organisation for economic co-operation and development this showed that boys lag a year behind girls at reading in every industrialised country
Health
Health data from 2010 showed that an average female likely to live 4 years longer than males
ONS data in 2010 found that on average men develop heart disease ten years earlier than woman
ONS data in 2011 found that the rate of suicide for men is 3x that of the number for woman
Men are more likely than woman to have an alcohol or drug problem
67% of British people who consume alcohol at hazardous levels and 80% of those dependent on alcohol are male
Almost, 3 quarters of people dependent on cannabis and 69% of those dependents on other illegal drugs are male
Significant differences between men and woman in terms of average life and cause of deaths
All ages, woman’s death rates are lower than men’s
In UK a female born in 2004 can expect to live until she is 81.1 years while a man will live until 76.6 years
Men’s death rates are almost doubled woman’s in every single class
Graham points out that woman have higher rates of illness than men mainly in chronic long-term sickness, disability and mental illness
Bernard suggests that marriage makes woman sick as evidence suggest married woman experience worse health than married men and single woman
Woman may experience greater stress than men as they are likely to have an occupational pension
Work and Income
Health and safety data collected in the UK, more than 95% of 200 people killed in workplace every year are men
2010 the office for national statistics found that men in the UK work an average of 39 hours a week, compared to 34 for woman
David Benatar – second sexism (2012) states that the least desirable and most dangerous jobs and those with least pay and security so remain largely the domain of men
Farell claims a glass cellar exists with regards to men employment
He argues that an analysis of 25 lowest ranked jobs, 24 of them are dominated by males and these jobs are often poorly paid and offer little job security
Family Life
Warin et al (1999) found their study of 95 families in Rochdale that the majority of fathers, mothers and teenage children believed that the father should be the breadwinner
Found that fathers felt under pressure to provide for their families and this was intensified by demands of teenage children for consumer goods and designer label fashions
Men in low paid jobs and those who were sick, disabled or unemployed were frustrated and sad that they were unable to supply what their family wanted
The study claimed that the contribution of fathers tends to go unrecognised
Fathers are attempting to juggle the role of provider with the emotional support role traditionally provided by mothers
Men are turning into ‘all singing, all dancing super dads’
A report published by the equal opportunities commission in 2007 called the state of the modern family which is based on research tracking 19’000 children born in 2000 or 2001 found that:
- Father are more likely to be employed and to do work longer hours than men without dependent children
- 89% of fathers are in employment, compared with 74% of men without dependent children
- Fathers are less likely to work part time than men without children whereas mothers who are more likely to work part time than woman with children
- UK fathers work the longest work hours in Europe with an average of 46.9 per week compared with 45.5 in Portugal, 41.5 in Germany and 40 hours in Ireland and 35.5 in France
- 1 in 8 fathers in Great Britain work excessively long hours of 60 hours a week or more almost 40%of fathers work 48 hours or more a week
- Fathers working more than 50 hours a week spend less time looking after children as father working shorter hours
- Men’s earnings are generally a higher proportion of the family income than woman’s can limit the time men are able to spend with their children
- Many employees still see flexible working or family-friendly working policies as something for woman
- Male-dominated workplaces, especially in traditional craft industries and occupations are less likely to offer flexible working arrangements than other employers
- Fathers often feel discouraged by workplace norms and culture from taking time off work for family or expressing a wish for flexible work
- Fathers expectations about whether they would have access to work life balance policies are lower than for mothers
According to mental health charity CALM in 2014 there is a crisis in modern masculinity with men struggling to deal with pressures in their person and professional lives
This crisis of masculinity is allegedly the reason why male suicide rates in the UK are at a 15-year high
Mac and Ghaill (1994) suggests that working class boys are experiencing a crisis masculinity
Socialised into seeing their future male identity and role in terms of having a job and being a breadwinner
Concludes that many working-class boys feel that education and qualifications are irrelevant to their futures and look for alternative sources of status in anti-school subcultures
In early 1990s men were more likely to attend the birth of their babies than men in 1960s
Increasingly active role in emotional development of their children
Beck (1992) argues in late modern age fathers no longer rely on jobs to provide a sense of identity and fulfilment
Increasingly instead they look to their children to give them a sense of identity and purpose
Gray (2006) found that many fathers would like to spend more time with their children but are prevented by long work hours from bounding effectively with their children
Evaluation of Male Inequalities
Feminists tend to agree that male inequalities are minor in scale compared to those forced by woman
According to Natasha Walter (2008) there is more debate to be had about the sacrifices that men make, but obviously I wouldn’t go so far as to say that shows woman hold all the cards
You have to look at the structural inequality
Sexism against men doesn’t exist in the same way as of the way the system is balanced
May be argued that evidence shows that the labour market continues to favour men and that this is a crucial way in which inequality is maintained
In 2012, there were still 13’917’000 males in full time employment, compared to 7’682’000 females and 3’048’000 males compared to 7’533’000 females in part time employment
Evidence shows that the gender pay gap persists and in almost every profession man still earn more on average than woman
Education
Feminists point out that despite the fact girls’ achievements in education outstrip those in males, the hidden curriculum means that subject choices in secondary school and in further and higher education still tend to be gender-stereotyped
Leads to reinforcement of vertical gender segregation in the workplace as choice of degree subjects is likely influence career and opportunities for upward social mobility