Questions

Different preferences & choices – has implications for policy

Sometimes argued that women don’t want to take on certain roles because they’d prefer shorter work hours or more flexibility in order to look after their children or other family members

Is there any point in trying to get more women up to senior managerial or executive level if they aren’t interested in having positions with long hours or heavy responsibility?

If we believe that competition is fair and that the best worker will receive the best outcomes, then we might ask ourselves, why create policies to help groups of people who don’t perform well?

The issue here is that these explanations assume that everyone has free choice

If we take the example of women choosing to go into lower-paid, lower-status jobs in order to have a better work-life balance

We’re not taking into account the fact that women are generally expected to take on primary responsibility for childcare and family commitments

It’s framed as a choice, but when most high-paid, high-status jobs require long hours and have very little flexibility, then the ‘choice’ gets reduced to, don’t have a family, or don’t have a high-powered job

The perspective of choice and preference is taken from the point of view of the dominant majority

In this country, that would be white, heterosexual men

Who have traditionally had wives at home who run the household and look after the children and the elderly relatives

So the men have been free to go to work and spend 12 hour days in the office

As a result, the employment and career patterns of these men are taken as the norm

This is what it means to be a good worker

This is what it looks like to have a successful career

This is the standard against which women are judged – or anyone who doesn’t fit into this mold

If you can’t work long hours because of family responsibilities, then you have to expect that you’ll face career penalties

There’s never any discussion about how normal the norm really is

And whether it would make sense to change the standard, given that women are now nearly half the workforce

If we look at the capitalist competition argument, research tells us that the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ aren’t distributed evenly throughout the labour force

The ‘losers’ tend to be concentrated in certain segments of the populations – women, ethnic minorities, disabled people, older people

Okay, maybe that’s because of the human capital explanation

If women and minorities aren’t as highly educated and don’t have the same levels of skills and job experience as the majority, then it makes sense that they’re clustered in lower paid positions

So if we ensure fair access to education and training, then everyone will be on a level playing field and these inequalities will disappear

But research shows that even when you take different levels of education, skills and experience into account, there are still large inequalities in employment outcomes for minority groups

So there’s something else going on here

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Discrimination vs. exclusion

Overt, blatant discrimination:

• Denying jobs, promotions explicitly due to sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability
• e.g., “X is inferior because s/he’s not white”
• Now socially unacceptable

Covert, subtle discrimination (exclusion):

• Avoiding members of other groups
• Lack of friendliness, closed body language
• Lack of helping behaviours given to members of other groups

What are the repercussions for workers experiencing exclusion?