Sex and authority in the workplace: the causes of sexual inequality. American Sociological Review, 44, 235-252. Even with all of this evolution of women in the workplace, men still hold higher titles and positions; in jobs where women are highly represented, such as nursing or a librarian, men still hold the higher jobs of management or administration. This article does a study on Wisconsin high school seniors to show the statistics of men and women in higher position jobs, around midlife. The study is not on the issues with authority during midlife, it is simply about the division of authority.
There were minor variables, such as whether the individual was currently employed, whether they were self-employed or not, had worked within the past five years, and how much education they have completed. These variables were mainly measured from a set of questions given to an individual, and were used as dependent variables. This research was conducted using an equation that measured education, experience, marriage, and children. The parts of the equation with the larges gaps were experience and children.
In experience, it was hardly looked at or mattered for men in the workplace, but for women it was a very high criterion that they had to meet. As for children, it was looked at more, for males, that they will work hard to provide well for their children, even though having no children gives them more independence and fluidity in the workplace. While for women, they are thought to me too family oriented with children and will focus on them more than their work. Gender inequalities in occupational standpoints are becoming much more equal, but as for superiority aspects, the inequality gap has barely made a mark.
Some limitations on this article include the date that it was published, causing it to not be up to date with current research and not as correct. Other limitations could be the variables used in their research, such as the equation used to measure their ability to work. Berdahl, L. , Jennifer, and Moore, Celia. (2006). Workplace harassment: double jeopardy for minority women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2), 426-436. DOI: 10. 1037/0021-9010. 91. 2. 426 Women in the workplace, especially minority women have had many more incidents with being harassed at work.
Minority women call it a “double jeopardy” because they are harassed based on being a woman and being a minority, which both come with prejudice. Not only is being a minority woman an issue with harassment, but they are also paid much lower than even just a white woman. The research has four hypotheses; the first being that minority women are harassed more in the workplace, and the second being that there is no relationship between a minority woman and the amount of harassment that they face in the workplace.
The third hypothesis is that minority woman, as opposed to white women, are harassed more, and the fourth is that women in general are harassed more in the workplace. The study done in this research was a survey that was sent out to 800 people of different male-dominated and female-dominated corporations. The survey measured different types of harassment, as in sexual, ethnic, and overall. One of the main control variables in this study was the dominant sex of the company. As a result, almost half of the responders reported having been harassed in the workplace, whether ethnically or sexually.
Some limitations to this research study could have been the amount of people that they sent out the survey to, or the amount of people who responded to the survey. Alksnis, Christine, Curtis, James, and Desmarias, Serge. (2008). Workforce segregation and the gender gap: is “women’s” work valued as high as “men’s”?. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(6), 1416-1441. Men and women are segregated in almost every work place, in one way or another; whether it is by education status, or higher ranking, there is always segregation.
The main issue with this segregation is salary. This study was done on a group of undergraduate students who were given the choice to pick a job based on an income category; the males and females were given completely equal information about the job titles. They were asked to rate the job title that they choice and to estimate what they believed the salary would be. They then had to fill out another survey about what they think a description of someone who held this job title would be.
As a result of the study, a small amount of the participants wrote that this job title could pertain to either gender. Those who did include a specific gender for each job title compared their findings to the actual research findings, and almost all of the participants were correct with the gender assignments. Some limitations to this research study could have been the number of participants used in the study. It could have also been the limited job titles that were provided for the participants.
Leibbrandt, Andreas, and List, A. , John. (2015). Do women avoid salary negotiations? Evidence from a large-scale field experiment. Management Science, 61 (9), 2016-2024. http://dx. doi. org/10. 1287/mnsc. 2014. 1994 When examined in natural workplaces, men were eight to nine times likelier to negotiate a salary wage than women, which they believe could possibly explain the very large pay gap between genders. The experiment used in this research was a natural experiment, where the subjects do not know they are being observed.
A couple variables that they used in this study were using different advertisements, one with negotiable wage and one with a set wage. In these advertisements, they made one more driven towards men and one towards women. These ads were also posted in the top cities in the country. The results show that women, much more so than men, tend to go towards the advertisement without negotiation, and when it came to the negotiable wage the men went after that one much more often.
When the several ads were distributed to these major cities, the esults showed that most of the people who applied for one of the multiple job options were women, but only a very small percentage, about 14%, negotiated a better wage than offered. They ended up finding that, in all, no matter what the standards are, the amount of women who negotiate wages does not even come close to compare to the amount of men who negotiate wages. Some limitations to this research could be that it was a natural research rather than a formed experiment. Also, the small criteria of variables could have played a role on how the results turned out.
