Gender Inequality and Job quality in Europe

Peter Muhlau ()
Additional contact information
Peter Muhlau: Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin and Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin

The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series from IIIS

Abstract: In this paper, I examine whether and to which degree quality of work and employment differ between men and women and how these gender differences are shaped by societal beliefs about ‘gender equality.’ Using data from the 2004 wave of the European Social Survey, I compare the jobs of men and women across a variety of measures of perceived job quality in 26 countries. Key findings are that job quality is gendered: Jobs of men are typically characterized by high training requirements, good promotion opportunities and high levels of job complexity, autonomy and participation. Jobs for women, in contrast, are less likely to pose a health or safety risk or to involve work during antisocial hours. However, contrary to expectation, the job profiles of men and women are not more similar in societies with gender egalitarian norms. While women are relatively more likely to be exposed to health and safety risks, work pressure and demands to work outside regular working time, in more gender-egalitarian societies their work is not, relative to men’s, more skilled, complex or autonomous. Neither do more egalitarian societies provide more opportunities for participation and advancement for women than less egalitarian societies.

JEL-codes: A N (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2010-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.tcd.ie/triss/assets/PDFs/iiis/iiisdp345.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp345

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series from IIIS 01. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maeve ().