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Title
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Gender and School‐to‐Work Transitions Research
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Author
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Smyth, Emer
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Research Area
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Class, Status and Power
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Topic
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Gender and Gender Inequality
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Abstract
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This essay critically reflects on existing conceptualizations of gender in school‐to‐work transitions research. Gender is always included as a “control” variable in analyses of post‐school transitions, but the way in which gender is embedded in institutional structures across different national settings is rarely unpacked in a systematic way. The essay draws on recent research to outline the way in which gender differences in labor market outcomes, especially at the early stages of the career, are likely to reflect variation in the nature of education and training systems. In doing so, it argues for the need to build bridges between transitions research and other sociological accounts of education and gender and highlights methodological challenges in combining insights from detailed case‐studies of specific workplaces and from multivariate analyses of large‐scale national and cross‐national data sets.
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Identifier
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etrds0461
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extracted text
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Gender and School-to-Work
Transitions Research
EMER SMYTH
Abstract
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This essay critically reflects on existing conceptualizations of gender in
school-to-work transitions research. Gender is always included as a “control”
variable in analyses of post-school transitions, but the way in which gender is
embedded in institutional structures across different national settings is rarely
unpacked in a systematic way. The essay draws on recent research to outline the way
in which gender differences in labor market outcomes, especially at the early stages
of the career, are likely to reflect variation in the nature of education and training
systems. In doing so, it argues for the need to build bridges between transitions
research and other sociological accounts of education and gender and highlights
methodological challenges in combining insights from detailed case-studies of
specific workplaces and from multivariate analyses of large-scale national and
cross-national data sets.
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INTRODUCTION
There is now a large body of research on school-to-work transitions across
very different educational and labor market systems. This research traces the
way in which the kinds of skills developed within the education system and
the relevance of these skills for the needs of employers facilitates a smoother
transition to employment for young people in some countries than others
(Shavit & Müller, 1998). However, gender has rarely been a central focus of
transitions research, at least until comparatively recently. Gender is usually
included as a “control” variable in multivariate analyses of post-school transitions, but the way in which gender is embedded in institutional structures
across different national settings is rarely unpacked in a systematic way. The
relative neglect of gender in transitions research yields an incomplete picture
of the early labor market experiences of young people and leaves us with
unanswered questions: To what extent do gender differences at labor market entry reflect differences produced and reproduced in the education and
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert A. Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
training system? Do young women and men with the same qualifications
obtain employment of the same quality? To what extent do gender differences in employment outcomes reflect different institutional structures (such
as employment protection legislation, EPL) or the preferences and practices
of specific employers? This essay seeks to draw on recent comparative studies
in the field to suggest a way of combining insights from transitions research
with other sociological theories on education and gender as a basis for a more
comprehensive framework for analyzing the gendering of school-to-work
transitions.
GENDER IN EARLY RESEARCH ON SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITIONS
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From the 1980s onwards, studies of employment turned towards a new
emphasis on the influence of institutional structures. Drawing on detailed
case-studies of employers in France and Germany, the societal perspective
sought to explore the interaction between education and labor market
systems and the way in which these systems shape the pathways taken
by workers (Maurice, Sellier, & Silvestre, 1986). This work focused on
the relative emphasis on the provision of occupationally specific skills
as opposed to general skills within the education/training system and
the way in which this interacted with employment structures in relation
to recruitment and on-the-job training. Thus, a “qualification space” in
Germany and an “organizational space” in France paralleled the distinction between occupational and internal labor markets. However, initial
formulations of this perspective were criticised for being “gender-blind”
and commentators (such as O’Reilly, 2006) highlighted the way in which the
characterization of systems such as France and Germany changed markedly
when attention was paid to the features of female employment in those
countries. Thereafter, school-to-work transitions research developed conceptually, delineating the way in which specific features of the educational
system, such as its standardization, differentiation, and degree of linkage
to employment, shaped young people’s labor market outcomes (Shavit
& Müller, 1998). Studies came to pay greater attention to the role of EPL
in influencing young people’s post-school trajectories, highlighting the
“outsider” position of young labor market entrants in some systems with
strict EPL (Breen & Buchmann, 2002; Müller & Gangl, 2003). Increasingly,
these features of institutional structures became seen as “transition systems,” which formed specific configurations at the country level, rather than
individual dimensions which could be separated analytically (Raffe, 2008).
In spite of this greater conceptual understanding of the factors shaping
transitions, structures continued to be viewed as largely gender-neutral,
with analyses controlling for gender in statistical models but neglecting the
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way in which gender could be embedded in, and fundamentally alter, these
structures.
GENDER AND WELFARE RÉGIME THEORY
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In parallel to, but largely distinct from, developments in school-to-work
transitions research, comparative research on (older) women’s employment
highlighted the way in which cross-national variation in welfare and family
policies shaped labor market outcomes. Initial work (Esping-Andersen,
1990) distinguished between three ideal-type liberal, social democratic
and conservative welfare state régimes, with a later extension to include
Mediterranean (family-oriented) and post-socialist clusters. Like the societal
perspective, initial formulations of the welfare régime theory were criticised
for being gender-blind. Later extensions of this theory, by Jane Lewis and
Diane Sainsbury among others (and subsequently by Esping-Andersen
himself), more explicitly addressed the extent to which certain welfare states
relied on a male breadwinner model and unpaid household labor carried
out by women. These developments have produced useful insights into the
way in which State policy can influence levels of female labor force participation but these studies do not tend to explore the type of employment
secured, more especially the degree of occupational segregation by gender
(Steinmetz, 2012).
THE LIMITATIONS OF WELFARE RÉGIME THEORY
IN UNDERSTANDING SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITIONS
There are some features of existing research on welfare régimes that further
limit its potential to yield insights into the labor market position of young
women and men. Firstly, it rarely considers the role of the education and
training system in influencing the nature of gender differences in employment. Accounts focus on the role of State policy in income maintenance and
employment regulation but rarely analyze the way in which State institutions shape the kind of education and training received by young women
and men. Secondly, research from this perspective has largely focused on
adult workers, with country typologies derived on the basis of their employment allocation patterns. However, the scale of gender differences is found to
be very different for younger workers across the different country typologies
(see a series of analyses presented in Blossfeld, Skopek, Triventi, & Buchholz,
2015). Thus, at labor market entry, young women are found to be relatively
better off in the Southern European countries, where they are more likely
than men to enter prestigious occupations, than in the social-democratic systems, where Danish women earn less than men and Swedish women obtain
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
less prestigious jobs than men. On this basis, Blossfeld et al. (2015) conclude
that welfare régime typologies are more helpful for understanding gender
careers after family formation. In addition, the framework focuses on the way
in which family responsibilities and the unequal division of labor within the
household constrain women’s employment differentially depending on State
support. With the increased age at first motherhood across many European
countries, family responsibilities are unlikely to be a significant constraint
for most labor market entrants. It is not clear, therefore, as to the mechanism
through which family policy will influence gendered outcomes at labor market entry unless it is assumed there is a backwash effect whereby employers
expect young women to have children in the future and therefore engage
in statistical discrimination. A final issue is that welfare régime theory, like
many other conceptual frameworks of institutional structures, has difficulty
in accounting for large-scale change. This lacuna is particularly pertinent in
the context of recent trends in female educational attainment across many
Western countries and the potential impact of these trends on employment
outcomes, especially at labor market entry. As a result of these limitations, the
welfare régime perspective, while offering useful insights into the impact of
State policy on the labor market, does not provide a comprehensive framework for understanding gender differences in early labor market outcomes.
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THE LIMITATIONS OF WELFARE RÉGIME THEORY
IN UNDERSTANDING THE REPRODUCTION OF GENDER
DIFFERENCES
Limitations to the welfare régime framework have been highlighted even
from the perspective of understanding the situation of older workers. A number of commentators have argued that welfare régime theory has neglected
the potential role of culture and could benefit from insights from feminist
theory regarding the construction of gender and power. Charles and Grusky
(2004), in a careful exploration of cross-national variation in horizontal and
vertical occupational segregation by gender, highlight two central concepts:
gender essentialism, whereby assumptions about the “natural” abilities and
orientations of women and men facilitate allocation to different types of jobs,
with a labelling of “technical” and “manual” roles as male and “care” roles
as female; and male primacy, whereby vertical segregation is shaped by the
belief that men are more deserving of status than women. They argued that,
as a result, levels of horizontal segregation (that is, women and men working in different types of jobs) and vertical segregation (that is, differences
by gender in representation in higher status or supervisory positions) may
be influenced by different societal factors and may change in different directions over time. For example, a growth in the services sector may provide new
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management positions for women, thus reducing vertical segregation, but at
the same time may reinforce women’s location in female-typed “care” roles,
raising levels of horizontal segregation. Their work shows the complex interplay between institutional, cultural and economic factors in shaping gender
segregation and points to the potential for a more dynamic understanding of
employment patterns.
NEW RESEARCH ON GENDER AND SCHOOL-TO-WORK
TRANSITIONS
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There is now an emerging body of research which pays greater attention
to the way in which gender differences are shaped and reshaped on labor
market entry and, more specifically, to the role of the education and training system in producing these differences. This research fits broadly into two
groups: “side-by-side” single-country analyses which allow for inferences
to be drawn about commonalities and differences across systems (Blossfeld
et al., 2015); and multi-level analyses which seek to identify the macro-level
features of national systems which influence the relative scale of gender differences across different settings (Steinmetz, 2012). The latter set of studies
often focus on women of all ages; however, the emphasis on the role of the
education and training system and the investigation of between-cohort differences mean that such research provides very useful insights into early
labor market processes.
GENDER DIFFERENCES AT LABOR MARKET ENTRY
A set of country studies published in Blossfeld et al. (2015) points to the
persistence of gender differences at labor market entry. Horizontal segregation remains marked in many countries and, in spite of changes such as
increases in women’s educational levels and labor force participation rates,
cross-country trends have been inconsistent, with segregation declining
in some settings (such as Denmark, Sweden, and the UK) and increasing
in others (such as Estonia and Russia). Vertical segregation also remains
pronounced even among labor market entrants, with young men more likely
to be employed in managerial and professional jobs than young women
(Blossfeld et al., 2015).
FEMALE ADVANTAGE IN EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT?
Transitions research has consistently found a strong relationship between
educational outcomes and success in labor market integration. This pattern
suggests the importance of looking at gender differences in educational
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participation and course take-up and the potential implications for the
early labor market career. Many Western countries have experienced a
growing gender gap in educational attainment in favor of women (DiPrete
& Buchmann, 2013). There has been a good deal of debate about the reasons
behind this trend, with changes being attributed variously to broader social
and labor market factors (such as more egalitarian attitudes and rising
levels of female employment), the approach taken to student assessment
(especially the relative emphasis on coursework as opposed to exams),
the feminisation of teaching, the pattern of classroom interaction between
teachers and students, the “laddish” culture among boys and/or the gender
mix of the school. However, there has been some tendency to offer postfactum explanations of the phenomenon; for example, boys’ dominance of
classroom interaction was used as an explanation for female educational disadvantage in the 1970s but is now used to explain male underachievement
(Smyth, 2007). Nonetheless, the shift in female educational participation is
of such a scale that it might be expected to translate into female advantage
in the early years of labor market integration. However, there appears to
be no consistent pattern across European countries in the extent to which
increased female educational attainment has been reflected in occupational
level and/or pay returns (Blossfeld et al., 2015).
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GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COURSE TAKE-UP
Alongside this shift in the patterns of educational participation by gender,
there has been a notable persistence in the gendering of course or track
take-up within the education and training system. Again, there has been
a lack of consensus on the influences underlying these patterns. Gender
differences in field of study have been variously attributed to biological
factors, the backwash effect of gender segregation within the labor market,
the nature of the educational system, whether young people attend a coeducational or single-sex school, and the construction of particular spheres of
knowledge (such as science and technology) as “male” or “female” (Smyth,
2007). Although some commentators posit a near-universality in gender
differences, it is clear that there is cross-national variation in the kinds of
subjects taken by young women and men (Smyth & Steinmetz, 2008).
THE STRUCTURE OF THE EDUCATION/TRAINING SYSTEMS
AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN TRANSITIONS
To date, relatively few attempts have been made to explore the way in which
different educational systems can affect patterns of course or track take-up
by gender. One exception is research that shows how systems with earlier
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decision points tend to have more gendered course take-up (Buchmann &
Charles, 1995; Charles & Grusky, 2004). More recently, Moorhouse (2017)
has used macro-level data to identify the influence of labor factors on
segregation in field of study. Her research points to the fact that increasing
female employment levels are associated with increasing segregation in
field of study while stronger protection for women’s economic rights tends
to reduce such segregation. Much of the research has, however, focused on
subject or field of study choice within upper secondary or tertiary education
while there has been comparatively little research on the extent of gendering
of vocational tracks, a phenomenon that is likely to significantly influence
employment outcomes across several European countries (for a notable
exception, see an edited volume by Imdorf, Hegna, & Reisel, 2015). Furthermore, despite the persistence of gender segregation of certain fields of study,
there has been notable feminization in some domains, especially medicine
and law. Again, conventional theories have not adequately explained either
these changes or the persistence of a gender gap in take-up of STEM fields
of study (Mann & diPrete, 2013).
A number of studies have highlighted the relationship between educational and occupational segregation by gender. At the macro level,
findings show that countries with high levels of educational segregation
by gender tend to have high levels of occupational segregation by gender for both young and older workers (Smyth, 2005; Steinmetz, 2012).
At the micro level, these studies indicate the way in which choice of, or
allocation to, field of study channels young people into gender-typical
jobs (Blossfeld et al., 2015; Smyth & Steinmetz, 2008; Steinmetz, 2012).
Thus, much of the gender difference in type of job at labor market entry
is found to be related to prior allocation to “male” and “female” fields
within the education and training system. Nonetheless, there is evidence
of a direct gender effect on occupational entry, even taking account of
field of study, Thus, young women are significantly less likely to enter
predominantly male jobs and more likely to enter predominantly female
jobs, even controlling for gender and educational field. Not all gender
segregation is attributable to educational segregation, with gender continuing to have a direct effect on the “sorting” of young men and women
into gendered jobs. In overall terms, occupational segregation in the youth
labor market tends to reflect both “pre-sorting” into different educational
fields and “post-sorting” into different jobs among those in the same
field of education (Smyth, 2005; Steinmetz, 2012). The degree to which
this takes place is likely to reflect the complexity of institutional, social,
and economic factors operating at the country level, a framework that
has been analyzed in a second set of studies on gendered employment
patterns.
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CROSS-NATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN EMPLOYMENT SEGREGATION
BY GENDER
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Multi-level modeling techniques have increasingly been used to unpack the
size and drivers of between-country differences in gender segregation. There
is no evidence from this research of a decline in occupational segregation
among younger cohorts, with one study pointing to a greater likelihood of
younger workers entering typically male and female jobs relative to their
older counterparts (Steinmetz, 2012). The differential expansion of the service sector, especially public sector employment, has been found to operate
as a crucial influence on the gendering of employment outcomes at labor
market entry and beyond (Charles & Grusky, 2004; Steinmetz, 2012). A high
proportion of women in public sector employment and high levels of female
labor force participation overall are found to be associated with a greater
representation of women in female-typical jobs (Steinmetz, 2012). In some
contexts, female educational participation has been found to operate as a
“qualifications lever” to help secure women entry into previously male occupational domains (Crompton & Sanderson, 1990; Witz, 1992). However, there
is emerging evidence that higher female tertiary enrollment is instead associated with more gender-typed work for women and more gender a-typical
work for men. It appears that rather than acting as an equalizing influence,
a growth in female representation in higher education appears to be accompanied by a rebalancing of the workforce towards typically female jobs, with
more women and men entering these jobs in countries which have experienced such a shift (Smyth & Steinmetz, 2008). A similar pattern is evident in
relation to levels of female labor force participation; again countries which
have experienced a growth in female employment have also experienced
a rebalancing of employment opportunities in the graduate labor market
towards typically female jobs (Smyth & Steinmetz, 2008).
FAMILY POLICY AND GENDER SEGREGATION
Like welfare régime theorists, a number of commentators have pointed to the
role of family policy in cross-national variation in women’s employment outcomes. A greater level of provision for care and education for pre-school children appears to be associated with less occupational segregation by gender.
It may be that national systems facilitating a work-life balance through childcare provision have been more successful in challenging gender-stereotyped
behavior and attitudes within the workforce as a whole (Smyth & Steinmetz,
2008; Steinmetz, 2012). More generous parental leave provision is also associated with a greater representation of women in typically male occupations
(Steinmetz, 2012). While most research has focused on horizontal segregation
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by gender, one study highlights the way in which greater State provision
of preschool care and education is associated with lower levels of vertical
segregation, that is, a higher proportion of women in management positions
(Steinmetz, 2012). In addition, the presence of family-friendly policies is significantly related to having a lower average gender wage gap at country
level (Triventi, 2013). In many ways, these analyses provide a potential bridge
between transitions research and welfare régime theory by incorporating an
account of both education/training and labor market structures alongside an
analysis of family and welfare policy.
THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE
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More broadly, a number of studies have sought to examine the way in
which the gender régime or culture shapes the nature of institutions and
hence women’s employment patterns. However, it has been challenging to
accurately capture the scale and nature of cross-national variation in culture.
Uunk, Kalmijn, and Muffels (2005) find a substantial positive and independent effect of a country’s egalitarian gender-role attitudes on the likelihood
of individual women being in paid employment. Charles and Grusky (2004)
use one item from the 1990 World Values Survey (“men have greater rights
to jobs during periods of high unemployment”) as a measure of gender
egalitarianism. Using this measure, vertical segregation levels are found to
be lower in countries with more egalitarian attitudes among the general
population but there is no consistent relationship between egalitarianism
and horizontal segregation. Similarly, Mühlau’s (2011) findings suggest no
systematic relationship between egalitarian attitudes and gender differences
in job quality at the country level. Employing several items on gender
role attitudes, Steinmetz (2012) finds that egalitarian attitudes on some
dimensions, but not others, are associated with a greater representation
of women and men in gender-mixed jobs. The findings point to a broader
issue of how best to capture a complex, and potentially changing, gender
culture. Using attitudes to female employment recorded in cross-sectional
surveys of the general population as a measure of the gender culture
may be problematic, as the relationship between attitudes and behavior is
complex, especially when viewed longitudinally (Steiber & Haas, 2012).
Attitudes can be responsive to, rather than driving, broader societal change,
with more egalitarian perceptions in the Irish context postdating a rapid
rise in female labor force participation driven by economic boom and, in
many post-socialist countries, attitudes becoming less egalitarian following
the political and economic transition period. It seems we need to further
interrogate the extent to which attitudes, measured cross-sectionally, are
always revealing of deeper power structures within society and whether it
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might be possible to develop other measures that could shed better light on
the configuration of gender régimes.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH ON GENDER
AND TRANSITIONS
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It has been argued in this essay that school-to-work transitions research has
often developed in isolation from other strands of social scientific research,
particularly the sociology of education and gender theory. Understanding
how young women and men come to have exposure to very different subjects or fields of study could be enhanced by drawing on insights from school
effects research and from studies that examine in detail the way in which
gender identity is constructed and reconstructed within the classroom and
school. The extent to which male and female students select different subjects
and courses has been found to vary from school to school within national systems. Schools with otherwise similar characteristics can vary significantly in
their provision of particular subjects (Oakes, 1990). Schools can also influence course take-up indirectly through subject packaging for optional subjects (e.g., by asking students to select between “male” and “female” subjects)
and more subtle encouragement of the take-up of particular types of subjects.
School climate and process can also contribute to the emergence of gender
differences in educational outcomes, with schools serving as sites for the
construction of masculinities and femininities (Connell, 2002). Furthermore,
particular subject areas, such as mathematics and physics, may become constructed as “masculine,” leading to tensions for female students in selecting
these subjects (Mendick, 2005). Transitions research could profit from taking
on board these insights and seeking to unpack the ways in which early labor
market outcomes may reflect the production and reproduction of gender differences within the education and training system.
Recent transitions research has increasingly moved towards quantitative
analysis of large-scale national and cross-national datasets, a trend which
has improved our ability to make inferences about the way in which institutional structures shape differences in employment outcomes but has perhaps
at times restricted our capacity to unpack the underlying mechanisms at play.
These studies make inferences about employer preferences and decisions on
the basis of observed employment outcomes among a sample of adults. However, there has been little direct observation of employer behavior, a lacuna
highlighted since the very early days of transitions research and which, it has
been argued, serves to conflate demand- and supply-side processes (Bills, Di
Stasio, & Gerxhani, 2017). An account which explores the way in which segregation patterns are shaped by the interaction between a differentiated labor
supply (in terms of gender, educational level, field of study, and other factors,
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such as social background and ethnicity) and a differentiated demand for
labor on the part of employers would appear to offer a fruitful direction for
future research.
The roots of transitions research lie in very rich and detailed case-studies
of workplaces across different institutional settings (Maurice et al., 1986).
Similarly, the work of the Cambridge Labor Market Studies group used
case-studies of firms to yield insights into the way in which employers
demonstrated a preference for different sorts of labor (in terms of gender,
age, etc.) in different market contexts (Craig, Garnsey, & Rubery, 1985).
During the same time period, feminist theorists used detailed case-studies
of specific occupations to trace the way in which occupational closure could
be exercised by (some) groups of men, on the one hand, and women could
use qualifications as a lever to secure entry to élite professions such as
medicine, on the other hand (Crompton & Sanderson, 1990; Witz, 1992).
Historical accounts show the way in which the gendered nature of the
work process is built into the labor process from the outset (Bradley, 1989),
reflecting the influence of broader social, economic and political factors.
Thereafter, barring disruptions of the labor support or a restructuring of the
labor process, the gender-typing of jobs tends to be reproduced in a “taken
for granted” manner. There appears to be great potential to use case-studies
of firms and occupations to explore employer recruitment and promotion
decisions in detail and to unpack the way in which gender is (or is not) built
into the configuration of jobs. The challenge will then be how to incorporate
these insights into large-scale cross-national analyses but without such
case-studies, we are unlikely to be able to properly understand the processes
at play or develop the measures needed to capture them.
REFERENCES
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Emer Smyth is a research professor and head of the Social Research Division
at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Dublin, Ireland and is
adjunct professor of sociology at Trinity College, Dublin. She has published
extensively on her main research interests of education, school-to-work transitions, gender and comparative methodology. She has conducted a number
of studies looking at young people’s experiences of the schooling system and
the factors shaping their postschool transitions, publishing Students’ Experiences and Perspectives on Secondary Education (Palgrave Macmillan) based on
a decade-long mixed methods longitudinal study in 2016. A central theme
of her work has been educational inequality and she has published a number of studies examining the school and individual factors influencing early
school leaving and exam underperformance. She is on the management team
of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) child cohort study and has used GUI data
to look at arts and cultural participation among children and young people,
wellbeing among primary school children and the transition into primary
school.
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