Gender segregation in the labor market

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The sociological field of gender segregation on the labor market is a special form of labor market segregation and describes the unequal distribution of career and life opportunities for women and men. This is the case despite a significant increase in the level of education and qualification and an increasing participation of women as well as legally enshrined regulations on gender equality .

One also speaks of male and female domains .

Historical

In the German Reich , wives and mothers were ousted from the labor market or excluded from certain professions by individual legal measures:

  • From 1880 to 1919 female teachers were celibate , as a result of which teachers lost their position as well as their entitlement to a pension when they marry.
  • The staff reduction Regulation legalized in the Weimar Republic , the common practice at the time to dismiss civil servants in 1923 when they got married or illegitimate got child.
  • During the Nazi era, wives were given an incentive to leave the labor market by granting newlyweds a marriage loan for the purchase of household items, provided that the wife left the job.

Horizontal and vertical segregation

Horizontal segregation means differences on a hierarchical level. The world of work can be divided into male and female areas, so the labor market is gender segregated: The horizontal segregation of professions divides the entire area of ​​employment into male and female fields of activity, professions and industries. The demarcation of the percentages from which "women's professions" and "men's professions" or mixed professions are used vary in the literature. In almost all occupations and industries there is a large disproportion between the sexes, so in 2010 2/3 of the men worked in so-called male occupations with a proportion of women below 30%. Women are increasingly working in retail and social professions, while men are more likely to work in technical, manual and related professions in production. See list of proportions of women in the professional world .

Vertical segregation means differences due to unequal distribution on different hierarchical levels. Men and women are unevenly distributed at different levels of the hierarchy. In 2014, the proportion of women in management positions in the private sector in the first hierarchical level was only 25%. Accordingly, women are still clearly underrepresented in relation to their share of the total workforce. Women's career paths are blocked by informal and often invisible barriers that allow access to higher positions, the so-called glass ceiling . In addition, there are significant wage differences between the sexes (see Gender Wage Gap ).

Institutional regulations

There are various institutional regulations in Germany and Sweden that directly and / or indirectly influence equality between men and women in the labor market, either positively or negatively. Although Sweden has been promoting equality between women and men in the labor market longer and more than Germany through institutional regulations such as B. tried to establish through the law on equal opportunities, and the compatibility of family and work promotes through a state-guaranteed comprehensive childcare, Sweden has so far only succeeded to a limited extent in dissolving the segregation of the labor market into male and female areas.

In Germany, the "Law for Equal Participation of Women and Men in Management Positions" has stipulated a binding quota of 30% women on supervisory boards of listed companies with equal co-determination since January 1, 2016.

Effects on the Gender Wage Gap

A Swedish study found that labor market segregation clears up a significant proportion of the gender wage gap , but a significant wage gap remains even when additional factors are kept statistically constant. The result is interpreted as an indication of wage discrimination in the Swedish labor market.

According to the OECD Employment Outlook from 2002, labor market segregation remains a problem in the labor market and leads to insufficient use of women's cognitive and leadership skills.

In order to be able to comprehensively understand labor market segregation, the distribution of good positions (high pay, high decision-making authority, high social status, high job security) and bad positions (low pay, low decision-making authority, low social status, low job security) must be in relation to (at least ) the classic inequality dimensions of ethnicity, class and gender (race, class, gender) are considered. The degree of segregation on the labor market influences life chances in capitalist societies and controls social, cultural and material disadvantages through the poorer conditions.

In order to close the gender-specific income gap due to the choice of profession, attempts are being made to get boys into typical women's jobs via Boys 'Day and girls into typical men's jobs via Girls' Day .

literature

  • Ruth Becker, Beate Kortendiek (ed.): Handbook women and gender research. Theory, methods, empiricism . With the collaboration of Barbara Budrich. 2nd expanded and updated edition. VS Verlag , Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-16154-9 .
  • Bettina Heintz (Ed.): Gender sociology . 2nd updated edition. VS Verlag , Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-33753-1 .
  • Reinhard Kreckel: Political Sociology of Social Inequality . 3rd revised and expanded edition. Campus publishing house , Frankfurt a. M./New York 2004, ISBN 3-593-37598-2 , pp. 212-283 .
  • Angelika Wetterer: Division of labor and gender construction. “Gender at work” from a theoretical and historical perspective . At the same time: Univ. Kassel, Habil.-Schrift, 2000. UVK Verlagsgesellschaft , Konstanz 2002, ISBN 3-89669-787-0 .
  • Andrea Leitner: Women's Professions - Men's Professions: On the Persistence of Gender-Hierarchical Labor Market Segregation , in: Institute for Higher Studies, Sociology Series No. 47, Vienna 2001
  • Uta Liebeskind: Labor market segregation and income. Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology , KZfSS. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, issue December 2004, ISSN  0023-2653
  • Jens Krabel, Olaf Stuve Ed .: Men in "women's professions" in care and education. Barbara Budrich, Leverkusen 2005 ISBN 9783938094525

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “The celibacy clause stipulated that the civil servant had to leave the service when she married, and consequently only single or childless widowed women were employed at all. In the event of marriage, the entitlement to the pension expired completely. ”Quoted from: E. Kohler-Gehrig: The history of women in law (PDF; 241 kB), University of Public Administration and Finance Ludwigsburg, August 2007, p. 23.
  2. ^ Gisela Helwig: Weimar Republic. In: Path to equality, information on political education (issue 254). Federal Agency for Civic Education, archived from the original on January 29, 2012 ; Retrieved February 9, 2014 . Print edition: 1997.
  3. ↑ Hausmann, Ann-Christin / Kleinert, Corinna: Men's and women's domains hardly changed. Occupational segregation in the labor market. In: IAB short report 9/2014
  4. ↑ Kohaut, Susanne / Möller, Iris: In the east women are more often at the top. Management positions in the private sector . In: IAB_Short Report 2/2016
  5. ↑ http://www.bmfsfj.de/BMFSFJ/gleichstellung,did=88098.html [last accessed on May 10, 2016]
  6. ↑ LeGrand, Carl. (1991) "Explaining the Male-Female Wage Gap: Job Segregation and Solidarity Wage Bargaining in Sweden" ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Acta Sociologica 34 , 261-278. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / asj.sagepub.com
  7. ↑ OECD (2002). Employment Outlook (PDF; 647 kB). Paris: OECD. Page 61: "Occupational and sectoral segmentation also remains strong and appears to result in an under-utilization of women's cognitive and leadership skills. Women continue to earn less than men, even after controlling for characteristics thought to influence productivity."
  8. ↑ Karin Gottschall: Gender Relations and Labor Market Segregation. In: Becker-Schmidt, Regina ; Knapp, Gudrun-Axeli : The gender relationship as an object of the social sciences. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Campus Verlag, 1995, pp. 125-162