The Role of Gender in Employment and Promotion in Australia

The Role of Gender in Employment and Promotion in Australia

INTRODUCTION

Adam Smith and Karl Marx may have had opposing views of capitalism but they agreed on one point. Employment and work exerts a significant influence on the attitudes and behaviours that people develop (Kanter, 1977:3). Historically, over the modern era, men worked in paid employment in the public sphere while women performed unpaid domestic duties in the private sphere. Women however have waged a successful campaign for the right to enter the workforce on equal terms with their male counterparts. Since the Second World War women have entered the workforce in larger numbers than has ever been seen and have claimed the right to be treated equally in access to employment, training and promotion in the workforce. Legislation and affirmative action programs validated and legitimised their claims and gave the appearance that women now have equal opportunity and in some instances more opportunity than men. However an examination of women in the labour force reveals that while numbers of women employed approximates numbers of men women are generally located in different spheres and are employed under different conditions. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures indicate that percentages of women, aged 15 and over, in full-time employment have actually not increased significantly, rising from 25.2% in 1933 to just 27.1% in 1994. However numbers of women in part-time work have increased rising from 8.4% in 1966 to 20.1% in 1994 (Probert, 1997:186). In addition women are more heavily populated in particular industries. This ‘feminisation’ of industry is a modern phenomena that occurs with increasing numbers of women entering an industry combined with decreasing numbers of men. However it is still not clear if industries become ‘feminised’ and located in the secondary labour market due to the fact that large numbers of women enter or whether women enter an industry because of its location in the secondary labour market.

In addition to this horizontal...

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