Optimistic
voices in the debate about the future of the gender revolution rely
on comprehensively detailed trends documenting the erosion of
barriers to women’s advancement over recent decades – trends
evident in almost all areas of life in post-industrial societies. The
second wave of feminism and the struggle for civil rights, followed
by changes in the occupational structure – first and foremost the
growth of white collar occupations and professionalism – triggered
the upward mobility of women within the labor market, and in society
at large. For example, women’s involvement in paid work has
dramatically increased; the male-breadwinner model lost it
prominence, and the amount of time devoted by women to paid work
(relative to unpaid word) increased. Women have also surpassed men in
overall rates of college graduation, an important change triggering
the integration of women into politics, and into prestigious jobs in
previously male-dominated occupations, particularly managerial and
high-status professional occupations. These changes have been
accompanied by shifts in legislation and public opinion, towards a
greater support for gender equality – which together have
contributed to a convergence in gender pay gaps. Based on these solid
outcomes, the optimistic conclusion is almost self-evident: when
gender inequality is assessed by the educational, occupational, or
economic attainments of individual men and women, the significance of
gender as a stratifying force has consistently declined over the last
half-century.
Less
optimistic perspectives, however, are sounded by gender scholars, who
point to the slowdown and even stagnation of major aspects of this
‘gender
revolution’
from the mid-1990s onwards, especially in the United States. This
shift – which has taken on increasing significance in recent
studies – is surprising, given the consistent increase in the
numbers of women entering hitherto male fields of study, and the
increase in the amount of time women devote to paid work. In
explaining this situation, feminists point to structural mechanisms
of gender inequality. They argue that despite the economic
advancement of individual women, the ‘gender
revolution’
did not succeed in eliminating deeply embedded gender beliefs about
the fundamental differences between men and women in skill competence
and abilities. These beliefs, they argue, not only restrict women’s
entry to certain fields of study and occupations, but also contribute
to devaluing women’s skills and activities relative to men;
legitimize lower economic reward for jobs and activities dominated by
women; and preserve the disproportionate amounts time spent by women
on housework. All these factors create serious ‘bottlenecks’
hindering the further advancement of gender equality.
The
aim of the project is
to identify these ‘bottlenecks’, which we argue served as
‘structural barriers' preventing
individual women from competing successfully against men
for resources
and rewards. We argue that as women become more integrated into
positions of power, the more influential the role of these structural
barriers is likely to become. However, because these are less visible
and amenable to empirical assessment, they are under-researched
compared to individual aspects, and are commonly assumed to be
gender-neutral. The implication is that the importance of gender as a
determinant of economic inequality in the labor market is
insufficiently acknowledged, and consequently is difficult to track
and eradicate. Thus, the distinction between individual and
structural aspects of gender inequality in this context is not merely
of analytical importance, but carries significant implications for
empirical study, and for our ability to assess the changing role of
gender inequality in our society. Amidst the abundance of empirical
research on long-term trends in gender inequality, gender is usually
perceived and empirically examined at the individual level (i.e., by
trends in gender pay gaps, by the upward occupational mobility of
women, etc.). Within this extensive research, the structural
processes of gender inequality are not often acknowledged or taken
into account. This deficiency obscures our understanding of gender
inequality, and thus our ability, as a society, to alleviate it and
its negative ramifications.
All
our works in the project aim to track the relationship between
structural vs. individual processes of gender in equality, mostly
within a long-term perspective. So far we have addressed several
countervailing processes at play; some relate to women’s individual upward mobility on the occupational structure versus women’s collective negative effect on occupational pay; others relate to women’s upward position in the labor market verses the stagnation in the distribution of housework between the spouses. Our works on
the topic of educational premiums have also revealed countervailing
processes; whilst it is well documented that women have greater
incentives to invest in education (given their low earning potential
otherwise), women’s lower absolute education premiums are not
acknowledged, nor is the rise in the gender gap in absolute education
premiums over time. These countervailing processes are caused by and
are reflected in a complex dynamic between economic and cultural
processes; economic relations between men and women at the workplace
and between spouses within the family have changed relatively rapidly
over recent decades,
but gender relations
– founded on norms and ideology – have been much more resistant
to change. In addressing the distinction between individual and
structural forms of gender inequality, their theoretical sources and
their empirical manifestations, we aim to make the structural forms
of gender inequality more evident and accessible to empirical
comparative studies.