{"id":26,"date":"2020-02-11T10:39:21","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T10:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/home\/"},"modified":"2023-09-07T12:46:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T12:46:22","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Individual vs. Structural Gender Inequality<\/h1>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n
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individual vs. Structural Gender Inequality<\/h1>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n
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About our project<\/h3>\n

Optimistic\nvoices in the debate about the future of the gender revolution rely\non comprehensively detailed trends documenting the erosion of\nbarriers to women\u2019s advancement over recent decades \u2013 trends\nevident in almost all areas of life in post-industrial societies. The\nsecond wave of feminism and the struggle for civil rights, followed\nby changes in the occupational structure \u2013 first and foremost the\ngrowth of white collar occupations and professionalism \u2013 triggered\nthe upward mobility of women within the labor market, and in society\nat large. For example, women\u2019s involvement in paid work has\ndramatically increased; the male-breadwinner model lost it\nprominence, and the amount of time devoted by women to paid work\n(relative to unpaid word) increased. Women have also surpassed men in\noverall rates of college graduation, an important change triggering\nthe integration of women into politics, and into prestigious jobs in\npreviously male-dominated occupations, particularly managerial and\nhigh-status professional occupations. These changes have been\naccompanied by shifts in legislation and public opinion, towards a\ngreater support for gender equality \u2013 which together have\ncontributed to a convergence in gender pay gaps. Based on these solid\noutcomes, the optimistic conclusion is almost self-evident: when\ngender inequality is assessed by the educational, occupational, or\neconomic attainments of individual men and women, the significance of\ngender as a stratifying force has consistently declined over the last\nhalf-century.
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Less\noptimistic perspectives, however, are sounded by gender scholars, who\npoint to the slowdown and even stagnation of major aspects of this\n\u2018gender\nrevolution\u2019\nfrom the mid-1990s onwards, especially in the United States. This\nshift \u2013 which has taken on increasing significance in recent\nstudies \u2013 is surprising, given the consistent increase in the\nnumbers of women entering hitherto male fields of study, and the\nincrease in the amount of time women devote to paid work. In\nexplaining this situation, feminists point to structural mechanisms\nof gender inequality. They argue that despite the economic\nadvancement of individual women, the \u2018gender\nrevolution\u2019\ndid not succeed in eliminating deeply embedded gender beliefs about\nthe fundamental differences between men and women in skill competence\nand abilities. These beliefs, they argue, not only restrict women\u2019s\nentry to certain fields of study and occupations, but also contribute\nto devaluing women\u2019s skills and activities relative to men;\nlegitimize lower economic reward for jobs and activities dominated by\nwomen; and preserve the disproportionate amounts time spent by women\non housework. All these factors create serious \u2018bottlenecks\u2019\nhindering the further advancement of gender equality.
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The\naim of the project is\nto identify these \u2018bottlenecks\u2019, which we argue served as\n\u2018structural barriers' preventing\nindividual women from competing successfully against men\nfor resources\nand rewards. We argue that as women become more integrated into\npositions of power, the more influential the role of these structural\nbarriers is likely to become. However, because these are less visible\nand amenable to empirical assessment, they are under-researched\ncompared to individual aspects, and are commonly assumed to be\ngender-neutral. The implication is that the importance of gender as a\ndeterminant of economic inequality in the labor market is\ninsufficiently acknowledged, and consequently is difficult to track\nand eradicate. Thus, the distinction between individual and\nstructural aspects of gender inequality in this context is not merely\nof analytical importance, but carries significant implications for\nempirical study, and for our ability to assess the changing role of\ngender inequality in our society. Amidst the abundance of empirical\nresearch on long-term trends in gender inequality, gender is usually\nperceived and empirically examined at the individual level (i.e., by\ntrends in gender pay gaps, by the upward occupational mobility of\nwomen, etc.). Within this extensive research, the structural\nprocesses of gender inequality are not often acknowledged or taken\ninto account. This deficiency obscures our understanding of gender\ninequality, and thus our ability, as a society, to alleviate it and\nits negative ramifications.
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All\nour works in the project aim to track the relationship between\nstructural vs. individual processes of gender in equality, mostly\nwithin a long-term perspective. So far we have addressed several\ncountervailing processes at play; some relate to women\u2019s individual<\/i> upward mobility on the occupational structure versus women\u2019s collective<\/i> negative effect on occupational pay; others relate to women\u2019s upward<\/i> position in the labor market verses the stagnation<\/i> in the distribution of housework between the spouses. Our works on\nthe topic of educational premiums have also revealed countervailing\nprocesses; whilst it is well documented that women have greater\nincentives to invest in education (given their low earning potential\notherwise), women\u2019s lower absolute education premiums are not\nacknowledged, nor is the rise in the gender gap in absolute education\npremiums over time. These countervailing processes are caused by and\nare reflected in a complex dynamic between economic and cultural\nprocesses; economic relations between men and women at the workplace\nand between spouses within the family have changed relatively rapidly\nover recent decades,\nbut gender relations\n\u2013 founded on norms and ideology \u2013 have been much more resistant\nto change. In addressing the distinction between individual and\nstructural forms of gender inequality, their theoretical sources and\ntheir empirical manifestations, we aim to make the structural forms\nof gender inequality more evident and accessible to empirical\ncomparative studies.\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n

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\n  A brief of the project has been published as part of the \"Gender in Research\" results pack of the ERC.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n \n \n \n \n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Individual vs. Structural Gender Inequality individual vs. Structural Gender Inequality About our project Optimistic voices in the debate about the future of the gender revolution rely on comprehensively detailed trends documenting the erosion of barriers to women\u2019s advancement over recent decades \u2013 trends evident in almost all areas of life in post-industrial societies. The second … Continue reading “Home”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-26","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.socsci.tau.ac.il\/mu\/sigie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}