Women's Employment (women + employment)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Affirmative Action in Women's Employment: Lessons from Canada

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2006
Nicole Busby
The use of affirmative action to increase women's representation in employment is recognized under European Community law. The European Court of Justice has identified affirmative action permissible under EC law and what constitutes reverse discrimination, deemed incompatible with the equal treatment principle. Despite these developments, gendered occupational segregation , vertical and horizontal , persists in all member states as evidenced by enduring pay gaps. It is widely argued that we now need national measures which take advantage of the appropriate framework and requisite political will which exists at the European level. Faced with a similar challenge, the Canadian government passed the Employment Equity Act 1986 which places an obligation on federal employers to implement employment equity (affirmative action) by proactive means. Although subject to some criticism, there have been some improvements in women's representation since its introduction. This article assesses what lessons might be learned from Canada's experience. [source]


The demand for child curative care in two rural thanas of Bangladesh: effect of income and women's employment

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001
Ann Levin
Abstract This paper seeks to investigate the determinants of child health care seeking behaviours in rural Bangladesh. In particular, the effects of income, women's access to income, and the prices of obtaining child health care are examined. Data on the use of child curative care were collected in two rural areas of Bangladesh,Abhoynagar Thana of Jessore District and Mirsarai Thana of Chittagong District,in March 1997. In estimating the use of child curative care, the nested multinomial logit specification was used. The results of the analysis indicate that a woman's involvement in a credit union or income generation affected the likelihood that curative child care was used. Household wealth decreased the likelihood that the child had an illness episode and affected the likelihood that curative child care was sought. Among facility characteristics, travel time was statistically significant and was negatively associated with the use of a provider. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Exploring the mismatch between skills and jobs for women in Saudi Arabia in technical and vocational areas: the views of Saudi Arabian private sector business managers

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2002
John R. Calvert
Saudi Arabia's rapid development has highlighted the shortage of national technical manpower and the subsequent need to recruit non-Saudi technical workers, on the one hand, and the difficulty of replacing these workers with qualified Saudis, on the other. Therefore successive Development Plans have tried to raise the quality and quantity of technical and vocational education for both men and women. In 1995/96 only 5 per cent of Technical and Vocational Education (TEVT) enrolled students were female. This compares with an average of 29 per cent in other Islamic countries and 45 per cent in Japan (UNESCO, 1997, 1999). Part of this may be due to the preferences of female students in education, part due to the structure of TEVT in Saudi Arabia, part due to the availability of technical and vocational jobs available for women after completing their training and part due to the natural place of women in Saudi society. The Seventh Development Plan (2000,2004) assumes that the private sector will play a very significant role in employing a Saudi labour force including both men and women. As part of a comprehensive study concerning the factors affecting women's employment in the Saudi private sector private sector business managers in four large cities were surveyed to see what factors they felt were important. The main factors affecting employment of women in technical and vocational education were seen by the managers as those relating to the structure of TEVT education in Saudi Arabia rather than preferences of women or pressures from society. [source]


Cultural Influences on Immigrant Women's Labor Force Participation: The Arab-American Case,

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2004
Jen'nan Ghazal Read
Research on the economic activity of immigrant women has flourished in recent years. The current study extends this literature to examine the labor force activity of Arab-American women, a group whose labor market experiences provide an exception to hitherto accepted theoretical explanations. The employment rates of Arab immigrant women rank among the lowest of any immigrant group, while the rates of native-born Arab-American women resemble those of U.S.-born white women. This study examines potential explanations for these differences using data from the U.S. Census and a national mail survey of Arab-American women. Contrary to findings for other immigrant groups, differences among Arab-American women cannot be explained by their human capital characteristics or family resources, but are almost entirely due to traditional cultural norms that prioritize women's family obligations over their economic activity, and to ethnic and religious social networks that encourage the maintenance of traditional gender roles. This study concludes by underscoring the need for additional research on the impact of culture on immigrant women's employment. [source]


Affirmative Action: A German Perspective on the Promotion of Women's Rights with Regard to Employment

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2006
Anke J. Stock
This paper discusses affirmative action policies in Germany. After German reunification, women from both east and west had hoped for a new codification of their rights, including positive obligations on the state to promote gender equality. However, the amendments to the Basic Law in November 1994 did not clearly endorse this approach. Opinions still differ as to whether Articles 3(2) and 3(3) of the Constitution allow for affirmative action with regard to women's employment. In 2001 quotas for the public employment sector were finally introduced, but the use of quotas for private sector employment still faces serious opposition. Nevertheless, the concept of affirmative action is not new to the German legal system: since the eighteenth century, quota schemes have been used to ensure the employment of (war-) disabled persons. This article examines the different approaches to employment quotas for women and disabled persons, and critically evaluates the reasons for divergence. [source]


Consanguinity and reproductive wastage in the Palestinian Territories

PAEDIATRIC & PERINATAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 2 2009
Shireen Assaf
Summary Many studies have found that consanguinity poses a threat to child mortality and health and can also pose a threat to offspring survival before birth. However, there are conflicting findings with some studies having found no increased risk on offspring survival associated with consanguinity. Data from a population-based survey conducted in 2004 in the Palestinian Territories was used to assess the risk of consanguinity on offspring survival. The analysis was conducted on 4418 women aged 15,49 who were asked whether or not they had experienced a stillbirth or a spontaneous abortion. These two outcomes were combined together for the analysis of reproductive wastage. Multivariable negative binomial regression was conducted to calculate the incidence risk ratios (IRR) for each region in the Palestinian Territories separately. The strongest risk factors for reproductive wastage, after controlling for other variables, were found to be consanguinity, age and parity with age presenting the highest IRRs. Standard of living, locality type, education level, women's employment and past intrauterine device use were not found to be significant risk factors for reproductive wastage. In the West Bank only first cousin level of consanguinity was found to be significant and ,hamola' level (or from same family clan) lost its significance after adjusting for other variables. In the Gaza Strip both the first cousin and ,hamola' levels of consanguinity were significant and presented almost equal IRRs of 1.3. In conclusion, consanguinity was found to be a significant risk factor for reproductive wastage. [source]


Production, Reproduction, and Education: Women, Children, and Work in a British Perspective

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2002
Heather Joshi
This article reviews findings of studies by the author and colleagues on relationships between women's work and the reproduction of the British population based on data for female birth cohorts 1922,70. The studies address three questions: (1) How do children affect women's paid work and lifetime earnings? (2) How does women's employment affect the quantity of children born? (3) How does women's employment affect the "quality" of children? The answers are affected by the woman's educational attainment. On question 1, childrearing may often halve lifetime earnings, but seldom for the well educated. By contrast, any effects from employment to childbearing are most apparent in the late motherhood of the well educated. Child quality, as assessed by indicators of child development, benefits from maternal education and suffers little from maternal employment. The economic advantages for children in dual-career families are thus unabated. A widening gulf between mothers will tend to polarize the life chances of their children, unless there are more options to combine employment and childrearing, especially including good-quality child care for those who cannot afford the market price. Education is a powerful influence, but does not alone solve all issues of equity, whether between families or between sexes. [source]


The Incompatibility of Decentralized Bargaining and Equal Employment Opportunity in Australia

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2000
Glenda Strachan
Profound changes have occurred in the industrial relations system in Australia since the mid-1980s as the system of centralized regulation has been replaced by collective bargaining at the level of the enterprise. This has corresponded with the considerable expansion of women's employment, mainly in part-time and temporary jobs. At the same time, recognition of the disadvantaged position of women in the work-force has resulted in the enactment of laws to promote equal employment opportunity. This article examines the ability of these laws to achieve equal employment opportunity policies alongside bargaining decentralization and a growing non-standard women's work-force. [source]