Guest speaker: Dr Vanessa Gash, City, University of London
Abstract: This paper concerns itself with the relationship between gendered norms and gendered economic inequalities. While there is a considerable literature that identifies gendered economic inequalities in outcome: women work fewer hours in paid employment, have weaker labour market attachment, earn lower wages (Rubery and Grimshaw 2014) and hold jobs of lower occupational worth (Yaish and Stier, 2009), there are increasing efforts to acknowledge differences between women, with class distinctions an important source of female heterogeneity (Warren, 2015; Cooke, 2011). This paper contributes to this tradition in its investigation into female alpha status. Female alphas are defined as those who earn wages in the top 20 per cent of the male and female earned income distribution, the paper finds a rising tendency for women to reach the upper echelons of paid employment, there were just 18% of women in this category in the early 1990s rising to 30% in 2015. The paper examines key predictors of her likelihood to be an alpha earner, including household context, with recent research suggesting that gender identity norms within couples limit women’s economic status (Bertrand et al. 2015). Preliminary results suggest that coupledom has problematic effects for women’s pursuit of high wage employment. The paper uses both the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the UK household panel survey (UKHLS), spanning a period from 1991-2014.
Bibliography:
Bertrand, M. Kamenica E. and Pan J. (2015) ‘Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 571–614.
Cooke, L.P. (2011) Gender-Class Equality in Political Economies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Rubery, J. and Grimshaw, D. (2014). The Forty Year Pursuit of Equal Pay: A Case of Constantly Moving Goal Posts (Special issue on 'forty years after the equal pay act'). Cambridge Journal of Economics.
Warren, T. (2015), Work–life balance/imbalance: the dominance of the middle class and the neglect of the working class. The British Journal of Sociology, 66: 691–717.
Yaish, M. and Stier, H. (2009). Gender Inequality in Job Authority: A Cross-National Comparison of 26 Countries. Work and Occupation, 36, 343-66.
Tea/coffee and cakes from 2.45.
Join us for this event, which is part of the CMI Afternoon Seminar Series. All welcome. No registration necessary.
The Cathie Marsh Institute (CMI) provides a focal point at The University of Manchester for the application of quantitative methods in interdisciplinary social science research in order to generate a world class research environment.
