How Does Gender Inequality Affect Australia

Western women have traditionally been perceived as the inferior sex, or the domestic partner, subjected wholly to the private sphere, and stripped of legal rights and standing. Meanwhile, men are depicted as the breadwinner, the strong, masculine and dominant partner, who belongs primarily to the public sphere. These historic gender norms have been deeply imbedded within Australia’s social foundation, and although society has gradually shifted away from these roles, evidence suggests that this gender inequality still riddles the modern day workplace. Liberal feminist groups have embraced this issue, and have classified it as being a true barrier to achieving the ultimate gender equality goal. Consequently, these liberal feminists along

Due to the shift in the structure of the Australian workforce over the last century, the class structure of the contemporary society has become more complicated than its traditional model. There is no longer a clear distinction between the middle and the working class (as cited in van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 227). In the past, people who work in intellectual occupation had higher income and status, where they received more social honour than people who had manual skills. Nowadays, many people whose job involves manual labour have a higher income than those in intellectual occupation (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 227). For example, some small business owners are self-employed where they are required to provide manual labour. Since they are both the capitalist and the worker of their own, they can avoid being exploited and have full access to the wealth they produce. Their income and status are therefore high, even though they involve in manual labour.

Over the past few decades, great strides have been made by women in the workplace. This increased number in women in the workplace does not mean equality however. Even with equal qualifications and achievements, women are still not given all the opportunities that men have. The chapter in the textbook, “Gender at Work”, shows us more of these inequalities in the workplace. Such inequalities cause gender segregation of jobs and can be linked with the pay inequality in the labor force. Even in jobs that are predominantly filled by women, men earn more than women. Women are often stereotyped as being family focused and not as able to travel, therefore they tend to get passed up for promotions (Garson p.353). This invisible barrier that keeps women from moving up the executive ladder is referred to as the “glass ceiling” (Baxter and Wright p. 346). Women also tend to do more domestic work, or unpaid labor and caregiving. This extra unpaid work is referred to as “the third shift” and is largely rested on the shoulders of women (Gersel p. 352). Consequently, this seems to be one of the biggest things holding women back from taking on jobs that are normally considered male

Since the beginning of time, from all accounts, there has been some form of inequality between genders in society. This has become especially true in the workplace and for some people occupational segregation may be to blame. Occupational segregation is the grouping of similar jobs at similar workplaces. Not to be confused with job segregation which looks at specific jobs within specific workplaces, occupational segregation focuses on the occupation as a whole. An example of an occupation would be middle school teacher. An example of a job would be 7th grade math teacher at Champion Middle School. We use occupation segregation in research because it is more broad and easier to get details. There are over 500

Australian families have experienced many significant changes over the past 6 decades. These changes consequently resulted in equality of opportunities, and conditions for women in the labour force. Along with the willingness of most men to become voluntarily involved in core household work, as well as taking on a greater role with respect to childcare. This essay will discuss two significant changes in gender roles, and will examine some of the positive and negative impacts it had on Australian society over the past six decades. On the one hand, Australian federal and state governments passed several new laws and legislations which resulted in an increased participation by women in the labour force. These legislative changes provide many

Gender stereotypes are one of the most common encountered on a daily basis. The infamous ‘Glass Ceiling’ still exists in many areas of the professional world, restricting valid promotions simply based on gender. This type of concept can be verified by looking at comparative weekly wages of other professionals in a variety of industries. Most people will generally see female dominated occupations, such as nurse, teacher and secretary as requiring feminine personality traits and physical attributes for success; whereas male dominated occupations such as doctor, lawyer, and business executive are seen to require male personality traits for success (Sanderson, 2010, p. 344).

The agency defines the Gender Pay Gap (GPG) as the difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time equivalent earnings. They calculated the national GPG using Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Average Weekly Full-Time earnings data. The key results for the GPG on a national average show that men earn 18.8% more than women. This percentage has hovered between 15% and 19% for the last 20 years. On a state and territory level, Western Australia had the highest gap of 25.7%, with the Australian Capital Territory the lowest with 11.7%. This means that Western Australian women would have to work 91 extra days a year to earn the same as their male counterparts. By industry, financial and insurance services had the highest GPG with 29.6% and public administration the lowest with a 7.2%. Over the 20 year period, the GPG was lowest in November 2004 at 14.9%. The study concludes that while a number of factors contribute to changes in the gender pay gap, including major changes in government policy, no causal links have been found to adequately explain the 2004 dip in the GPG, or its subsequent steep rise in

“They were treated quite madly in Australia and New Zealand in that sense,” said Mr. Rees (Papas, 2014). There were many working-class women who refused to go back into the domestic services (Anitha S. , 2004). Women’s income had also risen but still earned much less than men which then bought on the fight for equal pay. This continued until the 1970’s (Anitha S. , 2004). Many women were left widowed or single with many children left without fathers (Anitha S. , 2004).

The labor market is very segregated. It is mentioned that women and men of the same racial-ethnic group rarely having the same jobs, as well as women of different racial-ethnic groups. This supports the interconnection between class, race, and gender. Men are seen as the superior gender, and are more likely to receive a job position. Women are often deemed incapable of preforming work that is classified as a ‘man’s job’ and pushed into typical jobs involving infant care and domestic work.

Equal opportunity, equal pay and more equal sharing of family responsibilities are all necessary to close a gap which results in too many women struggling to put enough aside to fund a comfortable retirement.

In the early society, it was conspicuous in gender inequality, especially; in women as predominantly chief were men. New Zealand was the first country in the world to participate women in voting rights as men which illustrated that women had more opportunity in a society’s role. Australia and New Zealand are good instant that exemplified the equability between meal and female. At that time, 19th and 20th many centuries’ qualified people who wanted to achieve in order to obtain the higher position on their gender, race or even family background.

Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for systematic gender inequality in the workplace. Cultural benefits, the actions of male employees, the actions of the female employees, and the actions of the employer can contribute to intentional or unintentional gender discrimination (Ngo, Foley, Wong, & Loi, 2003). It has also been mentioned that women make less money because their work environment is generally safer than the stereotypical male work environment; childcare, cashiers, and secretary positions as opposed to firefighters, truck drivers and construction workers (Parcheta, Kaifi, & Khanfar, 2013). Perhaps the most dominant reasoning for women receiving less pay is the carrying over of biological roles into the workplace. Female employees often take time off to have a family, take care of a family, and are the primary caregiver of said family.

The second wave of feminism began in the 60’s worldwide. This wave of feminism primarily worked towards bringing equality into the workplace as well as into education systems. It was also the wave in which women started fighting for reproductive and sexual rights (Seibert, A and Roslaniec, D, 1998). In Australia, the Whitlam Government was specifically working on furthering women’s rights and equality in wages. However, stereotypical gender roles restricted women into continuing to work low status jobs. Whether that was as a child bearer or a housewife it was low status nonetheless. The Whitlam Government attempted to further Women’s rights in 1972 by making a law

The generation now has made it easier to equalize men and women but there is still a substantial amount of places where gender inequality is still happening in the workplace and where females still face discrimination. Women are often discriminated in the workplace and are usually not promoted as quickly as men are and they also receive less pay. History shows that women have not always been defined as property and thought of as second class citizens. But in the 21st century many have seen a drastic change in the so called “traditional” family ways where women are suppose to stay home and take care of the household chores, food, and children and men are suppose to work to support their family and provide financial stability. Many assume that in the workplace women are more vulnerable and less competent than men because women 's instincts are to put their family before work or anything else. Whereas men are the ones who will usually stay the late hours to work. People on both sides of the political spectrum and everywhere in between seem to be fearful of what is to come and more fearful of others than they are often willing to admit.

The concept of gender denotes the distinction between culturally driven and created roles of masculinity and femininity. These specific and normalized attitudes and behaviors transcend and effect how differently men and women live their lives. Based on society’s continual re-enforcement of such gender stereotypes, we see an on-going dilemma of gender inequality. Though some may argue that men experience gender inequality, this seems to exist on a much more invasive level for women. As of recently, the awareness of gender inequality in the workplace has increased. With the fight for equal pay and equal respect, society is already making strides towards the equality of women. With that being said, one aspect of gender inequality that seems