Poor job quality, particularly low wages, remains a persistent concern in the social work profession, contributing to high turnover and recruitment challenges. Although concerns over the quality of social work jobs may not be new, we know little about how the quality of social work jobs has evolved over time and for whom. Using four decades of Current Population Survey data, this article examines trends and variations by gender and race on multiple dimensions of job quality for social workers. The analyses reveal that although some dimensions, such as wages and full-time employment, have improved, other aspects of job quality have worsened, including increased risk of low pay and reduced access to employer-provided benefits. Limited progress has been made in reducing gender gaps in job quality, and racial disparities have worsened over time, with Black social workers facing a higher risk of low job quality than White social workers. The implications for the future of the social work profession are discussed, emphasizing the need to improve quality and equity in social work jobs.

Children's motivational beliefs in math, verbal, and spatial domains: Relations to gender, grade level, and achievement.

Emergency policies designed to protect populations can inadvertently cause diagnostic harm when essential services are suspended. How such policies reshape gender gaps in cancer detection, and whether either sex faces disproportionate harm, remains underexplored. We leveraged Taiwan's 2021 level 3 alert-a precautionary directive implemented during minimal COVID-19 transmission (0.07%) that mandated hospital capacity reductions and school closures-as a natural experiment to test whether the alert produced gendered diagnostic disruptions. Using Taiwan Cancer Registry and National Health Insurance claims (N=312 522; 2015-2021), we employed interrupted time series and difference-in-differences models to estimate changes in cancer detection rates and tumour size at diagnosis; robustness was confirmed through sensitivity and falsification tests. The alert disproportionately reduced detection of early-stage cancers, consistent with a collapse of preventive and opportunistic detection pathways. Women experienced larger declines in detection than men (-43.9% vs -32.0%; p=0.001) and greater increases in tumour size (17.3% vs 11.5%; p=0.026). These gaps were most pronounced among women under 50 (-50.7% vs -25.5%; p=0.001) and disadvantaged women, whose tumour size increase was nearly double that of disadvantaged men (16.6% vs 8.8%; p=0.049). The gap was particularly large for opportunistically detected cancers (lung: -47.1% women vs -22.6% men; p=0.011). These findings reveal a system-level patient safety failure. Women's higher engagement with routine care, ordinarily a health advantage, became a structural vulnerability when these pathways were suspended, possibly amplified by intensified caregiving, employment shocks and infection-risk avoidance. As health systems prepare for recurring shocks, resilience planning must incorporate gender-sensitive safeguards that prevent diagnostic harm. Protecting early detection pathways is both a clinical imperative and a patient safety requirement for equitable emergency response.

ABSTRACT The rise of ‘dadvertising’, campaigns featuring emotionally engaged, nurturing fathers, highlights how commercial media commodifies masculinity. While studies have accumulated in Anglo-American and Northern European contexts, and a growing body of Turkish scholarship has examined advertising and masculinity, the intersection of paternal emotion work and dadvertising remains underexplored in Turkish scholarship. This paper addresses that gap by examining paternal emotion work in Turkish Father’s Day advertising (2020–2025). Drawing on Hochschild’s distinction between organizational emotional labour and domestic emotion work, Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and Gill’s postfeminist sensibility, the study identifies four discursive formations. First, selective and bounded emotion work stages paternal care as episodic rather than routine. Second, emotional exceptionalism renders fathers’ caregiving heroic. Third, the commodification of paternal affect converts emotional expressiveness into brand capital. Fourth, postfeminist displacement uses individual-choice narratives to obscure the gendered care gap. Ultimately, Turkish dadvertising produces a modernized image of fatherhood that simultaneously reinscribes care inequality by framing men’s emotional participation as exceptional rather than quotidian. The findings contribute to feminist media studies by demonstrating how postfeminist advertising logic operates within a patriarchal, semi-peripheral context and by clarifying crucial conceptual boundaires between emotion work and emotional labour.

ABSTRACT A substantial body of literature highlights the existence of persistent gender gaps in academia, where women are underrepresented in senior positions and experience slower career progression than men. Among the factors contributing to these disparities, the motherhood penalty is frequently cited. However, less is known about how gender disparities unfold across successive stages of the academic career, at which transitions they become most salient, and whether the role of parenthood in career advancement varies by gender and career stage. Drawing on original retrospective data that reconstruct the career and fertility histories of a large sample of Italian academics, this study examines gender differences throughout academic career progression, from entry into early academic positions to promotion to full professorship. Using Cox proportional hazards models, we find no significant gender difference in the transition from PhD completion to non-tenure-track assistant professorship. A pronounced gender gap emerges, however, in subsequent transitions, with women experiencing significantly longer waiting times than men. This disparity persists after accounting for parenthood, second births, scholarly productivity, and other covariates. For women, childbearing does not significantly shape career advancement. By contrast, fatherhood has a dual effect: the birth of a first child is associated with faster progression to more advanced academic positions, whereas a second child is associated with slower early-career progression but faster advancement at later stages. These findings highlight the enduring career disadvantages experienced by women and the gendered implications of parenthood in academia.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the evolution of life-cycle earnings profiles of Chinese urban workers from 1989 to 2011, with a focus on education and gender heterogeneity and impact of the 1997 economic reforms. Using panel data from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we find that the earnings profiles of Chinese workers became flatter after the 1997 economic reform except the high-educated female leading to a shrinking gender gap between high-educated workers. Furthermore, we decompose the earning growth into experience, cohort and time effects. We find that earnings growth is driven primarily by strong time effects, which are largely gender neutral but increasingly favour high-educated workers after 1997. Experience effects flatten markedly following the reform, especially for low-educated female workers, Cohort effects disproportionately benefits male and low-educated workers. We also identify a negative relationship between initial wages and subsequent wage growth, particularly for men, and show that workers exiting the labour force after the reform exhibit flatter earnings profiles, consistent with negative skill selection, particularly among low-educated women. Overall, the results highlight how large-scale institutional reforms reshape earnings dynamics and exacerbate inequality in rapidly transforming labour markets.

Abstract Gender equity in science depends not only on who participates in research, but also on how their work is rewarded. We examine gender gaps in monetary returns to research productivity, pay, and credit attribution using a novel dataset linking salary and publication records for professors at U.S. public universities. While our main contribution shows that there is no robust evidence of a significant gender gap in monetary returns to publications, we uncover substantial heterogeneity across disciplines and authorship structures. Women in medical and health sciences experience a negative gap in returns of 10.7% relative to men for equivalent research output. The unconditional gender pay gap averages 15.4%, with variation across disciplines, ranging from 5.5% in agricultural sciences to 20.9% in social sciences. It declines to 4.9% after controls. Finally, women earn higher returns to solo-authored work but lower returns to larger co-author networks than men.

ABSTRACT Gender disparities in access to productive assets remain a defining feature of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. While gender gaps in crop productivity are well documented, evidence on livestock productivity remains limited. This paper examines gender differences in livestock productivity across eight WAEMU countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo – using two rounds of EHCVM data. To address selection bias associated with social norms, we combine regression analysis with entropy balancing. Results reveal a persistent productivity gap, with male livestock owners outperforming females. Recentered Influence Function (RIF) decomposition shows that unequal productive endowments largely explain this disparity. Policies enhancing women’s access to livestock inputs, services, and finance are essential for promoting gender equity and rural productivity growth.

Abstract Background A persistently elevated urine albumin:creatinine ratio (uACR) for more than 90 days is a diagnostic marker of chronic kidney disease (CKD), and an independent dose-dependent risk factor for CVD mortality, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, peripheral arterial disease and stroke.1 Reducing uACR with guideline-directed medical therapies reduces this risk. Regular uACR testing in at-risk patients, such as those with diabetes or with established CKD, is essential for early risk identification and timely intervention. Purpose To explore gender differences in uACR testing in patients with established CKD across England. Methods Permission was sought from the publicly available database CVDprevent.2 Gender differences of the domain "% Patients with GP recorded CKD (G3a to G5) with a record of a urine ACR test in the preceding 12 months" was mapped across 7 geographical domains throughout England (East of England, London, Midlands, North East and Yorkshire, North West, South East, South West). The latest data set, June 2025, was used. Results uACR testing in patients with CKD was suboptimal across England. The testing differences across the 7 regions ranged from 39.48% to 54.61% in females and 47.34% to 61.27% in males. In every area, females were tested less frequently than men (average difference 6.76%). Further analysis of the use of renin-angiotensin system antagonists for patients with CKD and proteinuria showed that females are treated less often than males across all regions (average treatment difference: 6.38%). Conclusions Significant diagnostic and treatment disparities exist between females and males with CKD across England.3 This inequality extends to uACR testing, where there is a clear and persistent gender gap in CKD detection and management. Given that CKD is a major risk factor for MACE, proactive testing and management for CKD is essential to reduce cardiovascular risk and prevent avoidable complications and mortality associated with CKD.

Digital literacy is increasingly integral to medical education, yet gender disparities may affect faculty engagement. This exploratory study examined gender-based differences in digital literacy among non-clinical faculty at a premier Indian medical institution, aiming to identify disparities and inform targeted interventions. A mixed-methods exploratory design was employed, integrating a structured online survey and in-depth semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire, developed specifically for this study after reviewing existing instruments, measured self-reported digital skills, usage frequency, and confidence levels. The survey was distributed to 64 purposively sampled non-clinical faculty. The interviews (conducted among eight faculty members) explored contextual barriers and enablers. Data were collected between March 2024 and January 2025. Chi-square (or Fisher's exact test where applicable) tests assessed gender-based differences (significance: p < 0.05). Of twenty-six faculty who responded to the survey (response rate 40.6%), 53.8% were women and 46.2% men. Over 85% reported more than 11 years of experience with computers, smartphones, and the internet; men reported longer cumulative usage. Most described moderate overall digital literacy. All participants (100%) were confident in basic digital skills; however, women reported significantly lower confidence in advanced tasks, and 31% felt behind peers in digital competencies (p = 0.02). Most faculty wished to acquire further digital skills. Qualitative findings revealed that societal expectations, time constraints, and gendered task-delegation patterns may disproportionately limit women's engagement in our setting. Men were more frequently assigned digital responsibilities. Younger faculty showed higher engagement irrespective of gender. Despite equitable institutional access to tools and training, disparities in participation and confidence persisted. The gender gap in digital literacy appears to be driven primarily by differences in confidence, perception, and socio-cultural expectations rather than access inequalities in our context. The preliminary findings suggest that gender-responsive training, mentorship, revised task-delegation practices, and institutional policy reforms may help promote equitable faculty participation in the digital academic environment. Since this is a single-site exploratory study, larger studies with more sample size and multiple contexts are needed to confirm and generalize these findings. Registered with the Clinical Trials Registry - India. CTRI/2024/11/076904 (Ref. No. REF/2024/11/094394) [Registered on: 18/11/2024].

Measuring the Gender Gap in Community Participation in a Village in Matrouh Governorate

BackgroundParity has been reached among French residents in the intensive care medicine (ICM) specialty; however, concerns about underrepresentation of women in leadership position and gender discriminations remain. We hypothesised that perception of gender inequity differs between female and male ICM residents and increases along the ICM training.MethodsThis nationwide observational closed-survey investigated how ICM residents experienced their medical curriculum, how they perceived the ICM specialty, and the potential reasons for women to be underrepresented in leadership position.ResultsAmong 113 residents who responded to the survey, 63 (55.6%) were females, and 85 (75.2%) were beginners. Twenty-nine (25.7%) answered to be always or often self-confident, and this number was lower in female than in male residents (14.3% versus 40.8%, p = 0.003). Women had less often than men the feeling to keep up with the situation along their medical training (39.7% versus 70.8%, p = 0.004). Societal injunctions to prioritise family over professional responsibilities were more often considered as barriers to leadership position by women than by men (75.8% versus 51.1%, p = 0.015). Fully trained residents agreed more frequently than beginners with the 2 following reasons associated with gender gap in ICM leadership position: men being more ambitious (31.1% versus 9.4%, p = 0.024) and professional environment discriminating against women (64% versus 46.2%, p = 0.017). Experience of non-physical sexual harassment was very common in female residents, with 74.6% of them reporting to have been directly subjected to jokes of a sexual nature (versus 28.6% of men, p = 0.001) and 49.2% of them to have been victims of allegations with humiliating connotation (versus 22.4% of men, p = 0.007).ConclusionsFemale ICM residents reported more often the feeling of not coping with their medical training, the lack of self-confidence, and non-physical sexual harassment than men. Reported awareness of a less supportive institutional environment to women academic career and of difference in assertiveness between men and women increased along advancement in ICM training suggesting room for interventions.

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a common monogenic lipid disorder, characterized by lifelong elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and a markedly increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Although the genetic prevalence of FH does not differ between sexes, women with FH face unique challenges across their lifespan that contribute to their cardiovascular risk. This review synthesizes current evidence on the trajectory of FH in women, with a focus on disparities in diagnosis, treatment, and cardiovascular outcomes across the female lifespan. Current evidence highlights a substantial gender gap in FH care. Compared with men, women are typically diagnosed 3-7 years later, are 26% less likely to receive lipid-lowering therapy (LLT), and are 37% less likely to achieve guideline-recommended LDL-C targets. Childbearing years are a major vulnerable period, as LLT is usually interrupted during pre-conception, pregnancy, and lactation, resulting in a median loss of 2.3 years of statin-treatment per woman. These treatment-gaps contribute to a disproportionately greater cumulative LDL-C burden in younger women with FH than men. Although premenopausal women retain lower absolute ASCVD risk than men with FH, their excess risk relative to the general female population exceeds the corresponding male disadvantage, and both LDL-C and ASCVD risk rise further after menopause. Women with FH face distinct diagnostic and therapeutic challenges requiring sex-specific care. Improving equity in FH care in women necessitates early diagnosis, appropriate LLT intensification, dedicated management across the childbearing years, and expanded research into LLT safety in pregnancy to reduce cumulative LDL-C exposure and long-term ASCVD burden.

ABSTRACT Studies show that women have less financial knowledge than men. To address this gap, several targeted programs have been implemented, but their effectiveness remains largely unknown. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of Women Matter, a financial education program provided by Banca d'Italia to reduce the gender gap in financial literacy. We use data from the pilot edition, conducted between May 2022 and April 2023, aimed at female employees. The sample includes about 200 workers, both participants and non-participants, with similar characteristics. Results show that attending the program significantly increases participants' financial competence, boosting scores by about 30 per cent from their initial level. The program is especially effective for younger women and those less familiar with financial tools. Additionally, the teacher's financial literacy level directly impacts the program's success.

ABSTRACT Parenthood fundamentally reshapes economic trajectories yet establishing causality remains methodologically challenging due to selection and timing endogeneity. This study introduces a novel identification strategy exploiting contraceptive failures as an exogenous source of variation in parenthood status. Using nationally representative survey data, I compare individuals who experienced contraceptive failures resulting in births against those using contraception who did not conceive. The findings reveal a striking gender paradox: while motherhood substantially reduces women’s unconditional employment probability by approximately 20 per cent and higher education attainment by 5 per cent, fatherhood increases men’s employment likelihood by 7 per cent and educational achievement by 11 per cent. These effects are most pronounced during children’s first decade, with maternal employment penalties disappearing after age 10, though educational gaps persist. If the identifying assumptions are satisfied, this suggests that first unintended parenthood may not fully explain persistent long-term gender disparities, though cumulative fertility and anticipatory effects remain important candidates. This research introduces contraceptive failure as a credible new identification strategy, documenting bidirectional gender effects that amplify inequality. The results challenge conventional policy approaches by revealing that gender gaps arise not only from maternal penalties but also from paternal premiums.

Purpose The study empirically tests three widely reproduced myths about the determinants of workplace discrimination against women in the European labour market. Specifically, the research examines the assumptions that discrimination is more common among the youngest and oldest women, whether motherhood is the primary driver of perceived inequality, and whether a male-dominated workplace is the primary site of high discrimination levels. By testing these myths, the study seeks to move beyond generalised narratives and identify particular conditions under which women are most likely to perceive work discrimination. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on a large dataset from a cross-country survey involving over 71,000 individuals from 36 European countries. Descriptive statistics were first used to examine gender differences in perceived workplace discrimination across age groups. Binary logistic regression models were then employed to examine the effect of age, including both linear and quadratic terms and to test whether gender differences vary by family status and workplace gender composition through interaction effects. Findings The findings challenge several common assumptions. First, no evidence was found for a U-shaped pattern of age-based discrimination; instead, they point to a linear decrease, with younger women being the most vulnerable group. Furthermore, the “motherhood penalty” in perceived discrimination is not universal; it is heavily concentrated among single mothers, while the gender gap significantly diminishes in households with wider support networks. Finally, while discrimination is highest in male-dominated settings, the study reveals that female-dominated environments are not entirely free from inequality. The lowest levels of discrimination were observed in workplaces with a gender balance. Practical implications The findings indicate that anti-discrimination interventions should be tailored to specific demographic intersections. Organisations are encouraged to move beyond generic gender-based policies and provide targeted support for younger female employees and single parents. Furthermore, fostering gender-balanced work environments, rather than solely increasing female representation, is essential for reducing perceived biases and promoting a more inclusive organisational culture. Originality/value This research fills a gap by supplying a comprehensive, up-to-date cross-country analysis across Europe. Unlike many previous studies focused on single national contexts, this paper adopts an intersectional perspective to reveal how family structure and age-dependent expectations, particularly those of younger generations socialised in a DEI-focused era, reshape the perception of workplace equity. The results show that perceived discrimination is patterned more conditionally than common narratives suggest.

ABSTRACT Persistent gender gaps in entrepreneurship limit economic potential and innovation, yet little is known about how gender shapes entrepreneurship as a process in creative industries. This study explores the role of gender in entrepreneurship within the Dutch house music industry. Guided by feminist grounded theory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with male and female entrepreneurs working across DJing, music production, record labels, event management, and booking agencies. The analysis identifies gendered mechanisms operating across the entrepreneurial process, including aesthetic labour expectations, credibility gaps, sexualized networking, and male-dominated gatekeeping. Drawing on six feminist perspectives, the study introduces a Feminist–Entrepreneurial Process Matrix, illustrating how gendered processes interact and accumulate across motivation, opportunity recognition, resource acquisition, and success. By integrating feminist theory with the entrepreneurial process and grounding it in everyday creative work, the study contributes a theoretically grounded account of how institutional norms and scene-specific practices shape entrepreneurial outcomes in creative industries.

In 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) launched the Gender Strategy, while continuing to push for fiscal consolidation and market liberalization. While the strategy acknowledges the gendered impacts of IMF-supported policies, it offers only limited mitigation measures, raising the question of whether gender clauses have any real impact. The case of Argentina can help clarify this. Between 2018 and 2022, Argentina signed two agreements with the IMF, both including gender clauses. However, these clauses lacked effective diagnostics, binding commitments, and monitoring. In Argentina, IMF-backed policies deepened gender inequalities in labor markets, incomes, and pensions, while poverty levels rose. Since 2023, President Milei has eliminated all gender-equality policies, including those in the 2022 gender clause, without consequences in IMF negotiations. Argentina’s case highlights that, as long as “macro-stability” takes priority and macroeconomic policies ignore their immediate and medium-term gender effects, gender clauses remain ineffective in protecting women from impacts of fiscal consolidation. HIGHLIGHTS Argentina’s IMF agreements lacked effective diagnostics, commitments, and monitoring to address gender gaps. IMF-promoted austerity worsened gender inequalities in labor markets, incomes, and pensions. IMF-promoted programs conflicted with gender equality goals set in gender clauses. Argentina’s case shows that prioritizing “macro-stability” limits the effectiveness of gender clauses.

(407) Understanding the Gender Gap in Reproductive Urology Providers: A Qualitative Analysis

Despite growing awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia, women's disadvantages in many aspects, including academic promotion, remain a persistent issue. Using career-trajectory data for 74,344 researchers from Japan's researchmap platform, this study examines gender inequality in promotion trajectories across two key transitions: PhD to associate professor, and associate professor to full professor. Specifically, we examine how gender gaps in promotion timeline vary across cohorts, disciplines, and career stages, and further assess their associations with career-history and institutional factors. The results show pronounced heterogeneity over time and across fields. Gender disparities in promotion timeline are more significant in early-career transitions than in later transitions, although gaps have narrowed in more recent cohorts. Survival-based robustness checks that account for right-censoring confirm that Stage1 remains the primary locus of gender inequality, but also indicate that completed-transition comparisons can overstate female advantage in promotion timeline in recent cohorts, especially in STEM. By foregrounding promotion timeline as a core dimension of career stratification, this study discusses how institutional structures and environments differentially shape academic career advancement by gender, providing evidence relevant to Japan and comparable academic systems.