Paid Workforce Research Articles

Leading the Way: Compassion in the Workplace

There are multiple factors in the paid workforce which affect production in terms of health and well-being; these include grieving and “presenteeism.” This project was about developing a model for an integrated approach to grief support in the workplace. This model involves 3 overlapping domains: management ( compassionate leadership, as per Sarros, Cooper, Hartican, & Barker, 2006); “workshop floor” ( befriending, as adapted from Kennedy, McKenzie, & Wilson, 2006); and the organization as a whole ( workplace ethos, as per Bolman & Deal, 1991; Swann, 2002). A qualitative action research methodology was developed that included in-depth interviews with Uniting Church of Australia and “Other” workplaces, and thematic analyses of workplace policy documents. Results highlight qualitative differences particularly between workplaces where the ethos and befriending approach were integrated and those that were not. Conclusions drawn were that although befriending cannot be imposed, training in befriending would be a helpful approach to grief support in the workplace. Integrated with a befriending approach, compassionate leadership also needed to be acknowledged as an important leadership skill.

The ‘Glass Ceiling’ Phenomenon for Malaysian Women Accountants

Apparently it was claimed that organisations are often not build to accommodate women’s values, primarily because they entered organisations relatively late, and work in a relatively narrow range of occupations. Given this scenario, men and women experience organisational cultures very differently and perceive gender discrimination as an issue. The number of women with children participating in the paid workforce has increased markedly over recent decades, but many workplaces have not altered their expectations or provided work policies to allow women to balance work and family responsibilities There is considerable and increasing agreement that what in fact keeps women back are invisible and artificial barriers that prevent qualified individuals from advancing within their organisations and reaching their full potential – the ‘glass ceiling’ phenomenon. Although women in Malaysia now represent 44.5% of the working population and are just as academically qualified as men, they are grossly under-represented at the senior management positions. This study attempts to discover the obstacles that keep women from rising above certain level in the organisations in an effort to raise both their individual self-worth and the level of their contribution to economic development.

Older workers: An exploration of the benefits, barriers and adaptations for older people in the workforce

The continuation of older people in the paid workforce is regarded as beneficial for both the economy and older workers. While there have been attempts to encourage older people to continue working, little is understood about older workers' perspectives. This qualitative study explored the lived experiences and perceptions of paid workers aged 60 years and older with the aim of understanding why older people continue to work and the barriers and facilitators they encounter. Sixteen older Australians (eight males and eight females, mean age 67 years) who participated in paid employment for at least 12 hours per month were interviewed. Thematic analysis elicited themes of benefits of work, problems encountered at work and the ways in which older people respond to these challenges. Financial considerations, the desire to contribute and the absence of competing interests were reasons given for continuing involvement in work. Older workers identified stress, lack of support, physical demands and overemphasis on qualifications as barriers to their participation. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, having a passion for work, and education were factors that participants identified as supporting continued work. These findings enhance the understanding of the experiences of older workers and may have implications for encouraging workforce participation of older people.

The Rising Age at Retirement in Industrial Countries

In the half century after World War II labor force participation in the population past age 60 fell substantially in nearly all rich countries. Declining participation rates became a matter of major concern when it became clear that population growth rates were slowing and the average age of citizens in most rich countries was rising. A rapidly growing number of aged was living longer but spending a smaller number of years in the paid workforce. This paper examines recent trends in retirement behavior in 21 rich countries. It proposes three straightforward measures of labor force exit, and it estimates labor force exit rates using a variety of labor supply indicators, including the labor force participation rate, the employment rate, average work hours in the population, and average weekly earnings in the population. The results suggest that in recent years exit rates from paid work are declining among older citizens. This pattern is found both for men and women, and it is found in a large majority of countries in the analysis. In many countries labor force participation rates at older ages reached a low point in the 1990s, but since that time participation rates have increased. The rebound in male participation rates has been substantial in several countries. On average across the 21 countries, participation rates among 60-64 year-old men have rebounded over 9 percentage points since a low point in the participation rate was reached, usually in the 1990s. This rise in the participation rate of 60-64 year-old men has offset almost one-quarter of the decline in participation rates that occurred between 1960 and the low point of participation rates.

Welfare Works: Explaining Female Legislative Representation

This paper aims to advance our understanding of why women are underrepresented in legislatures around the world, and what accounts for the wide variation over time and across countries. Scholars generally agree on many of the favorable conditions for women to enter parliament, including, inter alia, proportional representation, leftism in government, and female employment. However, the mechanisms that link women's seat shares to the supposed explanatory factors are still poorly understood. In this paper, we argue that the key link resides in welfare state policies that (1) free women to enter the paid workforce, (2) provide public sector jobs that disproportionately employ women, and (3) change the political interest of working women enough to create an ideological gender gap. This, in turn, creates incentives for parties to compete for the female vote, and one way that they do so is to include more and more women in their parliamentary delegations.

Commitment to Work, Care Giving and Seniority: The Case of Nursing

The current study examined whether differences in commitment to paid employment or different levels of private sphere responsibility between women and men could explain the gender segmentation of the paid work force. A survey of a composite sample (N = 380) of Australian nurses showed that there were no significant differences between women and men in terms of commitment to paid employment although commitment was a predictor of seniority. Primary care-giving status also predicted seniority and women were more likely than men to have care-giving responsibility for dependents. Multiple logistic regression showed that, independent of gender, primary responsibility for care-giving to dependents, rather than commitment to paid employment, explained more of the differing chances for women and men of being in senior positions.

Gender, Power and Resistance to Change among Two Communities in the Western Cape, South Africa

This study investigates how women and men in the Western Cape, South Africa, construct their gender identities and roles. As part of the development of an HIV prevention intervention for men, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were conducted. Several themes regarding the construction of gender were identified. First, participants reported that traditional gender relations of male dominance and female subservience were still in evidence, along with traditional gender roles that mandated a division of labour between the household and paid workforce. Second, participants reported a shift in gender roles and relations in the direction of increased power for women. Last, hostile resistance to changes in gender power relations was evident in the discussions. Redefining masculinity and femininity and shifting gender relations in the direction of `power with' instead of `power over' is perhaps a necessary prelude to lasting social change and curbing the HIV epidemic in South Africa.

Burnout and connectedness among Australian volunteers: A test of the Job Demands–Resources model

This study used the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model, developed in the context of occupational well-being in the paid workforce, to examine the antecedents of burnout and connectedness in the formal volunteer rural ambulance officer vocation ( N = 487). Structural equation modeling using self-reports provide strong evidence for the central assumptions of the JD-R model. The findings confirm that burnout fully mediates the relationship between job demands and health problems (Hypothesis 1), and between job demands and determination to continue (Hypothesis 2). In addition, results show that connectedness fully mediates the relationship between job resources and determination to continue (Hypothesis 3). These findings have important practical implications because of the increasing problem of volunteer recruitment and retention.

Organizações não-governamentais entre a justiça social e a eficiência gerencial: armadilhas, perspectivas e desafios da modernização das políticas públicas locais

The study seeks to discuss the traps, perspectives and challenges of the non governmental organizations activities by the implementation of local social public policies. The theoretical discussion is focused on the terminological delimitation of the concept of third sector, usually associated to NGOs, through the construction of a different typology of distinct organizations, movements and social actors that belongs to it. Besides this we analyze the impact of non governmental organizations as place for public management renovation, discussing its relationship to ideas, tendencies and practices as popular participation and policy decentralization, among others. We dis-cuss also the impasses and perspectives in the construction of managerial models in non governmental organizations and/or communitarians, focusing its relation to the action ways of social movement, the impacts over the management of voluntary and/or paid work force and the incorporation of managerial strategies coming from the private sector and from the local government bureaucracy. Key words: Third sector; NGOs; public policies; organizations.

Changing Rhythms of American Family Life ‐ by Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, & Melissa A. Milkie

Changing Rhythms of American Family Life. Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, & Melissa A. Milkie. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2006. 249 pp. ISBN 0-87154-136-X. $37.50 (hardcover). As Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie note in Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, concerns about the expansion of women's participation in the paid labor market are often tied to expectations that women's increased participation in the workforce has led to a decrease in parental involvement in children's lives. Additionally, sociological research on this issue suggests that women's participation in the labor market has led them to work an additional shift: one in the paid workforce and other in their home. Bianchi, Robinson, and Milkie set out to test these expectations using time-diary data and their results are often surprising. The authors rely on multiple national U.S. time-diary studies dating from 1965, which asked respondents to record a 24-hour period of time use. Additionally, the authors collected their own data, The National Survey of Parents, in 2000 and 2001, of 1,200 parents living with children younger than 18 years. On the basis of this research, the authors make three central claims. First, the authors convincingly argue that despite increased workforce participation, today's mothers are spending as much, and in some cases, more time with their children than in 1965. In 2000,78% of mothers worked in the paid labor market in comparison to 45% in 1965, but they are spending similar amounts of time with their children as their predecessors did. Having discovered that women's increased labor force participation has not significantly decreased their time with children, the authors ask from where the additional time comes. They find that some women manage the balance between work and family by cutting down on working hours when children are young or by working part time. Significantly, the authors find that the time is not taken from sleep or from leisure, two more obvious areas of trade-off. Instead, women have dramatically cut back on the numbers of hours that they spend doing housework. Additionally, Bianchi et al. find that women are spending an increasing amount of time multitasking, which they define as time spent doing at least two activities at once. The authors also find that there have been significant changes in fathers' lives over the past 40 years. Fathers do more work in the home than they did in the past, while continuing to spend considerable amounts of time in the paid labor market. In contrast to earlier findings, which suggest that fathers' participation in the home is limited to the fun aspects of child care, Bianchi et al. …

Transitions into and out of caregiving: Health and social characteristics of mid-age Australian women

Family caregiving is frequently associated with significant levels of physical, emotional and financial strain. This article examines the health effects of transitions into and out of caregiving in middle age. We conducted a secondary analysis of data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) to examine changes in caregiving status among middle-aged women over a 3-year period, and the correlates and outcomes of these changes. A total of 9,555 middle-aged Australian women were categorised according to caregiving status at two surveys 3 years apart, as Continuing (2.7%); Stopped (4.9%); Started (3.0%); and Never caregivers (89.4%). Analyses at each time point show poorer physical and emotional health, health service use, health behaviours and lower engagement in the paid workforce among all three caregiver groups, indicating that middle-aged women who are, have been, or will become family caregivers are in poorer health than women who do not have these roles. Middle-aged women in poor health tend to be selected into caregiving, probably because they are less engaged with the paid workforce. Poor health and disengagement from the paid workforce continue even when caregiving stops. Health care providers should be particularly conscious of the needs of middle-aged caregivers, who are likely to be in poor health even before they take on the role.

Weaving cohesive identities: New Zealand women talk as mothers and workers

This exploratory study examines the discourses which construct women as mothers and workers and explores the strategies the women use to weave these sometimes contradictory identities together. Discourse analysis was used to explore the talk of two focus groups of first‐time mothers, all New Zealanders of European descent in stable heterosexual partnerships with babies aged less than six months. The women deployed an intensive mother discourse which privileged their maternal role and positioned the babies as needing parental care and mothers as the natural providers of that care. However, they also felt the pressure of successful woman and economic rationalist discourses in which paid work is essential to wellbeing and good citizenship while motherhood is devalued. The women's decisions about re‐entering the paid workforce were characterised by conflict and constraint. The analysis focuses on the strategies of resistance that the women used to warrant their life choices, including constructing motherhood as a job, and deploying an independent mother discourse which serves to facilitate their striving for the best of both worlds. Also explored are some of the structural barriers that serve to further limit women's choices.

Parental education, time in paid work and time with children: an Australian time‐diary analysis

How does parental education affect time in the paid workforce and time with children? Potentially, the effects are contradictory. An economic perspective suggests higher education means a pull to the market. Human capital theory predicts that, because higher education improves earning capacity, educated women face higher opportunity costs if they forego wages, so will allocate more time to market work and less to unpaid domestic labour. But education may also exercise a pull to the home. Attitudes to child rearing are subject to strong social norms, and parents with higher levels of education may be particularly receptive to the current social ideal of attentive, sustained and intensive nurturing. Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time-use Survey 1997, this study offers a snapshot of how these contradictory pulls play out in daily life. It finds that in Australia, households with university-educated parents spend more daily time with children than other households in physical care and in developmental activities. Sex inequality in care time persists, but fathers with university education do contribute more time to care of children, including time alone with them, than other fathers. Mothers with university education allocate more daily time than other mothers to both childcare and to paid work.

Levels of Complexity in Patterns of Daily Occupations: Relationship to Women's Well‐Being

The study builds on a previous study of the everyday occupations of 100 women who worked at home and in the paid workforce. Their pattern of daily occupations was depicted using time‐occupation graphs inspired by the time geography method, whereby the women's pattern of occupations were categorised and clustered according to complexity. For each woman, the level of complexity was operationalised as the frequency of shifting between three categories of occupation (main, hidden, and unexpected) and sleep, along with the frequency of unexpected occupations and whether shifts in type of occupation were concentrated in limited parts of the day, e.g., the mornings. The study had two aims. First, to test the hypothesis that among women who work at home and in the paid workforce, those with low‐complex patterns of daily occupations would rate their health and well‐being higher than women having medium‐complex patterns. As well, those with medium‐complex patterns would rate their health and well‐being better than women with high‐complex patterns. Secondly, the study aimed to investigate differences among these subgroups in relation to sociodemographic factors. The hypothesis was partly confirmed. Increasing complexity was associated with lower levels of self‐rated health, but not with lower levels of sense of coherence and well‐being. With respect to sociodemographic factors, the women in the three subgroups differed in terms of level of education. The results tentatively confirm theoretical assumptions of a link between patterns of daily occupations and experiences of health, and provide an incentive for further research on this relationship.

Securing the man: Narratives of gender and nation in the verdicts of henry bournes higgins

Historians have long debated the significance of the decisions of Justice Henry Bournes Higgins as President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Court (1907–21), and his marginalisation of women in the paid workforce. Higgins’ motivations have been less thoroughly explored. Gender demarcation clarified the role of the working class in nation‐building. Women were relegated, as much as possible, to the domestic sphere, to fulfil their motherhood role on behalf of the nation and clear the way for the establishment of the disciplined workplace functions of the male breadwinner. The verdicts and transcripts of Higgins’ decisions reflect the complex exchange between the liberal architect and the governed as he regulated state‐sponsored freedom to bargain and organise—albeit in the name of law and order. On behalf of the development of the young Commonwealth Higgins regulated working‐class manhood by suppressing industrial militancy, upholding managerial prerogative—the right of management to rule their workplaces—and marginalising the participation of women in the workforce.

Major Changes for Super, but Women are Still Ms … ing Out

Recent major legislative and regulatory changes to superannuation have brought improved equity to Australia's superannuation system, but women are still missing out when it comes to the adequacy of their retirement savings. The reasons are women's continuing marginal attachment to the labour force and their attendant low level of lifetime income in the paid workforce, which translates to low levels of accumulated occupation-linked superannuation savings. This paper argues that gender-based disparities in adequacy of superannuation persist, and that the prospects for retirement lifestyles for most older women continue to be dismal.

Protecting Families in a Global Economy

The globalization of the economy has placed tremendous pressure on the modern family. Throughout the developed world, marriage rates are declining, birth and fertility rates are falling, real wages are flat or declining, and hours of family external labor supplied are rising. Finding a spouse and raising children can be inconsistent with the demands of careers in the global economy of the new information age. Globalization of the economy tends to encourage individualism and mobility, in direct opposition to family relationships. Moreover, the extensive period of training that is necessary to compete in the global economy interferes with marriage and childrearing and increases the costs of raising children. Finally, the global economy has resulted in increased demand for flexible labor, requiring many lower- and middle-class families to increase time spent in the paid workforce often with little or no additional benefits. This essay examines the different ways industrialized countries have responded to this problem and discusses the effectiveness of these possible solutions in the context of the global economy. In Part I, we present a definition of the family and some of the costs and benefits of family relationships. In Part II, we explore the reasons behind the current underinvestment in families including the demands of the marketplace and government policies that promote market labor and undervalue children. In Part III, we discuss the new family and the fact that people are getting married less, later in life, having fewer children and spending less time raising children. Finally, in Part IV we survey the ways in which several industrialized countries have addressed the problems of families in the global economy both through the market, and government policies.

Protecting Families in a Global Economy

The globalization of the economy has placed tremendous pressure on the modern family. Throughout the developed world, marriage rates are declining, birth and fertility rates are falling, real wages are flat or declining, and hours of family external labor supplied are rising. Finding a spouse and raising children can be inconsistent with the demands of careers in the global economy of the new information age. Globalization of the economy tends to encourage individualism and mobility, in direct opposition to family relationships. Moreover, the extensive period of training that is necessary to compete in the global economy interferes with marriage and childrearing and increases the costs of raising children. Finally, the global economy has resulted in increased demand for flexible labor, requiring many lower- and middle-class families to increase time spent in the paid workforce, often with few or no additional benefits.

Education of the Deaf and General Motors

Recently, I have been doing some reading about the success and failure of businesses and the various opinions that have been offered to explain how some of our largest corporations find themselves in unexpected difficulties, sometimes to the point of collapse, while others, apparently, are thriving. The situation seems to exist across a variety of economies and in different economic sectors. In the United States there are several examples. Many major airlines have declared bankruptcy, or are on the verge of doing so, because of their inability to respond to the challenge of leaner, more inexpensive, airlines. Walmart is constantly expanding into new markets, to the detriment of existing companies unable to respond to the challenge. In countries from the United States to France to Japan governments provide subsidies to farmers to protect certain crops from cheaper foreign competition. Sometimes the problem is not cost, but overproduction. The U.S. government pays agricultural concerns money not to produce certain foods. Perhaps the best known example of current problems is General Motors. Although it is not in any present danger of bankruptcy, it recently cut several thousand jobs and announced plant closings in the United States and Canada. Among the reasons given for the problems faced by General Motors, as well as numerous corporations in North America and Western Europe, is that the highly paid workforce cannot produce products as cheaply as less well-paid, but skilled, workers in developing countries. This may be true to some extent, but it does not account for the whole picture. It has been pointed out that Toyota, for example, employs American workers in American plants to produce cars more efficiently and at less cost than the Americanowned car-makers. In fact, Toyota has announced plans to build plants in the United States at the same time that General Motors is closing theirs. This is the case even though there are several major corporations (not Toyota obviously) that are facing the same difficulties in Japan as General Motors is in North America. The argument has been made that many of the huge global conglomerates are operating under an out-dated, self-defeating management style that presumes that superior management can always anticipate and control change. In their press for stability and continuity they placed too much reliance on formal planning and have paid a heavy price for it. There is a growing belief that change cannot always be anticipated and managed, but rather that businesses will face disruptive changes that could destroy them unless successfully countered. Rapid response is more important than attempting to plan for every contingency. Business is chaotic and unforgiving, and changes cannot always be managed; they must be grasped or die. The situation also pertains to organizations outside of the business world. Hurricane Katrina exposed severe bureaucratic inefficiencies at the state and federal levels. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) exhibited both a lack of planning to anticipate the disaster and an inability to respond quickly and effectively to the unexpected crises that arose, resulting in unnecessary death and destruction. Although the education of deaf students may not face catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina, we are constantly encountering unanticipated new challenges, opportunities, and developments, and our responses have not always been effective. Several examples come to mind. In the spring of 1988 Gallaudet University erupted in protest over the selection of a hearing president and the ensuing Deaf President Now movement culminated in Gallaudet's first deaf president. …

An international comparison of women's occupational health issues in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore: the CIDA-SEAGEP Study

An international comparison study of women's occupational health issues was carried out in 2000 for the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore. The study was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency's Southeast Asia Gender Equity Program. The objective was to compare the issues, risk factors, social determinants, and challenges in women's occupational health, according to the status of economic development as defined by the World Bank. Data were collected through 27 key informant interviews of high-ranking government officials and senior researchers, self-administered questionnaires on country or regional statistics and 16 courtesy calls. Results indicated that women's occupational health problems common in these countries or regions included women's long hours of work (double workday), shift work and a caring role for family and friends. Problems reported in developing countries but not developed countries included poor access to training and protective equipment, and insufficient legislation to protect women's rights. Problems reported in developed countries but not in developing countries included obesity, smoking and not including women in health research. This paper provides insights into the changing environment in the workplace, such as increasing participation of women in the paid workforce and changes in gender differences due to the changing country economy, for improving women's occupational health.