Sociology Topic 6 ‘Using material from item A assess sociological explanations of gender inequality in todays society’ In the last 30 years women in the UK working has risen to 2. 45 million whereas men working has risen by 0. 5 million. Item A suggests a variety of gender inequalities in today’s society for example the pay difference women receive as it is suggested according to item A that women earn a quarter of a million pounds less than men and this is without women not having any children if she did have children it would be ? 140,000 less. The pay gap reduces family income overall which isn’t beneficial for families.
Another issue is that women mainly work in low paid sectors like retail or caring and due to women having a glass ceiling above men taking all management positions it has left women with the low paid jobs. Hakim believes there’s an occupational segregation in the UK. In the UK according to Hakim men and women do different kinds of work. There are 2 types of occupational segregation. Horizontal segregation and Vertical segregation. Horizontal segregation is when men and women are concentrated in different types if jobs in different sectors of the economy. Women who are in the public sector usually work in health and social work and education.
However in the private sector women normally are in admin or clerical work whereas men are in the skilled and manual sector. However horizontal segregation may decline as there is a decline in the primary and secondary sector in the economy. Vertical segregation is when women occupy jobs of low pay and status. There’s evidence that women work in lower levels however when they can work in upper professions they still have a glass ceiling above them according to Walby. This affects women as if there is any chance of promotion they end up being restricted to go any higher.
Women also receive less pay in 1975 women only earned 71% of the average full time male wage. The gap has narrowed over the last 30 years due to many women fighting for equal rights. The gap between men and women was 17% in 2007 however the government claim that it’s 12. 6%. The problem with using average pay in the gender gap according to ONS believe that many men who are paid very well can inflate the average and therefore get rid of the true pay gap between men and women. Differences in pay still exists, in some jobs the statistics much higher it’s 22. 3% difference which is a significant compared to the public sector.
CMI found out that the average female executive was paid ? 32614 whereas men in the same role received ? 46269. This suggests that inequality still exists however it isn’t as open as it was in the last 50 years it is more discreet. This makes it harder to prove that this inequality still exists in society today. Women also work part time as in 2005 42% of women worked part time whereas 9% men worked part time which shows there is a huge gap this puts women mainly as a huge disadvantage as they have less job security and less chance to promoted. Parsons who is a functionalist believed that men and women should have separate roles in society.
He believed women were more suited for the expressive roles whereas men where suited for the instrumental roles of society. He believed men suited pair employment whereas women were meant to do domestic duties. He wasn’t surprised that women are paid less as they are less motivated and less suited to the labour market. Which shows inequality in gender ,as women are seen to be the homemakers according to some sociologists. Some economists believe that the pay gap is justified as it shows that fact that men have more human capital as they have greater orientation to paid work .
Women are less commited and are likely to take breaks in there career to look after there family whereas men build their skills, qualifications and skills as they do not take breaks in there career. However Olsen and walby criticise the human capital theory they believe that main reason why women suffer to have such a low pay is because there’s a systematic disadvantage in acquiring human capital e. g. pay is low in occupations where there are many women. This could be because the jobs require less training and promotion prospects for this job in which men are in the majority.
Human capital assumes that experiences of employment means the increase in wage whereas experience in part time work is associated with less wages. Some sociologists believe that a dual labour market exists and is divided into 2 sectors primary and secondary. Primary is secure, well paid and with good prospectus whereas the secondary is poor pay insecurity and no ladder of promotion. Barron and Norris concluded that women are likely to be in the secondary this is due to women being unsuitable, disrupted career developments and weak legal and political framework supporting women.
Liberal feminists argue that the traditional forms of gender role socialisation in families, education and in the media are responsible for reproducing a sexual division in labour in which masculinity is seen as dominant whereas femininity is seen as subordinate. Oakly argues that the reason for the subordination of women in the labour market is the dominance of motherhood/housewife roles for women. Patriarchal ideology stresses the view that women’s only purpose is to raise children. Sharpe believes that education and careers are main priorities of teen girls.
Girls also perform better in education which suggests that society will change at a later stage due to girls performing so well academically. They also see that men and women are taking equal responsibilities are caring and cleaning at home which shows that gender inequality is slowly decreasing as women are realising there potential and men are adapting to women becoming more career focused. Marxists feminists argue the subordination of women to men is linked to the position in society. According to benston women benefit capitalism in 2 ways. The first way is that women provide free domestic labour which allows men to be more effective.
Women are also excluded from paid employment in the early 19th century which resulted in women becoming housewife’s and mothers. Benston argues that if the women is a housewife then the man pays for both the labour power of the male and the domestic power of the women. The second way is that women are responsible for raising the future labour force at no cost to the capitalist class this is known as reproduction of labour power. Ansley believed that women in relationships with men also functioned to soak up the male workers frustration with his paid work in the forms of domestic violence.
However other Marxists feminists see women as part of ‘reserve army of labour’ which is hired by businesses in times for economic expansion and fired during an change in the economic climate (recession). Walby believes that women staying at home has harmed capitalism as women competing with men for jobs would lower wages and increase capitalism. The reserve labour of army has also been criticized as it doesn’t explain why male and females are put in different uses. It doesn’t explain why women have such different responsibilities.
Radical feminists argue that society’s divided into 2 different gender classes’ men and women who both have different interests. Feminists believe patriarchal inequalities happen in personal relationships. All personal relationships are political as they based upon different and unequal amounts of power which is determined by sex and are reinforced by every aspect of wider society. Radical feminists note that patriarchal ideology fails then women are constantly under the threat of male violence and sexual aggression which limits their capacity to live as free and independent as they should be.
However radical feminists have been criticized for failing to acknowledge historical changes like women now experience the same rights as men . Another approach is the dual systems approach. Delphy emphasizes the key role of family. She believes the household is important however it’s underrated and believes the work performed by women is high productive however she notes that men dominate households as they have more economic power than women.
Walby believes that capitalism and patriarchy could work alongside each other to exploit women. Patriarchy according to walby has evolved from ‘private patriarchy’ in which women have entered public arenas of employment and politics however they still are disadvantaged. She believes that women are no longer restricted to the domestic sphere to ‘public patriarchy’ where women are no longer restricted but have the whole society in which to roam and be exploited.
