Work, Economy and Organizations Commons^™

Women's Job Search Behavior In The Egyptian Labor Market, Somaya Abdel Mowla

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This study evaluates the difference between male and female job search behavior in the Egyptian labor market and the changes in this behavior between 1998 and 2006, in order to examine the effect of transition toward a market-oriented economy on job search activity. The paper also investigates the determinants of women’s job search behavior. The results reveal three alarming facts that raise worries about women’s labor force participation and their future labor market outcomes: women were less active job searchers than men, the gender gap in job search has widened, and this gap is even wider when excluding registration in …

Microfinance And Women’S Empowerment In Honduras, Katherine Sugg

Sociology Honors Papers

This thesis examines the possibilities for women’s empowerment through microfinance. It utilizes the results of a survey conducted in 2009 with clients of the microfinance organization FINCA Honduras. The analysis of these survey results yields important conclusions on FINCA Honduras’ ability to empower Honduran women economically, psychologically, and socio-culturally. The original hypothesis of this study stated that FINCA Honduras’ financial services would help the female client to improve her standard of living, her psychological well-being, and her gender relationships in the home. FINCA Honduras has partially succeeded in empowering its female clients in these ways, but currently lacks the specific …

Review Of “Sisters Outside: Radical Activists Working For Women Prisoners, By Jodie Michelle Lawston”, Lisa A. Leitz

Peace Studies Faculty Articles and Research

Book review of Jodie Michelle Lawston's "Sisters Outside: Radical Activists Working for Women Prisoners".

When There Is No Respect At Work: Job Quality Issues For Women In Egypt's Private Sector [Arabic], Ghada Barsoum, Ali Rashed, Dahlia Hassanein

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

No abstract provided.

When There Is No Respect At Work: Job Quality Issues For Women In Egypt's Private Sector, Ghada Barsoum, Ali Rashed, Dahlia Hassanein

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Egypt has one of the lowest female labor participation rates in the world. Based on ethnographic research, this working paper argues that women in Egypt, particularly young women, face job-quality issues that discourage them from continuing to work or even entering the labor market. The paper highlights women’s, particularly young women’s, valorization of jobs in the public sec-tor and with the government, even if untenable. Discussed are the advantages presented by the public sector in Egypt, why those jobs are valorized by women, and the strategies young women adopt in clinging to the hope of getting a public sector/government job. …

Academic Libraries As Feminine And Feminist Models Of Organization., Marie F. Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Because academic libraries are primarily staffed by women and are relatively autonomous entities in colleges and universities, they offer a unique model of workplace gendering and feminism. This qualitative, ethnographic study examined 3 small college libraries in 3 regions of the United States and explored issues of bureaucracy and gendering in these libraries. Feminist challenges to bureaucracy emerged in the areas of hierarchy, division of labor, competition and collaboration, decision-making, and communication. Feminine practice in the libraries reflected private sphere attitudes toward work (values of community, emotionality, and caring) and an affirmation of feminine roles in the workplace. The organizational …

Domestic Work, Amanda Moras

Sociology Faculty Publications

This encyclopedia entry provides a brief history of domestic work and its relationship to race and ethnicity in the United States.

Can Developing Women Create Primitive Art? And Other Questions Of Value, Meaning And Identity In The Circulation Of Janakpur Art, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal – objects collectors have called ‘Janakpur Art’. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art – shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s – occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women’s lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at …

The International Protean Career: Four Women’S Narratives, Marian Crowley-Henry, David Weir

Articles

In this paper, we share individual narratives outlining the experiences of four well-educated western women following a permanent international career in the South of France. By virtue of detailed interview transcripts and contextual information regarding the specificity of the location in question, a comprehensive picture of the experiences and choices of individual women in leadership business positions on an international level is painted. Our aim is not to generalise the findings to a wider population, but to gain an insight into the depth and complexity of career issues for women in general, and particularly for women working in a foreign …

Measuring Women's Work: A Methodological Exploration, Ray Langsten, Rania Salem

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In this working paper, the authors contrast two approaches to the measurement of women’s work applied to the same population of ever-married women. These women were interviewed on two occasions—first during the 2003 Interim Egypt DHS, and again during the Slow Fertility Transition (SFT) survey conducted in 2004. The DHS uses a standard keyword question to measure work, while the SFT employs an activities list question format. The authors argue that the widely used keyword approaches to measuring women’s work underestimate the level of female labor force activity. They demonstrate that the activities list approach captures a wider range of …

Where Supply Meets Demand: Women In Diesel Mechanics, Emily Raine

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In 2004, with a participation rate of 59.2 percent, women represented 46 percent of the total U. S. labor force. This same year, women earned an average of $573 per week, approximately 80 percent of men’s median weekly earnings. It is rarely disputed that a gender wage gap exists; rather it is the cause of this differential that is often the subject of debate. Empirical evidence indicates that the wage differential can be attributed to factors such as differences in education, labor market experience, and occupational choice.

Research has consistently shown that increases in educational attainment will lead to positive …

Effects Of Gender Role Socialization And Investments In Human Capital On The Decision Of A Woman With Children Under School Age To Work Outside The Home, Marion A. Edrington

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The decision of whether or not to work while one's children are under school age is one that is faced by millions of women each year. Using data from the General Social Survey, this study was designed to address the research question: What are the factors that influence the decision of a woman with children under school age to work outside the home full-time, part-time or not at all? The specific effects of gender role socialization and investments in human capital were explored in depth. This study found that both gender role socialization and investments in human capital do have …

The Impact Of Monetary Crisis And Natural Disasters On Women's Health And Nutrition, Meiwita B. Iskandar

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This paper analyzes the short-term effects of the monetary crisis and natural disasters in Indonesia on women's health and nutritional status, and activities to monitor and address these problems. The monetary crisis which was announced in January 1998 hit the highest monthly inflation rate of 13 percent in February. Natural disasters that have plagued Indonesia since early 1997, including droughts and forest fires, have been projected to cause famines and an increased likelihood of infant and adult mortality. The economic crisis also directly impacts millions of workforce members threatened by the downsizing of thousands of businesses and factories, in the …

Industrial Development In Indonesia, Development For Whom?: A Case Study Of Women Who Work In Factories In Rural West Java, Peter J. Hancock

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research was conducted in order to address two major research questions: 1) To what extent and in what ways are a cohort of female factory workers in Sundanese West Java influential in the cultural, social and economic development of the geographic area in which they live and more specifically within their own households? 2) To what extent does the Indonesian state support or inhibit such development? In order to answer these and other secondary research questions I conducted qualitative and quantitative research. I used a theoretical framework which directed the methodology, questionnaires and both qualitative and quantitative data was …

Out Of The Shadows: Homebased Workers Organize For International Recognition, Renana Jhabvala, Jane Tate

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Home-based work is a vital and growing part of economic modernization, exponentially linked to the globalization of industry and the never-ending search for less costly sources of labor and more efficient means of production. As governments seek to attract industrial development, the availability of low-cost labor and labor stability is a valuable bargaining commodity. Furthermore, the income it produces is not supplementary but rather increasingly vital to families and nations alike. The women who embroider on the island of Madeira, Portugal, the home-based workers assembling electronic devices in Brazil, the Chinese women machine stitching garments at home in major cities …

Self-Employment As A Means To Women's Economic Self-Sufficiency: Women Venture's Business Development Program, Katharine Mckee, Sara Gould, Ann Leonard

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

While the "feminization of poverty" has been widely recognized as a global phenomenon in recent years, the term originated in the United States where the number of women and women-headed households living in poverty is growing. This is especially true in the inner cities where fewer unskilled jobs remain; likewise, in rural communities, many factories have closed, family farming is declining, and few other nonfarm options are available. Today these American women face many of the same obstacles that limit women's economic participation in all parts of the world. This issue of SEEDS focuses on the evolution of WomenVenture's business …

El Cuidado Infantil: Respuestas A Las Necesidades De Madres Que Trabajan Y Sus Hijos, Caroline Arnold, Jorge Mejia, Aster Haregot, Ann Leonard, Cassie Landers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Este número de SEEDS, desarrollada en cooperación con el Grupo Asesor sobre Cuidado y Desarrollo Infantil, y apoyada por UNICEF, busca reunir los elementos críticos del trabajo de la mujer y el cuidado infantil, estudiando el tema desde tres perspectivas: el cuidado infantil como servicio que permite que la mujer pueda trabajar, como fuente de empleo para la mujer, y como respuesta a los requerimientos del desarrollo infantil. Examina tres distintos tipos de cuidado infantil apoyados por UNICEF en tres continentes—Asia (Nepal), Africa (Etiopia), y América Latina (Ecuador). Los tres proyectos fueron desarrollados específicamente para madres que trabajan, y dos …

Child Care: Meeting The Needs Of Working Mothers And Their Children, Caroline Arnold, Jorge Mejia, Aster Haregot, Ann Leonard, Cassie Landers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS, developed in cooperation with the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development, with support from UNICEF, seeks to bring together the critical elements of women's work and child care, reviewing the issues from three different perspectives: child care as a means of enabling women to work, as a source of employment for women, and as a way of meeting the developmental needs of young children. The report examines three different UNICEF-supported approaches to child care on three different continents—Asia (Nepal), Africa (Ethiopia), and South America (Ecuador)—that have been developed with the needs of working women …

Social Background And Bureaucratic Behavior In Egypt, Earl L. Sullivan, El Sayed Yassin, Ali Leila, Monte Palmer

Faculty Books

This study of the role of gender and religion in the Egyptian bureaucracy provides general background information pertaining to the three major topics of this book: bureaucratic behaviour, the role of women in Egyptian society and relations between Egypt's religious groups, the Muslims and the Copts. The author hypothesizes that the attitudes and behaviour of Egyptian bureaucrats will differ markedly on the basis of sex, but that the attitudes and behaviour of Coptic bureaucrats will not differ significantly from those of their Muslim counterparts. The two hypotheses were tested in reference to eight sets of attitudes and behaviour, viz. media …

La Construcción Colectiva Para Las Mujeres (The Women's Construction Collective): Edificando Para El Futuro, Ruth Mcleod

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Este número de SEEDS se enfoca en un programa creado para integrar a la mujer de ingresos bajos a la industría de la construcción en Jamaica. En dos años, hubo 34 mujeres que recibieron cursos básicos del programa y de capacitación más avanzados. Más del 90 por ciento de estas mujeres fueron empleadas; la mayoría son carpinteras y albaniles. La historia de cómo se identificó este campo como fuente potencial de ingresos para la mujer, y cómo se desarrolló el proyecto respondiendo a las circunstancias siempre cambiantes, presenta muchas lecciones útiles. Este proyecto será de especial interés para aquellos que …

The Women's Construction Collective: Building For The Future, Ruth Mcleod

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of SEEDS focuses on a project developed to integrate low-income women into Jamaica's construction industry. In two years, 34 women passed through the project's basic training and skills upgrading courses. More than 90 percent of these women became employed, the majority as masons and carpenters. The story of how this field was identified as a potential source of income for women, and how the project developed and evolved in response to changing circumstances, presents many useful lessons. These should be of particular interest to those seeking to identify employment areas where women's participation is feasible and in helping …

Toward A Critical Theory Of Female Criminality, Ann Curry Thompson

IUSTITIA

Twentieth-century theories about female criminality are the weakest link in conventional criminology, representing the most conservative and unscientific thinking about human nature and social organization. Traditional thinking about female criminality reflects the general inability of conventional theorists to examine categories of sex, race, and class oppression as determined by the basic social structure of a particular society and as they relate to deviance and crime. The result has been that female deviance has been analyzed solely in light of assumptions about women's biological nature. Whether there is indeed something distinctive about female crime which can be explained apart from a …