Inequalities and gender
Week 13
Types of
gender
inequalities
– where?
1. Intimacy and relationships
2. Domestic chores
3. Health
4. Survival
5. Education
6. Participation in the labor market
7. Ownership
8. Political and civil participation
9.Violence and victimization
Intimacy and
relationships
The second demographic transition (SDT) - increasingly
delay, children out of wedlock or single mothers
 Changes have occurred as women's labour force participation
has increased.
1. trends towards delaying entry into marriage and an increase
in unmarried cohabitation,
2. low and often very low fertility
3. increased divorce or marriage breakdown rates.
What is behind this?
 Changing gender relations, women's employment has
become not only ubiquitous but also expected
 Gender revolution
Gender
equality and
gender
equity???
Quantitative studies - require good instruments to
measure gender equality.
- It is difficult to obtain measures of perceptions of
gender equality from individuals.
- Depending on the social context, social
psychological scales may be useful.
- Aggregate data
 McDonald talks about gender equality and gender
equity
 Gender equity = individual perceptions of fairness
and opportunity than equality of outcomes.
Gender
Inequality
Index – GII
The GII measures gender inequalities in three aspects of human
development:
1. reproductive health (maternal mortality and adolescent
fertility);
2. empowerment (proportion of parliamentary seats occupied
by women and proportion of adult women and men aged 25
and over with at least some secondary education);
3. economic status (labor market participation + labor force
participation of women and men aged 15 and over).
The higher the GII value, the more differences
between women and men, and the greater the loss in
human development.
Austria
Czechia
Slovakia
Gender Inequality Index
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/thematic-composite-indices/gender-inequality-index#/indicies/GII
https://eige.europa.eu/publications-resources/publications/gender-equality-index-2023-towards-green-transition-transport-and-e
Gender Equality Index
Gender Inequality Index
– GII - 1995 a 2017
Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data#
Survey data
and gender
roles
Data:
For showing the development = European Values Study (1991 –
1999 - 2008 – 2017): longitudinal data (repeated cross-sectional
survey) on representative samples (adult population)
Analyzed countries:
5 postsocialist countries: Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania
and Slovakia
Year 1991 – base line
5 WE countries: Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands and
Sweden
EVS 2nd release EVS Cross-Sectional Data 2018.
Data are weighted by population and stratification weights.
GENDER DIFFERENCES:
A) Attitudes measuring gender differences at
the individual level
B) Attitudes measuring gender differences at
the societal level (gender segregation)
Changes in
gender roles
Attitudes measuring gender differences (stereotypes) at
the individual level
It measures conflicting gender roles
(traditional vs. modern) and monitors how
these conflicts are evaluated at the individual
level - conflicts between work (public sphere)
and family (private sphere).
1. When a mother works for pay, the children suffer
2. A job is alright but what most women really want is
a home and children
Gender index created:
1. traditional gender roles (women prefer children and home to work)
2. mixed attitude
3. modern gender roles (does not agree that work takes women away
from home and children)
Indexoftraditional attitudes togender roles 1991–2017 (%) respondents whothinkthat women
shouldtakecareoffamily andchildren first, notwork.
CEE WE
Up to 100% are respondents with modern or mixed gender attitudes. Some of the items were not collected in Austria in 1999
or in Sweden in 1991, so these countries have missing data.
Attitudes measuring gender differences (stereotypes) at the
societal level (gender segregation)
(1) On the whole, men make better political
leaders than women do;
(2) A university education is more important
for a boy than for a girl;
(3) On the whole, men make better business
executives than women do;
(4)When jobs are scarce, men have more
right to a job than women.
Only in 2017!!!
Index of gender segregation at societal level in 2017 : Mean values
Index of gender segregation at societal level by generation in 2017: Mean values
The increase in women's participation in the
labour market should be considered the first
part of the gender revolution.
The entry of women into the labour market is
only part of the whole phenomenon...
The second half of the gender revolution is
slowly emerging - men in the private sphere (in
the family).
There is talk of a revolution in the family.
Changes in
gender roles
2nd part of
gender
revolution
 Increased male involvement in the private sphere
(home and family).
 This process is not very advanced, but there is
evidence that it is intensifying in some countries (e.g.
Aassve, Fuochi and Mencarini 2014).
 An increase in the number of younger and more
educated fathers taking care of the childcare and
household.
 It is likely that more progress has been made in terms
of men's involvement in childcare than in taking
responsibility for routine household chores (e.g.
Bohnke and Esping-Andersen 2008).
Why is there a
delay in the
second part of
the gender
revolution?
 Why does it take so long for change in the public sphere
to lead to change in the private sphere?
 There is talk of scepticism, of a two-part gender
revolution.
 Some authors assume that only women are responsible
for the household, regardless of what other activities
they may undertake outside the home.
 Many factors are involved, but most importantly, if the
public sphere has historically been a "male" place, the
family has been an even more "female" place.
 Margaret Mead (1965) = the 'three sexes' in modern
societies: housewives, professional women and men who
should have no family responsibilities.
Domestic
chores
 During the last 30-40 years show a narrowing of the
gender gap in the domestic division of labour
 WHY???
 Role theory = a role conflict may occur when a
person is expected to simultaneously act out multiple
roles that carry contradictory expectations
 Doing gender theory = even when wives and
husbands’ contributions to paid work and income
tend to be the same, women perform more
housework because doing housework represents a
way of emphasizing their femininity. Conversely,
spending little or no time in housework allows men to
show their masculinity .
What are the
trends in the
division of
domestic
work?
Who in your household does the
following chores?
Always
me
Usually
me
Each of us
similarly
often or
together
Usually the
spouse
Always the
spouse
Someone
else (a
third
person)
Man
a) washes the clothes 1.7 % 1.9 % 9.5 % 27.9 % 57.9 % 1.0 %
b) does small repair jobs in the
household
54.5 % 31.6 % 9.3 % 1.9 % 0.9 % 1.8 %
c) does the shopping 2.5 % 9.7 % 57.7 % 22.6 % 7.0 % 0.6 %
d) does the cleaning 1.1 % 2.1 % 34.2 % 41.0 % 20.4 % 1.2 %
e) prepares meals 2.3 % 4.2 % 29.9 % 40.4 % 22.3 % 0.9 %
Woman
a) washes the clothes 72.3 % 19.7 % 5.9 % 0.6 % 0.6 % 1.0 %
b) does small repair jobs in the
household
3.6 % 3.9 % 13.7 % 33.4 % 42.7 % 2.7 %
c) does the shopping 15.7 % 25.3 % 50.4 % 6.3 % 1.8 % 0.6 %
d) does the cleaning 33.8 % 35.9 % 28.0 % 1.2 % 0.3 % 0.9 %
e) prepares meals 34.2 % 37.2 % 23.0 % 3.6 % 1.2 % 0.9 %
Distribution of selected domestic tasks by person who does the task in 2015 (%)
Source: Chromková Manea and Fučík (2022)
Source: Chromková Manea and Fučík (2022)
Number of hours spent on each domestic task by sex and age
category
Survival
Gender matters!
“women get sicker, men die
quicker”
Total Gender gap Total Gender gap Total Gender gap
2013 81 5 24 4 71 5
2000 78 6 22 4 69 5
2013 78 6 22 5 69 5
2000 75 6 19 4 66 6
2013 82 6 25 5 72 5
2000 79 8 23 6 69 5
2013 81 4 24 3 71 4
2000 78 6 22 4 69 4
2013 83 5 25 4 73 3
2000 80 6 23 4 70 4
2013 84 7 26 6 75 6
2000 81 7 25 5 73 6
2013 81 4 24 3 71 2
2000 78 5 22 5 69 3
2013 82 4 24 3 71 3
2000 79 6 22 4 68 4
2013 77 8 21 5 67 8
2000 74 8 19 5 65 7
2013 76 8 21 5 67 7
2000 73 8 19 5 64 8
2013 81 4 24 3 71 3
2000 78 4 21 3 68 4
2013 79 5 23 2 69 3
2000 77 6 22 3 68 4
Healthy life expectancy (HALE) at birthLife expectency at birth Life expectancy at 60
USA
UK
Slovakia
Poland
Norway
Netherlands
Japan
Italy
Germany
France
Czech Republic
Austria
Source: own calculations data from Global Health Observatory Data Repository
In rich countries the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Participation
in the labor
market
Historically, men have greater participation in
work outside home than women.
All over the world men tend to earn more than
women.
Women are often underrepresented in senior
positions within firms.
Women are often overrepresented in lowpaying
jobs.
In most countries the gender pay gap has
decreased in the last couple of decades.
Gender pay
gap
The gender pay = difference in pay (or
wages, or income) between women and
men.
It’s a measure of inequality and captures a
concept that is broader than the concept of
equal pay for equal work.
Differences in pay between men and women
capture differences along many possible.
Discrimination in hiring practices can exist in
the absence of pay gaps.
Ownership
 Land ownership is more often in the hands of
men
Political and
civic
participation
Violence and
victimization