The construction of gender in an individual depends very much on the interactions of the individual which are gendered with other people and other roles and identities that a person may have. Race, class, and gender are considered to be oppressions; although, they are not identically salient in all the social relationships where there is inequality.
In this study, data from the 2005 World Values Survey will be used to analyze the effects of these independent variables; age, gender, marital status, education level, and the dependent variable gender equality in the labor market outcomes.
The research will be purely based on the Research question, “What are the causes of gender inequality in the labor market outcomes of Australia?” In the study, I was able to discover that all of these variables explained only a small degree of variation in gender equality in the Australian workforce and that only age, level of education, and the employment status exhibited a significant effect on gender equality in the Australian workforce.
Limitations of the Study
A number of challenges were encountered throughout the study. The limitations included irrelevant answers given by the participants, their answers were too qualitative, or others did not respond to all the questions in the survey. It is believed that all the questions used in the study were very much applicable to the study. The data used in the study was mainly obtained from the semi-structured questionnaires from the World Values Survey. This imposed a limitation on other participants who were also very willing to participate in the study.
Literature Review
Gender is believed to be the distinction between the male and the female, however, in modern western societies, men and women share the same occupations, jobs, roles, and responsibilities which show that sex is not the determinant of a person’s abilities. It is believed that what men can do, women can also do better. The difference which was there between the two sexes is the physical strength; moreover, there are certain tasks and jobs which can only be handled by the men, because of the physical strength which also leads to the neglect of the women’s gender.
Gender inequality in the labor market outcomes is the differences that exist between the males and the females in terms of the labor force participation, education level, income levels, employment status, age, and occupation/profession. Gender gap earnings are the income differences between the males and the females, which are brought about by economic attainments, political and social aspects, and culture. Gender inequality can take many different forms, depending on the economic structure and social organization in a particular society as well as the culture of any group within that society. Even though the term is gender inequality, women are usually the ones who face disadvantages towards men. Women often receive lower pay than men for comparable work and furthermore frequently blocked in their advancement. Despite big changes over recent decades, workplace gender inequalities endure in Australia and other industrialized nations around the world.
Many scholars and researchers have tried to come up with studies to explain the main cause of gender gaps in the labor market outcomes where they concluded that culture was the main cause of gender inequality in the workplace since gender was responsible for all the gender roles between the men and the women. In many countries, the culture dictates that women must stay at home and do the house chores while the men dominate the workforce. This has explained as to why the women have remained less active than the men in the labor force despite the women having a higher level of education than the men.
According to sociological researches, the feminine gender roles which were used in the traditional setting are no longer used in modern western society, because of the emergence of globalization and industrialization. This is very evident when modern women take on the roles which in the traditional setting were reserved only for the men including the fashion and behavior, which has put the men under pressure thus leading them to be confined to a smaller gender role. This is very evident when men are seen to grow hair to a length which in the traditional setting was considered to be a woman’s fashion, while the women, on the other hand, were also noted to cut off their hair to a length that was considered to be the hairdo of the men. The issue of globalization has enhanced interaction and helped people to understand each other in a better way. It has been necessary for enhancing quick access to other parts of the globe regardless of the distance separating these countries. Some barriers separated people and maintained people’s natural heritage as well as identities. It has become an important issue, but the impacts are not limited to only the economic field of countries, it also reflects all aspects of life like the psychological, cultural, social and political issues.
According to Lorber (2010), the women of Australia have tried very much to try to decrease the earning gaps with their increased involvement in the professional occupations like the management positions, where despite their efforts; the gender gap still exists with the men and women working in different occupational levels. It is strongly believed that culture is directly linked to gender inequality since most of the