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Gender and Employment

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Social Inequalities: Gender and Employment The debate about the relative significance of gender has been important to the understanding of the structural force in society. There is a need to make a distinction, between women and men concerning their perceptions and roles within the workforce in today’s society. The distinction between sex and gender is that sex relates to the biological difference whereas gender relates to the socially unequal division into femininity and masculinity. Theorists have stressed the importance of social rather than the biological determinants of a wide range of behaviors between men and women and created an oppositional stance that attempted to tie women to subordinate positions on account of their biology. This has created an immense contribution to feminist thinking and has placed a powerful argument in the field of sociology. Although women’s gains in education may have been central to narrowing the gender gap in income historically, gender differences in fields of study continue to disadvantage women (Bobbitt-Zeher, 2007). Gender and Employment Before World War II, women did not have a major role in the workplace. Some argue that women in pre-industrial societies had a considerable influence in the household, which in those times were not separate from the various productive activities. This changed after the Industrial Revolution, as many men moved away from home to mechanized factories, lessening the involvement of women in the economic process. Women soon became more associated with domestic values and responsibilities, which feminists argue has tied them to inequality, past and present. The labor shortage during the war years majorly influenced women’s participation in the labor force. Women contributed greatly to the war effort, in the armed forces, factories and in male dominated jobs, such as welding and shipbuilding.

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