Women do not necessarily fare worse than males when looking for work. In France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Great Britain, men are disadvantaged throughout the employment process for professions where women predominate (WZB, 2021). The situation for women applying for traditional “male” jobs is not the opposite (WZB, 2021). In either Norway or the US, there is no gender discrimination. These are the conclusions of a study conducted by the University of Amsterdam, the University of Oslo, the University of Carlos III of Spain, and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. The survey included the United States and five European nations.
Still, women make less money than males and are less likely to work in management roles. Women are frequently viewed as handicapped in the work market due to discrimination in hiring practices (Birkelund et al., 2021, p. 338). Nevertheless, comparing levels of discrimination across nations is challenging, and prior research has produced inconsistent findings for various nations. This vacuum is filled by the study published in the scholarly journal European Sociological Review. The first field study on gender inequality in the workforce spans multiple countries. In six nations, 4,300 applications for bogus job openings were reviewed for the study (Birkelund et al., 2021, p. 340). Young men and women (aged 22 to 26) applied for positions as a chef, payroll accountant, secretary, salesperson, computer programmer, and store assistant, among other occupations.
The researchers discovered no evidence of prejudice against young women in any analyzed nations or professions, including those with a male preponderance like software development. For occupations where women predominate, men were viewed as less suitable than women (Birkelund et al., 2021, p. 349). In contrast, discrimination against male candidates was observed in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Men in these nations were 5–9% less likely than women to obtain application feedback (Birkelund et al., 2021, p. 350). Men who applied for traditional “female” positions were much less prone to be invited for interviews or requested additional information about themselves, according to researcher Bram Lancee of the University of Amsterdam (Lancee, 2019). In comparison, the researchers in Norway and the United States did not uncover any bias towards male candidates.
References
Birkelund, G. E., Lancee, B., Larsen, E. N., Polavieja, J. G., Radl, J., & Yemane, R. (2021). Gender discrimination in hiring: Evidence from a cross-national harmonized field experiment. European Sociological Review, 38(3), 337–354.
Lancee, B. (2019). Ethnic discrimination in hiring: Comparing groups across contexts. results from a cross-national field experiment. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(6), 1181–1200.
WZB. (2021). Young men are disadvantaged when applying to female dominated jobs. Phys.org. Web.