Varieties of Gendered-capitalism: Institutional Environment and Gender Inequality in Market Entry

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Gender

Abstract

Although women have made great strides in closing the gender wage and labor market participation gaps, progress seems to have stalled. This has called for innovative sociological theories to unpack potential social mechanisms underlying persistent gender inequality in market entry. New sociological theories have increasingly been suggested to address the root causes of persistent gender inequality in market entry. This study advances this new research tradition by positing that markets embedded in highly gender-inegalitarian and economic-inequality contexts may be more likely to reflect high levels of gender differences in market entry compared with markets embedded in less gender-inegalitarian and economic-inequality contexts. I contend that in highly gender-inegaliterian and economic-inequality contexts, personal characteristics should matter little for one’s relative standing in the market. I test these propositions using data from a cross-national survey designed to study cultural values, beliefs and social norms, including gender beliefs and norms, and how these social phenomena are related to other social phenomena, such as economic phenomena. Preliminary results show that societal unfavorable attitudes toward women’s leadership competency and right to employment compared with men, adversely impact women’s chances of becoming entrepreneurs compared with men. Adverse effects of unfavorable societal attitudes toward women’s leadership competency and right to employment are more sever in high gender-inegaliterian and economic-inequality societies than their less-inegaliterian counterparts. Individual characteristics makes little difference in reducing adverse effects of unfavorable societal attitudes toward women’s leadership competency and right to employment in highly gender-inegaliterian and economic-inequality societies compared with less inegaliterian societies.

Author

• Daniel Auguste, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill