Research Handbook on Inequalities and Work 1800886594, 9781800886599
This multidisciplinary international Research Handbook on Inequalities and Work, examining disparities within contempora
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Front Matter
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Tables
Contributors
Abbreviations
1. Introduction – the pervasive nature of inequalities
PART I APPROACHES TO INEQUALITY RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
2. Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa
3. The propagation of workplace inequalities through sexual- and gender-identity normativities: understanding heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity in organisations
4. Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times
5. White feminism in organisation studies: a calling out
6. Autoethnography as a research approach – bringing the self into research on workplace inequalities
PART II REGULATION AND VOLUNTARISM IN WORKPLACE INEQUALITIES
7. Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China: the role of the state
8. The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation in Nigeria’s public sector
9. State regulation and quotas – international perspectives on the use of gender quotas for corporate boards
10. Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace
11. The pay ‘transparency agenda’: toward regulation or voluntarism to expose gender pay gaps in the UK and the US
12. Women’s representation and the gender pay gap: rank, institutional research intensity and ethnicity in UK business schools
13. Using public procurement to promote equality in employment: assessment of the evidence from Australia, South Africa and the UK
14. The European Union, the member states and equality – an uneasy relationship?
PART III CULTURE, ORGANISATIONS AND INEQUALITY
15. Inequalities and the media: spread and reception of hate speech against migrants and refugees in social media
16. Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion
17. Women’s long-term social movement participation – an American case
18. Leadership, Africa and the South African context
19. Cracks in diversity: pink money, depoliticization, and conservatism in Brazil
20. Disability and work inequalities
21. Black women and inequality in the workplace
22. The political case for diversity: managing difference in Jewish diaspora organisations
23. Financial wellbeing and ethnicity
PART IV CONTEXT, OCCUPATIONS, CAREERS AND INEQUALITIES AT WORK
24. Winners and losers of digitalisation of work
25. The original gig economy: gendered precarious working in the UK music industry
26. Medical careers in the NHS: a case of segregation and disadvantage
27. An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka
28. Safe and suitable yet unequal for women: understanding the inequalities in the hiring process in the Indian software industry
PART V CRISIS, COVID, INEQUALITIES AND CHANGE
29. Future of working at home
30. Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society – the perfect storm to highlight racial inequalities
31. Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown: fears and changes for disabled people
32. Client-facing work and homeworking: the case of auditors
33. What about the formal workers? Informality in formal employment and social protection gaps in developing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic
PART VI CLIMATE CHANGE AND INEQUALITIES
34. Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry
35. Green is not White: giving voice to Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized workers in the environmental justice movement
36. Climate crisis and labour market inequalities: a socio-ecological fix approach to energy transition in Greece
Index
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RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON INEQUALITIES AND WORK
ELGAR HANDBOOKS ON INEQUALITY Original and comprehensive, this Handbook series offers a unique overview of the state-of-the-art of research in inequality. Each Handbook will consist of original contributions by preeminent authors, selected by an esteemed editor internationally recognised as a leading scholar within the field. The Handbooks provide new perspectives on established and more recent research areas, expand current debates, and signpost how research may advance in the future. Equally useful as reference tools or high-level introductions to specific topics, issues and methods, these Handbooks make an invaluable contribution to the field. For a full list of Edward Elgar published titles, including the titles in this series, visit our website at www.e-elgar.com.
Research Handbook on Inequalities and Work Edited by
Cynthia Forson Lancaster University, UK
Geraldine Healy School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Mustafa B. Öztürk School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Ahu Tatli School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK
ELGAR HANDBOOKS ON INEQUALITY
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
© Cynthia Forson, Geraldine Healy, Mustafa B. Öztürk and Ahu Tatli 2024
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2023952037 This book is available electronically in the Sociology, Social Policy and Education subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781800886605
ISBN 978 1 80088 659 9 (cased) ISBN 978 1 80088 660 5 (eBook)
EEP BoX
Contents
List of figuresix List of tablesx List of contributorsxii List of abbreviationsxxiii 1
Introduction – the pervasive nature of inequalities Geraldine Healy, Ahu Tatli, Cynthia Forson and Mustafa B. Öztürk
PART I
1
APPROACHES TO INEQUALITY RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
2
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa Nasima M. H. Carrim, Eileen Kwesiga, Yetunde Anibaba and Stella M. Nkomo
3
The propagation of workplace inequalities through sexual- and gender-identity normativities: understanding heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity in organisations Mustafa B. Öztürk
22
39
4
Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times Barbara Samaluk
52
5
White feminism in organisation studies: a calling out Elaine Swan
65
6
Autoethnography as a research approach – bringing the self into research on workplace inequalities Saoirse Caitlin O’Shea
PART II
74
REGULATION AND VOLUNTARISM IN WORKPLACE INEQUALITIES
7
Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China: the role of the state Fang Lee Cooke and Qijie Xiao
8
The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation in Nigeria’s public sector Ifedapo Adeleye, Nkiru Nwokoroku and Olawale Ajai
103
9
State regulation and quotas – international perspectives on the use of gender quotas for corporate boards Cathrine Seierstad and Hilde Fjellvær
114
v
89
vi Research handbook on inequalities and work 10
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace David Perfect
126
11
The pay ‘transparency agenda’: toward regulation or voluntarism to expose gender pay gaps in the UK and the US Emily Pfefer
141
12
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap: rank, institutional research intensity and ethnicity in UK business schools Geraldine Healy, Emily Pfefer and Almudena Sevilla
157
13
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment: assessment of the evidence from Australia, South Africa and the UK Tessa Wright, Hazel Conley and E.K. Sarter
180
14
The European Union, the member states and equality – an uneasy relationship? 196 Marco Peruzzi
PART III CULTURE, ORGANISATIONS AND INEQUALITY 15
Inequalities and the media: spread and reception of hate speech against migrants and refugees in social media David Blanco-Herrero, Javier J. Amores and Carlos Arcila-Calderón
16
Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion Dilek Torunoğlu Tinay, Özlem Ayaz and Mustafa Özbilgin
228
17
Women’s long-term social movement participation – an American case Geraldine Healy and Gill Kirton
242
18
Leadership, Africa and the South African context Anita Maharaj
257
19
Cracks in diversity: pink money, depoliticization, and conservatism in Brazil Luiz Alex Silva Saraiva and Camilla Quental
272
20
Disability and work inequalities Katherine J. C. Sang, María de los Angeles Zapata Rodriguez and Jennifer Remnant
286
21
Black women and inequality in the workplace Victoria Showunmi
299
22
The political case for diversity: managing difference in Jewish diaspora organisations Edith Pick
23
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity Chidozie Umeh and Nelarine Cornelius
211
319 335
Contents vii PART IV CONTEXT, OCCUPATIONS, CAREERS AND INEQUALITIES AT WORK 24
Winners and losers of digitalisation of work Mark Bergfeld
25
The original gig economy: gendered precarious working in the UK music industry Vick Bain
26
Medical careers in the NHS: a case of segregation and disadvantage Carol Woodhams, Carol Atkinson and Ira Parnerkar
385
27
An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka Manesha Peiris
405
28
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women: understanding the inequalities in the hiring process in the Indian software industry Shreyashi Chakraborty
PART V
355
370
420
CRISIS, COVID, INEQUALITIES AND CHANGE
29
Future of working at home Abigail Marks, Oliver Mallett, Lila Skountridaki and Danny Zschomler
436
30
Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society – the perfect storm to highlight racial inequalities Nicolas Treloar
456
31
Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown: fears and changes for disabled people Nadia Ahmed
469
32
Client-facing work and homeworking: the case of auditors Suki Sian
33
What about the formal workers? Informality in formal employment and social protection gaps in developing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic 492 Volkan Yılmaz
480
PART VI CLIMATE CHANGE AND INEQUALITIES 34
Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry Linda Clarke, Melahat Sahin-Dikmen and Edmundo Werna
35
Green is not White: giving voice to Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized workers in the environmental justice movement Naolo Charles, Patricia Chong, Tyjana Connolly, Denise Hampden, Anna Liu, Rosemarie Powell, Shanice Regis-Wilkins and Christopher Wilson
507
523
viii Research handbook on inequalities and work 36
Climate crisis and labour market inequalities: a socio-ecological fix approach to energy transition in Greece Vasiliki Krommyda, Stelios Gialis and Anastasia Stratigea
540
Index555
Figures
1.1
Global income and wealth inequality 2021
2
1.2
Female share in global labour incomes 1990–2020
3
12.1
A framework for women’s representation in the multi-faceted context of the GPG in UK business schools
158
12.2
The adjusted gender pay gap of full-time academics in UK business schools by university type and academic rank
166
12.3
The real salaries of full-time academics in UK business schools by gender and institutional category (2016 value)
167
16.1
The crisis of LE, its negative consequences for EDI, and EDI-led transformation of LE
229
29.1
Survey one (June–July 2020) – satisfaction with home working space
438
29.2
Survey one (June–July 2020) – availability of dedicated homeworking space
439
29.3
Survey two (December 2020–February 2021) – time spent working with video conferencing software when remote working
443
29.4
Survey two (December 2020–February 2021) – time spent working with video conferencing software when working from the employer’s workspace443
29.5
Survey three (November 2021–February 2022) – perceptions of flexibility
445
29.6
Levels of strain across the three surveys
447
29.7
Feelings of unhappiness and depression across the three surveys
448
29.8
Trendlines for levels of strain across the three surveys by gender
449
29.9
Trendlines for feelings of unhappiness and depression across the three surveys by gender
449
29.10
Childcare responsibilities across the three surveys by gender
450
29.11
Other caring responsibilities across the three surveys by gender
451
29.12
Survey three (November 2021–February 2022) – responsibility for domestic labour by gender
452
ix
Tables
2.1
Human Development Index for South Africa, Namibia and Angola
25
2.2
Human Development Index for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
31
7.1
Examples of the role of the state in employment-related inequalities and effects 91
9.1
Gender quotas for corporate boards in European countries
118
9.2
Variations in quota design
121
11.1
Salary history bans (US states and territories)
150
12.1
The representation of women amongst full-time academics by academic rank in UK business schools
165
12.2
The representation of women amongst full-time academics by university type and academic rank in UK business schools
165
12.3
The representation of women, mean salary, and gender pay gap among full-time academics in UK business schools by discipline
169
12.4
The representation of women, mean salary, and gender pay gap among full-time academics in UK business schools by discipline and academic rank
170
12.5
The representation of Black, Asian, other, and white women and men amongst full-time academics by academic rank and university type in UK business schools
171
The intersectional gender/ethnic pay gap among full-time academics by academic rank and university type in UK business schools estimated with OLS regression models
172
15.1
Presence of hate and sentiments of the analysed messages
216
16.1
Typologies of leadership emergence
232
17.1
What is your union position? Check as many as applicable
248
17.2
How essential are women’s union conferences? Check one
248
17.3
What did you get from the conference? Check as many as you like
249
17.4
Do you think male unionists understand women’s equality issues? Check one
249
17.5
Looking back on the last 10 years, has there been an increase in the number of women representatives in your union?
250
12.6
x
Tables xi 17.6
Looking back on the last 10 years, have your union’s policies on women in the workplace/the unions improved?
250
17.7
Looking back on the last 10 years, has there been an increase in the number of women in leadership and decision-making bodies in your union?
250
17.8
Have you ever experienced sexual harassment or sex discrimination in your union?
251
17.9
Have you ever experienced sexual harassment or sex discrimination in your job?
251
18.1
A description of the different ethnic groups in South Africa (Klarsfeld, 2010)
262
18.2
Comparison of Mbigi’s (2000) five core values associated with African leaders with qualitative findings for African Black leaders in SA
267
20.1
Three main models of disability
287
20.2
Selected national legal and regional definitions of disability
288
20.3
Employment and unemployment rates across a range of countries
290
26.1
Gender distribution in senior ranks and in surgery (2010 and 2020)
390
26.2
Gender and ethnicity distribution in senior ranks and in surgery (2010 and 2020)
392
26.3
Gender and nationality distribution in senior ranks and in surgery (2010 and 2020)
394
35.1
Earning power of White compared to racialized men and women
526
A35.1 Racialized population, composition
539
A35.2 Racialized and Indigenous population breakdown
539
Contributors
Ifedapo Adeleye is Professor of the Practice of Human Resources Management and Faculty Director for the Master’s in HRM programme at Georgetown University, USA. His research and teaching in the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) area focus on embedding equity and inclusion into HRM practices and institutionalising accountability and governance for DEI. ‘Dapo received his PhD from the University of Manchester, UK, and holds the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Inclusive Workplace Culture specialty credential. Nadia Ahmed holds a PhD from Queen Mary University of London. She researches practicable working environments for disabled academics and people in London. Her inspiration is her own disability and struggle towards getting employment as a disabled academic and a disabled person. Olawale Ajai is Professor of Legal, Social and Political Environment of Business, Head of the Strategy Department and Academic Director of the Employment Law and Industrial Relations programme at Lagos Business School, Nigeria. A legal practitioner at the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Olawale also has extensive HR experience, having served as Human Capital Director at Dunlop Nigeria Plc. He holds a doctorate degree in law from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Javier J. Amores is a social researcher member of the Observatory for Audiovisual Content (OCA). He graduated in Audiovisual Communication and obtained a master’s degree in Audiovisual Communication Research with the Extraordinary Award from the University of Salamanca. He is currently developing his thesis at the same university funded by the Castille and Leon Regional Government and the European Social Fund. His lines of research are focused on the news media and social media analysis, framing studies, social communication and computational methods applied in social sciences. Yetunde Anibaba is Senior Lecturer at Lagos Business School, Nigeria, where she leads sessions in several subject areas including strategic business leadership, decision making and human resource management. Her current research focuses on human behaviour in organisations, with specific interests in change leadership, diversity management and decision-making. Yetunde is also a gender specialist, providing technical and programmatic support in gender equality to organisations. Carlos Arcila-Calderón is Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca and editor of the Journal Disertaciones. He has a PhD in Communication and holds master’s degrees in Data Science and in Journalism. He has published more than 70 papers, 50 of them in JCR or SJR journals; 9 books; and 15 book chapters. He has been principal investigator of ten funded projects and collaborator in six more. His lines of research focus on ICT adoption, (social) media analysis and computational methods. Carol Atkinson is Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange and Professor of Human Resource Management based in Manchester Metropolitan University Business School’s xii
Contributors xiii Centre for Decent Work and Productivity. She has expertise in creating high-quality employment based on her research interests, which include people management and employment in small and medium-sized enterprises; job quality in adult social care; and gender, age and careers (particularly gender pay gaps and menopause in the workplace). Özlem Ayaz has several years of management experience in strategic management, working at big companies in Turkey. Her research is embedded in the strategic management field and she is specifically interested in integration of management systems with different operational aims. Her interests also include the role of leadership, ethical organisations creating social and business value during the digital era starting with Industry 4.0, sustainability and the circular economy. Ayaz has published widely in well-regarded international academic journals. Vick Bain is a PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London where she is researching women’s careers in music, supervised by Ahu Tatli and Elena Doldor. Vick has worked in music for 25 years and is currently the President of the Independent Society of Musicians. She is enrolled in the Women in Music Awards Roll of Honour and Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Music Industry Powerlist and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the British Academy of Management. Mark Bergfeld is Director of Property Services and UNICARE at UNI Global Union – Europa. He holds a PhD in Business and Management from Queen Mary University of London. He has written widely on labour movements, precarious work, migrant labour and trade union organizing. He is Associate at the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity (CRED), Queen Mary University of London David Blanco-Herrero is a PhD student at the University of Salamanca. He has bachelor’s degrees in journalism (Distance University of Madrid) and in Business Management (University of León) and a master’s degree in Audiovisual Communication (University of Salamanca). He conducts his research as a member of the Observatory for Audiovisual Content (OCA) at the University of Salamanca with a formación de profesorado universitario (FPU) grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science. His lines of research are journalism ethics, fake news and hate speech. He is Assistant Editor of the scientific journal Disertaciones. Nasima M. H. Carrim is Associate Professor at the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria. Her research focuses on gender in management and culture, religion and minorities in the workplace from an intersectionality and identity perspective. Her research strategy is based on qualitative research mainly using life story interviews. She has authored many articles in international journals and books related to diversity management. She co-edited the textbook Managing Diversity in the South African Workplace. Shreyashi Chakraborty is Lecturer at the University of Greenwich in the Human Resources and Organisational Behaviour Area. Her research focuses on the role and impact of HRM systems and practices in relation to inclusion and removing inequalities in workplaces and educational institutions. She was also Chairperson of the Centre for Gender Equality and Inclusive Leadership in Xavier School of Management (XLRI), Jamshedpur (India’s oldest business school). She won the Emerald Outstanding Dissertation Award in HR in 2017. Naolo Charles (he/him) is the founder of the Black Environmental Initiative (BE Initiative). Naolo also co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice
xiv Research handbook on inequalities and work (CCECJ), a coalition launched to support racialized communities affected by pollution and climate change impacts. Holder of a master’s degree in the environment, Naolo delivers green construction training to the Toronto Community Benefits Network’s Next Gen Builders program participants. He also sits on the Next Gen Builders advisory board. Naolo recently offered several anti-racism training sessions to Nature Canada’s Work to Grow program employers and to other environmental organizations, such as Climate Caucus. Naolo has been invited many times to speak in conferences and to the media about environmental justice. Naolo was one of the experts invited on an advisory table brought together by Environment and Climate Change Canada to develop Canada’s first national adaptation strategy. He also sits on the board of the Toronto Non-Profit Network. Before starting the BE Initiative Naolo worked for over 8 years for various organizations including foundations, universities, governments and start-ups. Patricia Chong (she/her) has worked as a union organizer for both public and private sector unions in Canada, is a member of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA), and is a documentary filmmaker. Currently, she works as an Education Officer and develops and delivers union training using a popular education approach. She holds a Master’s degree in Labour Studies from McMaster University (Canada) and a Master’s degree in ‘Labour Policies and Globalisation’ from the Global Labour University via the University of Kassel and the Berlin School of Economics and Law (Germany). Linda Clarke is Professor at the Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, London, and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE). She has published widely and has long experience in comparative research across Europe on vocational education and training, employment and working conditions, wage relations, equality, climate change, zero-carbon building and labour in the construction sector. Hazel Conley is Professor of Human Resource Management at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England. Hazel has published widely on Equality legislation with a focus on public-sector equality duty and equal pay. She is the co-author of Gender Equality in Public Services: Chasing the Dream (2015, Routledge). She is currently a co-investigator in research projects examining equality, public procurement and the history of equality legislation in the UK since 1964. Tyjana Connolly (she/her) is a passionate community builder and organizer. She is currently Executive Director and co-founder of Black Eco Bloom, a sustainable development organization that focuses on environmental education, and community-based solutions to tackle climate change, specifically empowering Black women and gender-diverse individuals in climate action leadership, as well as a BIPOC Fellow at the Sustainable Capacity Building Institute. With her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Tyjana incorporates political ecology and systems design into her work. She strongly advocates for centering Black, Afro-Caribbean, and African Indigenous voices and experiences in environmentalism and sustainability. Her goal is to explore the impacts of inequitable community development and imagine better communities through relocalizing development projects and cultural understandings of the community. Fang Lee Cooke is Distinguished Professor at Monash Business School, Monash University, Australia. Her research interests are in the areas of strategic HRM; knowledge management
Contributors xv and innovation; outsourcing; international HRM; gender equality; diversity and inclusion management; employment relations; migrant studies; HRM in the healthcare sector; digitalisation and implications for employment and HRM; climate change, energy transition and the future of work; Sustainable Development Goals and the role of multinational firms. Nelarine Cornelius is Professor of Organisation Studies and a member of the Centre for Research into Equality and Diversity, Queen Mary University of London. She researches social justice and business in society and has extensive experience in advisory and policy development work across all sectors. She is co-lead (with Birmingham University) of a project analysing national datasets to evaluate race and workplaces. She is an associate editor of Journal of Business Ethics and Deputy Editor of the Business and Society journal. Hilde Fjellvær is Associate Professor at NTNU Business School. She completed her PhD at the Norwegian School of Economics in the Department of Strategy and Management. Her research interests are in the areas of corporate governance, boards of directors and diversity, particularly in the context of venture capital and private equity. She also studies pluralistic organisations, dual leaderships and institutional logics. Cynthia Forson is Associate Professor and Deputy Provost at Lancaster University Ghana. Her research interests cover equality, diversity and inclusion in the labour market and organisations. She focuses particularly on gender, ethnicity, class and migrant status and their intersectional influences in the lives and careers of women, particularly African women on the continent and in the diaspora. In that regard she has published research reports, edited books, book chapters and journal articles in the British Journal of Management; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Gender, Work and Organisation; International Journal Entrepreneurial Behaviour Research; Journal of Management Development; Journal of Small Business Management; and Work, Employment and Society, among others. Stelios Gialis is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Greece. Between 2012 and 2015 he was jointly affiliated with the University of Georgia, USA, and the Hellenic Open University, Greece, doing postdoctoral research. He has published in many academic journals including Geoforum, European Urban and Regional Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Economic and Industrial Democracy, etc. His research interests include labour and geography, the spatial divisions of flexible/atypical/informal employment, urban restructuring and labour markets. Denise Hampden (she/her) is a long-time labour educator, anti-racism and social justice advocate and member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Ontario, Canada Chapter. Geraldine Healy is Emeritus Professor of Employment Relations at Queen Mary University of London and founding Director of the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity (CRED). Her research has focused on inequalities in work, including the gender pay gap, intersectional inequalities, women and unions and mid-20th century Irish migration. Her research is widely published in monographs, leading journals and edited books. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and member of the Equal Pay Alliance. Gill Kirton is Professor of Employment Relations, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK. Gill’s research concerns workplace equality and diversity with a particular focus on female-dominated occupations and settings. Over a period
xvi Research handbook on inequalities and work of 25 years, Gill has carried out many studies in collaboration with trade unions. Recent work has investigated working conditions in nursing and midwifery and the probation profession and is published in journals including Work, Employment and Society, Economic and Industrial Democracy and Industrial Relations Journal. Vasiliki Krommyda is a PhD candidate at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in Greece. She studied Planning and Regional Development at the School of Engineering, University of Thessaly, and holds a master’s degree in Environment and Development from NTUA. Her research work has been published in academic journals and presented at conferences. Her research interests encompass diverse areas such as economic geography, political ecology, environmental labour studies and spatial planning. Eileen Kwesiga is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at Bryant University. Her current research interests include cross-cultural issues and experiences and outcomes of non-dominant groups in organisations, and her work has appeared in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Employee Rights and Responsibilities Journal, Equal Opportunities International and Management Sciences, among others. Anna Liu (she/her) is a union organizer, a member of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA), and has authored several published articles about the labour movement in Canada. Through her volunteer efforts with ACLA, she has worked with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) on their Environmental Racism project. She holds an MA in Labour Studies from McMaster University (Canada). Anita Maharaj completed her PhD at Queen Mary University of London. Her thesis examines factors contributing to the enablement and constraint of leadership achievement and practice for South African (African Black, Indian and Colored) men and women employees. She won the master’s prize for the best paper at the British Psychological Society. She has also presented at international conferences and published articles. Her interests include leadership (particularly in the African context), diversity, inclusion and intersectionality. Prior to her academic career, she had extensive experience in HR across geographies in the UK and SA. Oliver Mallett is Professor in Entrepreneurship at Stirling Management School, University of Stirling. Oliver’s research focuses on the sociology of entrepreneurship, principally in terms of the experience of self-employment and employment relationships in small firms. He also researches the context for this activity in terms of enterprise policy and business support. Abigail Marks is Professor of the Future of Work and Associate Dean of Research at Newcastle University Business School. Abigail’s research interests focus on the sociology of work, particularly in terms of new forms of working, the impact of technology on work and the impact of social stratification on work. Stella M. Nkomo is Professor in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research on diversity, race and gender in organisations; leadership; change management; and management in Africa has been published in such outlets as the Academy of Management Review, Organization, Journal of Management, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Equality Diversity and Inclusion.
Contributors xvii She is an A-rated South African researcher and founding President of the Africa Academy of Management. Nkiru Nwokoroku is a graduate of the Georgetown University Master’s in Human Resources Management programme. Her capstone research project focused on understanding and addressing workplace inequalities. She is a passionate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) champion and committed to leveraging inclusive HR and talent solutions to drive innovation and results. A Society for Human Resource Management Certified Professional (SHRM CP), Nkiru serves as an HR solutions partner for a global industrial technology manufacturing company. Saoirse Caitlin O’Shea. Hi, I’m a nonbinary person who underwent ‘gender affirming surgery’ in December 2020. I sometimes write about my lived experiences as a nonbinary person and have been published in Organization, Management Learning and Gender, Work and Organization on this. I like cats, chocolate and tattoos. Mustafa Özbilgin is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Brunel Business School, Brunel University London. His research focuses on equality, diversity and inclusion at work from comparative and relational perspectives. His research provides evidence for changing policy and practice regarding equality and diversity at work. He is an engaged scholar driven by values of workplace democracy, equality for all and humanisation of work. Mustafa B. Öztürk (he/they) is Reader in Human Resource Management in the School of Business and Management and a member of CRED at Queen Mary University of London. Mustafa has expertise in equality, diversity and inclusion broadly as well as workplace injustices affecting sexual- and gender-identity minorities. Ira Parnerkar is a PhD researcher in the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London. She has a background in economics, sociology and political science. Her research interests lie in the areas of equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Manesha Peiris is Lecturer in Marketing and International Human Resource Management at the University of Sunderland in London. She obtained her PhD from Queen Mary University of London in 2020. Her research follows a feminist tradition and her interests range cross women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship in emerging economies, consumer behaviour and technology acceptance/adoption. David Perfect is Visiting Professor at the University of Chester. He previously worked in research management for the Equal Opportunities Commission (1988-2007) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) (2007-2020) and led the EHRC’s research and policy work on religion or belief issues. He writes about religion or belief law in Britain and how the media covers religion or belief legal cases. Marco Peruzzi is Associate Professor of Labour Law in the Department of Law of the University of Verona. His main areas of research include anti-discrimination law; the impact of digitalisation, algorithmic management and use of artificial intelligence on workers’ protections, health and safety at work; gender pay equality; industrial relations; European social dialogue; and transnational collective bargaining.
xviii Research handbook on inequalities and work Emily Pfefer is a senior research advisor at the British Medical Association where she oversees pay modelling for doctors’ contract negotiations and conducts related qualitative and quantitative research. She received her PhD from Queen Mary University of London in 2020, which explored pay transparency and the gender/ethnic pay gap in UK universities. Whilst there she analysed data for her school’s first successful Athena SWAN application and taught employment relations and sociological and organisational behaviour modules. Edith Pick is a PhD candidate in Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London and a research associate at Brandeis University. Her research examines how difference is imagined, negotiated and managed through organisational discourse and practice. Her dissertation explores the diversity discourse within UK Jewish organisations, particularly how the construction of ethno-racial, national and political difference and reflections of Israel– Palestine in the Jewish workplace raise tensions and dilemmas around home and diaspora, whiteness and otherness and privilege and marginality. Rosemarie Powell is the Executive Director of the Toronto Community Benefits Network, co-founder of the Canadian Building Diversity Institute and Owner of Big on Green Property Management. She has been a passionate advocate for social, economic, and environmental justice for over 20 years and has advanced equitable approaches to policy development and implementation at various levels of government. Building on TCBN’s initial success of negotiating Ontario’s first Community Benefits Framework for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Rosemarie led the coalition through subsequent campaigns to secure community benefits for the Finch West LRT, West Park Healthcare Centre and Rexdale Casino Woodbine expansion. In so doing, she has forged strategic partnerships among community, labour and industry leaders across Canada to unlock thousands of good jobs in construction and hundreds of millions in local and social procurement opportunities through investment in public infrastructure and urban development for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour with a focus on youth, women, and newcomers. Her community engagement and environmental advocacy work earned several awards for leadership and imagination. Camilla Quental, PhD, is Associate Professor of Organization Studies and Ethics at Audencia Business School, France. Her research interests include gender, inclusion and sustainability in organisations. She has published a number of research articles and chapters on these topics. She is a member of the United Nations PRME Working Group on Gender Equality. Since September 2022, Camilla has been Visiting Associate Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi in Business, Organizations and Society in Social Sciences. Shanice Regis-Wilkins (she/her) is a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Canada. Shanice is a work and rights columnist, union organizer, labour educator, community activist and climate justice advocate. Jennifer Remnant is Chancellor’s Fellow at the Scottish Centre for Employment Research, Strathclyde Business School. With her research she seeks to address these research topics: (1) subjective experiences of health at work and employee perceptions; (2) heterogeneous stakeholder perspectives and responses to ill-health and disability in the workplace; (3) organisations and health; and (4) historical, cultural and political perspectives and debates on and depictions of health in relation to work.
Contributors xix Melahat Sahin-Dikmen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Social Sciences, University of Westminster. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose expertise lies in the sociology of work and employment and gender studies. Her recent research is concerned with the implications of climate change for the world of work in relation to building design and construction occupations, gender in climate governance and the role of labour in the green transition. Barbara Samaluk, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her areas of expertise cover intersectional inequalities, transnational mobility and labour migration, education-to-work transitions and precarity, as well (self-)organisation emerging from these areas. She completed her PhD at Queen Mary University of London and later worked at University of Greenwich, as well as working as a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow. She has published in Work, Employment and Society, Organisation Studies and European Journal of Industrial Relations, among others. Katherine J. C. Sang is Professor of Gender and Employment Studies at Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University. Kate is also Director of the Centre for Research on Employment, Work and the Professions. Kate’s research explores how employment can be made more accessible for women and disabled people, with current projects exploring gynaecological health conditions, menopause and neurodiversity. Recent projects have taken a participatory action research and co-design approach to developing interventions to reduce ableism in the workplace. E.K. Sarter is currently Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick after working as Senior Lecturer for Social Policy and Public Service Management at the South Wales Business School, University of South Wales. Sarter researches in the area of public and social policy, regulation and governance with a particular focus on employment, the regulation of labour, multi-level governance of public services and comparative research. Current research examines public procurement as a regulatory tool and the interaction between public procurement and equality. Cathrine Seierstad is Professor at the Department of Business, History and Social Sciences at the University of South-Eastern Norway and Kristiania University College, Norway. Her research explores the fields of equality, diversity and inclusion at work; leadership; women on boards; HRM/IHRM; corporate governance; and CSR. Recent research has investigated the wider effects of using gender quotas on corporate boards in a variety of countries. Almudena Sevilla is Professor in Economic and Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy at London School of Economics and is currently the Chair of the Royal Economic Society UK Women in Economics Network. Almudena is an applied micro economist whose research focuses on the areas of gender. Her research has uncovered the large and persistent gender gaps in earnings and representation within the economics discipline in academia, and is published in top journals like the proceedings of the American Economic Review and the National Academy of Sciences. Almudena is president-elect of the Society of the Economics of the Household, and she is co-founder of the Economics of Diversity, Gender, and Equality (EDGE) Network, co-chairs the LSE Women in Social and Public Policy Research Hub (WISPPRH), and is Diversity and Equality Champion at the LSE Social Policy Department.
xx Research handbook on inequalities and work Victoria Showunmi is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Education (IOE), UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. Her interests are gender, identity, and race through the lens of intersectionality, focusing on leadership and the lived experience of Black women and girls. She develops fresh conceptual frameworks focusing on equity and social justice, especially the interplay between people and the sophistication of behaviours which lead to disengagement with the promotion of equality. Her work shows how culture and cultural background have the potential to disrupt power structures and lead to transformational change. She has an international profile based on the dissemination of her research through publication and teaching and was the recipient of BERA’s inaugural Academic Citizen of the Year award in 2023. This new award was created to honour a member of the wider academic community who has gone above and beyond in supporting colleagues and contributing to the wider discipline. She is a member of the Gender and Education Executive, Past Chair of the British Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society, Chair of the International Studies Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association and co-convenor of the Gender Network of the European Educational Research Association. Suki Sian is Professor of Accounting at Queen Mary University of London. Prior to this, she trained as an auditor and is now a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Her work is themed around exclusion from and marginalisation within the accounting profession. More recently, she has been studying changes in the audit model arising from enforced homeworking with a particular focus on how this impacts on gender equality. Her work utilises qualitative methods to gather data, including archival methods, documentary analysis, interviews, oral history, ethnography and focus groups. Luiz Alex Silva Saraiva is Associate Professor of Organization Studies at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He has a PhD in Management from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He is Coordinator of the Center for Organizational Studies and Society (NEOS/UFMG) and Editor-in-Chief of Farol – Journal of Organizational Studies and Society. He works as a professor, researcher and advisor in reflexive interdisciplinary perspectives with an organisational focus related to cities, technologies, differences and organised social life. Lila Skountridaki is Lecturer in Organisation Studies at the University of Edinburgh Business School, UK. Her research focuses on the work experiences of expert labour, the sociology of the professions and professional ethics. Most recently her research interests focus on job quality and work autonomy in flexible work, including home-based work, hybrid work and reduced-time work (the 4 day week). Anastasia Stratigea, is Professor in Spatial Planning and Policy at the School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering, National Technical University of Athens. She has participated in national and European projects and is a member of national and international scientific associations/networks. She is a reviewer for international journals and conferences and a member of scientific committees for international/national conferences. She has published her work in books, edited volumes, international journals and conference proceedings. Her main research interests are spatial planning and policy, urban/regional planning and participatory planning.
Contributors xxi Elaine Swan is Reader in Feminist Food Studies at Sussex University Business School. My research interests are in intersectional feminist food studies, critical diversity studies and ‘psy-’ cultures in the workplace. I am co-principal investigator on a UKRI Transforming Food Systems research project entitled ‘Co-production of Healthy, Sustainable Food Systems for Disadvantaged Communities’, working with community researchers in Tower Hamlets in London. See more at https://www.servings.uk/. Ahu Tatli (she/they) is Professor of International HRM at Queen Mary University of London. She is interested in contributing to debates on intersectionality, equality and diversity through multi-layered sociological theorising. Her current work focuses on understanding the workings of privilege in organisations, the reproduction of the status quo and potential for agency towards progressive change. Her research is widely published in edited collections, practitioner and policy outlets and journals such as Academy of Management Review; British Journal of Management; Gender, Work and Organisation; Human Relations; Human Resource Management; International Journal of Management Reviews and Work; and Employment and Society. Dilek Torunoğlu Tinay has a BA in Economics, an MA in Human Resources Management and Development and a PhD in Organizational Behaviour. He has worked as an instructor and a researcher at Marmara University and Yeditepe University in Istanbul, Turkey, and has an interest in equality, diversity and inclusion; effective communication skills; and negotiations and leadership. Nicolas Treloar is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Mental Health having previously worked at the Runnymede Trust and the Commission on Young Lives. He has worked on issues of ethnic inequality within the areas of voter registration, policing, the labour market and the economy while also authoring multiple pieces on the ethnic inequalities of COVID-19. Nick also has a strong policy background, having spent much time engaging, working with and influencing government officials on areas of ethnic inequalities. Nick also held a previous role at Forward Thinking, where he focused on research and policy relating to issues of Islamophobia. Chidozie Umeh is Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management and Programme Leader of the HRM MSc at the School for Business and Society, University of York. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He researches the impact of management practices on social inequalities and sustainable development in ethnoculturally diverse contexts. Umeh has over 14 years of industry experience, including a decade in banking. He is the Special Issues Editor of Personnel Review journal. Edmundo Werna is currently Associate Professor in the School of the Built Environment and Architecture, London South Bank University, and Deputy-Director of the Centre for the Integrated Delivery of the Built Environment (IDoBE). His career has combined research in academic institutions and operational activities with roles in the United Nations and as a private consultant. His work has focused on several aspects of urban development and the construction industry, with particular attention to labour. Christopher Wilson (he/him) is the first Vice-President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Ontario Canada Chapter, and Director of the Regional Offices Branch of the
xxii Research handbook on inequalities and work Public Service Alliance of Canada. Christopher is a lawyer, community activist and labour representative with over 20 years’ experience advocating for workers in their workplaces and communities. Christopher is co-investigator in the Green Is Not White research project, which has engaged over 3,000 labour and community activists in participatory workshops to confront environmental racism. Carol Woodhams is Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of Surrey. She held previous posts at the University of Exeter and the University of Plymouth. Her specialist research topic is in the general area of equality and diversity, especially gender and intersecting pay gaps. She has published widely in academic and practitioner journals. She led ‘Mend the Gap: The Independent Review into Gender Pay Gaps in Medicine in England’ for the Department of Health and Social Care. Tessa Wright is Professor of Employment Relations at the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London. She has researched and written widely on equality at work with a focus on gender, sexuality and intersectionality, in particular in male-dominated sectors. She is the author of Gender and Sexuality in Male-dominated Occupations: Women Workers in Construction and Transport (2016, Palgrave Macmillan) and co-editor of Women, Work and Transport (with Lucy Budd and Stephen Ison, Emerald Publishing, 2022). She is currently researching how public procurement can be used to promote employment equality in the construction sector. Qijie Xiao is a lecturer in human resource management (HRM) at Monash University, Suzhou Campus. He received his PhD from Monash University, Australia. His research focuses on strategic HRM, international HRM, employee well-being and organisational behaviour. His work has appeared in International Journal of Management Reviews, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Management Inquiry, International Journal of Manpower, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources and Employee Relations. Volkan Yılmaz is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Social Policy at the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences at Ulster University, Northern Ireland. He is trained as a sociologist and political scientist. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Leeds. He serves as one of the editors-in-chief for the Journal of Social Policy and as the coordinator of the Sociology of Social Policy and Social Welfare Research Network (RN26) of the European Sociological Association. His expertise lies in comparative social policy, health policy, social protection systems and welfare politics. María de los Angeles Zapata Rodriguez is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research in Employment, Work and the Professions, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University. María’s research aims to explore the employment experiences of disadvantaged individuals, with a particular interest in disabling conditions as well as cross-cultural studies. María also has experience in researching political and social affairs in her native Peru. Danny Zschomler is Research Fellow at Coventry University working on the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot. Danny’s research interests include the sociology of work, organisational studies and professional development and his PhD is in Sociology.
Abbreviations
AAUW ABF ABM ACCA ACLA ACS ACW AFL AG AI AIA APA APS ARGA ASHE BA BBC BDS BIPOC BLS BMA BME BPI CA CAI CBI CBTU CCECJ CEE CIMA CIO
American Association of University Women African Black female African Black male Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Asian Canadian Labour Alliance American Communities Survey Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change research project American Federation of Labor Advocate General artificial intelligence Association of International Accountants American Psychological Association Annual Population Survey Audit Reporting and Governance Authority ARGA Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings British Airways British Broadcasting Corporation Boycott Divestment Sanctions Black, Indigenous and People of Colour Bureau of Labor Statistics British Medical Association Black and Minority Ethnic British Phonographic Industry Court of Appeal Chartered Accountants Ireland Confederation of British Industry Coalition of Black Trade Unionists The Canadian Coalition for Environmental & Climate Justice Central and Eastern Europe Chartered Institute of Management Accountants Congress of Industrial Organisations xxiii
xxiv Research handbook on inequalities and work CIPD CIPFA CJEU CLUW COVID-19 CPS CRC CV DDCMS DoL EA EAT ECHR ECJ ECtHR EDI Ee EEA EEOC EHRC ENRICH EPG ESR ET EU F FC FCC FLSA FRC FSE G/EPG GDP GLOBE GMC GP
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy Court of Justice of the European Union Coalition of Labor Women Coronavirus Disease 2019 Current Population Survey Christian Revival Church Curriculum Vitae Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport Department of Labor Equality Act Employment Appeal Tribunal European Convention on Human Rights European Court of Justice European Court of Human Rights Equality Diversity and Inclusion Employment Equity European Economic Area Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Equality and Human Rights Commission Environmental Noxiousness Racial Inequities and Community Health project ethnic pay gap Electronic Staff Record Employment Tribunal European Union Female Federal Character Federal Character Commission Fair Labor Standards Act Financial Reporting Council Feminist Standpoint Epistemology gender/ethnic pay gap gross domestic product Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness General Medical Council General Practice
Abbreviations xxv GPG GPS HCHS HEE HESA HRA ICAEW ICAS IFC IFS IHRA ILO IMF IMG JARI JRF LE LFS LGBTQI LGCM LHI LTFT M MaPS MPLA MTL NAAP NCPE NGLL NHS NJ NLRA NLRB non-EEA NWLC OECD OFCCP
gender pay gap Global Positioning System Hospital and Health Service Health Education England Higher Education Statistics Agency Human Rights Act Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland International Finance Corporation Institute for Fiscal Studies International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund International Medical Graduate Jobs at Risk Index Joseph Rowntree Foundation leadership emergence Labour Force Survey Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement life history interview less than full time Male Money and Pensions Service Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola motivation to lead The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People National Committee on Pay Equity Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola National Health Services New Jersey National Labor Relations Act National Labor Relations Board non-European Economic Area National Women’s Law Center Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Office of Federal Contract Compliance
xxvi Research handbook on inequalities and work ONS PPE PSC PSED RCGP RCP RCS RFID RSE SA SAARC SAS SDG SEA SHB SHRM SOEs SSHRC SWAPO TEU TFEU TGNC TL TUC TURKSTAT UK UNITA US USA WAL WEF WILD
Office for National Statistics personal protective equipment pay secrecy clause Public Sector Equality Duty Royal College of General Practitioners Royal College of Physicians Royal College of Surgeons Radio Frequency Identification Relationships and Sex Education South Africa South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Specialty Doctor and Associate Specialist Sustainable Development Goal Southeast Asian salary history ban Society for Human Resource Management state-owned enterprises Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada South-West People’s Organisation Treaty on European Union Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union transgender and gender-nonconforming Turkish Lira Trades Union Congress Turkish Statistical Institution United Kingdom South West African People’s Organisation United States United States of America worries about leadership World Economic Forum Women in Leadership Development
1. Introduction – the pervasive nature of inequalities Geraldine Healy, Ahu Tatli, Cynthia Forson and Mustafa B. Öztürk
This Research Handbook on Inequality and Work could not have been conceived at a more momentous time. It was 2020, the world was engulfed in the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd brought Black Lives Matter (#BLM) to the fore, the MeToo (#MeToo) movement sought to prevent the suppression of sexual abuse and sexual harassment, class inequalities intensified, culture wars erupted in the West, the political landscapes were uncertain, a global climate emergency was raging and inequality was growing. As the book goes to press, inequalities continue to be embedded in societies but underpinning the contributions in our book is that societies can and must choose to change. Researchers are grappling with making sense of this world using a range of conceptual tools, whether from critical, post-colonial, critical realist, emancipatory or positivist paradigms, in the context of the overlapping and interrelated macro, meso and micro (self) levels of analysis. This book reflects these struggles by bringing together leading researchers to explore contemporary issues and their historical and conceptual antecedents. History is central to understanding inequalities, whether it is at the global, the nation-state or the individual level; it helps make sense of the different contexts in which the contemporary picture of inequalities and work is painted. History, whether at the level of the person, the state or their interaction, or the global, is crucial to understanding the complexity of inequalities. Chapters in this Research Handbook document the complex thinking that helps explain the nature of inequalities. While we see crucial differences between countries and their state ideologies, we reveal both those differences and the commonalities that cross geographical borders. Moreover, borders have been a critical context for equality studies, whether those borders have been erected by a nation state or are in the mind. The migration of people across borders is an important part of the equality story, including their struggles between here and there, and reflects our own stories (Healy 2019) (see Samaluk in this book). Borders have also been broken down by the pervasiveness of social media, and we have seen its power in mobilising previously hard to reach groups. However, we are mindful of Malcolm X’s famous statement that ‘the media have the power to make the guilty innocent and make the innocent guilty and that’s power because they control the mind of the masses’ (King 2010). The media have an important role in society but they can, and do, abuse that role to the detriment of the less powerful. The media, and social media in particular, have been blamed for contemporary misogyny and racism. What we know from #MeToo and #BLM is that misogyny and racism are characteristics of society and take multiple forms; social media has been a contemporary means of facilitating the worst of sexism and racism in society (see Blanco-Herrero et al. in this book).
1
2 Research handbook on inequalities and work What do we mean by inequalities at work? Inequalities are all-pervasive and take multiple forms. At the macro level inequalities are most often related to income and wealth, which needs to be seen from an historical context. The World Inequality 2022 Report is clear that Global inequalities seem to be about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century. Indeed, the share of income presently captured by the poorest half of the world’s people is about half what it was in 1820, before the great divergence between Western countries and their colonies. In other words, there is still a long way to go to undo the global economic inequalities inherited from the very unequal organisation of world production between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. (Chancel et al. 2022:12)
Chancel et al. go on to show that the rise in private wealth has been unequal within countries and at the world level. Global multimillionaires have captured a disproportionate share of global wealth growth over the past several decades: the top 1% took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, whereas the bottom 50% captured just 2% of it (Figure 1.1). Wealth has a greater effect on inequalities than does income. Moreover, these historical data provide insight into the long-standing wealth accumulation by states and families. Such wealth accumulation deriving from slavery assets provides clear justification for reparations to be made by slave-trading nations and slave-owning families considering the inter-generational wealth gained from slavery and its legacy.
Source: https://wir2022.wid.world/www-site/uploads/2021/12/WorldInequalityReport2022_Full_Report.pdf (Chancel et al. 2022:10).
Figure 1.1
Global income and wealth inequality 2021
The 2022 World Inequality Report brings in gender and ecological inequalities alongside income and wealth. Gender inequalities remain considerable at the global level, and progress
Introduction 3 within countries, according to the World Inequality Lab (Chancel et al. 2022), is too slow (see Figure 1.2). While the gender gap varies by country, in no country do women have the same income as men nor do they have the same access to power resources.
Source: https://wir2022.wid.world/www-site/uploads/2021/12/WorldInequalityReport2022_Full_Report.pdf (Chancel et al. 2022:17).
Figure 1.2
Female share in global labour incomes 1990–2020
Indeed, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report found that In 2022, amid multi-layered and compounding crises including the rising cost of living, the ongoing pandemic, the climate emergency and large-scale conflict and displacement, the progress towards gender parity is stalling. As leaders tackle a growing series of economic and political shocks, the risk of reversal is intensifying. Not only are millions of women and girls losing out on access and opportunity at present, this halt in progress towards parity is a catastrophe for the future of our economies, societies and communities. (World Economic Forum 2022)
The WEF goes on to argue that ‘accelerating parity must be a core part of the public and private agenda’. The WEF Gender Gap Report began in 2006 and covers some 146 countries, so it has significant data coverage over time and its concern that gender parity is stalling must be taken seriously. According to the WEF Gender Gap Report, at the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full parity. Moreover, there is worrying generational loss that occurred between 2020 and 2021: according to trends leading up to 2020, the gender gap was set to close within 100 years (World Economic Forum 2022:5). Chancel et al. (2022) show that global income and wealth inequalities are tightly connected to ecological inequalities and to inequalities in contributions to climate change. On average, humans emit 6.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2) per capita per year. Chancel et al.’s dataset on carbon emissions inequalities reveals important inequalities in CO2 emissions at the world level: the top 10% of emitters are responsible for close to 50% of all emissions,
4 Research handbook on inequalities and work while the bottom 50% produce 12% of the total. This difference is stark and demonstrates the importance of our three chapters (Clarke et al.; Liu et al.; Krommyda et al.) on the climate emergency and their relevance to environmental justice. The macro picture is powerful in showing the dramatic differences by income, wealth and the link with emissions and the global inequalities by gender. What the macro data cannot do is expose the lived reality of these differences and how they cross-cut with other inequality dimensions; for example, race and ethnicity, disability or sexuality and their intersectionalities. Inequality regimes are dominant in organisations, even those that promote equality policies and practices (Healy et al. 2019). Healy et al. (2011) explored the experiences of Bangladeshi, Caribbean and Pakistani women and revealed the way that intersectional sexism and racism are constructed and reproduced despite the existence in the public sector of more sophisticated policy development and stronger legal duties than in the private sector (see also Showunmi in this book). There is little doubt that radical action is long overdue to transform the current system of inequalities and ensure greater participation and representation of Black people in Western public and private institutions, including in leadership. See also Maharaj in this book who explores the complexity of ethnicity in South African leadership and Tinay et al. on transformational leadership emergence. While our book is limited in that it cannot cover the myriad inequalities that impact on work, such as food insecurity and displacement, its approach is extensive. The book takes a micro– meso as well as macro approach across national boundaries and also at an international level. Inequalities are everywhere and reflect the fundamental unfairnesses in societies. Each chapter has a different emphasis in relation to inequality – whether it is about identity, for example, about sex, race, ethnicity or disability; about the conditions faced in living a life; about the nature of organisations and the different experiences of migration and diversity; or about the way that culture plays out – and provides different interpretations of the nature of inequalities. The book offers insight into the complexity of these multiple and interrelated inequalities of work. The different chapters engage with the multiple fronts across which large-scale changes increasingly inform the breadth and depth of workplace inequalities and individual lives. Different authors provide policy and practice ideas characterising the forward-looking character of the Handbook. In many ways, the book encapsulates perspectives on the future of work. Its multidimensional contributions demonstrate the complex terrain of continuing and emerging inequalities, charting a way forward for tackling injustice and transforming the world of work, in pursuit of more equitable societies. The book is organised in six parts. The first part of the book presents a curation of contemporary conceptualisations and critiques of workplace inequalities. The chapters that appear throughout the book reveal the conditionality of equality gains achieved so far, how inequalities are reconstituted in new forms and the need for an expanded toolkit for research into workplace inequalities. It also introduces the reader to key concepts and ideas that recur throughout the book. As the reader engages with the book and is moved by the unjust effect of inequalities, it is worth reflecting on whether inequality is inevitable. Our position accords with Chancel et al. (2022), who argue ‘Inequality is a political choice, not an inevitability’.
Introduction 5
1.
APPROACHES TO INEQUALITY AND WORK
So much work on diversity ideologies is centred on the Global North, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, which we believe gives only a partial account of what diversity is from a global perspective. Nasima M. H. Carrim, Eileen Kwesiga, Yetunde Anibaba and Stella M. Nkomo provide a much-needed exploration of diversity ideologies and practices in sub-Saharan Africa, where the history and legacy of colonisation play out differently in different countries. Inequalities in terms of employment opportunities and advancement in the workplace are a global phenomenon and African countries are no exception. The aim of Carrim et al.’s chapter is to explore workplace inequalities in South, East and West Africa by focusing on specific country contexts. The chapter reveals that different countries experienced colonisation differently depending on the objectives of the coloniser. It further reveals that demographic disparities in terms of access to the job market and promotions to higher-level occupational positions exist across Africa but to varying degrees and impact certain groups of individuals more than other groups. While in certain countries, labour legislation has been implemented to bring about parity in the workplace, other countries are still grappling with introducing labour reforms in their organisations. Nevertheless, the lasting effects of colonisation still impact many countries in the African continent as inequality exists within workplaces in various forms and transformation is slow in most countries. Thus the legacy of colonisation is still strong despite years of independence. The next chapter turns to the challenges faced by sexual and gender-identity minorities and argues that they constitute profound workplace inequalities today (Öztürk and Tatli 2016; 2018; Öztürk et al. 2020; Ahmad et al. 2023). Transforming the existing repressive organisational status quo requires meaningful change propelled by emancipatory scholarship and practice. Problematisation is key to such critical inquiry, as it aims to reveal deep-seated power relations undergirding taken-for-granted assumptions that permeate work and organisations and it helps reveal how employees’ identities are regulated within specific contextual coordinates. Adopting a critical perspective inspired by Foucault’s work, Mustafa B. Öztürk problematises normativities as disciplinary forces that limit sexual and gender-identity minorities’ scope of expressions and experiences in organisations. Öztürk analyses four core forms of normativity – heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity and transnormativity – as regulatory regimes that subject sexual and gender-identity minorities to normalising pressures, with deviations from the dominant norms entailing significant penalties, such as organisational marginalisation and exclusion. Throughout the chapter, utilising normativities as the analytical lens facilitates an emphasis on the central role of ideological systems in propagating workplace inequalities, eschewing explanations that take individual conduct or intergroup relations as the main source of discrimination. By locating workplace inequalities at the level of the system, rather than the individuals, the chapter underlines the need for ambitious change approaches that address oppression through the re-politicisation of equality projects. Öztürk’s call for re-politicisation posits that the radical overhaul of inequalities requires platforming and amplifying all experiences, as it is all too easy to give disproportionate voice to people with gender, class, and race privileges within sexual and gender-identity minority communities. Furthermore, cautioning against normalising tendencies within our own research, Öztürk calls for an expansion of normativities research on sexual and gender minorities at work through encouraging and recognising a wider array of studies emanating from the Global South.
6 Research handbook on inequalities and work Migration has been a central aspect of global labour inequalities. Focusing on case studies of contemporary neoliberalisation, mobility and migration within and to/from Western Europe, Barbara Samaluk explores migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times. The chapter posits that contemporary global neoliberalisation has seen a shift from secure to precarious work occasioned by manipulative state machinery (including immigration policies), increased movement of global capital and transnational intermediary services that employ migrants (by controlling their mobility and determining their labour market outcomes). The chapter, however, also demonstrates that in the light of the ambivalent relationship between migrant workers and traditional organised labour – and, it is argued, the failure of trade unions to incorporate intersectional differences and overlapping forms of oppression into their class-based structures – migrant workers are compelled to exercise their agency and self-organising power to resist and shape their experiences in precarity. In contrast see also Healy and Kirton and Charles et al. on how unions enable women and indigenous groups to exercise their agency. Foregrounding the lived experiences of inequality in research is crucial to securing a more textured understanding of marginalisation at work. Conventionally, quantitative research based on sophisticated statistical analysis has facilitated the identification of inequality patterns, offering insights into why some inequalities persist over time (e.g., Healy and Ahamed 2019; Chancel et al. 2022). As we saw from Chancel et al.’s work above, this can be particularly valuable. However, it does not tell the whole story. By contrast, qualitative research has tended to use interviews with the aim of collecting rich, in-depth data needed to draw a nuanced view of the complexities of workplace inequalities (e.g., Tatli et al. 2017). While both the established qualitative and quantitative research approaches continue to yield important findings, it is hard to deny their technical rigidities and formalities. Often, knowledge gleaned through them can leave out important insights, reflecting the ontological, epistemological and axiological shortcomings of social sciences (Ellis and Bochner 2000). Moreover, the ‘scientific’ mode of data collection and analysis inherent to the dominant qualitative and quantitative approaches may itself arguably have exclusionary dimensions. Writing differently may be a way of breaking free from conventional research approaches, which are coded in gendered, raced and classed terms and which have the potential to hide the very problems that management and organisation research should highlight (see Gilmore et al. 2019; Pullen et al. 2020). In this light, autoethnography can be an alternative, more sympathetic research mode powered with the promise of reflexivity to illuminate workplace inequalities in heretofore untenable ways. Moreover, autoethnography is uniquely placed to provide insights into the most excluded groups in societies, for example gypsy, Roma and traveller groups (see Toninato 2006) and disabled individuals as so amply illustrated by Ahmed in this book. Saoirse Caitlin O’Shea provides a critical discussion of how autoethnography may be a particularly apt research method for understanding the complexity of marginalisation and the related inequalities in society as well as work organisations. O’Shea explains the impetus for and the evolution of autoethnography as a reflexive method that harvests personal experience to discern the complexities and contradictions of the wider social world, not only explaining how autoethnography is understood but also critiquing how and why autoethnography may also be in danger of being subsumed into accepted notions of research. Providing a brief autoethnography, O’Shea then reflects on experiences of being a marginalised person and encountering marginalisation as a silencing tool over the years, which is harnessed in ways that inflict profound harm. The chapter concludes by noting the strength of autoethnography as a method that allows those silenced to finally speak out with their own voices.
Introduction 7 To be sure, as well as more reflexive methodologies, the work and inequality literature needs to pay attention to promoting more reflexive scholarship and practice. A reflexive academic stance involves questioning and critiquing one’s own preconceptions, worldviews and academic orientations (Bourdieu 2004). Indeed, if inequality research is to change the world, it needs to reflect on its own biases and predilections, that is, ‘transform the world by transforming its representation’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:14). In the same vein, Emirbayer and Desmond (2012) highlight the vital need for deeper scholarly reflexivity as regards race, advocating excavation of hidden presuppositions at social, disciplinary and scholastic levels. In this book Elaine Swan argues for reflexivity in academic knowledge production by problematising the hidden tendencies in work and inequality scholarship that maintain racialised hierarchies (see also Showunmi in this book). Swan notes that despite an emergent literature in feminist organisation studies on whiteness, insufficient attention is directed specifically to the racialisation of gender, the significance of middle-class white femininity and white feminist orientations. However, there is a history of scholarship and a renewed charge from scholars of colour and Indigenous feminists showing that white feminists often create an exclusionary feminism that ignores the needs, experiences and expertise of people of colour. Problematising issues of white complicity, white femininity and white feminist racism, Swan asks how white feminism in organisation studies can engage with such critiques to address its exclusionary scholarly and organisational practices.
2.
PART II – REGULATION AND VOLUNTARISM IN SHAPING INEQUALITIES
Part II delves into the politics of inequality as calibrated through a varied mix of interventionist versus voluntaristic moves that come into play in a range of contexts. This part shows how inequalities operate in multi-level contexts. Rules are one of the key institutional strategies to counter inequalities. Rules can operate at the level of the supranational organisation, the nation state, the region and the organisation. Rules may be determined autocratically or democratically by the nation state, the region or even the organisation. In most organisations rules are determined autocratically by the state or the employer; however, effective rules may be jointly agreed by the employer and the union through collective bargaining. Finally rules may evolve through custom and practice and those informal rules may be the basis of inequality and need greater formality to achieve a more equal context. However, there is no guarantee that there will be compliance with rules and laws as often informal practices will supersede formal rules in practice. Moreover, it is also the case that the degree to which legislation is enforced will depend on the investment in the enforcement processes. In this book, the multi-level nature of inequalities is evident in multiple contexts with formal and informal rules interrelating and producing different forms and degrees of inequality. How important is legislation in making the workplace a fairer place by removing workplace inequalities? Changing the law is often seen as a solution to improving unfair practices. Yet while equality laws are important, they are often flawed, slow and complex in operation and poorly enforced. This part uncovers the complexity of regulation, the resilience of voluntarist approaches and how the two may work hand in hand. Workplace inequalities may be shaped by supranational, nation state or regional forms of regulation or of course by the norms and values of the dominant organisations. The chapters in this part position workplace inequalities
8 Research handbook on inequalities and work as complex phenomena, which supranational organisations and nation states shape through particular regulatory policies and practices. The nation state is in theory able to regulate work independently of other states, so that legislation on inequality relates to the particular context of a country. Ifedapo Adeleye, Nkiru Nwokoroku and Olawale Ajai explore the potential and limitations of policy interventions in addressing inequality in Nigeria, a country that has faced intense ethnic rivalry and severe horizontal inequalities. In particular, Adeleye et al. provide a critical analysis of the ‘Federal Character Principle’, which aims to ensure the equitable representation of different ethnic groups in the public and government sector, and discuss key implications of their analysis for policy, practice and research. Fang Lee Cooke and Qijie Xiao consider the critical role of the state as a catalyst for eradicating political, social and economic inequalities. In particular, they investigate the key roles the state plays as both employer and regulator in addressing employment-related inequalities in China through its dual capacity for developing regulatory interventions and employer policy and practice. They find equality-driven legislative regulations and other social policies could unintentionally result in the discrimination of certain disadvantaged groups, such as women of child-rearing age and rural migrant workers, due to employers’ discriminatory practices to avoid costs and management ‘hassles’. Cooke and Xiao argue that further actions are required from the state to redress social and workplace inequalities to promote inclusive employment. Our understanding of inequalities in different countries benefits from thinking across national boundaries. Emily Pfefer explores the pay ‘transparency agenda’ that has emerged across the Western world as a tool to combat persistent gender pay gaps. She considers pay transparency at varying levels of disaggregation and pay transparency by whom as important nuances for researchers in this field, using the United Kingdom and the United States contexts. Thus variations of pay transparency are considered from the widest national to narrowest individual level – from nation (through government statistics) to sector (through regulative and voluntary schemes) to organisation (through voluntary and mandatory company reporting) and down to individual employees (through protection of pay discussions) – and, conversely, limitations on the transparency that employers can demand in the form of salary history data from applicants. However, she reveals that established pay transparency practice relates to gender rather than ethnicity or gender intersected with ethnicity, which remains a recurrent, if somewhat shifting, deficiency. Complementing Pfefer’s above discussion on transparency in pay, Geraldine Healy, Emily Pfefer and Almudena Sevilla employ a multi-faceted framework to explore the importance of women’s representation in the gender pay gap (GPG) in all UK business schools. They employ an authoritative and complete administrative sample from the UK Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA). They find that women’s representation is a valuable concept in pay inequality research, although it is not deterministic. The GPG is shown to be significantly higher in research-intensive universities and the male-dominated professoriate, where pay is individually determined, than among more gender-balanced non-professors, where pay is collectively bargained. Consistently, women academics in research-intensive universities have lower representation and the greatest GPG (but the highest pay) compared to those in post-1992 universities. Healy et al. find a pay hierarchy for professors by discipline and note that white men make up 67% and women only 23% of the professoriate. Making visible intersectional inequalities, they show that intersecting gender and ethnicity reveals a more consistent adjusted pay gap across rank and university type than gender for Asian women, with
Introduction 9 Black women unfailingly earning the least. Moreover, a low GPG is not tantamount to equal pay and may relate to lower pay, while a high GPG may relate to high pay. The chapter also points to the urgent need to address the intersectional gender/ethnicity gap. A further tool to combat inequality is the topic of Tessa Wright, Hazel Conley and E. K. Sarter’s chapter; it provides insight into the increasing interest from policy makers in a variety of countries in using public sector procurement – government spending power – to achieve social objectives. They examine the legal frameworks introduced by three countries – Australia, South Africa and the UK – that link public procurement practices to achieving social objectives relating to equality, in particular to advancing gender, race and socio-economic equality. These countries have adopted different legal approaches to using public procurement for social ends, including placing requirements on public authorities to consider changes to their procurement practice and demanding equality information from companies seeking government contracts. The chapter also assesses the available evidence on how effective such interventions have been in advancing employment equality and highlights some key elements necessary for success. The importance of women’s representation in decision-making bodies is at the heart of European initiatives to improve the proportion of women board members. Cathrine Seierstad and Hilde Fjellvær explore the European experience of gender quotas on corporate boards. They outline the chronological development of quota introductions across Europe and then examine the variations in quota design, including the antecedents and push factors for introducing quotas. Finally, they comment on what can be learnt from different quota scenarios and discuss how differences in the design, content and context of the quota laws shape wider equality and diversity change at both board levels and beyond. Protection against discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief is at the heart of David Perfect’s chapter. He shares the details of important legal cases and their implications for employers and employees and reflects on possible future legal developments. Moreover, he raises important distinctions between the concepts of religion and of belief in law. Marco Peruzzi’s chapter provides insight into the role of the supranational organisation, in particular the European Union (EU), and the nation state in providing protection against discrimination. In many ways the EU has pioneered some equality laws in the Member States. Peruzzi considers the complex relationship with the Member States in the development and implementation of EU equality law. The analysis reveals the key role played by the Court of Justice in regard to the interplay between the Member States and the EU. The chapter highlights EU equality law as an integral part of the very identity of the EU as a common legal order; it also reveals the complexity of the European integration process and the tensions that vibrate between different national identities and the construction of a unitary one.
3.
PART III – CULTURE, ORGANISATIONS AND INEQUALITIES
Part III explores multiple aspects of culture and the politics of inequalities. The chapters in this section focus on the meso-level processes that sit between individual actions and wider social, economic and political forces. We begin with David Blanco-Herrero, Javier J. Amores and Carlos Arcila-Calderón’s study ‘Inequalities and the media: spread and reception of hate speech against migrants and refugees in social media’, who have widened our understanding
10 Research handbook on inequalities and work of social media and inequalities by producing a novel study exploring hate speech against migrants and refugees in social media. There is little doubt that hate speech and its spread works to ‘other’ the targeted group. Focusing on hate speech against migrants and refugees spreading on social media in Spain, Italy and Greece, Blanco-Herrero et al. analyse the sentiments, most frequent words and latent topics from 36,000 messages. Using computational techniques, they show that hate speech follows similar patterns in the three countries, with a generally negative sentiment, and the most common topics are related to criminality and economic burden or symbolic (different culture) threats while also blaming politicians and demanding more restrictive policies. Blanco-Herrero et al.’s work reinforces the connection of hate speech with inequality and raises the need for more work in this field. Following on from the discussion on hate speech, Victoria Showunmi reveals what it is to be Black and a woman in contemporary UK society. The damaging impact of sophisticated and everyday racism combined with sexism is detailed using Showunmi’s original concepts as a framework. Showunmi’s work is cognisant of the early critics of white feminism, including Sojourner Truth, bell hooks and Angela Davis, who all fought at different historical times for civil and human rights whilst exposing the inequalities faced by Black women. The persistence of racism despite notions of a post-racist society is elucidated using critical Black feminism, a philosophy that centres on the idea that Black women are inherently valuable not as adjuncts to somebody else but as individuals in their own right. The chapter examines the term ‘colourism’ and deconstructs its use in the workplace. Showunmi provides a raw account of the negative effects of intersectional racism that are rife in the workplace, including mental health issues, burnout, racial stress, and trauma. She provides a stark reminder that when Black women and girls seem to be coping, they may actually be suffering in silence. The insights from Showunmi’s chapter are echoed in multiple revelations of the way Black people are treated in the Western world (Holmes IV 2020; Miller 2021; Opie and Roberts 2017; Öztürk and Berber 2022; Bradley and Healy 2008). Most worryingly, their unequal treatment has been a characteristic of those organisations whose purpose is to protect and enforce the law, including equality law. The police, the judiciary, healthcare and firefighters are important examples, but lack of ethnic representation is a widespread deficit in the West. The structures of leadership are part of the institutions sustaining inequalities. Dilek Torunoğlu Tinay, Özlem Ayaz and Mustafa Özbilgin argue that leadership emergence processes should be transformed to promote competent, effective, responsible and inclusive leadership behaviours. They critically explore leadership emergence and offer a perspective on how leadership emergence could be transformed for equality, diversity and inclusion. Importantly, they lay out a typology of leadership emergence with definitions, theoretical frames and organisational outcomes, providing both a conceptual review and international examples of leadership emergence. They explain how equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)-led change could transform leadership emergence in line with leadership research. The chapter focuses on EDI-led transformation of leadership emergence (LE) to address several global challenges that haunt organisations. The chapter offers a concluding process model that outlines worries about leadership emergence and ways to transform it through EDI-led interventions. Staying on the theme of leadership in the context of intersectional representation and activist leadership, Black and white women have long used unions as vehicles to achieve equality with men in the union and in the workplace. Bradley and Healy’s (2008) study of Black women union activists shows how Black women fought to be represented in their unions and their workplaces and used their agency for change within their unions. They carry on the
Introduction 11 traditions of women Black activists working to improve representation and change. Geraldine Healy and Gill Kirton consider the dynamics of long-term union participation by drawing on social movement interrelated concepts of commitment and collective identity. They draw on a 2008–10 comparative study of American and British women union leaders first explored by Kirton and Healy (2013). Then, ten years later, in 2018, the authors returned to the US to reflect on change and continuity with their American network of women trade unionists. They considered the impact of women-only union conferences, the continuities and changes and the gendered and collective nature of union commitment over the ten years. Following Polletta and Jasper (2001), they found the effect of long-term union commitment generated biographical transformations among ‘people whose active participation was of long duration…’. Despite the resilience of gendered oligarchies, women’s commitment to the union movement was strong, optimistic about women’s opportunities yet realistic about the challenges. Healy and Kirton conclude that the social processes that emerged from women-only events and those of other diversity groups provided on-going resources, which maintained and strengthened long-term movement commitment and leadership. One of the most interesting questions is how radical institutional change can reshape the composition of leadership and challenge inequalities. In many ways, it could be argued that South Africa has transformed the ethnic representation of its leadership appointments and practices (mainly in the public sector) through post-apartheid legislation. Anita Maharaj reminds us that most leadership theories are developed in North America and fail to acknowledge the differing leadership values that are inherent to women, minorities and different societies. Due to the lack of research in understanding leadership values in African countries in general and South Africa (SA) specifically, qualitative research taking a contextualised approach to understand leadership values in SA is undertaken for this chapter. Maharaj’s findings are compared to Mbigi’s (2000) five core values associated with African leadership (Ubuntu). Her results validate the existence of an Afrocentric leadership style. Given the predominance of Eurocentric leadership values in SA organisations, Maharaj argues that it is imperative that African leadership styles be incorporated in SA organisations if African Black leaders are to reach their potential and organisations are to reach equity targets. While the above chapters show the importance of reframing leadership and long-term union participation and change, in contrast Luiz Alex Silva Saraiva and Camilla Quental reveal a less collective culture and greater conservatism in the gay community in Brazil. They use systematically aggregated data to show that the desire for social belonging has led many members of this community to dissociate social oppression and economic advancement, with depoliticisation regarding the differences intrinsic to being gay, which has corresponded to the environment of growing conservatism in Brazil. This suggests that a struggle for all, including those who are ‘different’, remains a crucial goal in a society where having more is often more important than having humanity. The labour market and the workspace represent an important arena within which the disadvantages that disabled people face in society are acutely highlighted. Disabled people face unemployment and underemployment at a rate that is much higher than their non-disabled counterparts. Katherine J. C. Sang, María de los Angeles Zapata Rodriguez and Jennifer Remnant discuss the theoretical foundations of disability research and their usefulness for understanding and improving the employment experiences and outcomes of disabled people. Starting the discussion with a conceptualisation of disability as a social-relational experience as opposed to a medical impairment, the chapter synthesises the existing literature on disability
12 Research handbook on inequalities and work and employment to establish prevalent trends regarding the employment of disabled people and strategies for disability inclusion. They highlight intersections between disability and gender in relation to work inequalities and conclude with a proposal for a strategy for advancing disability inclusion in employment. The need for such a strategy is evident in the reading of Ahmed’s chapter (in this book). An underexplored but important aspect of cultural identity and inequalities is related to financial wellbeing and ethnicity. Chidozie Umeh and Nelarine Cornelius show how experiences and manifestations of inequalities in financial wellbeing vary for specific ethnic groups in terms of demographic, social, economic and other factors with respect to savings, credit use and debt advice, the root causes of group differences and factors leading to financial exclusion. Moreover, they highlight intersectional aspects of ethnicity, religion and social class. They argue for potentially inclusive financial products and services by considering relational, cultural, familial and communal factors and integrating financial solutions within initiatives targeted at broader social issues. Umeh and Cornelius make the case that government and policymakers have a critical role to play to address systemic financial inequalities. Edith Pick draws our attention to the political nature of the organisational interpretations of diversity and difference at work. Her analysis of official organisational statements of UK Jewish organisations reveals the ways in which dynamics of diaspora and belonging, as well as ethnic and religious conflicts in Israel, which can arguably be considered the home country, interact with dominant diversity discourses in the UK. While the business case and the social justice case advocate for economic and moral approaches to diversity, diaspora organisations reveal how diversity discourse can echo political rationales and reproduce nationalistic ideas. In this depiction, the ideas of diversity and difference, and hence equality and inclusion, are interlaced with notions of unity, loyalty, belonging and Jewishness. Pick reminds us that diversity is a contested term, the meaning, content and intent of which changes as it travels across geographies, identities and organisational locations. Therefore, keen attention is needed to unveil who benefits and who is being marginalised by different interpretations of diversity and what room is left for equality and inclusion debates. Such an analysis requires a nuanced exploration of the context within which diversity is (re)defined and the politics and ideologies that are alive in that context. Pick provides us with a rich understanding of the discursive contestation that surrounds the term ‘diversity’ in UK Jewish organisations. The broader message of the chapter in terms of researching diversity as a contextual phenomenon highlights that history together with multiple levels of contexts (i.e. national, international, organisational) create the unique empirical setting for research that allows an in-depth exploration of organisational perspectives on diversity as generated by not only what goes on in the organisation but equally through societal, political and historical forces.
4.
PART IV – CONTEXT, OCCUPATIONS, CAREERS AND INEQUALITIES AT WORK
Part IV hones in on the context of occupations, careers and inequalities at work. It assembles a group of chapters on security and precarity, delving into the inequalities associated with the proliferation of flexible work arrangements, unequal financial challenges and the diminution of wellbeing in the neoliberal workplace and the uncertain prospect of widespread automation. Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly effective and debates are afoot on the
Introduction 13 extent to which it should be regulated. It is certainly the case that the way that AI such as ChatGPT is constructed may lead to unfair biases reproducing the prejudices of its designers. It raises conundrums for the nation state regulator when different AI applications are available globally. Our concern is whether AI has the potential to lead to greater equality or the deepening of existing inequalities. Mark Bergfeld explores digitalisation and automation, shedding light on the economic and ideological forces at play in the ongoing digitalisation of work. Problematising the various manifestations of digitalisation, Bergfeld indicates its negative effects on low-wage workers as well as women workers. The chapter suggests the workings of digitalisation are complex and have so far evolved in ways that do not correspond fully to the conjectures made in the literature, such as the prediction that digitalisation would be the death knell for jobs. By drawing on evidence from different sectors, Bergfeld suggests that low-wage workers are often displaced into different lines of work rather than being replaced wholesale. Yet this critical review also shows that capital and management have sought to radically transform existing forms of work often with the aim of dramatically increasing productivity. Moreover, the chapter illuminates how digital tools are utilised by organisations to intensify performance control, exemplifying ‘Neo-Taylorism’ (Gautié et al. 2020). Digitalisation leads to new divisions of labour, particularly with the proliferation of remote working arrangements that have gendered consequences. Following Bergfeld’s discussion on digitalisation and automation, Vick Bain’s chapter draws our attention to another notable trend in the organisation of labour in the 21st century: the rapid normalisation of the precarity of employment that has found expression in the notion of the gig economy. Bain shows that precarity has always been the predominant employment model in the music industry. Behind the façade of glamour and wealth displayed by internationally successful and famous British musicians, Bain argues, lies the reality of precarity for the vast majority of workers in the industry. Hence, she describes music as the original gig economy, precarious in its structures of high levels of self-employment and part-time working. The chapter then goes on to explore gendered effects of precarity by integrating key feminist career theories into the discussion and emphasising the equality consequences of so-called boundaryless careers. Bain highlights that the consequence of precarious working for women in the industry is exclusionary career outcomes that are further compounded by intersectional penalties for those who are not white or are older. The chapter concludes with a number of proposals to better support women in their music careers. Inequalities at work are often characterised by forms of horizontal and vertical segregation. The least advantaged workers are spread through the lower parts of the hierarchy and the most advantaged take the (fewer) senior jobs. Vertical and horizontal segregation is most often considered in relation to women; however, Carol Woodhams, Carol Atkinson and Ira Parnerkar demonstrate this pattern in all its complexity in the UK National Health Service (NHS). They analyse data from all medical doctors employed in hospitals in England in the NHS in 2010 (N = 84,017) and again in 2020 (N = 108,408), looking for patterns of horizontal and vertical segregation and changes in those patterns. The purpose of the chapter is twofold. First, in a context of considerable workforce change, they have an ambitious agenda and seek to illuminate the deep and persistent nature of divisions based on ethnicity, disability, religion, nationality, sexuality and disability. Second, they show the impact of gender in interaction with these categories. Based on their findings, plus their analysis of structural and institutional barriers that create workplace disadvantage for each group, they advance the argument that medical career pathways are structured to advance the ‘ideal’ and ‘unencumbered’ doctor, who
14 Research handbook on inequalities and work is, most often, male, white, heterosexual, British, of Christian religion and without disability. While the data utilised by Woodhams et al. may be unique to the NHS, the pattern they identify is common throughout organisational life. Manesha Peiris’ chapter carries on with the exploration of the intersectional nature of inequality at work through an examination of women’s entrepreneurship experiences in Sri Lanka. As Peiris underlines, traditional entrepreneurship literature presupposes a universal model of the entrepreneur constructed in the image of a white Western male. Peiris argues that such a conceptualisation where the white Western male is the subject of activity not only leads to biased explanations of entrepreneurs in general but crucially generates at best incomplete and more likely misleading representations of the experiences of non-Western women entrepreneurs. Based on an in-depth qualitative study, she bridges a significant gap in the entrepreneurship literature that fails to include non-Western women’s experiences or does so by using theories and models that are unfit to explore this experience. Peiris’ chapter, through the use of life history interviews and field observations, brings the lived experience of entrepreneurship into the pages of our book in its rich texture and complexity. The chapter examines the ways in which women are socially positioned in the field of entrepreneurship and navigate structural and institutional barriers to present themselves as belonging to this field. Through Peiris’ depiction of Sri Lankan women who engage in entrepreneuring, we are offered an intricate account of the intersectionality of gender, class, caste, ethnicity, religion and life-cycle stage in producing the experience and practice of entrepreneurship. Shreyashi Chakraborty explores women’s relative clustering in low-paying and low-status jobs in male-dominated professional contexts. Focusing on the Indian software industry, where women comprise 35% of the workforce and yet mostly hold entry-level positions, Chakraborty shows that the hiring process reproduces gender (in)equality continually in the industry. Based on 49 semi-structured interviews with recruiters, hiring managers and candidates examined by way of content analysis, the chapter reveals that employers are focusing on recruitment activities to source more experienced female candidates, but organisations struggle to source female applicants for jobs that require relevant experience in the industry. However, despite pipeline problems, employers continue to conduct unstructured interviews where the panelists often pose family-related questions that have no relevance to the jobs in question. Finally, Chakraborty offers evidence of women’s segregation into quality assurance and techno-functional roles that are not equally valued as other job profiles.
5.
PART V – CRISIS, INEQUALITIES, CHANGE AND COVID-19
Part V explores the interplay of crisis, inequalities and change through the case of the Covid-19 pandemic. There is little doubt, as revealed by our chapters, that Covid-19 has led to huge change and potentially removed some of the barriers to inequality. The number of Covid-19 cases is shocking and Covid-19 has not disappeared; 766,440,796 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 6,932,591 deaths, were reported to the World Health Organisation as of 14 May 2023. However, some groups have suffered disproportionately from the effects of the pandemic and inequality has intensified. Crisis moments can highlight organisational and societal vulnerabilities to entrenched and significant inequalities, and they can also present opportunities for organisations to reconsider the impact of their practices on the evolution of societal inequalities (Bapuji et al. 2020). As our chapters reveal, the story of the crisis is
Introduction 15 complex and affects diverse groups differently, whether by occupation, ethnicity, gender or disability. In the context of the profound changes Covid-19 has wrought on work and work spaces and the attendant increase in the number of home workers in Western countries, Abigail Marks, Oliver Mallett, Lila Skountridaki and Danny Zschomler examine the impact of the rapid move to home working on workers in the UK. Their chapter interrogates workers’ experiences in three areas: wellbeing, experience of technology and working hours. Their data point to the positive impact of homeworking with regard to increases in flexibility, work–life balance and productivity. Nevertheless, the chapter identifies several challenges faced by workers related to work intensification, feelings of isolation, stress, blurring of boundaries between work and personal lives and the intrusive nature of technology. The benefits of homeworking have been tempered by the intrusion of technology into personal spaces and time. At the intersection of gender and homeworking, the challenges faced by homeworkers have been exacerbated for women, who are less likely to have adequate work spaces and more likely to carry a higher share of any family-based caring responsibilities. Looking forward into the future, the chapter concludes that the success of homeworking or hybrid working requires organisations to think strategically about the support for homeworking, which includes upskilling managers who supervise homeworkers. Suki Sian provides a compelling account of change in one of the most conservative occupations, client-facing auditing. The client in such occupations is often used as a reason to resist change. Covid-19 coupled with technological change broke down traditional barriers to change. Audit work is mostly client-facing and much of it is performed at the client’s premises. The client-service ethos of audit firms has traditionally meant that those unable to maintain an on-site presence and be available on-demand to clients (often women with caring responsibilities) could not easily assume client-facing roles. However, during the pandemic audit firms instructed their staff to work from home in compliance with pandemic-related legislation. This was enabled by access to audit data via technology. Sian draws on data gathered through interviews with auditors during the first UK lockdown in 2020 to examine whether the audit function could be successfully performed remotely from home and, if so, whether this could become a more permanent feature of the audit work model, thereby widening participation and equality of opportunity and access within the audit industry. For Nadia Ahmed it is the plight of disabled people in the Covid-19 crisis that is at the centre of her chapter. Her chapter heading graphically describes her own experience as she entered the ‘frightening Kafkaesque world’ of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. Like O’Shea in this book, Ahmed presents her experience in the form of an autoethnography to understand the socio-cultural issues around accessibilities. The powerful subjective account of her struggle as a disabled person during the 2020–21 Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns exposes the institutional structures of the UK welfare state that make life increasingly difficult for those already facing multiple barriers. For Ahmed, the welfare state, rather than enabling disabled people, acts as a bureaucratic despot penalising workforce participation. Ahmed argues for the political necessity of creating a barrier-free working and living environment for disabled people. From her personal journey, Ahmed provides an authoritative account of the social realities of disability and in doing so identifies four significant conflicts and a potential remedy to ease working and living circumstances for disabled people. The coronavirus pandemic has also thrown into sharp relief the very real social and economic barriers that different ethnic minority groups face. Nicolas Treloar argues that the
16 Research handbook on inequalities and work socio-economic deprivations that predated the Covid-19 crisis rendered Black and minority ethnic groups particularly vulnerable to experiencing the community repercussions of the pandemic. Echoing Umeh and Cornelius’ chapter in this book, Treloar states that racialised minorities in the UK tend to have lower household wealth as well as lower earnings power, while their talents tend not to be utilised in parallel with their knowledge, skills and experience, leading to them clustering disproportionately in insecure employment and suffering from higher unemployment. The consequences of organisational and societal inequalities manifest themselves with greater severity in times of crisis, and Black and minority ethnic communities have been particularly hard hit during the pandemic. Tragically, the crisis has ultimately led to the preventable deaths of countless Black and minority ethnic people. The ongoing debates emerging from the Covid-19 crisis focus on working from home/getting back to the workplace, but we should not forget the tragedies that Covid-19 has inflicted on people and the disproportionate effect on certain groups. Volkan Yılmaz explores the social protection responses to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In reviewing the relevant literature, Yılmaz is critical of the dominant view that the main social protection challenge in developing countries is to establish programmes that minimise the risks to the informally employed, as the formally employed are considered to have access to such initiatives and systems already. Based on a qualitative study with workers employed in the formal sector in Istanbul, Yilmaz shows that even people who are officially employed tend to experience a great deal of vulnerability owing to the social embeddedness of informal practices in formal employment relations. Moreover, the chapter illustrates how multi-layered power dynamics shape formally employed workers’ access to their social insurance entitlements. Yilmaz proposes the notion of hybridity to account for the contradictions between de jure social security entitlements and the de facto enjoyment of the right to social security.
6.
PART VI – CLIMATE EMERGENCY AND INEQUALITIES
In the introduction above, we highlighted the interaction between emissions and their intersection with income and wealth. Part VI brings the climate emergency into the debates about inequalities, highlighting the connections between environmental catastrophe and gender, race and class injustices (Sealey-Huggins 2018). The chapters here consider the interplay between climate change and inequalities both theoretically by way of intersectionality and empirically by situating the problematic within specific local contexts. The effect and complexity of climate action strategies need to be critically questioned. In this part, our chapters unpick the negative effects of some green strategies on inequalities at work. This is a thought-provoking topic that is often omitted from research on inequalities at work. Anna Liu, Christopher Wilson, Denise Hampden, Naolo Charles, Patricia Chong, Rosemarie Powell, Shanice Regis-Wilkins and Tyjana Connolly are very clear on the link between climate change and inequalities. They argue powerfully that environmental racism is a structural, historical and ongoing fact of life for many Indigenous, Black and racially marginalised communities in Canada. Yet climate change discussions, lacking an anti-racism and intersectional lens, have largely ignored how Indigenous, Black and racially marginalised communities are inequitably impacted by the climate emergency. Charles et al. recognise that while policies to promote a just transition to a sustainable economy provide an opportunity for the creation of good green jobs, such
Introduction 17 pathways into the green economy will only be inclusive if the voices of Indigenous, Black and other racialised people and their communities are heard. Otherwise, the green economic transformation will only further reinforce the structural racial economic inequalities present in Canadian society and the genocidal impacts of the climate emergency will continue. In the end they argue that worker power guided by a critical race, class, gender and intersectional analysis is an essential component in a strategy to win and secure a just transition to a green, sustainable and inclusive economy. They argue powerfully that the scale of the engagement must involve the entire movement working in genuine partnership with community coalition partners to ensure that the new green economy does not look like the old white economy. Linda Clarke, Melahat Sahin-Dikmen and Edmundo Werna draw our attention to the International Labour Office’s (ILO) blueprint for quality work, the Decent Work Agenda. They focus on inequalities faced by workers in the construction sector across the globe and how these need to be addressed to combat climate change. Globally, 40% of emissions are due to the construction and operation of buildings, whilst the sector is also set to gain more employment through the transition to a green economy than any other. It is, however, beset with inequalities in terms of different groups, including women, migrants and those from ethnic minorities, and of disparities in employment, working conditions and vocational education and training (VET). As a result, much of the sector is at odds with the ILO blueprint for quality work, the Decent Work Agenda. The chapter highlights key inequalities faced by many working in construction, focusing on selected countries in the Global North and the Global South. It concludes that addressing climate change necessitates also addressing these inequalities if a just transition is to take place. Vasiliki Krommyda, Stelios Gialis and Anastasia Stratigea provide an insightful chapter on the link between climate crisis and labour market inequalities using a socio-ecological fix approach to energy transition in Greece. Their chapter explores the ongoing energy transition in response to the climate crisis and its repercussions on regional labour market inequalities, especially in energy peripheries. They draw on the theoretical concept of socio-ecological fixes to capture the inherent contradictions of preserving capitalist structures while temporarily tackling the impacts of climate crisis through technocratic processes and ‘green’ technologies. The interrelationship between low-carbon transition and expanding labour market inequalities is studied through a case study of the Greek region of Western Macedonia. This energy periphery is heavily dependent on energy production activities, is marked by peripherality and power asymmetries and is currently on the way to a fast-track lignite phase-out. Krommyda et al.’s theoretically informed empirical study finds that emerging energy landscapes, alongside the current employment crisis, will potentially reinforce labour market inequalities and precarity. Again our authors expose the power inequalities between capital and labour in tackling the climate crisis and the importance that green strategies should not be at the cost of labour. Finally, in a speech he gave at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, in 1980, James Baldwin aptly stated that ‘History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, to put it very brutally, we literally are criminals’ (Baldwin 2010:154). Heeding Baldwin’s warning, the contributions in this collection address inequalities at work that are generated by interlocking historical systems of patriarchy, heterosexism, capitalism, colonialism and racism, what Patricia Hill Collins (1990:225) calls the matrix of domination. The book also reveals the ways in which emerging trends in our current global milieu, such as climate emergency, environmental decline and injustice, global pandemics, automation in the context of globalisation and the precarity that is the hallmark of
18 Research handbook on inequalities and work the so-called gig economy, further demarcate lines of power and privilege with unequal outcomes and sometime devastating consequences for those groups and peoples who have been historically discriminated, oppressed, violated, displaced and dispossessed. In the challenging times we are in, it is arguably more urgent than ever to invoke the spirit of emancipation and solidarity through our research and writing, to renew and strengthen the connection of our voice and words to our political intent for empowerment, inclusion, equality, liberation and freedom. Acknowledging that the personal is always political and the political personal, the book brings together chapters that explore inequality at work from multiple vantage points, ranging from institutional, societal and cultural forces to organisational and sectoral dynamics, interpersonal relationships and individual experiences at work. We hope that such a multiplicity of lenses makes it possible to present the rich tapestry of how and why inequalities exist and persist: on the one hand through a recognition that systems and structures are powerful and enduring, that the history is not the past; and on the other hand by helping us hold fast onto an awareness that privilege, disadvantage, oppression and discrimination are experienced by real persons who have bodies, emotions and thoughts as well as the capacity for agency. Thus, progressive change needs us to make visible the multiple layers that are interwoven to generate inequalities, create spaces for marginalised voices to be heard and always be mindful of the multi-faceted and intersectional nature of experiences of inequality. Moreover, we must never forget that it is lived experience that is the source of knowledge, agency, resistance and emancipation. This book adds one step to our 1000 mile journey towards equality and fairness at work and beyond. Yet there is much work to do. A renewed effort is required to confront the soulless and heartless cage of depoliticisation, dehumanisation and individualism that is imposed on academic research and to resist the creeping hopelessness of our times that creates divisions robbing us of our capacity for care and compassion and the ability to imagine a radically different future. In centring our ontological and epistemological standpoint as inequality scholars, we find inspiration in bell hooks’ (1994:298) emphasis on love ethics as a core ingredient of liberation: ‘The moment we choose to love, we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others… When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other’. One essential way to embed love ethics in our research practice is through our connection to our participants’ lived experiences. The hidden rules of academic research and writing drain the life out of lived experience through redaction of emotions, be they sorrow, anger, fear, shame, courage, pride, passion or joy, hiding the humanity of our research participants and thus maybe making inequality, oppression and exclusion in some ways palatable. Audre Lorde (1984:110) cautions us that the ‘master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’. As those who generate knowledge, inequality scholars have a responsibility to account for research participants’ realities in their fullness, nuance and complexity by using more varied data sources that allow us to integrate not only the cognitive but also relational visual, sensed, felt, and embodied dimensions of the lived experience. Our ability to connect to the lived experience of research participants depends on our capacity for reflexive research practice and ability to connect with our own lived experience, bodies, emotion and thoughts. If Audre Lorde was right, then we need to craft our own tools to join in the dismantling of inequalities at work by transforming our voice as academic writers and researchers, allowing the throbbing
Introduction 19 heart behind our research, the spirit and political intent, compassion and passion, dreaming and hope, to become more present in our work.
REFERENCES Ahmad, S. I., Öztürk, M. B., & Tatli, A. (2023). National context and the transfer of transgender diversity policy: An institutional theory perspective on multinational corporation subsidiaries in Pakistan. Gender, Work & Organization. Baldwin, J. (2010). Black English: A dishonest dialogue. In Kenan, R. (ed.), The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings. New York: Pantheon Books. Bapuji, H., Patel, C., Ertug, G., & Allen, D. G. (2020). Corona crisis and inequality: Why management research needs a societal turn. Journal of Management, 46(7), 1205–1222. Bourdieu, P. (2004). Science of Science and Reflexivity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bradley, H., & Healy, G. (2008). Ethnicity and Gender at Work: Inequalities, Careers and Employment Relations. London and New York: Palgrave and Macmillan. Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., and Zucman, G. (2022). World Inequality Report 2022. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Collins, P. H. (1990), Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. In Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 733–768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Emirbayer, M., & Desmond, M. (2012). Race and reflexivity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(4), 574–599. Gautié, J., Jaehrling, K., & Perez, C. (2020). Neo-Taylorism in the digital age: Workplace transformations in French and German retail warehouses. Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, 75(4), 774–795. Gilmore, S., Harding, N., Helin, J., & Pullen, A. (2019). Writing differently. Management Learning, 50(1), 3–10. Healy, G. (2019). Visible and invisible borders in time and space – History, biography and work borders in a research career. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 38(6), 676–691. doi: 10.1108/EDI-03-2019-0106. Healy, G., & Ahamed, M. M. (2019). Gender pay gap, voluntary interventions and recession: The case of the British financial services sector. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(2), 302–327. Healy, G., Bradley, H., & Forson, C. (2011). Intersectional sensibilities in analysing inequality regimes in public sector organizations. Gender, Work & Organization, 18(5), 467–487. doi: 10.1111/j.14680432.2011.00557.x. Healy, G., Tatli, A., Ipek, G., Öztürk, M., Seierstad, C., & Wright, T. (2019). In the steps of Joan Acker: A journey in researching inequality regimes and intersectional inequalities. Gender, Work & Organization, 26(12), 1749–1762. Holmes IV, O. (2020). Police brutality and four other ways racism kills Black people. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 39(7), 803–809. hooks, b. (1994). Outlaw Culture. New York: Routledge. King, J. D. (2010). The Awakening of Global Consciousness: A Guide to Self-Realization and Spirituality. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. Kirton, G., & Healy, G. (2013). Gender and leadership in unions. New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Mbigi, L. (2000). In Search of the African Business Renaissance: An African Cultural Perspective. Randburg: Knowledge Resources. Miller, D. A. (2021). Black British female managers – The silent catastrophe. Gender, Work & Organization, 28(4), 1665–1682. Opie, T., & Roberts, L. M. (2017). Do black lives really matter in the workplace? Restorative justice as a means to reclaim humanity. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 36(8), 707–719.
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PART I APPROACHES TO INEQUALITY RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
2. Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa Nasima M. H. Carrim, Eileen Kwesiga, Yetunde Anibaba and Stella M. Nkomo
INTRODUCTION This chapter focuses on how diversity is constructed and managed across Africa. Recognising that Africa is a continent made up of many nations with different histories and current socio-political contexts, we take a regional approach, as it would be beyond the space limits of this chapter to cover 54 nations. We focus on three major regions of Sub-Saharan Africa based on United Nation formulations: Southern Africa, which is comprised of South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe; East Africa, which includes Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Réunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Somaliland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe; and West Africa, which consists of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. It is important to remember that these groupings result from colonial intrusions and contested formulations that resulted in arbitrary boundaries with little regard for traditional ethnic groupings (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2015). We use a postcolonial theoretical framework to surface the histories and current macro-level shapers of diversity ideologies in the regions. Postcolonial theory is not a singular theory but comprises various theoretical and epistemological approaches and concerns (Jack et al., 2011; Özkazanç-Pan, 2008). Its anchor theme centres on the continuing effects of colonialism in formerly colonised nations in Africa, Asia and other nations (Mbembe, 2001). However, at the same time, it takes a historical approach to reveal how colonialism sought to entrench Eurocentric domination of the economy, knowledge, culture and subjectivity (e.g. Said, 1979). In the remainder of this chapter we describe the history of colonisation in the three regions, as well as providing an analysis of current diversity ideologies and how they are managed. The analysis was hampered by the scant knowledge available for some countries (Akobo and Damisah, 2018) and, consequently, we focus on the countries in each region where research was available.
DIVERSITY IDEOLOGIES IN AFRICA Leslie et al. define diversity ideology as ‘individuals’ beliefs regarding the importance of demographic differences and how to navigate them’ (2020, p. 454). Diversity ideologies can also reflect societal level beliefs of what diversity categories matter and how to address them. These definitions have important implications for how different countries address diverse 22
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 23 social and cultural identities and managing diversity in the workplace. Thus, social psychologists argue that socially constructed differences exist and contemporary salient differences within countries are made meaningful by historically rooted structural and cultural patterns (Plaut, 2010). Thus, salient categories of difference and diversity ideologies are contextually dependent and change over time depending on the economic, political, social and demographic transformations taking place within a particular country (Smith and Mayorga-Gallo, 2017). Diversity ideologies also reflect the significant social identities within a country. For example, in the USA race and gender have been the most dominant categories. Race has been a significant marker of social differences in the United States due to its history of slavery. In Europe, particularly for the countries that were former colonisers, marginalised groups tend to be immigrants from former colonies, as well as second-generation descendants. A case in point is the UK, where the term ‘BAME’ is used to categorise Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people. In other countries, ethnicity may be more salient than race. Diversity ideologies and practices however take on very different characteristics on the African continent compared to in the Western context. Colonisation had a significant influence on salient social difference categories. Of the 54 countries that make up the continent of Africa, only 2, Ethiopia and Liberia, were not colonised. Thus, Africa cannot be understood as a homogenous continent because European colonialists practised different forms of social, economic and political domination.
SOUTHERN AFRICA Countries in Southern Africa generally experienced settler colonialism, whereby a large group of colonisers became permanent settlers and direct rulers through colonial administration. The region was colonised by different countries (e.g. British, Dutch, German and Portuguese) that instituted different practices, which have had major influences on the salience of diversity categories and how contemporary inequalities are managed. Many of the former colonies inherited the economic, social and political structures of colonial administration, which were incompatible with African societies. Colonisation of South Africa The complexity of South Africa’s population groups and present-day diversity issues emerged from its colonial history of two colonisers (Oliver and Oliver, 2017). South Africa’s population groups are white descendants of Dutch, French and British colonisers; Africans, who comprise many different ethnicities, including slaves imported from Mozambique, Madagascar and Angola; Coloureds, including the indigenous Khoikhoi; and so-called mixed individuals, who are descendants of unions between white settlers and African women, as well as Indians/Asians and slaves from Asia (Dutch Ceylon and Dutch East Indies) (Carrim, 2018). Throughout South Africa’s early history there were different levels of conflict between indigenous peoples and the two colonial powers, the British and Dutch (Carrim and Nkomo, 2016). There were wars between the British and Dutch and the indigenous people, as well as wars between the two colonial powers (Oliver and Oliver, 2017). After two wars with the British, in 1902 the Boers surrendered. The Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State and Transvaal were unified into the Union of South Africa in 1910 under the
24 Research handbook on inequalities and work British Empire. Africans were excluded from this new Union and began to organise politically against oppression by establishing the South African Native National Congress in 1912, which became the predecessor of the African National Congress. A number of oppressive laws were enacted by the Union of South Africa to appropriate land and resources for the minority white population (Booysen and van Wyk, 2007). During the country’s industrialisation and growth, Africans, Coloureds, and indentured Indians and Malay people were sources of cheap labour (Carrim, 2021). The formal system of apartheid established in 1948 with the election of the National Party entrenched white supremacy in all institutions and citizenship rights through oppressive legislation and violence. Fifty years of apartheid resulted in deeply entrenched racial fault lines among whites, Coloureds, Africans and Indians. Despite the establishment of a democratic government in 1994, race remains the most salient diversity category today (Carrim, 2018). Colonisation of Angola The Portuguese landed in Angola in 1483 and it became a slave-trading area in the 17th and 18th centuries. From 1655, the Portuguese annexed territories in the country and ruled them as colonies (Molemele, 2015). In 1951, Angola was made an extension of Portugal when it was declared an overseas province of the country (Keese, 2006). The Portuguese practices for assimilation and integration of the indigenous population sought to create ‘assimilados’ (Molemele, 2015) – indigenous Angolans who had reached a level of civilisation according to educational and religious standards set by the Portuguese. Portuguese practices are perhaps the best example of how colonists attempted to justify their imperialistic conquest of Africa as a ‘civilizing mission’ (Keese, 2006). Unfortunately this resulted in a divide that intersected along geographical lines (rural vs. urban/town), as ‘assimilados’ were more likely to be in the towns within the areas first colonised by the Portuguese. This deep rural–urban divide was exacerbated by the focus on the development of urban centres in the north of the country (Keese, 2006). It would also have consequences for the two major anti-colonial groups that fought the Portuguese to gain independence. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was an urban-based political movement heavily influenced by northern, educated bourgeois people, while UNITA was anchored in the Southern ethnic groups with a strong indigenous identity (Martins, 2021). Both movements fought a bitter war with Portugal. In 1974 a domestic coup in Portugal ended the war in Angola (Molemele, 2015). Although Angola became independent in 1975, warfare broke out between the two liberation parties and only ended in 2002. The historical tensions between ethno-cultural groups remain relevant today. Present-day Angola consists of several ethno-linguistic groups, a small number of white Angolans (unlike South Africa and Namibia) and an influential, cohesive and strong creole population (Molemele, 2015). Colonisation of Namibia At the outset Germany did not have a plan for colonial rule, as their colonial expansion occurred unexpectedly in the 1880s. German colonial rule occurred through trial and error. Germany aimed for a rigid form of colonial management and employed military personnel in South West Africa (present-day Namibia) who waged war against indigenous people (Melber,
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 25 2020). This type of colonial rule became a hallmark of Germany’s presence with the formation of an extremely brutal racial order after 1905 (Silvester and Gewald, 2003). Similar to South Africa, indigenous people could not own land or enjoy freedom of movement. The resistance by indigenous people to German rule was met with brute violence, deprivation and ethnic extermination. The German genocide campaign of 1904–1908 against the Herero and Namaqua people that resulted in over 100,000 deaths is marked as the first genocide of the 20th century (Kossler, 2015). In 1918, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to cede South West Africa to Britain. Britain in turn asked South Africa to administrate South West Africa (Fokkens, 2012). The maltreatment of the indigenous population by South Africa was met with armed resistance. The South West African People’s Organisation won the struggle against South Africa and became the governing political party in 1990 (Steinmetz and Hell, 2006). The atrocities committed against indigenous Namibians more than a century ago continue to influence the current socio-economic challenges they experience (Kossler, 2015). Whites, who comprise 6.4 percent of the population, still have power, while Black Africans and Coloureds, who make up 85 percent and 7 percent of the total population, respectively, have limited access to power (Shigwedha, 2016). Human and Gender Development Indices: Southern Africa In this section we provide data on the Human Development Index, which includes the Gender Development and Gender Inequality Indices, for South Africa, Namibia and Angola. The HDI is a measure used by the United Nations to assess the level of socio-economic development in countries. The HDI comprises five factors reflecting longevity, economic prosperity, schooling, the Gender Development Index (GDI), the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Table 2.1
Human Development Index for South Africa, Namibia and Angola
South Africa
Namibia
Angola
Human Development Index
High (0.709)
Medium (0.646)
Medium (0.581)
Rank
114
130
148
Life expectancy
64.1 years
63.7 years
61.1 years
Income (USD)
12.129
9.357
6.104
Level of education
13.8 years
12.6 years
11.8 years
Gender Development Index
0.986 (group 1)
1.007 (group 1)
0.903 (group 4)
Gender Inequality Index
0.406
0.440
0.536
Multidimensional Poverty Index
0.025
0.171
0.282
South Africa’s HDI scores high and positions it at 114 out of 189 countries. Namibia and Angola fall within the medium category for the HDI, placing them at 130 and 148, relative to other countries. Recently, the Angolan government embarked on a 2021–2027 programme with the European Bank to fight corruption and increase transparency, justice and inclusive governance. All three countries have had improvements in many areas of the HDI. Life expectancy and years of schooling have increased, as well as gross national income (GNI) per capita (HDI, 2020). However, poverty and inequality remain significant challenges in all three countries. In South Africa, structural challenges and weak growth have undermined progress in reducing
26 Research handbook on inequalities and work poverty, and these challenges have been heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic (HDI, 2020). The achievement of progress in household welfare is severely constrained by rising unemployment. South Africa remains a dual economy with one of the highest persistent inequality rates in the world and high unemployment accompanied by low intergenerational mobility. In Namibia, poverty and inequality remain major challenges despite the country’s stable political environment, sound economic management and sustained fiscal commitment to development programs. Angola has embarked on several macroeconomic reforms to boost its economy. Its Vision 2030 goal is to achieve full and decent employment for men, women, the youth and persons with disabilities and thereby to reduce inequalities among demographic groups (MIP, 2021). The GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: health (measured by female and male life expectancy at birth), education (measured by female and male expected years of schooling for children and mean years for adults aged 25 years and older) and command over economic resources (measured by female and male estimated GNI per capita) (HDI, 2020). South Africa and Namibia fall into group 1, which comprises countries with high equality in HDI achievements between women and men (absolute deviation of less than 2.5 percent). Angola is in group 4, which consists of countries with medium to low equality in HDI achievements between women and men. Currently, women in Angola do not have the same opportunities as men in terms of income, employment and education (HDI, 2020). The GII reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and economic activity. South Africa ranks 93 out of 162 countries, placing it in group 1. Nearly 50 percent of parliamentary seats are held by women and there is little difference in the percentages of men and women reaching at least a secondary level of education. However, South Africa has a high level of gender inequality, which is evident through increased levels of gender-based violence, high unemployment rates for women, underrepresentation of women in top management positions and high HIV numbers among women compared to men (Dryding, 2019). Comparatively, Namibia ranks 106 out of 162 countries and Angola ranks 132 out of 162 countries. Diversity Ideologies in Southern Africa In this section, we describe the diversity ideologies of each Southern African country. We rely on the limited available research that has been conducted on diversity in the countries to offer insights into salient identity categories and how they are being managed. Angola Race and ethnicity feature significantly in Angola’s diversity ideology. Distinctions between mestiços, Black Africans, whites and foreigners are important in Angolan society and the workplace. Interracial relationships between the indigenous population and Portuguese colonists resulted in ‘mestiços’ or ‘mulatos’, mixed race individuals (Akesson, 2018). Mestiços have access to good education and have historically occupied higher posts within organisations compared to their indigenous counterparts. However, in the last 50 years of Portuguese rule, even mestiços were restricted from getting jobs in the public and private sectors as whites were placed in these posts (Waldorff, 2017). This situation has however changed recently as more Black African Angolans have career opportunities these days.
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 27 The New Angolan General Labor Law (NGLL) (7/15) of 2015 legislates that any organisation with more than five employees must employ at least 70% Angolan citizens. Hence, this Angolanisation Principle is usually referred to as the 70/30 rule (Oversby, 2021). This principle has resulted in many benefits for local Black African Angolans, including increased employment, skills development and better upward career mobility (Oversby, 2021). The NGLL consists of anti-discrimination clauses that indicate that all persons are entitled to work and freely choose a career, with equal opportunities and without any discrimination based on race, colour, sex, ethnic origin, marital status, place of birth and social rank, religious or political ideas, labour union affiliation or language (Wynn-Evans and McGrandle, 2021). Until recently, same-sex marriage or relations were prohibited in Angola. The country’s penal code states that individuals may be prohibited from work and aspects related to work, as well as confined to an insane asylum, if they act in any way that is contradictory to nature; that is, the Christian code (Hersh, 2017). The gender gap in employment opportunities grew between 2016 and 2020 (Statista, 2021). Research suggests that although Angolans value gender equality, it is not being practiced (Silva et al., 2015). These research findings are also evident in Table 2.1 (see above). South Africa South Africa’s diversity ideology is quite different from that of Angola. The ideology of white supremacy entrenched a particular form of whiteness that rejected ‘Africa’ and the cultures of ‘others’ as inferior. The Apartheid era in South Africa brought about the segregation of white and Black people, whereby Black people were systematically denied the same opportunities as whites (Oliver and Oliver, 2017). This racial inequality is still prevalent in modern times, with race remaining a strong social identity among South Africans (Puttick, 2011). Apartheid also created a gendered racial order that defined women as minors, with African, Coloured and Indian women subjected to the most egregious forms of social and economic oppression (Nkomo and Carrim, 2021). Sexuality was virulently controlled and policed through repressive laws and criminalisation of those (particularly whites) who deviated from the puritanical code of morality expected of a superior race (Elder, 2003). When the democratic government took office in 1994, the focus was on creating a non-racial and non-sexist country that belonged to everyone who lived in it (South Africa, 1996). The new constitution contains explicit clauses pertaining to equality and the establishment of non-governmental bodies to oversee progress (South Africa, 1996). In 1994, whites had a firm grasp on economic power and all major institutions, while the majority population groups experienced severe forms of inequality with respect to income, employment, housing, education and other aspects of social well-being (Decker, 2010). Consequently, redress has been a major theme, along with numerous legislative initiatives to change the status of the previously disadvantaged groups (i.e., to help Africans, Indians, Coloureds and women achieve equality). The 1998 Employment Equity Law prohibits discrimination and also requires companies to provide annual reports on the profile of different groups in their organisations (South Africa, 1998). Gender is also a salient category in the government’s agenda. The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act No. 53 of 2003 explicitly targets Black men and Black women as the beneficiaries. While attention to sexual-identity equality has lagged, in 2006 the Constitutional Court legalised same sex marriage, changing the definition of marriage from a heterosexual union between a man and woman to one between two persons
28 Research handbook on inequalities and work (recognising there are many different genders who may wish to enter into matrimony) (Nkomo and Carrim, 2021). Although there have been concerted efforts to correct past injustices, inequality persists in South African labour markets (Zulu and Parumasur, 2009). The managerial ranks continue to be white male dominated, particularly in private sector organisations (Carrim, 2012). A number of studies have documented the discrimination Black, Indian and Coloured workers encounter in organisations (Booysen, 2007; Canham and Maier, 2020; Carrim, 2021, Mayer et al., 2019; Nkomo, 2011) and the barriers to the advance of women (e.g. Carrim, 2012; Scheepers et al., 2018). In a study to explore the components that drive diversity and inclusion in the South African workplace, Daya (2014) found that while organisations are increasingly speaking of inclusion, they largely remain untransformed with respect to racial, gender and disability representation at middle and senior management. This is the case despite legislation that prioritises these categories of difference. There has also been an increase in the representation of persons with disabilities in top and senior management posts (Commission for Employment Equity, 2023). Currently, there is a reemphasis on accelerating equality for Black Africans, other historically marginalised groups and women (Department of Labour, 2021). With constant changes in South African workplaces related to diversity and inclusion, transformation fatigue has crept in. Namibia Namibia struggles with a racial divide and racial inequalities stemming from its colonisation history (Currier, 2012; Melber, 2019). There are political parties who represent what is called ‘white issues’. These parties hope to preserve the previous colonisation privilege of whites (Threlfall and Nyaungwa, 2020). Sexual orientation choice has been a significant issue since independence (Currier, 2012). Generally, extreme inequalities in the distribution of wealth and unequal access to education, land and health characterise the country. Same-sex marriage or relations were declared (and remain) illegal in Namibia. Gender inequality is prevalent in Namibia as women are expected to assume the role of family and domestic caretaker (Currier, 2012). Customs and traditions are male dominated and women are often prevented from accessing resources and networks to improve their status (Thomas, 2007). The government has worked to transform an ethnically fragmented, gender-biased society into a more equitable socio-economic structure. The government introduced affirmative action and promulgated the Affirmative Action (Employment) Act No. 29 of 1998 to redress imbalances at the workplace arising from the discriminatory socio-economic dispensation that had previously existed in this country. The legislation is intended to foster fair employment practices for previously disadvantaged people – and, more particularly, previously racially disadvantaged people, women and persons with disabilities, referred to as ‘designated groups’ in the Act (Namibia, 1998). There are also diversity initiatives in Namibian workplaces to be inclusive of language, cultural diversity and the promotion of women, previously disadvantaged race groups and persons with disabilities. For example, in a study of diversity management in Namibia’s Correctional Service, Ngairo (2019) found managers were eager to manage cultural diversity in the workplace but they were not equipped with knowledge about diversity management. Further, Human Resource Management’s role in managing cultural diversity is not effective
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 29 enough to reduce the negative effects of cultural diversity on individual, management and organisational performance. Inequalities in employment and in achieving inclusivity in Namibian workplaces still exist.
EAST AFRICA The East Africa community comprises or usually refers to three countries, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and sometimes Rwanda and Burundi. From a geographical standpoint, the eastern sphere, according to the United Nations scheme of geographic regions, includes 19 countries, which are Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Réunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Somaliland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. See Table 2.2 for data on countries from East Africa. History of East Africa and Colonialism An understanding of diversity in East Africa requires a discussion of both historical migration patterns and colonialism. Most multi-regionalists still view Africa as a major wellspring of human genetic diversity (Wolpof et al., 2000). Migration patterns and settlement of species and different ethnicities influenced how diversity appeared and evolved over time in East Africa. Dating back to over 200,000 years ago, there is evidence that the human race – Homo sapiens – first appeared in East Africa (Liu et al., 2006). The three major ethnic group categories in East Africa are the Bantu, Nilotes and the Cushites, with a mixture of Europeans, Arabs and Asians. The Cushites were the original dwellers dating back to the 4th century (Stearns, 2001). They have origins in Egypt and Asia and mostly settled on the Horn of Africa, with some dispersing into East Africa. The largest speaking group in East Africa are the Bantu-speaking people who migrated eastward and southward from southern Cameroon between 2500 and 3000 years ago. They settled in East Africa and others spread further south all the way to South Africa. The Nilotes were indigenous to the Nile Valley and like the Bantu they migrated southward and also settled in areas around the lake region and near the Great Rift Valley. Within the three major ethnic group categories exist many dialects. These groups lived as neighbours and there were many invasions among the different groups for territories, land and cattle over the centuries. However, the groups remained for the most part in their respective territories until the advent of Arabs and Europeans (Stearns, 2016). Around the 15th century, Arabs arrived on the coast of East Africa. They were mostly responsible for the introduction and spread of Islam along the coast and a little bit in the interior. The Bantu, whose territories were closer to the coastal regions, intermarried with the Muslim Arab and Persian traders (Boss, 1992). The Swahili language and culture along the East African coast that exists today emerged from these exchanges. The coastal region also adopted Islam, which did not penetrate much in the interior. Trade was a huge influence on diversity in the region. Colonisation of East Africa East Africa was colonised by the Portuguese, Arabs, British and Germans.
30 Research handbook on inequalities and work Colonisation by the Portuguese The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore the region of current-day East Africa in pursuit of a trading route to India that would allow them to gain access to other trading routes that had been blocked by the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Da Gama’s arrival on the East African coast in 1498 started the occupation of East Africa by Europeans. The occupation was mainly concentrated in the coastal areas and forts were built to secure the region for Portuguese commercial interests. Their hegemony was disrupted by Omani, British and Dutch incursions into the Great Lakes region during the 17th century. Colonisation by Omani Arabs The Omani Arabs disposed of the Portuguese off the East African coast in 1730. The Omani Arab occupation of the East African coast was more dominant and penetrated more into the interior, especially because they profited off the slave trade. The Omani Empire colonised the Zanzibar, Mombasa and Kenyan sea coasts as these areas were very profitable because of the creation of clove plantations and as a hub for the slave trade. Arab rule in the region continued until almost the end of the 19th century when the British put an end to the slave trade and their interest in the region become more pronounced. The Omani Arabs could not match the British military and were ousted, even though they remained active in Kenya, Zanzibar and Kenya. Many settled and intermarried with the locals and remain there to the present day. Colonisation by the British and Germans East Africa was a mainstage during the scramble for Africa between the 19th and 20th centuries. The British established the largest empire in history for over a century, which included colonies, dominions, mandates, territories and protectorates, like East Africa (Ferguson, 2004). Britain was interested in Uganda and Kenya, which were the region’s most exploitable and promising lands. The rich farmland areas were appropriated for the cultivation of cash crops like coffee and tea, as well as for animal husbandry with products produced from cattle and goats, such as goat meat, beef and milk. Uganda and Kenya were also viewed as prime colonies for the relocation of British nationals because of their beauty, impressive game and hospitable climates (Deisser and Njuguna, 2016). The German Empire gained control of the largest area, which was called German East Africa, comprising Burundi, Rwanda and the Tanzania mainland. Germany relinquished control of Tanganyika in 1922 to the British after the Zanzibar revolution of 1921. Tanzania was formed as a union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964 after the independence of both Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1962 and 1963, respectively. The French and Portuguese influence was minimal in the three countries by the end of the 18th century. The French had annexed Madagascar (the fourth largest island in the world), along with a group of smaller islands nearby; namely, Réunion and the Comoros. The Portuguese presence remained in Mozambique and some parts of Malawi. Diversity Ideologies in East Africa In East Africa, colonial-era categorisations are at the heart of constructions of diversity ideologies and mindsets. Race, religion and gender are the dominant social identity categories in the region today. Pierre (2018) states that the ‘Africa’ we know today ‘does not exist outside the
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 31 legacies of slavery and imperialism, Arab and European white supremacy, racialization, and most importantly, Blackness’. Research suggests that even the new recent relationships with global partners who had no previous colonial history in East Africa, such as China and Brazil, still engage and extend the existing dynamics of racialisation of the continent (Kimari and Ernstson, 2020). These new partnerships build on the negative narrative of Africa as a place of need and deficit and continue to perpetuate racialisations that exist beyond the surface. While African Blacks are the majority in work organisations, it is not uncommon to have white or Asian senior leadership, especially in international organisations. Religion in East Africa Ethnic Africans before the arrival of the Arabs and Europeans practised African indigenous religions. The Arabs brought Islam in the 15th century, which was more concentrated along the coast but made modest advances after independence was attained by the countries and people started migrating and mixing in big cities. Today, 10 to 15 percent of the population are Muslim. About 70 to 80 percent of the population in East Africa practise some form of Christianity, largely due to the influence of colonialism. Religion has a huge influence on diversity in the region and religious factions and conflicts have arisen. Gender Relations in East Africa Gender relations in East Africa largely unfold in classic patriarchal settings (Kabeer, 2011). Women’s contributions for a long time have been measured and valued within the context of the family and household whereby they systematically have lower social status and less power than men (Kabeer, 1999). Nevertheless, African women are seen as agents of development in helping develop their countries for the future; hence, the need to understand gender relations in organisations (Klugman et al., 2014). A study conducted in five East African countries on a large regional bank with over 3000 employees from many different cultures and ethnicities found that diversity affects the cohesion of the workplace (Omboi and Wangai, 2011). Diversity management practices were not closely adhered to even though there were some negative effects, such as high absenteeism among women. The study further recommended that in order for organisations to harness the vast richness of existing diversity they have to put in place practices that harness the wide variety of differences existing in the employee base. Table 2.2
Human Development Index for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
Kenya
Uganda
Tanzania
Human Development Index
Medium (0.601)
Low (0.544)
Low (0.529)
Rank
143
159
163
Life expectancy
66.9 years
63.7 years
65.8 years
Level of education
11.3 years
11.4 years
8.1 years
Gender Development Index
0.937
0.863
0.948
Gender Inequality Index
0.518
0.535
0.556
Multidimensional Poverty Index
0.178
0.269
0.273
32 Research handbook on inequalities and work
WEST AFRICA Colonisation According to the United Nations, West Africa is made up of 16 countries; namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Of these, more than half experienced the colonial influence of Great Britain and France and the others of Portugal, Germany and Belgium. European countries practised diverse forms of colonialism. Space precludes a full discussion of the different approaches. For example, the British policy was indirect rule, whereby administrators were brought from Britain to manage the colonies instead of settler colonialism. On the other hand, the French and Portuguese approach of assimilation was to ‘civilize’ the indigenous people to be loyal to their colonizers (Odukoya, 2018). Those who met the standards could technically become citizens of France and Portugal. Belgium practised a brutal, extremely violent form of extractive colonialism involving appropriation of natural resources and the forced labour of indigenous people (Anstey, 1966). Before colonisation, there was considerable heterogeneity among the peoples that made up these countries such that we can readily re-categorise them today in terms of ethnicity. Fast-forward to colonisation and the amalgamation of these historically heterogeneous groups, the imposition of foreign cultures on already diverse ethnicities and the consequent confusion of cultural and religious values, and we begin to see how a discussion on uniform diversity ideologies in West Africa can be a daunting task. There is however some consensus that ethnicity remains the primary category as far as diversity ideology is concerned, especially for government-owned and -managed institutions, but less so in private-sector organisations, depending on size and ownership. In the following paragraphs, we briefly explicate the dominant expressions of diversity in the subcontinent (i.e., ethnicity (broadly defined) and gender), their relationship with the politics of self-interest and how they find expression in the public and private sectors, concluding with the specific example of Nigeria. Ethnicity, Religion and Gender Ethnicity has often been defined in terms of similarities in religious beliefs, language and other cultural practices (Ramsey and Williams, 2003). Ethnicity is sometimes akin to religion to the extent that people of a certain ethnicity are likely to be defined by a common religion. In addition expressions of African traditional religions and ethnicity are often a function of the nature of colonial, and more recently Jihadist, influences in West Africa and have birthed some of the most intense and ongoing conflicts in the region. In more recent times, gender has gradually gathered momentum as a subject for ideological expression, partly because of globalisation and the ease with which social movements get diffused and partly as a renaissance of what some consider to be the more respectable position women occupied in pre-colonial Africa (Amoah-Boampong and Agyeiwaa, 2019). However, gender plays a lesser ideological role than ethnicity and religion in influencing the beliefs and practices of people in the West African region. Post-independence, the wars and instability in the region have been driven primarily by ethno-religious differences stoked by the political class for their self-interests. For example,
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 33 the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970 represented the secessionist agitation of the largely Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria, who felt they could not continue to co-exist with a government dominated by the Muslim Hausa–Fulani of Northern Nigeria. Currently, intense conflict driven by Islamic extremist movements (Boko Haram and similar groups) continues to destabilise the northern region of the country. Several other examples of conflicts driven by ethno-religious sentiments stoked by political interests abound in the region, indicating that ethno-religious equity may be the driving ideology in the sub-region, and when such equity is perceived to be non-existent, conflict is likely to arise. However, such an ideology is more of a default position in the absence of any other unifying ideology that would ordinarily have been driven by the political elite. As Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz and Dominique Lewis (2011) found, there is a general absence of ideological cues among Africa’s political elites, possibly due to (a) international pressure that limits the ideological space, (b) the absence of structures and mechanisms that would allow voters to monitor follow-through on electoral promises and (3) the relatively low levels of education among the electorate to whom such ideological cues must be transmitted. Unlike Nigeria and other countries in the region, Ghana has not experienced the kinds of ethno-religious and political conflicts, even though it is also an ethnically diverse country. According to the Global Peace Index (2021), Ghana is ranked the most peaceful country in the region and the second most peaceful on the continent. This may be due to the supremacy of national identity versus ethnic identity. In the following section, we explore the expressions of an ethnic ideology in Nigeria, the largest economy and most populated country in the region, and conclude with some thoughts on gender equity as an emergent phenomenon in the country/region. Ethnic Ideology in Nigeria Although it is difficult to provide the precise number of ethnic groups in Nigeria, most writings concede that there are at least 250. Three groups (Hausa–Fulani: 29%, Yoruba: 21%, Igbo: 18%) constitute about 70% of the total population (Adeleye et al., 2014). The Federal Character (FC) principle is Nigeria’s version of the ‘quota system’ or ‘representative democracy’. The underlying spirit of the principle is to promote national unity and a sense of belonging in every citizen. The FC principle became formally entrenched in the constitution in the second republic (1979) and explicit provision was made for the composition of the governments of the federation and states and their agencies to reflect the federal character of Nigeria (Idike et al., 2019). This was followed by the establishment of a Federal Character Commission (FCC) as the oversight body for the implementation of FC principles, especially in state-owned establishments. Contrary to the stated purpose of the FC principle, it may have done more to promote national disunity, foster national disloyalty and alienate certain groups in the country at different times than to unify them. The inequities of the implementation of the FC principle were evident in education and employment in federal agencies. Similarly, public-sector jobs and appointments were reportedly skewed in favour of particular ethnic groups (Idike et al., 2019). Coupled with very high levels of corruption and a political system driven by personal interests that facilitate these inequities, ethnicity continues to be used as a tool to drive a wedge through the fragile unity of the country rather than for facilitating belongingness.
34 Research handbook on inequalities and work Decoupling in the Private Sector? While organisations are usually a microcosm of the larger environment, there is a measure of decoupling where ethnic diversity as a dominant ideology is found in the Nigerian private sector. Anecdotal evidence suggests that micro- to small-sized organisations that do not provide technically sophisticated services tend to reflect the ethnicity of the founders and the environment the business is in almost by default. Ethnicity is however generally not a salient consideration for staffing larger organisations compared to technical competence. Multinational organisations (both foreign and local) are likely to be more concerned about gender diversity than about ethnicity or a combination of the two, with gender being more pronounced. There are however some exceptions. Multinational organisations in the oil and gas sector particularly have to adhere to the requirements of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, which aims for the inclusion of people and services from the region of the country where resources are sourced to constitute a defined number of the workforce. While there is still a long way to go, with a gender equality score (32%) just under the global average (34%) (International Finance Corporation, 2021), Nigeria has made some progress in the appointment of women to boards (Osae-Brown, 2020). In a study of the 30 most capitalised companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the International Finance Corporation found that women held nearly three times as many board chair positions (17%) than the average (6%) in Equileap’s 2021 global report and scored above the global average in executive and senior management positions (Equileap, 2021).
CONCLUSION This chapter provides an overview of diversity ideologies in three regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. It demonstrates the significance of colonialism for understanding contemporary diversity ideologies. As noted by Nyambegera (2002), ethnicity constitutes a primary dimension of diversity in all of the regions. However, in some contexts race remains a major category of social difference. Considering that the African context in terms of diversity ideologies differs across regions and is unlike Western countries, it is not possible for African organisations to import diversity management practices from, for example, the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia or even Europe without considering differences in culture, as well as legislative and other contextual differences. The chapter also has implications for Western multinationals who do business in Africa. Given the heterogeneity of the content, they must be aware of the differences in the salience of diversity categories and the social and legal constraints on some identity markers. African countries in these three regions that have embarked on programmes to reduce inequality among various marginalised individuals in the population have already shown marked improvements in their Human Development Indices in terms of enhancing women’s empowerment, increasing the number of years children attend school and trying to eradicate poverty and unemployment, especially among the youth. However, progress is slow in some countries despite good fiscal programmes and efforts being made by the government to uplift marginalised employees in the workplace. Nevertheless, many African countries in these regions are making a concerted effort to improve the condition of their marginalised employees.
Diversity ideologies and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa 35
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3. The propagation of workplace inequalities through sexual- and gender-identity normativities: understanding heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity in organisations Mustafa B. Öztürk
INTRODUCTION This chapter explores four core forms of normativity that (re)produce inequalities involving sexual- and gender-identity minorities: heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity. Implicated in webs of power, normativities are regulatory regimes that constrain or enable people’s capacity to embody diverse identities (Foucault, 1977; Foucault, 1978). That is, normativities operate as disciplinary mechanisms that exert normalising effects on subjects, such that forms of normativity variously privilege the ‘normal’ and oppress the ‘abnormal’, rewarding compliance with dominant norms while penalising normative transgressions (Foucault, 2007). It is well-established in workplace inequalities research that some employees figure as ‘ideal workers’ because of their match with existing organisational norms, and organisational rewards tend to flow to them disproportionately (see Acker, 1990, 2006; Williams, 2000). Conversely, some identities are placed persistently outside of the organisational norms, incurring material and symbolic detriments. Notions such as norms and normality are thus permeated by normative calls upon bodies and selves to conform, and they tend to reflect the interests of the dominant participants of the established order at a particular time and place. Consequently, it is vitally important to analyse normativities to grasp more fully the deleterious consequences of power imbalances across workers and formulate effective ways of questioning, disrupting, and ultimately eradicating discourses and practices that sustain workplace social stratification. Research shows that a Foucauldian theoretical stance is effective in revealing invisible power relations in the context of diversity (e.g., Ahonen et al., 2014). A Foucault-inspired exploration of normativities affecting sexual- and gender-identity minorities can be particularly useful in bringing to light the forces that render some workers undesirable and even unviable in organisations. Yet the role of normativities in work and organisations has tended to be neglected in the field of equality, diversity, and inclusion, particularly in the sexual- and gender-identity domains. The inattention to sexual orientation and gender identity is perhaps not surprising, given that organisations have long been constructed as sexless and genderless entities, obscuring how underlying power relations in organisations render them both sexualised and gendered (Acker, 1990, 2006; Cockburn, 1991; Fleming, 2007; Rumens, 2017). 39
40 Research handbook on inequalities and work While seemingly distinct sets of realities, sex and gender on the one hand and organisations on the other hand are mutually constitutive social dynamics (see Hearn, 2014). Thus, exploring workplace sexual- and gender-identity (in)equalities through the study of normativities can offer deeper insights into marginalised employees’ identity struggles and the role of organisations in serving as conduits of marginalisation. Before delving into the review of heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity, it would be useful to clarify the flexible and open view of sexual and gender identity utilised in this chapter. Sexuality is an expansive construct. Although minority identifications in the sexuality domain tend to commonly involve lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, this chapter acknowledges that people may use a wide array of terms to indicate sexual identities that do not correspond to heterosexuality. With regards to gender identity, throughout the chapter, trans* is used as an umbrella term that encompasses all people who disidentify with the gender and sex assigned to them at birth, including non-binary individuals. Among various terms connoting gender-identity minorities, Halberstam (2018) advocates the use of the term trans* for its expansive characterisation of gender identities that exist beyond cisgender (see Köllen and Rumens, 2022). This chapter considers it crucial to understand sexual and gender identities as unfixed and unrestricted constructs in general because such openness facilitates a critically grounded, political, and emancipatory stance that rejects conformity in scholarship and practice. Research into sex and organisation has established sex as one of the central structuring features of organised life, even if de-sexualisation has been a leitmotif of the mainstream literature (Burrell, 1984; Burrell and Hearn, 1989; Sullivan, 2014). Organisations are no longer considered oversimply as a sum of systems, processes, and people that transform input into output. The robust growth of the literature on sexuality, work, and organisations in particular stands as a testament to the depth and breadth of the field’s research concerns, as pursued through varied theoretical and methodological lenses (Öztürk and Rumens, 2015). Now traversing a wide range of questions, works in this rich research strand include identifying the extent and kinds of inequalities experienced by sexual minorities, explaining how and why sexual orientation inequalities take place, and interrogating on what terms sexual minorities can have a claim to workplace equality (Anteby and Anderson, 2014; Ng and Rumens, 2017). Heteronormativity and homonormativity remain inextricably linked to the power relations undergirding all such questions, thereby making their explicit treatment an imperative element for studies animated by a political commitment to workplace equality. Concerted research into workplace issues related to gender-identity minorities specifically has emerged much more recently. Traditionally, the organisational problems encountered by gender-identity minorities have been studied in conjunction with those of lesbian, bisexual, and gay employees. Such a broader categorisation has yielded significant insights into the shared challenges experienced by minority workers across the domains of sexual and gender identity (e.g., Fletcher and Everly, 2021; Öztürk and Tatli, 2018; Webster et al., 2018). Yet some research also pointed out that lesbian, gay and bisexual employees’ experiences could differ substantially in terms of the kinds and degrees of discrimination they encounter as compared with trans* people (e.g., Öztürk, 2011), which highlights the benefit of studying socially inter-linked but still highly distinctive employee communities separately. Indeed, key research from the past decade indicates that trans* employees have unique experiences in the workplace, and if they are subsumed as a secondary category under overly wide perspectives that explore sexual and gender identity together, a fuller, more nuanced analysis of trans* issues
The propagation of workplace inequalities 41 may be obstructed (Öztürk and Tatli, 2016). Relatedly, research has highlighted the pressing need to listen to trans* voices sensitively and attentively to ensure their lived experiences are not inadvertently negated in scholarship and practice (Beauregard et al., 2018). Indeed, much new research focused wholly on trans* work lives and careers argues for organisations to develop bespoke measures to counter the specifics of workplace gender-identity inequalities and promote gender-identity diversity in organisations (Law et al., 2011; Ruggs et al., 2015; Sawyer et al., 2016; Sawyer and Thoroughgood, 2017). Focusing on cisnormativity and transnormativity in the analysis of workplace inequalities may further facilitate tailored understandings and solutions that support gender-identity minorities effectively in organisations. The rest of the chapter is organised as follows. The next section offers a review of heteronormativity and homonormativity, delving into some of the longstanding as well as evolving pressures and problems faced by sexual minorities at work. The succeeding section considers the workings of cisnormativity and transnormativity as sources of inequalities that exert a deep and pervasive negative impact, currently manifesting in extraordinarily rancorous rhetoric and action against gender-identity minorities in organisations and across societies. Overall, this chapter shows the ways in which normativities inform the lived experiences of people with diverse sexual and gender identities at work, highlighting how they render some workers’ identities problematic, militating to erase them from organised life altogether. The final section of the chapter offers reflections on possible future efforts to refute the normativities surrounding sexual and gender identity, which is an essential step toward securing full equality in organisations.
HETERONORMATIVITY AND HOMONORMATIVITY The intellectual genesis of heteronormativity as a concept goes back to Foucault’s (1978) foundational work on the historical construction of sexuality as a socially and scientifically recognisable identity. For Foucault (1978), sexual identity is ordered internally through hierarchical categorisation, with heterosexuality ensconced as the normal and all possible modes of sexuality that are free of the restrictions of heterosexuality relegated to abnormality. Such normal/abnormal distinctions are then used as a way of policing sexuality in all spheres of social life, entailing the institutionalised repression of diverse sexualities (Foucault, 1978). Echoing Foucault in some ways, lesbian feminists in the late 1970s pointed to the violent means through which heterosexuality has been imposed upon women. Most notably, Rich (1980) propounded the concept of compulsory heterosexuality, explaining how heterosexuality is institutionally and often forcefully inculcated in social and organisational life. The operations of compulsory heterosexuality are considered an encompassing socio-historical phenomenon beyond merely a property of individual people or the interactions of individuals (Seidman, 2009). The enforcement of heterosexuality, in Butler’s (1990, 151) words, pre-supposes a heterosexual matrix, which is ‘that for bodies to cohere and make sense there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender (masculine expresses male, feminine expresses female) that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality’. Grappling with the rich intellectual mélange of ideas locating sexuality within a regulatory socio-historical infrastructure, Warner (1991, 1993) conceptualised heteronormativity as a normative regime that (re)produces heterosexuality as the norm, with the effect of contin-
42 Research handbook on inequalities and work ually casting heterosexual people as ‘normal’ and everyone else as ‘abnormal’. Importantly, heteronormativity is not simply an adroit fashioning of convergent theoretical developments into a novel concept. What Warner (1991, 1993) does, along with his contemporary Seidman (1993), is to invoke through heteronormativity a queer political project of emancipation. In the introduction to his edited volume Fear of a Queer Planet, Warner (1993) points to the cartoonish drawing of a male body and a female body sent out to outer space by NASA to represent humanity in case it reaches intelligent alien life. This is a drawing that highlights the impossibility of a queer planet to any possible being out there, which ‘testifies to the depth of the culture’s assurance (read: insistence) that humanity and heterosexuality are synonymous’ (Warner, 1993, xxiii). Against such profound negation, Warner (1993, xxvi) utilises heteronormativity as a logic of critique, a queer politics that ‘rejects a minoritizing logic of toleration or simple political interest-representation in favour of a more thorough resistance to regimes of the normal’. To be sure, not all political action to secure the rights of sexual minorities is about resistance. The politics of transformative change is often counterbalanced by a trend toward a more assimilationist politics that incorporates sexual minority people into ‘respectability’, which scholars have studied as signalling a separate normative regime: homonormativity. In Duggan’s (2002, 179) formulation, homonormativity is about ‘a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions but upholds and sustains them while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption’. Homonormativity, in effect, operates through political strategies of alignment with normality by signalling sameness with the majority and a break away from solidarity with some sexual- and gender-identity minorities as too different or simply ‘maladjusted’. For example, as Halberstam (1998) reminds us, women’s masculinity is often problematised and foreclosed by many gay men and heterosexual men alike. The politics of conservatism within some sexual minority circles can entail the valorisation of masculinity as essentially male and the bracketing off of femininity as essentially female. Moreover, such assimilation into the norms of the dominant culture can also underlie a neoliberal political allegiance, which is based on private gain and individual advancement at the expense of solidarity with a wider population of sexual- and gender-identity minorities (Richardson, 2005). In this way, homonormativity emerges as an ideology with a powerful grip on human imagination, rivalling heteronormativity in its consequences, even if it has not yet commanded the deep and broad attention heteronormativity has attained in the scholarly literature. The concept of homonormativity is also highly apposite in terms of understanding the reproduction of power disparities within the category of sexual minority identities, as well as the maintenance of interlocking inequalities beyond sexuality. Research shows homonormativity has the ideological capacity to work in tandem with heteronormativity in othering specific racial identities and thereby (re)producing white supremacy (Nast, 2002; Puar, 2007). Moreover, analysing heteronormativity and homonormativity can provide distinct benefits in tracing complex workplace inequalities, not only in the West but also in developing-country contexts. There are huge variations in the evolution of legal rights and protections afforded to sexual minorities across diverse geographies (e.g., Ammaturo, 2016; Chua, 2019; Currier, 2019; Encarnación, 2016; Garretson, 2019; Muedini, 2019; Puri, 2016). Heteronormativity and homonormativity manifest themselves in conjunction with diverse organisational, cultural, and legal settings in different ways. Thus, interrogating these normative regimes in
The propagation of workplace inequalities 43 context can be invaluable for facilitating more nuanced accounts of sexual minority inequalities in different parts of the world. Having discussed the tenets of heteronormativity and homonormativity, it is useful to look at works that utilise these concepts in exploring workplace inequalities experienced by sexual minorities. The scholarly applications of heteronormativity in management and organisation studies have proliferated over the past couple of decades. Such is the conceptual and empirical utility of the notion that some of the influential works utilising heteronormativity also represent important milestones in the study of organisation sexualities. In one of the first studies to consider the effects of heteronormativity in organisations, Ward and Winstanley (2003) find silence to be a constitutive element of sexual minority identities at work. In particular, they reveal how the disciplinary power of censorship manifests itself through the control, suppression, and editing out of views, needs, and preferences of sexual minorities in workplace policies and practices. Additionally, they show the silencing of sexual minorities operates as a means of keeping heteronormative values at the centre of cultural production, language, mores, and worldviews at work, ensuring the maintenance of heterosexuality as the organisational default position. Finally, Ward and Winstanley (2003) illuminate how non-disclosure as a form of silence operates as a strategic resource for survival in a punitive heteronormative organisational context, where normalising forces compel sexual minority employees to negotiate their self-expressions continually. Crucially, the discourses and practices associated with heteronormativity are shown to shape organisations themselves as well as actions undertaken by workers. In addition, research shows that the reach of heteronormativity spans entire understandings of what it means to be professional and how sexual minority professionals can conduct themselves in work contexts. For example, Rumens and Kerfoot (2009) demonstrate the potent influence of heteronormativity in limiting the range and forms of workplace self-expressions gay men can adopt, influencing their decisions from dress to mannerisms, insofar as they need to remain legible within professional norms that are coded heavily in narrow heterosexist terms. Heteronormativity is all-pervasive and deeply enshrined across economies, even if different industries may seem to exemplify somewhat nuanced norms around sexuality. Studies focusing on such disparate industry contexts as accounting, construction, media, health, and higher education reinforce the omnipresence of heteronormativity (Barnard et al., 2022; Beagan and Bizzeth, 2023; Giddings and Pringle, 2011; Kerrigan and O’Brien, 2020; Öztürk and Rumens, 2014; Peytcheva, 2022; Wright, 2013). Interestingly, even in the archetypically gay-friendly context of performance arts, research shows that heteronormative standards constrain gay performers’ job prospects substantially, limiting the types of roles available to them, as well as demarcating acceptable sexual identities, which requires the rejection of femininities (Rumens and Broomfield, 2014). Indeed, the intense regulative force of heteronormativity is so powerful and penetrating that even sexual minorities themselves are not immune to embodying the disciplinary mechanisms of heteronormative conduct in their own workplace practices (Öztürk et al., 2020; Rumens and Öztürk, 2019). In some parts of the world, sexual minorities are still criminalised and subject to myriad penalties, with a few countries going so far as to specify the death penalty as a punishment (Belmonte, 2020). Yet some progress is now often acknowledged in the North American and Western European contexts. Increasingly, there are workplaces that appear to project a strongly gay-friendly image, even if research shows sexual orientation inequalities tend to continue in new ways in such organisations (Giuffre et al., 2008). Additionally, the so-called
44 Research handbook on inequalities and work gay-friendly organisations of the West exist as part of a neoliberal order, which facilitates only limited acceptance of sexual minorities into the organisational fold on the condition of compliance with standards of normality informed by homonormativity (Drucker, 2015). There is evidence of homonormativity in various organisational settings (Giuffre and Caviness, 2020). For example, O’Brien and Kerrigan (2020) provide insights from the Irish film and television production industry, where gay and lesbian workers in media organisations respond to strong heteronormative pressures by espousing homonormative attitudes at work. In this sense, conformity can indicate a means of negotiating heteronormativity in work lives as much as an individualistic self-advancement stance guided by neoliberal ideology. Furthermore, homonormativity appears in sexual minorities’ coming-out processes at work. Problematizing the prevailing workplace disclosure discourses, Benozzo et al. (2015) point out that many of their research participants mention their boyfriends/partners in ways that parallel the dominant heterosexual workers’ domesticity and marriage, drawing a direct connection of sameness between themselves and their heterosexual colleagues. Equally problematically, gay men in their research disclaim campness, as a way of smoothing out their coming out by conforming to masculinity expectations associated with being male. Nevertheless, research also indicates that homonormativity does not always equate with a clear-cut cluster of practices that simply uphold heteronormative ideals in gay terms. In a study of LGBTQ activist organisations in India, Ghosh (2015) shows that, on the one hand, advocacy charities adopt the language, politics, and practices of non-profit business in line with donor expectations to attain ‘respectability’ and, on the other hand, they continue to reach out and embrace a wider range of identities with a more radical goal of queering.
CISNORMATIVITY AND TRANSNORMATIVITY The idea of cisnormativity originates in the high-stakes context of health care, where trans* people have long been denied appropriate care and treatment, often with dramatic ramifications for trans* lives. When suggesting cisnormativity as a productive analytical tool, Bauer et al. (2009) aim to highlight how the notion appears at the epicentre of life and death decisions affecting trans* people at the levels of systems and processes. In particular, Bauer et al. (2009) suggest cisnormativity signifies a culture-wide foreclosure of trans* existences through systematic erasure in informational (e.g., binary gender options enforced in health documents) and institutional settings (e.g., bureaucratic rigidities that compel trans* people to access services according to birth-assigned sex). In this logic, then, cisnormativity refers to the wholesale normalisation of essentialist assumptions and binary expectations about sex and gender and the consequent development of policies, practices, and institutional arrangements throughout society to impede gender identity diversity. Utilising cisnormativity as a theoretical lens, Pyne (2011) asked critical questions regarding single-sex spaces in shelters, indicating how such binary divisions across genders, sexes, and bodies could marginalise some gender-identity minorities. Not only can cisnormativity result in the surveillance of genders and bodies by institutional authorities but it also can lead to the exclusion of gender-identity minorities from services altogether (Pyne, 2011). The medicalizing discourses that insist upon re-inscribing binarity onto trans* bodies and identities go hand in hand with anxieties about gender-identity minorities using single-sex spaces or services. Several scholars have noted over the past decade the push to normatively
The propagation of workplace inequalities 45 regulate transgender bodies and specific expressions of trans* identities under the related rubric of transnormativity. For instance, Vipond (2015) notes the relative legitimation of trans* people who undergo hormonal interventions and surgical procedures to fully transition into a fixed gender identity and the greater marginalisation of trans* people who indicate gender variance as their primary state of being. Transnormativity works through specific modes of power/knowledge; for instance, the way in which psy- disciplines limit the scope of what it means to be trans*, thereby generating the epistemic boundaries of understanding about gender identity, which in turn disadvantage some trans* people disproportionately (Riggs et al., 2019). Reflecting such epistemic bias, an expansive range of community settings and legal bodies also operate as conduits of transnormativity, continually (re)producing status hierarchies within the broad category of trans* (e.g., Johnson, 2016). Having discussed the tenets of cisnormativity and transnormativity, the chapter now turns to their use in understanding workplace sexual and gender identity inequalities. The explicit use of cisnormativity is still sporadic, and the inattention to transnormativity in the equality, diversity, and inclusion literature is even more pronounced. In part because of the relative recency of the concepts and in part because workplace gender identity diversity is still woefully understudied, the concepts are still coming slowly into the academic discussion of work, employment, and inequalities. Yet cisnormativity operates as a deeply embedded normalising regime that generates an all-encompassing constellation of injustices in organisations involving multiple stakeholders, systems, policies, and practices. The evidence of cisnormativity’s severe effects is ubiquitous, in environments ranging from academia (Calafell, 2020) and schools (Cumming-Potvin and Martino, 2018) to homelessness services (England, 2022) and migrant detention centres (Kurdyla, 2022) and to prisons (Rodgers et al., 2017). The statistical analysis of large-scale quantitative data indicates the pervasive hold of cisnormativity in the employment sphere, often accentuated through intersections with race and ethnicity as well as social class (Suárez, 2022). Indeed, recent research confirms severe structural discrimination against transgender employees, which is shown to explain many of the significant differences observed in unemployment rates and earnings power between cisgender and transgender people (Ciprikis et al., 2020). Against such a stark tableau of gender identity disadvantage at work, this chapter joins the emerging clarion calls for understanding and interrogating cisnormativity more thoroughly in the context of management and organisation (Köllen and Rumens, 2022). Transnormativity, a relatively newer notion, has been treated more implicitly in the literature. For example, research suggests that employees who express gender identity fluidity may be perceived to pose a threat to the binary gender order currently dominant in organisations (Öztürk and Tatli, 2016), tacitly acknowledging the presence of transnormativity in the workplace. Moreover, in an experimental study that analysed participant ratings assigned to vignettes relating to a cisman, a transgender woman, and a non-binary person, the hypothetical ratings for the non-binary person were found to be the lowest, highlighting how the gender binary may frame employee evaluations (Dray et al., 2020). Similarly, in Taylor and Fasoli’s (2022) study, non-binary people’s CVs and personal statements received harsher ratings than those of transgender people who did not express fluidity. A more explicit conceptual deployment of transnormativity in research may illuminate its disciplinary power vis-à-vis gender fluidity and introduce further layers of nuance into the still growing workplace inequalities literature that explores gender identity diversity.
46 Research handbook on inequalities and work
CONCLUDING REMARKS Reviewing heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity critically, this chapter shows that the equality, diversity, and inclusion literature on sexual- and gender-identity minorities can benefit significantly from the systematic study of normativities. To date, research strands that explore various sexual and gender identity normativities have reached different points of maturity. For example, more has been written about heteronormativity at work, while homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity have received comparatively less attention, partly because they are relatively more recent conceptual breakthroughs. Regardless of the maturity of the literature that they pertain to, each of the four forms of normativity continues to represent important critical opportunities to question and contest unequal power relations in the workplace. As this chapter indicates, normativities are particularly useful in problematizing discrimination as emergent and encompassing phenomena that cannot be reduced simply to an individual problem of (un)conscious bias or an issue of group discord that occurs due to interpersonal lack of familiarity or understanding. Rather, by indicating how inequalities are effects of power/knowledge formations that normalise arbitrary boundaries and hierarchies of sex and gender as natural, this chapter shows that the study of normativities can point to effective ways forward in contesting inequalities as system-wide issues that require systemic answers (see Foucault, 1978). In other words, the promise and potential of normativities research lies in its capacity to problematise, resist, and upset longstanding regimes of privilege and oppression. Moreover, as normativities offer the language to analyse the configurations of what is considered the norm and normal, they also provide the toolkit to de-naturalise normality in organised life, demolishing taken-for-granted assumptions and paving the way for organisations to surpass limits placed upon our imaginations as to what sexual and gender identities encompass. Despite the deep embeddedness of normativities in workplace contexts, not to mention their layered imbrications with society and history, they are neither immutable facts nor invincible foes. As such, this chapter closes on a note of optimism that the discussion of normativities may inspire scholars and practitioners alike to understand the political nature of difference as constructed and experienced in work and organisations and make equality, diversity, and inclusion actions part of an explicitly political change project (Pullen et al., 2019). This re-politicisation could be through cultivating a renewed interest in the radical political power of queerness (Rumens, 2017), a theoretical and practical apparatus that is developed to take on normative forces that discipline sexual- and gender-identity minorities in organisations. However, the health and success of such re-politicisation efforts will inevitably hinge on building capacity for broad-based queer alliances, rooted in distributed power and privilege across and within our communities, instead of the monopolisation of legitimacy and the right to speak by gender, class, and race. Therefore, a keener awareness and mobilisation of the connections across forms of oppression through attention to an expanding array of intersectional dynamics can also cultivate more politically aware possibilities for change (see Healy et al., 2019). Furthermore, it is important to guard against the normalising tendencies within our own research by focusing beyond work environments in North America and Western Europe. Diversity problematics emerge and operate distinctively across the globe because they are instantiated through the interplay of culture and difference (Groutsis et al., 2014). There is, thus, a need to encourage research from the Global South to showcase the disparate as well as common manifestations of equality, diversity, and inclusion questions affecting sexual- and
The propagation of workplace inequalities 47 gender-identity minorities. Research focused on less well-studied country contexts has been building over the past decade (e.g., Ahmad et al., 2023; Öztürk, 2011; Tatli et al., 2018); however, more such research needs to be encouraged and given a platform to demonstrate the cadences of heteronormativity, homonormativity, cisnormativity, and transnormativity emergent in diverse locales. Such attention can avoid the homogenisation and over-simplification of equality, diversity and inclusion research focused on sexual- and gender-identity minorities. As work organisations operating across borders has found, global and local understandings of diversity operate in conjunction with each other and offer the potential for varied representations of and differentiated approaches to diversity problematics across the world (Öztürk et al., 2015). As such, a more diverse and more inclusive stance toward research and practice in the field can add further finesse to the extant perspectives on how normativities shape who we are and how we perceive each other, with the ultimate hope of not only contesting them but also overcoming their strong grip on sexual- and gender-identity minorities’ work lives.
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4. Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times Barbara Samaluk
INTRODUCTION This chapter explores migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times. It departs from a historical outlook of unequal mobility regimes between capital and labour that have throughout history enabled the manipulation of the demand and supply and dependency and discipline of labour. With contemporary global neoliberalization, we are witnessing a turn from security to precarity that is manipulated by the state and its changing institutions, hypermobile capital and growing transnational (labour) migration services that utilize increasingly precarious international labour by controlling its mobility and determining labour market outcomes. While migrant and other international labour is becoming increasingly precarious and a handy commodity for profit extraction by various transnational actors, it also exercises agency and increasing (self-)organizing power. The chapter departs from a global historical outlook but then focuses on case studies of contemporary neoliberalization, mobility and migration within and to/from Western Europe. It is structured as follows: first it looks at unequal mobility regimes that emerged through neoliberalization; then it discusses growing precarity that is caused by neoliberal attacks on the welfare state’s compromise and changing institutions of citizenship, which have negative consequence for international labour while at the same time increasing marketization. The latter is discussed in terms of the growing transnational (labour) migration intermediary industry. Lastly, the chapter discusses the (self)organization of migrant labour.
UNEQUAL MOBILITY REGIMES IN NEOLIBERAL TIMES With neoliberal globalization we are witnessing increasing deregulation and the formation of regimes that facilitate the hypermobility of capital, goods, services and information while the mobility of persons is only reserved for the privileged few and otherwise characterized by increasing politicization and securitization (Sassen, 2015; De Haas et al., 2020). The current neoliberal globalization is however not novel but a continued history of capitalisms’ drive for persistent accumulation, which has throughout history created unequal mobility regimes that have facilitated dynamic relationship between mobility and immobility that empower the few and disenfranchise the many (Glick Schiller and Salazar, 2013). This historical outlook of unequal mobility regimes can uncover how the demand and supply and dependency and discipline of labour have been regulated and manipulated. Unequal mobility regimes can be traced back to imperial times that stimulated mobility and migration from Europe with the aim of economic conquest of new territories, which also entailed control over newly reached populations (De Haas et al., 2020). These historical 52
Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times 53 patterns of migration that initially emerged as a consequence of European colonial conquest from Europe to Africa, Asia and then the Americas and Oceania became reversed with decolonization and the post-war building of welfare states in Europe that brought and initially welcomed previously colonized populations into Europe. For instance, the British National Health Service (NHS), the flagship institution of the post-war British welfare state, relied heavily on nurses recruited from the colonies in the 1950s and the early 1960s, who have powered the NHS for decades (Babikian, 2021). Imperial legacies and post-war European demand increased the manipulation of the labour supply needed for the establishment of modern welfare states and brought a growing share of non-Europeans into Europe. This also increased the diversity of migrant populations in terms of ethnicity, religion, gender, language and education (De Haas et al., 2020). This relatively open migration policy started changing from the 1970s with the global expansion of neoliberalism and its attacks on the Keynesian welfare state, which imposed market discipline upon citizens, increased control over non-citizens and exacerbated the social stratification and segmentation of increasingly diverse migrant labour coming from new and emerging peripheries. While wealth accumulation and the control of populations in and of the Global South and other peripheries was in imperial times achieved through direct occupation of foreign territories, today this is done through foreign direct investment, structural adjustment programs, bailouts and trade agreements that enable free movement of capital and aim at controlling policies and (human) resources rather than gaining territorial possession (Federici, 2012; Sassen, 2015). This contemporary imperialism is thus much more invisible and one where the responsibility can easily be downloaded onto the most dispossessed populations of international labour, such as migrants, other precarious workers and wider social groups. This is visible in the growing politicization and securitization of migration, ‘which is a tendency by some politicians and media to portray migration as a fundamental threat to the security and cultural integrity of destination societies’ (De Haas et al., 2020, p. 11). Recent political discourses and practices in Europe and the United States of America (USA) are thus often characterized by ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics, where migrants are blamed for labour market competition, lower wages and welfare state retrenchment, and this discourse then legitimizes stricter migration policies and further welfare cuts and deterioration of citizens’ rights. These tactics primarily act to shift the blame and smokescreen the proactive and historical role of capital and the (supra)state in manufacturing these processes on various local and global scales, which have expanded with the process of neoliberalization discussed below. Neoliberalism is regarded as a global hegemony that has since the 1970s moved from theoretical ideas originating in the West into the political programs of international organizations and nation states, legitimising privatization, fiscal discipline and welfare state retrenchment (Harvey, 2005). These hegemonic ideas stimulated global neoliberalization, a historically and geographically differentiated process that is constructed at the global and local scales, not only by political and economic elites but also by everyday practices of people (Stenning et al., 2010, p. 37). Neoliberalism thus has diverse effects in different places and creates new peripheries and dependent labour emerging from that. A recent example of this is post-socialist Europe, which has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, represented a new territory for Western capital and Western governments’ wealth accumulation. The British Conservatives, who today use the divide and rule tactics that led to Brexit, were in the 1980s under Thatcher’s administration the most vocal proponents of neoliberal expansion to previously closed post-socialist states (Vaughan-Whitehead, 2003,
54 Research handbook on inequalities and work p. 26). While during that time the British government was disciplining labour and loosening regulation of capital at home, it simultaneously championed neoliberal globalization to rectify the crisis of declining profits and fewer opportunities for investment (Umney, 2018). This later also continued under Tony Blair’s ‘Third Way’, which was also backed by the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, and resulted in a joint manifesto (Europe: The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte (Blair and Schroeder, 1998)) in which they called for greater flexibility, cutting of public expenditure and reform of the public sector in order to achieve efficiency, competition and high performance (Vaughan-Whitehead, 2003). As a result, the European Union (EU) failed to promote the European social model in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Therefore, in the 1990s, when capital was granted entry through European agreements and the Single Market White Paper, the main purpose was ‘to secure the liberalization and deregulation of CEE’s political economies’ (Bohle, 2006, p. 69). These agreements concentrated solely on trade rather than providing a systemic implementation of all four European freedoms (the free movement of goods, services, capital and people within the EU’s internal borders) that were otherwise promoted in the EU (Millard, 1999). In this regard many authors view the process of neoliberal post-socialist transition and linked Europeanization through a postcolonial lens that can expose neocolonialism disguised as modernization, which enables unequal exchange, the export of governmentality and particular geopolitics that have recreated increasingly neoliberal Western capitalist economies as the standardized norm that CEE countries should strive towards (Stenning and Hörschelmann, 2008; Buchowski, 2006; Sher, 2001; Samaluk, 2016a; Samaluk, 2016b). These normative frames act as a form of symbolic violence, making the history of socialism obsolete and in need of transcending with the above-mentioned neoliberal capitalism, which has dramatically transformed everyday life in most CEE countries in the spheres of work, housing and social care and determines the way CEE workers are received in the West and how they see their place therein (Samaluk, 2016a; Stenning et al., 2010). These travelling normative ideas were not only imposed but also home grown and thus gave local politicians in some CEE countries, and their advisers from international institutions, enough power to push towards an ideologically driven ‘shock therapy’ transition into market economies that imposed rapid privatization, liberalization and deregulation of the national political economy. Bohle and Greskovits (2012), who analysed capitalist diversity in post-socialist European periphery, found that most CEE countries, except Slovenia, adopted various neoliberal regimes, some (the Visegrad group) with provisional and others (the Baltic states) with no social protection and weak state institutions coming close to social disintegration (Bulgaria and Romania). These applied neoliberal regimes enabled rapid mobility of Western capital into CEE and caused social dumping, which ‘implies situations in which standards in one country are lowered relative to what they would have been because of external pressure from all or part of the global economic system’ (Albert and Standing, 2005, p. 99). Social dumping debates put the focus also on the role of powerful actors from high-waged countries within dumping practices, which is often missing in the popular view (Bernaciak, 2014), although they can have negative implications for employment and the social sphere. In many CEE countries these external pressures have led to growing unemployment and poverty, an increasing income gap, declining working conditions and consequent emigration (Stenning et al. 2010). Although social dumping debates offer important insights into the EU accession process and its unequal mobility regimes, they are inadequate as they discuss it from the vantage point of
Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times 55 the state, businesses and trade unions rather than also from the perspective of migrants, and as such they narrow the field of analysis within which labour mobility is framed (Andrijasevic and Sacchetto, 2016). While capital has been exercising its free movement into CEE since the early 1990s and in this process also created an increasing reserve army of labourers who began voting with their feet, free movement was only granted to CEE workers after the 2004 EU enlargement. Even then governments in old Member States could impose transitional measures in order to control the supply of labour for the next seven years. Migration risks became one of the most popular arguments against EU enlargement in public debates in old Member States, despite the fact that no studies at that time had predicted massive migration flows (Vaughan-Whitehead, 2003). Consequently, only three Member States lifted restrictions (Britain, Ireland and Sweden), while others imposed restrictions during part or the all of the transitional period. Although CEE workers faced restrictions in various EU countries, they could still circumvent these through the freedom of service provision, which allowed them to substitute regular employment with functional equivalents such as posted work or (bogus) self-employment. Available data from various EU countries indicate the use of (bogus) self-employment as ‘an adjustment strategy in those countries and by those groups whose access to the labour market is prevented or restricted by transitional measures’ (Galgóczi and Leschke, 2012, p. 14). This example confirms Anderson’s (2010) point that migration controls only help produce precarious workers. Moreover, CEE workers’ mobility strategies reveal that they can undertake a range of temporary jobs in various European countries and these decisions are informed by cross-country job search strategies, work and pay levels in different locations, as well as by migrants’ networks (Andrijasevic and Sacchetto, 2016). While dispossessed CEE workers began to use their mobility power, their choices were still shaped by market forces and governmental policies in old EU Member States (Ciupijus, 2011; Juska and Woolfson, 2014) and many ended up in countries that lifted restrictions. One of the countries that admitted CEE workers immediately after EU accession in 2004 was the United Kingdom (UK) because it perceived them as more desirable substitutes for non-European migrants, who had until then worked in sectors experiencing labour shortages. These policies thus also had strong racist undertones and resulted in simultaneous tightening of entry requirements for non-EU migrants (Anderson et al., 2006; McDowell, 2009; Wills et al., 2010). Although this new and emerging pool of labour from within the EU was taking up precarious jobs in the UK, the insecurity and linked temporariness was, unlike for non-EU migrants, not enforceable by the state through immigration controls and citizenship legislation (Anderson, 2010). Despite transitional measures one of the determining features of EU integration and its migration governance has been the separation between EU citizens and Third Country Nationals (TCNs). EU citizens are (at least after initial transitional periods) granted free movement within a single EU market and are outside migration law, while TCNs’ rights are conditioned by managed migration schemes that legally limit and condition their stay upon their economic utility and in the name of security (Carmel, 2012). This inability to regulate intra-EU migration later became one of the most pressing issues in British politics, which finally led to Brexit. After the 2008 financial and economic crisis the economic imperative for employing migrant labour had increasingly diminished, while employers were, due to decreased social and employment standards, able to recruit the local workforce for undesirable jobs previously reserved for migrant workers (McCollum and Findlay, 2011). The economic crisis further
56 Research handbook on inequalities and work reinforced nationalistic protectionist tendencies, visible across Europe in tightened migration controls for TCNs and attacks on EU citizens’ free movement rights, most visibly exercised by the British EU referendum. These examples also back Sassen’s arguments that ‘economic globalization denationalizes national economies and immigration is renationalizing politics’ (Sassen, 2015, p. 63). This widens global inequalities and causes various problems. For instance, the UK’s above-mentioned increased reliance on EU workers also became crucial in the UK’s NHS, whose staffing of foreign healthcare workers is currently negatively affected by Brexit and its re-introduction of migration controls for EU nationals (Fahy et al., 2021). The above examples clearly demonstrate that the manipulation of supply and demand is achieved through unequal mobility regimes, one for the hypermobile capital that easily transcends national borders without any visa requirements and the other for increasingly controlled and precarious labour.
FROM SECURITY TO PRECARITY – CHANGING INSTITUTIONS OF CITIZENSHIP Precarity indicates fundamental insecurity characterized by unstable working, employment and living conditions that hinder both employment and social integration and can turn into a prolonged process of precarization linked to cyclical transitions, causing precarious ageing and widening intersectional differences (Castel, 2003; Samaluk, 2021). While these transitions can be particularly problematic for migrants, whose social and employment rights can be indirectly linked to their fixed migration status, there are also eroding social rights for other workers and citizens. In other words, the link between stable work and durable social relations achieved through welfare states’ compromise that had, at least in the Global North, shielded against precarity is no longer the norm for an increasing number of (non)citizens (Castel, 2003; Samaluk, 2021; Bolzman, 2002). Neoliberalization thus also brings changes to citizens’ civil, political and social rights (Marshall, 2009), whose development corresponded with the formation of welfare states in the Global North, many of which are nowadays transforming into workfarist states that undermine Keynesian–welfarist employment and social protections (Samaluk, 2021; Greer, 2016). This turn is thus also marked by a shift from social to ‘contractual citizenship’ based on exchange and contractual morality that centres around exchange value in which people are turned into quantities and qualities of human capital and morally judged regarding their abilities to fulfil quid pro quo conditionality (Somers, 2008). This turn can be seen in increasingly workfarist social and active labour market policies, which are in the USA and across Europe incentivising or conditioning the unemployed to undertake unwaged or precarious work and controlling them, sometimes by utilising the same multinational corporations that are also contracted by the state to police migrants (such as SERCO or G4S in the UK) (Samaluk, 2021; Greer, 2016; Greer et al., 2014). Precarity thus has a particular function within the globalized political economy that is valuable to capital and its mobility strategies. With regards to capital’s contemporary mobility strategies, Sassen speaks of ‘economic citizenship’, which does not belong to citizens but to firms and markets and is located in global economic actors, who have affected the capacities of individual governments to regulate their economies, citizenship rights and the supply of and demand for labour (2015: 38–44). This became very visible during the current Covid-19 pandemic, when multinational companies,
Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times 57 most receiving prior unconditional government support to preserve jobs, started closing down their production lines in Europe, leaving behind hundreds of unemployed workers (examples include Nissan in Spain and Adient, Safilo and Trevis in Slovenia) (Gole and Kotnik, 2021; Davies and Tidey, 2020). Economic citizenship is enabled through bilateral, regional or transnational trade agreements that always prioritize free trade and thus the mobility of capital, services and goods over the mobility of persons because destination countries are not willing to lose their sovereignty over migration controls. While most transnational agreements allow visa-free business or tourist travel or ease entry for highly skilled workers, they do not grant people the right to residence and establishment. The exceptions to this are the EU (with previously mentioned transitional measures for the mobility of persons from the new member states) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (De Haas et al., 2020, p. 238). The hypermobility of capital is further advanced by so-called citizenship- or residence-by-investment, offered by some nation states beyond standard entry/naturalization criteria or checks in exchange for money (Kunz, 2020). Such citizenships or ‘golden visas’ are often granted without checks on the sources of wealth or are designed to hide wealth from tax authorities. Kunz writes that citizenship-by-investment began in the former British colony island of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, which is today a popular tax haven, ‘offering its “citizenship customers” limited disclosure of financial information, no taxes on income or capital gains, and, from 2009, visa-free travel to the Schengen area’ (Kunz, 2020, p. 1). This gives the super-rich the ability to move wealth and at the same time (ab)use and erode the inter-generational system of solidarity that could maintain the Keynesian compromise and its related economic and social security both within origin and destination countries. The situation for the growing global precariat is quite the opposite. Neoliberal attacks on welfare states’ compromise have eroded the rights and protective mechanisms for a growing number of residents in the Global North, but the situation is even more precarious for migrant workers because their employment and social rights are indirectly linked to increasingly restrictive migration policies accompanied by moralistic discourses of (un)deservingness (Anderson, 2010; Bolzman, 2002; Schierup and Krifors, 2015). Restrictive migration policies thus often hinder access to welfare institutions, the labour market and thus social and employment rights, which are conditioned upon the citizenship, residence or migration status of a person (Čebron and Zorn, 2016; Zorn, 2008). This became especially problematic during the Covid-19 pandemic, when some groups of migrants were excluded from Covid-19 income support schemes or lacked entitlement to healthcare despite the fact that many became key workers during that period (Guadagno, 2020). Apart from external securitization, migration policies thus also create all sorts of internal borders that hinder access to social rights and are further visible in detention centres and other internal and external border control infrastructures, which are maintained by a growing industry aimed at controlling both precarious migrants and citizens (Čebron and Zorn, 2016; De Haas et al., 2020; Greer et al., 2014). Nevertheless, the securitization of migration also importantly shapes the strategies of mobile subjects to reach specific destinations through various avoidance techniques, the share of information, the informal economy, etc. (Čebron and Zorn, 2016). Moreover, it also has a marketization effect visible in growing migration industries, one regularized through growing security institutions or legal recruitment agencies and the other informal, regularized through various other intermediaries such as smugglers, human traffickers, informal networks, recruiters and employers.
58 Research handbook on inequalities and work
GROWING TRANSNATIONAL (LABOUR) MIGRATION INTERMEDIARY INDUSTRY The control and recruitment of international labour has always been central in shaping global migration patterns. In the past, such recruitment was often organized by states and businesses, and the already mentioned British example from the 1950s and 1960s involved British civil servants, hospital administrators and nursing leaders, who recruited nurses directly from the colonies (Babikian, 2021). Nowadays recruitment has become an expanded, diverse and transnational migration industry, ranging from formal transnational recruitment to employment agencies, informal operators, agents, employers, smugglers and various other migration intermediaries with a strong interest in the continuation of migration (De Haas et al., 2020, pp. 66–67). This tells us that important actors in migration processes are also mobile services and the (non-)migrants operating these services. As a consequence, migrant agency work and recruitment has become an increasing concern in policy debates and research over the last years (Agunias, 2012; Fitzgerald, 2006; Broek et al., 2016; Samaluk, 2016a; Kovacheva et al., 2019; Findlay et al., 2013; McCollum, 2013; Samaluk, 2014). The global expansion of the transnational labour migration intermediary industry is linked to the process of neoliberalization and accompanying unequal mobility regimes that facilitate the mobility of capital and transnational services, which can utilize a new pool of precarious labour supply in existing and emerging peripheries. Through their transnational mobility practices, intermediary services play an important role in the contemporary colonization of peripheral areas with newly available pools of precarious labour (Samaluk, 2014; Samaluk, 2016a). As Coe et al. (2007) argue, the particular geography of employment agencies is determined by deregulation and can thus be found in the low-wage segments of economies that have been particularly open to liberalization. A relatively recent example of such geographical expansion of the transnational (labour) migration intermediary industry is post-socialist European countries, particularly those implementing various neoliberal regimes, such as Baltic, Visegrad and Southeastern European states (Samaluk, 2014; Samaluk, 2016a; Coe et al., 2007; Kovacheva et al., 2019). Transnational labour migration services thus act as intermediaries between countries and regions (Ward et al., 2005), especially economically unequal peripheral and rich(er) countries. With technological advances of digitalization and as services prioritized in trade agreements, they can move across geographical and national boundaries without much constraint by establishing offices, building networks or business partnerships in destination countries and increasingly also by operating online through websites or job portals (Samaluk, 2016a; Samaluk, 2014; Bonet et al., 2013). Within the EU transnational recruitment is also facilitated through the EURES network formed by public employment services within the member states (Kovacheva et al., 2019; Findlay et al., 2013). For migrants, whose legal entry or stay is restricted through migration policies, smugglers, informal agents or other intermediaries can play an important role in recruitment (De Haas et al., 2020). Overall, transnational labour migration industry is a global phenomenon, on the one hand facilitating global South–North migration and on the other inter- or intra-regional migration between or within the Gulf, Asia, Australasia, the Americas or Europe (Agunias, 2009; Agunias, 2012; De Haas et al., 2020; Broek et al., 2016; McCollum, 2013; Samaluk, 2016a). Transnational labour market intermediaries can offer a range of services that transform the former bilateral worker–employer relationship into a triangular or multilateral relationship.
Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times 59 In this regard, Bonet et al. (2013) offer a useful human resource management typology, distinguishing between information providers, which offer information about jobs/candidates; matchmakers, which provide recruitment and other placement services; and administrators, which act as professional employment organizations. The latter are also subject to regulations in specific countries or within the transnational single market (for instance, the EU’s Directive on Temporary Agency Work (2008/104/EC)), while the conduct of information providers and matchmakers is difficult to regulate and control. Moreover, transnational labour migration intermediaries can specialize in skilled or unskilled workers in particular occupations, sectors or industries or particular ethnic/national migrant groups (Samaluk, 2016a; Samaluk, 2014; Broek et al., 2016). For instance, transnational labour migration intermediaries are increasingly important in providing migrant (mostly female) workers for welfare occupations, such as healthcare, social work or education (Hussein et al., 2010; Broek and Groutsis, 2017). Labour migration intermediaries are also an increasingly popular ethnic niche businesses, specialising for particular ethnic/national groups, and, apart from the various above-mentioned services, they also offer cross-cultural services to employers or workers and may also be run by migrants themselves (Samaluk, 2016a; Samaluk, 2014). These co-ethnic businesses can, due to immediate symbolic identification, also be more easily trusted by those wishing to migrate and new arrivals, although they can be equally exploitative, especially to those with weak or no social links or destination language skills (Samaluk, 2016a). Moreover, transnational migration intermediaries can play an important role in commodifying diverse migrant workers through their racial, ethnic, national, age, and gender identities; other bodily and attitudinal features; and their intersections in order to construct an image of desirable migrant workers sought by employers in particular sectors or industries (Samaluk, 2014; Findlay et al., 2013). In their commodifying practices intermediaries can thus also assign a ‘racialised price-tag’ to migrant labour that is then segmented and marketed for particular jobs (Samaluk, 2014). Intermediaries thus segment and channel migrants into particular jobs, filter information regarding the quality of jobs and rights of workers and shape the decisions of those wishing to migrate and their entry level jobs and labour market outcomes (Samaluk, 2014; Samaluk, 2016a; Broek et al., 2016). Apart from offering various human resource management services to clients–employers, transnational staffing agencies also offer specialized services to migrant workers–consumers (Samaluk, 2016a; Broek et al., 2016). Migrants’ motives to use intermediaries are diverse and can range from simply using these services to gain information about jobs in destination countries or access to foreign employers to also involving other transitional or living arrangements upon arrival (Samaluk, 2016a). These can also depend on types of work sought. For instance, for female migrants searching for domestic work, agencies can also be perceived as a channel for a safe and secure passage to a live-in working arrangement (Samaluk, 2016a). Agencies thus act as gateways through which workers gain information and access, search for jobs and organize initial working/living arrangements in destination countries. They can recruit workers directly from sending countries, often with exaggerated portrayals of the benefits of employment and the quality of jobs in destination countries and filtered information regarding the rights of workers and living/working conditions, and thus codetermine the temporal, spatial, occupational and sectorial trends of labour migration from sending and within the destination countries (McCollum et al., 2013; Broek et al., 2016; Samaluk, 2016a). Those wishing to migrate and new arrivals can be particularly vulnerable to unscrupulous intermediaries trying to extract profits from migrants through service fees or by offering new
60 Research handbook on inequalities and work arrivals self-paying training opportunities (Samaluk, 2016a; Broek et al., 2016). Nevertheless, migration intermediaries with a more long-term agenda or professional and regulated agencies are careful about their reputation and also have an interest in delivering to both migrants and employers (De Haas et al., 2020; Agunias, 2012; Samaluk, 2016a). Overall, intermediaries can operate and intervene at origins and destinations and at different stages in the migration process, thus co-determining migrants’ employment and living conditions, and these relationships can be either exploitative or mutually beneficial (Agunias, 2012). Although migrant agency workers can face various abuses from agencies, migrants can also make strategic use of intermediaries and their temporary status to sustain their life and occupational projects or build their capacities (Agunias, 2009; Alberti, 2014; Samaluk, 2016b). These strategies are nevertheless shaped by unequal economic and symbolic geographies and can thus also be based upon the (self-)colonial anticipation of future economic and symbolic profits gained by living, working or training in transnationally renown destinations (Samaluk, 2016b; Weiss, 2011). An understanding of migrants’ agency thus needs to go beyond methodological nationalism and demands engagement with socio-economic histories and processes within sending and destination countries. Moreover, migrant workers’ agency is not only crucial in facilitating human mobility but also in stimulating the labour movement’s renewal.
(SELF-)ORGANIZATION OF MIGRANT LABOUR While the labour movement has been slow in engaging with migrant workers, there are now increasing union attempts to organize migrant labour within destination countries or transnationally (Greer et al., 2013; Samaluk, 2017; Alberti et al., 2013). The relationship between unions and migrants is shaped by the interplay between political, economic and institutional factors, which include the host country’s industrial relation system, its embeddedness within wider markets through agreements or transitional regulations and sectoral dynamics, as well as the agency of individual unions and their activists and migrant workers (Alberti and Però, 2018; Hardy et al., 2012; Krings, 2009; Lillie et al., 2019). For instance, increasing labour market interdependences on the EU level have stimulated cross-border East–West trade union cooperation to organize mobile migrant and posted workers; however, this was mainly achieved through temporary projects that were difficult to sustain, due to their strictly experimental nature, the lack of available funds and/or the absence of support from internal structures or partners in other countries (Greer et al., 2013; Samaluk, 2017; Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk, 2020). The relationship between established unions and precarious migrant workers can thus be ambivalent due to unions’ resistance to internal structural and cultural change that would allow for more bottom-up agenda-setting, different tactics and fuller incorporation of migrant workers into union structures (Alberti and Però, 2018; Samaluk, 2017). Another major obstacle for unions’ success in organizing migrant workers is their universalistic class-based approach, which fails to incorporate the intersectional differences and overlapping forms of oppression faced by migrant workers that go way beyond the immediate workplace conditions (Alberti et al., 2013). As a consequence, trade union renewal with regards to migrant and precarious workers is increasingly emerging from grassroots endeavours initiated by migrant and other precarious workers. The key characteristic of these grassroots initiatives has been their simultaneous relevance to both the material and non-material needs of migrant workers,
Migrant workers and precarity in neoliberal times 61 not simply reflecting issues of pay and conditions but a complex and multistranded response to the intersecting oppressions faced (Alberti and Però, 2018). In recent years a number of independent grassroots indie unions (the Independent Workers of Great Britain, the United Voices of the World and the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union) co-led by migrants have emerged and grown substantially (Però, 2019). These initiatives challenge the stereotypical perceptions among established unions that migrant workers are unorganizable and rather demonstrate that they can ‘build lasting solidarity and associational power and obtain material and non-material rewards in the context of precarity, scarce economic resources and a hostile environment’ (Però, 2019, p. 1). Just like other precarious workers, migrants are weakly embedded in the workplace and community and as such need a different mobilizing approach that initially centres on the development of ‘communities of struggle’ (Però, 2019). A necessary prerequisite of successful migrant workers’ organizing is thus proactive tactics, which can also include innovative use of social media to reach and bring together atomized precarious workers in order to start building communities for (self-) organizing (Samaluk, 2017). In the context of growing precarity on various local and global scales, mobilization and resistance should thus not be based solely upon class struggles but forged amongst (trans)national communities facing the commodification of social existence (Burawoy, 2008).
CONCLUSION The chapter focused on work inequalities in relation to growing precarity and labour migration in contemporary global neoliberalism. It showed that transnational mobility and migration is increasingly global, diverse and characterized by unequal mobility regimes that have with global neoliberalization escalated to an unparalleled scale and intensity that causes growing precarity on various local and global scales. While capital is increasingly hypermobile and unrestricted, international labour is being controlled and manipulated by changing state institutions and a growing transnational labour migration industry that segments and channels migrants into particular destinations and jobs. Nevertheless the chapter also showed that growing inequalities also stimulate migrants’ agency and (self-)organizing power. The chapter thus offers an overview of underexplored yet growing scholarship focusing on unequal mobility regimes linked to neoliberalization and related changing institutions of citizenship, the growing transnational labour migration industry and the self-organization of migrants.
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5. White feminism in organisation studies: a calling out Elaine Swan
White feminism is an active form of harm. […] White feminist objectives work to liberate privileged women while keeping other structures of injustice intact. (Schuller, 2021: 4)
INTRODUCTION I start with this quote as it succinctly epitomises the critique levelled at white feminism. Although uses of the pejorative hashtag ‘white feminism’ proliferate on social media, and blogposts, online media posts, and books critique various practices and meanings of white feminism, as I write, such a challenge has hardly reached white feminist writing in organisation studies. Accordingly, in this chapter, I briefly introduce critiques by feminists of colour and Indigenous women of white feminism and extend them towards organisational research, situating my discussion within calls for research on race, racism, and the racialisation of white people and structures in organisations (see for instance Nkomo, 1992, 2021; Liu et al., 2021). My aim is for those of us racialised as white and with feminist commitments to deepen our understanding of how gender, feminism, and whiteness intersect in ways that harm people of colour and Indigenous people and to find ways to transform white feminist activist and academic practices and take ‘meaningful redistributive action’ (Jonsson, 2021). In 1992, leading Black organisational scholar Stella Nkomo (1992) called for organisation studies to pay attention to race. In 2021, she repeated the message. Little had changed in those two decades. She challenged organisational thinkers for their assumptions about the universality of Western knowledge, their reproduction of the myth of race-neutral organisations, their absenting race as a core analytical category, and their erasure of Black scholarship. She writes that ‘race has been present all along in organisations’ but invisible except where scholars study ‘race’ itself as an explicit topic (Nkomo, 1992: 488). What is at stake for Nkomo is that we need to attend to race as an analytical category for any organisational topic (1992: 507). If scholars treat organisations as race-neutral, the consequences for Nkomo are quite clear: they deny the history of colonialism and slavery, contemporary racial structures, racialised subjects in organisations, and ongoing anti-Blackness (Nkomo, 2021). This denial has knock-on effects for the everyday racisms, micro-aggressions, and exploitations that racially (and ethnically) marginalised employees experience in organisations, which have ‘material, corporeal, carnal and psychic effects’, including in the academy (Tate, 2016: 73). As a result of this long-standing, pernicious, and persistent neglect in organisation studies, Nkomo called for a new field of study in 2021: race in organisations. Studying race in organisations means taking a contextual, multi-level approach, examining race’s historical, cultural, subjective, power, and structural manifestations through multiple theoretical perspectives (Nkomo, 2021). 65
66 Research handbook on inequalities and work One approach that Nkomo discusses and that I take in this chapter is to deploy critical whiteness studies. Critical whiteness scholars work from different perspectives but broadly speaking they understand whiteness as a congeries of historic, economic, cultural, social, bodily phenomenological, and psychological processes that reproduce racism, privilege, power, and oppression. In essence, critical whiteness studies are a broad range of perspectives focused on power and racialising white people, or ‘denaturalising whiteness’ (Liu and Barker, 2016). Studying whiteness in ways that do not narcissistically re-centre whiteness but seek to challenge white power and white privilege matters because whiteness sustains power and reproduces racial inequality, harm, exclusions, violence, and racism (Nkomo, 1992, 2021; Liu et al., 2021; Dar et al., 2021). Hence, organisational critical whiteness studies seek not simply to describe but to challenge white power and white privilege in organisations, including academia. Although there is an emergent literature in feminist organisation studies on whiteness (e.g., Bates and Ng, 2021; Grimes, 2002; Hunter, Swan, and Grimes, 2010; Liu and Baker, 2016; Liu and Pechenkina, 2016; MacAlpine and Marsh, 2005; Nkomo, 1992; Nkomo and Al Ariss, 2014; Samaluk, 2014; Swan, 2010, 2017a, 2017b), less attention has been given specifically to the racialisation of gender, the significance of middle-class white femininity, and the orientation of white feminism (see Swan, 2010, 2017b). Exceptions include feminist women of colour such as scholars Stella Nkomo, Helena Liu, and Evangelina Holvino, who critique the lack of attention given to race and gender. In her ground-breaking work, Liu (2020) foregrounds the white feminisation of leadership and documents its racist and colonial effects and how it shores up white patriarchy. In this chapter, I build on this previous work in organisation studies, critical whiteness studies of the racialisation of gender and white feminism in wider social sciences, and my ongoing work together with Deborah Jones and Deirdre Tedmason to call for feminist organisational studies to reflect critically on its white feminism. With ‘white feminism’, we draw on a concept developed by feminists of colour that critiques feminist theorising and political projects that come from and universalise a white perspective with harmful and exclusionary effects (Jonsson, 2014). In a call for papers for the Gender, Work, and Organization conference in 2020, Jones, Tedmason, and I invited a critical engagement with white feminism from academics working within white-dominated academic institutions and as actual or potential anti-racist scholar-activists. We aimed to find ways to transform feminism in organisational studies and build anti-racist scholarship and practice that challenge the structures that reproduce normative whiteness, anti-Blackness, and racism. In this chapter, I lay out preliminary ideas on the racialisation of gender in relation to whiteness, critiques from scholars of colour of white feminism, and reflections on where next.
WHITE FEMINISM White feminists, in the words of Hazel Carby way back in 1982, need to ‘let go of their authority to define the social reality of the universal gendered subject’ (Carby cited in Mirza, 2015: 4). Carby stresses here how white feminists assume the universality of womanhood and feminist sisterhood, erasing white privilege and other axes of intersectionality and inequality, a critique repeatedly levelled at white feminism by many scholars and activists of colour.
White feminism in organisation studies 67 We have a sustained history of feminism of colour and Indigenous scholars detailing how feminism has failed them; the injustices and struggles they faced during difference waves of feminism; and the erasure of women of colour, Islamic, and Indigenous feminisms. Indeed, we need to take account of the history of women of colour, Islamic feminists, and Indigenous women in challenging and confronting white feminists and feminisms on a range of counts: excluding women of colour’s lives, theories, and problems; marginalising faith; and ignoring our/white feminists’ collusion in racism, imperialism, and colonialism (for instance see Amos et al., 1984; Carby, 1982; hooks, 2000; Moreton-Robinson, 2000). For instance, Indigenous Australian feminist Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2000) has a body of work that discusses how white feminism ignores how the formation of white women’s race privilege is tied to colonisation and the dispossession of Indigenous people. Moreover, she insists that white feminists in settler colonies benefit from colonisation (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). The sum of this thinking is that white feminists often create an exclusionary feminism that ignores people of colour’s needs, experiences, and expertise. As a result, white feminism reproduces racism, oppression, white feminine privilege, and the deprivation and non-protection of the rights of people of colour (Ngo, 2020). Indeed, scholars of colour insist that racism has been and continues to be ingrained in white feminism and that white feminists continue to erase this history of resistance. Gender studies academic Caroline McFadden (2011) argues that white feminists exhibit racism towards non-white women by theorising only about white women even when they claim to be writing about all women. Indeed, critical whiteness feminist Terese Jonsson (2016) refers to the gendered whiteness and racism specific to feminism and connected to white supremacy, slavery, and colonialism as ‘white feminist racism’. Indigenous women and women of colour repeatedly call out white feminism for its racism and how this takes its immense toll. British education anti-racist scholar Heidi Mirza (2015) stresses how immense emotional and cognitive labour has been needed to try to get British white feminists to raise their self-consciousness and recognise racism to very little effect. Black feminists have been trying since the 1970s, she insists, which has left black feminists ‘angry’, exhausted, and in need of self-recovery. The emotional labour and stress of negotiating white feminism in organisation studies have yet to be acknowledged or addressed by most organisational studies feminists despite critiques of racism in business schools and studies (Nkomo, 1992, 2021; Liu et al., 2021; Dar et al., 2021).
WHITE FEMINIST ORGANISATION STUDIES Briefly put, white feminist organisation studies take middle-class white women as their subjects and foreground gender as the dominant form of oppression. Hence, as Mirza (2015) argues, white feminism reproduces studies on (white) gender equality, work–life balance, success, leadership, and power in male-dominated boardrooms and universities, all topics which dominate organisation studies. She insists that these do not connect with problems facing women of colour, such as racist policing, Islamophobic state surveillance, the growing incarceration of people of colour, and forced migration, all of which could be understood through an organisation studies lens. What is also under-appreciated by white feminist organisation studies scholars is the extent to which middle-class white women – academics and professionals – benefit from their white femininity and their relation to white men (Holvino, 2010; hooks, 2000). Organisational
68 Research handbook on inequalities and work anti-racist scholar Evangelina Holvino (2010) stresses that white heterosexual middle-class women’s status comes from the privileges they inherit from their fathers, lovers, and male organisational mentors. Middle-class affluent white women pursue their careers because women of colour do their domestic social reproduction as paid work in their homes. In other words, they ‘have openly exploited women of colour as domestic workers and organizational assistants’, deploying racial and class privilege to diminish their social position and options (Holvino, 2010: 254). Put another way, white middle-class women and men create a ‘special place for white women only’ in organisations, which women of colour try to confront as individuals and collectives, including in universities. What is at stake here is how middle-class white women are complicit with racism and patriarchy in ways ignored by white feminist organisation studies. Another case in point is white feminists’ engagement with the concept of ‘intersectionality’, an idea promulgated by black feminists and other feminists of colour to discuss the complexity of their positionality. These complexities had been part of black feminism for many years before the concept was generated by African American legal theorist and critical race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. She argues that ‘although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices’ (Crenshaw, 1991: 1421–22). Feminist organisation studies have taken up intersectionality as an analytic method with some alacrity. However, critical race theorists are sceptical towards white feminists’ repeated mantra of intersectionality in their writing, especially when gender rather than race is foregrounded, as is often the case, including within organisation studies. As Mirza argues, such a move ‘recentres hegemonic whiteness, situating (white) gender difference as the foundational position from which they speak’ (2015: 4). Feminists of colour note that white feminism has ‘whitened’ intersectionality, ignoring the ways that race intersects with feminist claims (Bilge, 2013; Kanai, 2019). Too often, white academic feminism in organisation studies erases racial specificity. Postcolonial theorist Jasbir Puar asks whether intersectionality operates as an ‘an alibi for the re-centering of white liberal feminists?’ (cited in Mirza, 2015: 3). Mirza suggests white feminists intone intersectionality in their research as if the invocation substituted for an intersectional analysis. In this way, as Australian digital feminist Akane Kanai suggests intersectionality is ‘misidentified’ as a movement ‘within feminism rather than exceeding it’ (2019: 29). Consequently, white feminists gate-keep feminism as a project that belongs to white women, and racialised Others, especially hijab-wearing Muslims, are not ‘good feminists’ (Jonsson, 2016). At the same time, white feminism ignores or co-opts the thinking and experience of women of colour. As Jonsson stresses, when white feminists draw on work by feminists of colour, they must acknowledge the feminists of colour who have developed it and their continued exclusion by white women and men within the academy. Otherwise they are appropriating their work and assimilating it into white-dominated academia while keeping them invisible and reproducing racial hierarchies. Indeed, in relation to intersectionality, white feminism diminishes the research of women of colour and ‘hoards’ academic resources, ‘asset-stripping’ the academic achievements of women of colour (Tomlinson, 2019). One important practice here is around citational politics. Hence, often white feminism does not cite the work that has influenced some of its thinking, not giving academics of colour proper credit or recognition for their scholarly contributions.
White feminism in organisation studies 69
WHITE FEMININITIES The racialisation of gender is key to understanding white feminism. Indigenous scholars and feminists of colour argue that whiteness is gendered and that middle-class white femininity underpins white feminism and white privilege. Hence, we can understand white feminism as the effect of white feminists avoiding analysing white femininity as racialised and classed and wilfully ignoring how ‘appropriate’ femininity is entangled with performing idealised embodied and emotional whiteness (Daniels, 2015; Jonsson, 2014). Broadly speaking white middle-class femininities are culturally associated in Euro-American cultures with ideals of goodness, knowledge, purity, and moral authority (Kanai, 2019; Moon, 1999; Moreton-Robinson, 2000). Middle-class femininity is also linked with innocence. Explorations of gender and whiteness have focussed on how white women are often seen (and desire to see themselves) as innocently ignorant of racism (Liu and Baker, 2016; Moreton-Robinson, 2000). White women’s innocence is grounded in 19th-century imperial discourses that constructed white women as custodians of bourgeois morality and facilitated the denial and concealment of white women’s historical and ongoing complicity with white supremacy (Liu, 2021; Srivastava, 2005; Sullivan, 2014). White women’s desire for innocence means they forget their historic and contemporary complicit location in relation to white privilege and domination (Moon, 1999; Moreton-Robinson, 2000; Srivastava, 2005; Sullivan, 2014; Liu and Baker, 2016). Related to innocence is the ideal of white middle-class goodness. White feminism is complicit with racism and privilege through white benevolence and the ‘race to innocence’ (Razack, 1998; Sullivan, 2014). White feminists’ desire to be innocent, good subjects means they see themselves outside of hierarchical social relations and deny their past and present connections to colonialism and power. US whiteness scholar Shannon Sullivan (2014) explains that ‘white middle-class goodness’ concerns itself with being seen as a good anti-racist subject rather than confronting systematic racism and privilege. As Australian digital feminist Akane Kanai (2019) notes, because whiteness is a systemic form of power, it cannot simply be side-stepped by individual gestures of imagined goodness. Canadian postcolonial theorist Sherene Razack (1998) argues that the ideal of white feminine benevolence means that white feminists reproduce imperial relations and colonial scripts of cultural inferiority, positioning themselves as modern, free, and enlightened and brown women as in need of saving, in the process affirming their superiority. Moreover, they ignore African and Asian women’s own strategies of resistance. Progressive ideas mask relations of power and enable feminists to deny their complicity in violence and oppression. In this vein, Mirza suggests that ‘“the veiled Muslim woman” has become a new object of white feminist guilt and desire, an abject symbol of oppression and therefore in need of the ultimate “saving”’ (2015: 5).
COMPLICITY OF WHITE FEMINISM Critical to the project of racialising gender and critically evaluating the harms of white feminism would be white feminists facing their own complicity, recognising their inheritance, their racialised cultural and economic power, and that of the white women they study. As Meredith Neville-Shepard writes, ‘white feminism pretends that all women are equally vulnerable’
70 Research handbook on inequalities and work and ‘disregards the privilege white women possess thanks to the power and protection that whiteness affords’ (2023: 50). This means white women thinking about when they might be oppressors, something many of us are reluctant to do (Carby, 1982). One approach is for white feminists to interrogate how their material privileging compromises their analysis and produces harm and exclusionary effects. White feminists do not ‘see’ or understand racialised worlds (Mirza, 2015). This can mean that theory produced by white feminists and the normatively white conditions through which it is produced marginalise and silence women of colour perspectives in several ways. For example, Holvino points to the complex interaction between paid and unpaid work in the lives of women of colour and how racially minoritised men and women face patterns of inequality, disadvantage, and discrimination in the workplace. Nirmal Puwar writes: ‘while the “glass ceiling” has cracked quite significantly in relation to gender, for “race” there exists a “concrete ceiling” [that] has just been chipped ever so slightly’ (2004: 7). Karen Proudford and Stella Nkomo (2006) outline the disparities between white and black and minority ethnic workers in rates of employment; wages, earnings, and pay; measures of managerial competence; promotion; exclusion from social networks; access to career opportunities; and the experience of racism in its banal and more violent forms. Very little has been written in white feminism about how white women racially oppress women of colour at work, including universities; how white women reproduce micro-aggressions in the workplace and their effects on women of colour; and how white feminism in organisations shifts white women into positions of privilege while marginalising women of colour and Indigenous women. White feminism can ‘reinforce masculine, corporate, imperial structures’, uphold white women’s complicity with reproductive violence and other forms of state violence, and conceal marginalised voices and struggles (Ulus, 2018; Neville-Shepard, 2023). Turning our attention to white feminists in universities, Ahmed (2018) writes that white feminism can also summarise a relation to an organisation. Whiteness itself could be understood here as an aspirational; as what you are supposed to aspire to be, as how you would move up the organisation.
For Ahmed this means thinking about ‘how an emphasis on being included in existing structures, on being promoted within those structures, leaves the structures in place, including whiteness itself as a structure’ (Ahmed, 2018: 341). Such characterisations raise important issues for white feminists in organisation studies in senior permanent positions able to wield power and mobilise resources and networks in leadership roles in departments, research projects, and journals. A related question is how reviewing, editing, publishing, and citational practices marginalise Indigenous scholars and scholars of colour and reproduce the institutional whiteness of British academia and publishing. As Liu et al. insist, white academics’ practices lead to repeated ‘acts of censorship, silencing, bullying, gaslighting, co-optation, [and] erasure of scholars of colour’ (2021: 106).
CONCLUSION In this relatively short chapter, I have sought to stress that those of marked as white feminists need to engage deeply and meaningfully with critiques of white feminism by people of colour. These critiques may be from university academics, PhD students, colleagues, activists, and
White feminism in organisation studies 71 popular culture and media. Feminist organisation studies need to acknowledge the racial privilege and power of the middle-class white female subject and how white feminists efface their own power and complicity in the academy. It is critical to recognise and address the marginalisation and exclusions of people of colour in these processes and how even when white feminism claims to be anti-racist, it can reproduce whiteness, racism, and violence (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). Finally, it is important, without a return to re-centring whiteness or reproducing white narcissism, that we white feminists do not position ourselves as transcending whiteness or being the good ones. Jonsson suggests that Recognising one’s complicity within oppressive systems is about developing an acute understanding of precisely where and how we are positioned within oppressive structures, and how we can use the power that we are afforded within these structures to work towards undoing them. (2021)
Perhaps one way forward is to call each other out. As women of colour stress, white feminism has been unwilling to call out white women when social and political events demand it. This chapter, building on growing resistance and critique from feminists of colour in organisational studies, is just one small calling out.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr Deborah Jones and Dr Tedmason with whom I started to think through some of these ideas as we co-ran the White Feminism Stream at GWO, June 2020. I would like to thank editor Dr Mustafa Öztürk for his collegiality, patience, and kindness whilst helping me finish the chapter.
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6. Autoethnography as a research approach – bringing the self into research on workplace inequalities Saoirse Caitlin O’Shea
Anthropology is blind to how much its practice relies on the art of telling other people’s stories – badly. (Taussig, 2006, p. 62)
The idea of an objective, neutral research process separate to, and distanced from, the object studied has been questioned in the social sciences for many years. James Clifford and George Marcus’s (1986) edited volume Writing Culture controversially questioned the supposed objective, authorial neutrality considered fundamental not just to anthropology and ethnography but to academic writing and research more widely. It set the scene for what became called the ‘crisis of representation’ in the social sciences in the 1990s and beyond. When I started to research for my eventual PhD in 1998 Writing Culture was one of several texts that my doctoral supervisor recommended I read. I had studied Chemistry for my undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications, had worked in the chemical industry for over a decade and was a member of a Royal Society. Writing Culture shattered me, it exposed my unquestioned beliefs not just about how we conduct research but also about how we present that research – what we write, how we write, for whom and why became fundamental questions that I needed to relate to. I still do. Nearly a quarter of a century later I still do not have answers worthy of those questions. I hope to address these questions in this chapter and will consider why autoethnography may be a suitable research method for exploring issues of workplace inequality. This chapter is both about and in places takes the form of an autoethnography.
WORKPLACE INEQUALITY AND THE ‘WHAT’ OF ETHNOGRAPHY Work – who is managed, how, by whom and for whom – has been a subject of interest in the social sciences at least since Adam Smith wrote of Scottish women labouring to make pins in the late 1700s. Smith’s tale of rich, indolent women destined to be ‘barren’ and fecund but impoverished female labourers was not just a treatise on work but undergirded by a moralisation of gendered work inequality in a world where only men can aspire to being happy, rich and content. The ‘good life’ for women, according to Smith, was not one of indolence and hyper-consumption but where women worked to rear healthy children. The acceptance and justification of gendered work inequality has a long history. Work, and more particularly the management of work, also has a long history of racial inequality and links to slavery (Cooke, 2003). It is still imbricated with issues of race and ethnic inequality and modern day slavery (Crane, 2013). Research that looks at the work 74
Autoethnography as a research approach 75 experiences of people categorised by the UK Equality Act 2010 as having other protected characteristics, such as gender reassignment, age, disability and so on, soon reveals that they too suffer injustice at work, in maintaining their employment and in accessing employment. The workplace has been and clearly remains a place of inequality where some are treated less fairly than others. Work ethnography has been an established and accepted research method in Business and Management at least since Clifford and Marcus. Studies have included research into the experiences of people on aircraft carrier flight decks (Weick and Roberts, 1993), in fire departments (Desmond, 2007), on oil rigs (Collinson, 1999), in factory assembly lines (Delbridge, 1998), at Disney (Van Maanen, 1990) and even in universities (Bhattacharya, 2016; Boncori et al., 2020; Knights and Clarke, 2014; Śliwa and Johansson, 2014). When we use ethnographic methods we enter our research subjects’ worlds, observe their experiences, listen to their stories and develop a rapport and empathy with them. As ethnographers we not only describe the lived experiences of people in specific work contexts but may also provide a critical perspective of the often unquestioned assumptions and issues that enable workplace injustice. Workplace ethnography has thus developed away from providing a detailed account of working lives and of different workplace environments to ‘a recognition of the ethnographer’s responsibility to interrogate social locations and power differences’ (McQueeney, 2013: 451). Feminist critical ethnography, for instance, has researched the gender power dynamics that operate in organisations (Ely and Meyerson, 2010; Ely and Padavic, 2007) and the gendered and embodied labour of work (Aitchison and Mowbray, 2013; Hochschild, 1983; Küpers, 2005; Pringle, 1988). Others have studied workplace bullying (Branch and Murray, 2015), ethnicity (Dar, 2018; Deitch et al., 2003; Liu, 2017; Nkomo, 1988; Roberts et al., 2019), intersectionality (Carrim and Nkomo, 2016), masculinity (Collinson, 1988), ageing (Riach and Cutcher, 2014; Riach et al., 2014), disability (Mik-Meyer, 2015; Kjær and Van Amsterdam, 2020; Richards and Sang, 2019; Sang et al., 2021), neurodiversity (Roberts et al., 2019), sexuality (Öztürk and Rumens, 2014; Öztürk et al., 2020; Priola et al., 2014; Riach and Wilson, 2014), the sexualisation of work (Hales et al., 2019 and 2021) and sizeism (Van Amsterdam and Van Eck, 2019), to name but a few topics. Access to and permission to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in workplaces are often subject to gatekeeping that may limit what and who may be studied, where and how. Gatekeepers may require something in return for granting access – a report summarizing research findings, for instance – and some may require sight of any material that stems from the research. Knowledge that a gatekeeper has oversight may affect both the themes that are investigated and how both the ethnographer and their subjects act. Anteby (2013) discusses how ethnographic research may be intrusive for the people studied and the researcher may be depicted as detached from, or downplay their involvement in, the field of study or omit discussion of their involvement entirely. As he suggests, this ignores the political aspects where ‘at its core, fieldwork must be regarded as something of a traitorous activity’ (Van Maanen and Kolb, 1985, p. 24, cited in Anteby, 2013, p. 1280), both because we expose other people and their lives to advance our research and because the stories that we write may be read by those who may capitalise on the vulnerability of our subjects. Moreover, the subjects of our research are not dupes – they may well know that they are being researched and have a sophisticated understanding of their lives, including being the subjects of research (Riach et al., 2016). We should not be surprised if our subjects demand, rather like Kafka’s Rotpeter, a right of reply. Some research subjects, or gatekeepers, may
76 Research handbook on inequalities and work not take kindly to ‘traitorous activity’ and some situations may be risky. In recent years there has been increased interest in ‘covert research’ (Cant, 2019; Woodcock, 2017) but this ethnographic research is perhaps a last recourse for when ‘access to spheres of social life is closed to social scientists by powerful or secretive interests’ (British Sociological Association, 2017, p. 4). This is not to say that we cannot do ethnographic field work, including covert research, but that we do need to attend to the politics and potential consequences when we do (Rhodes and Carlsen, 2018) and autoethnography may be an appropriate research method for some situations. Autoethnography is by definition a reflexive process. An autoethnographer reflects on their own identity and in that reflection their identity develops – writing, as such, is a processual method of discovering and developing one’s identity. Autoethnography, in terms of researching work-based inequalities and discrimination, provides a means to not only describe and repeat but to challenge them at the source by questioning the basis of identity.
AUTOETHNOGRAPHY Autoethnography is a form of reflexive autobiography that ‘privileges the self-revelatory subject’ (Coffey, 1999, p. 118) and includes elements of both autobiography and ethnography (Ellis, Adams and Bochner, 2011). It goes further than ethnography as the researcher is the subject of their own research in a method considered to be grounded in reflexivity. In answer to the ‘crisis of representation’ it closes the distance between researcher and the subject/s of research and questions both the need for and what is meant by objectivity and neutrality. In practical terms it obviates a need for access and moves the study from interpretation to personal reflexivity. Of concern for those of us interested in issues of workplace inequalities autoethnography may help obviate the need to gain access, should not place vulnerable others in harm’s way and should lessen the likelihood of misrepresentation, particularly through the use of unquestioned stereotypes and oversimplification (Rhodes and Carlsen, 2018). Autoethnography has become an increasingly popular research method in Business and Management since the early 2000s. Both Grey and Sinclair (2006) and Watson (2008) wrote accounts about writing academically. Blenkinsopp (2007) and Boyle and Parry (2007) were among the earliest to use autoethnography to examine a workplace issue. They were followed by Ford and Harding (2008), who do not use the term ‘autoethnography’ but instead describe their article as a reflexive ethnography, and subsequently by Ford and Harding (2010), Keenoy and Seijo (2010) and Learmonth and Humphreys (2011), all of whom describe their work as autoethnography (Learmonth and Humphreys (2011) discuss these early examples but omit Blenkinsopp (2007) and Boyle and Parry (2007)). Since then autoethnography has been used to investigate and discuss issues that include the misuse of power in academia (Boncori, 2020), the experience of writing a doctoral thesis (Boncori and Smith, 2020; Weatherall, 2019), nonconforming gender identity (my own work), racism and misogyny (Liu and Pechenkina, 2016), embodied experiences and sexism (Van Amsterdam, 2015), bullying (Vickers, 2007; Zawadzki and Jensen, 2020) and miscarriage (Boncori and Smith, 2019). Autoethnography provides a means where the marginalised and vulnerable are able to speak about their oppression in their own words. Autoethnography is usually considered as a spectrum between analytic (Anderson, 2006) and evocative writing (Ellis, 1999; Ellis and Bochner, 2006), where the former should
Autoethnography as a research approach 77 convince us of its truth of a shared social world constructed from rigorous analytical coding and analysis. Evocative autoethnography in contrast attempts to convince by establishing an emotional resonance where the researcher explores their own specific experiences and feelings in fine detail in relation to broader social experiences to evoke an emotional resonance with readers (Bochner, 2001). Whilst many autoethnographic accounts lie somewhere between these two extremes, the stories told should nonetheless achieve both specificity and depth and convince others of their truth. That autoethnography is generalisable means furthermore that collective action is possible to oppose these oppressions; autoethnography is therefore political (Holman Jones, 2005) and relevant to both researching and opposing workplace inequalities. One might suppose that an autoethnography is a solo authored piece. However, multi-authored autoethnographies have become increasingly popular recently and these offer a polyvocal richness to a shared account. That they are shared underscores the political potential for these autoethnographies – this is not the experience of a single person but of a marginalised group of people who draw support from each other and reach out to others. They are furthermore often written in their terms and in voices, styles and manners that may not pay heed to the mores and dictates of ‘academic’ English. Martinez (2013) reveals in her autoethnography how those dictates to conform attempt to silence the voices of minorities and that she refuses them in her writing. The demand for ‘good’ autoethnographic writing from some academics holds little sway for me too (O’Shea, 2019). Academic writing often assumes a neutral, supposedly objective voice and authorial distance. This is in stark contrast to prose that has the audacity not to shock but emotionally affect a reader and which attempts to close the distance between writer and readers. A concern with ‘good writing’ has no taste for ‘modes other than the declamatory or the plain’ (Hayot, 2014, p. 59), little realising that such judgements are an expression of an equally self-indulgent sense of taste that allow only for one way to speak, write and experience a life lived. An autoethnography is a reflexive account of an event often assumed to have led to an epiphany for the researcher (Denzin, 2014) and where telling the story is cathartic for the writer (Halley, 2012). They are so well written that a reader is convinced by the story (Anteby, 2013; Grey and Sinclair, 2006) and, particularly for an evocative account, emotionally moved by it. The story furthermore flows along time’s arrow to build in a logical and coherent manner towards the revelatory epiphany (Blenkinsopp, 2007). But they do not have to be. An autoethnography is an account of some event in a writer’s life but our lives and our memories of these events are messy. Memories may come to us unbidden and may lead us in directions that we do not intend and cannot predict (Poulos, 2016). Whilst we may assume we live our lives ‘forward’ following time’s arrow, that path is not linear, it is full of twists, turns, wrong roads taken, better paths not followed, others that we double back on and circle round (O’Shea, 2019). An autoethnography that assumes otherwise may place too much emphasis on objectivity and causality, missing the serendipity and how it is that some memories ‘stick’ to us in unplanned and unintended ways (Ahmed, 2006). Inequality at work comprises deeply troubling and traumatic issues, including, as is becoming more evident, sexual abuse and violence. The suggestion that either the event, or writing about it, must be cathartic (Halley, 2012) may apply to some but not all autoethnographies. Many autoethnographies reveal troubling, often traumatic issues that the writer feels a need to talk about. That need does not necessarily mean that the writer has come to terms with what happened, let alone found closure and relief from the trauma. The assumption that writing is
78 Research handbook on inequalities and work cathartic troubles me. My experience of writing academic articles is one of reliving trauma. Writing, for me, is an unfolding process where I write, make corrections, rewrite and eventually submit the piece only to have it returned to me a few months later with requests for a revision. Wounds are opened, scab over, picked at and reopened. This is not cathartic, it is painful, hard, emotional and unsettling work but one that I do because I feel a need to tell my story so that others may hopefully find that the pain they suffer is common to others (O’Shea, 2019). Paid work is something that I do because I must; I work to live. It is rarely, if ever, the hierophantic space suggested by Poulos (2016) where an epiphany may occur and is instead often dull, repetitious and boring; but that mundanity occupies much of our adult lives and so is an important space for constructing and sharing meaning. Things happen at work but those things are not necessarily momentous; what is important for autoethnography is that others recognise and can relate to the account. The concept of ‘microaggression’ captures how the repeated experience of supposedly small, minor abusive comments can accumulate up to a point where just one more ruptures one’s wellbeing (Sue, 2010). Work inequalities are not just revealed when someone is sacked but are there in all the repeated but overlooked micro-antagonisms that may have preceded an unfair dismissal. An autoethnography that focuses on recounting the seemingly trivial and mundane helps to capture that. Workplace autoethnographies need to provide a thick description, to borrow Clifford Geertz’s (1973) ethnographic term, not just of thick but also of thin experiences and events. I have so far written about autoethnography. In the next section I will try and provide an example of autoethnographic writing and will then attempt to unpick some of the issues that I have discussed in this section before concluding this chapter.
PEOPLE LIKE ME? A BRIEF AUTOETHNOGRAPHY I am a nonbinary transfeminine person in my late 50s. I commenced my social transition some 14 years ago and started my medicalised ‘transition’ 8 years later. I had lower surgery last year. My memories of childhood are full of episodes of my gender-nonconforming behaviour. I am physically quite small, 5’ 8” tall and weigh a little over 8 stone. My size, coupled with my gender-nonconforming and mixed ethnicity, made me a target for beatings by other children, teachers and adults as I grew up. I took refuge in books, both fiction and fact. I built a world where I worked with animals, first as a vet and then as a marine biologist. Animals did not judge me. And I self-harmed; I still do. When a sufficient number of snide comments, stupid remarks and dirty looks have stuck to me, weighing me down, just one more seemingly inconsequential slight is enough for me to reach for a knife to take the pain away. Adult me never became a vet or a marine biologist. I was a ‘straight As’ student but unwanted by the local grammar school I went to a secondary modern where the teachers seemed perplexed that I managed to pass exams. I was an underachiever to them, ‘not as clever as their sister’, destined to join the millions on the dole straight from school. Much to my teachers’ surprise I went to university. They would be dumbstruck to know that I ended up as a university academic. ‘Set your ambitions low and you won’t be disappointed’ could have been my school motto. Years later I found myself newly employed as a member of the academic staff at a large university in the north of England where I live. At my interview it was made clear that my academic publications and research were what most interested the appointment panel. This
Autoethnography as a research approach 79 university is one of two in this northern city. I had been interviewed for a post at the other a few years earlier. I was not offered work there but was instead informed by the Head of School there that his school had no need for ‘people like [me]’ (O’Shea, 2020). And so I crossed that university off my list of potential employers since I clearly would not ‘fit in’ there. Lucky for me the city has two universities. I had been in the post at my new university for a few weeks when I was summoned to a meeting called by the Head of School. I got lost in the maze of offices and arrived a little late at the back of the room; the meeting had already started. A large man was speaking to the assembled staff and sotto voce I asked someone close by who he was: ‘He’s the Head of School, he joined a few months before you.’ I am not good with faces and names but I recognised the speaker, his booming voice and the way he physically dominated others close to him. He is very close to being my opposite: physically large to my slight build; loud to my quiet; brash to my hesitancy; a cisgender, heterosexual, white man to my nonbinary, queer, mixed race and tattooed self. He is to normativity what I am not. He was also the man who had no need for ‘people like [me]’. I stayed at the back and at the first opportunity slid out of the room; whilst I doubted he would remember someone as inconsequential as me, I did not want to be in the same room as him. Although I am both reckless and vain enough that I would be tempted to goad his memory of me to life, these impulses were more than tempered by my need to remain employed. And I did manage to avoid him. It was easy since he rarely left his executive offices when he was at our campus and I was busy doing the mundane stuff that academics do – teaching, preparing lecturers, marking, administration, research and, of course, publishing. He rarely called meetings and when he did, I was either busy or arrived late and left early. On the few occasions when he appeared in the office where I worked, he would be surrounded by birds of ill omen – his school management team and his personal assistants (so important that he had not one but two) – guarding access to the great man. And like a storm of crows slow-wheeling in a clear, blue sky, their number made them easy to spot, their lethargic approach even easier to avoid. But not before I experienced a sense of panic at seeing him, his presence triggering my anxiety and a need to escape to anywhere other than where he was and just hide. How do you explain to others why you suddenly left the room knowing that they will almost certainly at best believe that you are overemotional and overreact? And so it went on for months and with each repetition the event became increasingly more mundane. Isn’t this the stuff of our lives? The major events may stand out like jewels but the weft and warp that weave the fabric appear flat and uniform from a distance. It is only on closer inspection that we see the individual threads and subtle imperfections in the dye that also give the fabric, our lives, its unique character. Until the day when my line manager suggested I apply for an internal promotion during my annual appraisal: ‘You deserve a promotion. You exceed the criteria and your publications are fantastic. It will be a sign for others that the school values excellent people and research.’ Embarrassed, I said no but then asked some friends what they thought and, buoyed up by their response, agreed to apply. The process for internal promotion requires that one submits a CV and a detailed covering letter that evidences how one meets two of three stated criteria and exceeds the third. The three are research, teaching and professionalism. My line manager said I easily met the requirements for teaching and professionalism and arguably exceeded them and that I far exceeded them for research. I went off to check what I needed to do to apply and then prepared my application.
80 Research handbook on inequalities and work My line manager read my draft application and announced that it was a strong application, ‘they’d be crazy not to promote you’. We checked it against the samples of previous successful applications and mine was at least their equal. We gave it to a third person who had chaired application panels in previous years, I made the minor amendments that she suggested and we checked it again. It ticked all the boxes. We were happy that we had done enough so that even if it was not accepted this time that I would at least be ‘flagged’ as worthy of promotion in the near future. One last check of the process before submission and… …I came to a dead stop. In the few weeks we had taken to draft, check and finalise the application there had been a slight change to the submission process. Applications would now be checked by the relevant Head of School and would require their explicit approval before they could be submitted to the Vice Chancellor. I balked. I went to my line manager and told her that I didn’t want to submit. She told me it was just perfunctory, ‘your Head of School will support you’. I told her that I didn’t think he would and prompted by her told her why. She looked shocked and then after a long pause told me to submit it and see what happens. ‘It’s not my experience of him, he’s always been supportive of me and other women here. Submit your application, you may be wrong and at least this way you will know and they can’t say you didn’t try. But you’ll be fine. You’re more than ready for this promotion and your application is excellent.’ And in that moment, I felt dreadfully alone. Weeks passed by and then my line manager asked to speak to me. She told me that my Head of School had declined to support my application. He had however given his support for all the others who had applied for the same promotion. She looked a little embarrassed, ‘It seems you were right. I’m surprised as he’s always been supportive…’. At least now someone else was finally not just aware of my concern and anxiety but had seen something that substantiated it. No longer alone but still dreadfully exposed and somewhat defeated, I left. She did not know why my application was not supported and said I should speak to her line manager. Her line manager was of course part of the school management team and in the ‘inner circle’. This harbinger of ill omen told me, ‘You used the wrong type font’. Tersely I responded that the process not only does not specify a type font but that the examples of previous, successful applications did not use a single type font. He went away to confer with the Head of School who magnanimously told him to inform me that on this occasion he would allow me to amend my application and resubmit it to him for his approval. I made the changes and four weeks before the closing date sent the revised submission to one of the Head of School personal assistants as instructed. Silence. I waited until four days before the closing date to ask for confirmation of submission. ‘I didn’t know that you wanted to submit it’ came the reply. And then they submitted it. I felt relief, happy that I could now forget this episode until they announced the promotions. Weeks later my line manager told me of her shock that my application had been rejected. I was torn between a need to shout ‘I told you so!’, a sense of my own stupidity for briefly hoping and a cold, empty despair. I asked why and was told to speak to my line manager’s manager. I did so. ‘He didn’t support your application. He said that you haven’t supervised a PhD student before, you didn’t use Harvard referencing and you did not demonstrate a sustainable track record of publication.’ I pointed out that I had supervised three PhD students to completion and was currently about to commence supervising two more. I mentioned that the university required us to use the APA referencing system (I had used APA 6) and that previous successful applicants had not used either APA or Harvard consistently. I said that I had a track record that had been sustained over ten years and at a level that exceeded the requirement.
Autoethnography as a research approach 81 I pointed out that all of this, and more, was clearly stated in my application. He avoided eye contact and suggested that I could request formal feedback from the Head of School. I was told to make an appointment to see the Head of School via one of his two personal assistants. ‘He’s busy but I’ll check his diary and get back to you by the end of today’. But no one did. I asked four times more over a period of four months and a meeting was never scheduled. In that time the four successful candidates were announced. I checked how many PhDs they had supervised and their sustainable track records of publication – they must have used Harvard. And in that four months of waiting, I applied for a post at a different university. I was interviewed and appointed to an academic point above where an internal promotion would have taken me. I asked my new Head of School why I was appointed: ‘Your publications and teaching are fab. We want people like you.’
PEOPLE LIKE ME – AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY ABOUT INEQUALITY I have tried to present an autoethnography that lies somewhere between an analytical and an evocative account but arguably veers closer to the latter. If it were analytic, I would have supported my claims by citing suitable theories and evidence before analysing my account in order to construct a causal framework. I might, for instance, discuss how transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) folk are regarded as one of the most vulnerable and abused groups in Western society who suffer levels of abuse and both physical and sexual assault far in excess of the general population. TGNC folk routinely face discrimination in work, are at risk of being dismissed from work because of their gender and, if unemployed, find it more onerous to re-enter employment, all of which exacerbate their exposure to homelessness and poverty, which may in turn adversely influence substance abuse and poor physical and mental health and increase the likelihood of anti-social behaviour. Grant et al. (2011) and Datta (2021) have documented the adverse conditions that impact TGNC folk societally; Schilt and her colleagues (Schilt, 2006; Schilt and Connell, 2007; Schilt and Westbrook, 2009) have documented this in the context of work and I have discussed it in a context of unemployment and underemployment (O’Shea, 2020). These and other works provide substantial sociological and ethnographic evidence of the inequalities that TGNC people face in society generally and in work specifically. In an analytical account I would argue that gender reassignment is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010 and TGNC folk should not face discrimination at work. I would analyse how I had been discriminated against and would seek to generalise that discrimination to workplace discrimination more broadly. I would, for instance, look at the school’s Athena Swan data that reveal how women and other minorities comprise the majority of the lower academic employees but cisgender, white, heterosexual men dominate the senior management team. I might even consider how those birds of ill omen are homosocial in ways that exacerbate inequality in that workplace (while Kanter (1977) is credited for her early theorisation of homosociality at work, I cite it here in relation to Lewis and Simpson’s 2012 nuanced critique of Kanter). I could go further to discuss how those cisgender, white, heterosexual men who dominate in that university may be found to also dominate senior management in other neoliberal universities (Sang et al., 2013; Sang et al., 2015; Strauβ and Boncori, 2020; Zawadzki
82 Research handbook on inequalities and work and Jensen, 2020) where unethical work practices including bullying are rife (Zawadzki and Jensen, 2020), minorities and the victims of workplace abuse are silenced (Ahmed, 2017) and mental wellbeing is disregarded (Wilkinson, 2020; Zawadzki and Jensen, 2020). An evocative account would focus on how I felt and would attempt to build an account that a reader feels resonates for them, whether in terms of having had similar experiences or empathising with me. In doing so I would emphasise my feelings of anxiety, loneliness and despair in prosaic, beautifully crafted prose that a reader may lose themselves in and so that they may briefly become me. My example reflects how I felt when faced with being discriminated against at work. Moreover, it attempts to show how this was not some major, one-off event but a pattern of behaviour that I experienced that started some time before I even worked for that university. Each individual occurrence could easily be dismissed as my imagination – my line manager, a person who was usually supportive to me, is an example of such a dismissal. This is one way that people experience inequality of course – being told that what they experience is at best exceptional and very often unbelievable. Inequality, as a discourse of power, uses strategies that silence, talks over, excludes and belittles not just in obvious ways but also in subtle, seemingly minor, trivial ways. Being told to change a type font is hardly the prelude to a major anxiety attack; unless it is part of a pattern of other microaggressions! But my writing skills are not good to evoke those microaggressions, the words I use are blunt-edged and too shallow. Anxiety, despair, loneliness – they do not adequately convey my feelings, let alone have much hope of achieving a resonance so that others might feel what I felt. I am neurodiverse, I struggle with expressing how I feel and moreover do not understand other people and their emotions. I am, furthermore, someone who was told repeatedly at school that I am not academic and would be an underachiever. My early academic studies were focused on the ‘hard’ sciences where I was expected to be objective and rational and to write in a neutral manner that not merely distanced me from what I wrote of but erased me from those texts. I am not able to provide either an astute, academic analysis or a beautifully crafted exposition that evokes my feelings. Neither one nor the other, my autoethnography falls short of both in an unhappy compromise. But that does not mean that I may not have a story to tell (O’Shea, 2019).
A CONCLUSION Ethnographers are told repeatedly to work ethically by the maxim of ‘do no harm’. Autoethnographers are reminded of this particularly as the stories that we tell are about us and so inevitably make mention of other people whom we encounter in our daily lives. We are told that those people should be portrayed in a manner where they should be anonymous (Blenkinsopp, 2007). Yet we are also told that our accounts need to not only be true but have sufficient depth to be believable. Just how we manage this tension is problematic since our accounts are personal and when we talk specifically about those close to us they may be indirectly identifiable. As Goodall (2006) has argued, one cannot provide anonymity to important, secondary characters in an autoethnography without turning them into mere cyphers. Autoethnography remains a ‘traitorous activity’ (Van Maanen and Kolb, 1985) but one where we address that inquietude by an account that is honest and provides verifiable information. My ex-Head of School may disagree with my portrayal of him as unfair and one-sided but how would he account for what happened and in particular the gender and ethnic discrimination
Autoethnography as a research approach 83 evidenced in his school’s Athena Swan application? This returns us to discourses of power and how strategically those best able to exercise power silence those of us whom they marginalise when they suggest that it is us who behave unethically when we talk of their unethical behaviour towards us. Autoethnography is an important research method not because it provides evidence that inequality happens at work, we already have that, but to convey how it affects the lives and wellbeing of TGNC folk, to give them a voice in a society that routinely talks about but not to them and in so doing offer a potential for support. To quote a mantra used by trans people: ‘nothing about us without us’. Autoethnography does not simply document workplace inequality, it should also speak truth to power. It should provide a voice to those marginalised at work and oppose their being silenced. Autoethnography is not just an academic research method that investigates inequalities at work, it has the potential for political action. Perhaps most importantly, autoethnography offers space for a minoritised and often excluded person to reflect on their life and in so doing to find a way to live and to act. Autoethnography is, at its core, an opportunity to speak out, speak up and take action. It allows those who are so often marginalised and excluded in research by so many research methods to exercise power over their own stories and experiences. To recount their lives as they are lived and understood by those who do that living.
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PART II REGULATION AND VOLUNTARISM IN WORKPLACE INEQUALITIES
7. Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China: the role of the state Fang Lee Cooke and Qijie Xiao
INTRODUCTION Inequalities exist in most aspects of society, not least in the labour market and within organisations. The state has a critical role in eradicating political, social and economic inequalities through regulatory interventions, social policies and employer policy and practice. However, state efforts to improve equality may be compromised by other priorities and undermined by the actions of other stakeholders, not least the employers. This is particularly the case in developmental states like China (Knight 2014). The term ‘developmental state’, initially used in the international political economy literature, refers to the phenomenon of state-led macroeconomic planning in East and Southeast Asia in the late 20th century (Haggard 2018). Johnson (1982) defined the developmental state as one that focuses on economic development and takes necessary policy measures to accomplish that objective. Developmental states, despite their distinct features, tend to prioritise economic development above social development; labour market inequalities are an outcome of accelerating economic development as well as a contributing factor (Knight 2014). Such states have considerable power to control the economy as an employer and regulator (Witt & Redding 2014). In this chapter, we examine the role of the state in eliminating workplace inequality through direct or indirect interventions in China. We also discuss how employment policies and social policies implemented by the state as an employer and regulator may lead to increased levels of workplace inequalities indirectly or as unintended consequences. We focus on women and, to a lesser extent, rural migrant workers in this chapter because these are the two largest segments of the labour force where most inequalities occur in terms of employment security, remuneration, and other forms of social security. This is partially a result of the state’s priority of economic development and employment creation, with job quality and workplace equality as secondary concerns (Cooke & Brown 2015). It is important to note at the outset that the critical examination of inequalities in the Chinese context needs to take into account the significant achievements that have been made in improving equality. For example, China ranked number 39 out of 162 countries in the Gender Inequality Index in 2019 (United Nations Development Programmes 2020).
THE ROLE OF THE STATE AND LABOUR MARKET INEQUALITIES The role of the state of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China) and workplace inequalities need to be situated in the period since the founding of socialist China in 1949. From 1949 through to the 1960s, the welfare state emerged and labour market inequalities were 89
90 Research handbook on inequalities and work institutionalised (see Dillon (2015) for a comprehensive account). Workers employed by the state enjoyed extensive welfare benefits whereas farmers did not and had little, if any, chance of moving to the urban areas for employment. In fact, the mobility of citizens was heavily constrained by the hukou system. Nonetheless this period was characterised by an egalitarian approach in which jobs were for life and wage differentials across different groups of workers were relatively small (Hassard et al. 2007). From the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, the welfare role of the state and labour control, including mobility, remained largely the same as in the previous period. It was also during the state-planned period of the economy (1949–1978) that gender equality was improved through the full-time employment of women, job allocation by the state, protective regulations for female workers and childcare facilities in the state sector to facilitate women working full time. Women’s full participation in the labour market not only conformed to the socialist ideology of gender equality but also met the needs of economic development (Hu 2016). Inequalities in the welfare system (Shen et al. 2018) and the labour market and workplaces (Cooke & Brown 2015) increased rapidly following China’s Open-Door Policy in 1978 and its ensuing economic development at a high speed: ‘State redistributive inequalities are giving way to patterns increasingly generated by how individuals and groups succeed in a growing market-oriented economy’ (Bian 2002, p. 91). The structural shifts from a state-planned economy towards a more market-focused economic order have resulted in the proliferation of gender inequalities in the workplace as state-owned organisations have more autonomy in their human resource management policy and practice (Tatli et al. 2017b). Marketisation has also led to a worsening gender pay gap, as evidenced by greater earnings inequalities between men and women employees in prefectures that are relatively more marketised (He & Wu 2017). As such, inequalities in the Chinese labour market and workplaces are a combined outcome of institutionalised legacies of state policy as well as employers’ strategies. They are also a (by)product of state reform policies. Today China has the largest population and workforce in the world, more than half of whom are in non-standard employment. The majority of those in non-standard employment are women, rural migrant workers and new university graduates with fewer employment protections than those in formal employment (Cooke & Brown 2015). Specifically, women constituted more than 43% of the full-time workforce in 2020 and approximately 16.7 million women were pursuing a college or university degree, which makes up 51% of the total number of students (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2021a). However, gender discrimination and unfair treatments are still prevalent at the societal and economic levels despite seven decades of the state’s legislative and administrative efforts to eradicate gender inequality (Liu et al. 2020; Zhu et al. 2022). Confucian cultural values that sustain traditional gender hierarchies in Chinese society inform wider socio-economic policy as well as organisational HR practices (Tatli et al. 2017a), which often place women in a subordinate position (Gao 2003). A large body of literature has identified the negative consequences of workplace inequalities for female workers in particular, such as the under-representation of women on boards of directors and the gender pay gap (e.g., Yang 2020; see Zhu et al. 2022 for a review). Sun and Li’s (2017) study shows that the representation of females in politics and society at the decision-making level is relatively low, despite their increasing participation in different aspects of society. Other studies have captured gender inequalities within the Chinese state sectors (Dai & Zhou 2016; Ma 2018). Ma (2018), for example, found that there was a sig-
Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China 91 nificant increase in the gender pay gap from 2002 to 2013 in state-owned enterprises, though the gap was smaller than in private firms. In 2020 there were 285.6 million rural migrant workers, accounting for over 33% of the Chinese labour force (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2021b). These rural migrant workers are exposed to various forms of inequalities at the workplace, social and institutional levels, resulting in considerable inter-generational disadvantage (Wang & Gong 2017; Zhang & Wu 2017; Cooke & Zhao 2021). We examine the role of the state as an employer and as a regulator and its effect on workplace (in)equalities in the next two sections (see Table 7.1 for a summary). Table 7.1
Examples of the role of the state in employment-related inequalities and effects
Role of the State Types of Intervention Employer
Affirmative policy of gender
Effects Positive Effects
Unintended Consequences
Increased number of women
Female leaders may be assigned to less well
quotas in the leadership teams in in leadership positions government organisations
Regulator
Increased employment
resourced positions and departments with fewer promotion opportunities
The dual-track employment and opportunities
There are substantial differences in pecuniary
remuneration system
rewards and non-pecuniary rewards between
Enactment of labour laws (e.g.,
standard and non-standard employees Securing the rights of workers Disincentives for employers to provide standard
Employment Promotion Law;
Regulating the responsibilities employment
Labour Contract Law)
and rights of the employing
Increased proportion of the workforce in
Introduction of policy
organisation
various forms of non-standard employment,
regulations (often at the local
Protecting females’ rights and including agency employment and forced
level)
improving gender equality
self-employment
Promoting social justice
Widened inequalities between the workers in
and fairness through
standard and non-standard employment
anti-discrimination practices Part of China’s agenda for ‘common prosperity’ Social policies (e.g.,
Reversing the trend of the
Exacerbating employers’ discrimination against
birth-control policy)
declining birth rate and
female workers (i.e., denial of recruitment,
Other policies (e.g., COVID-19 providing the future workforce wage reductions, being fired or demoted during policy)
Source:
Addressing the social
pregnancy)
problems of an ageing
Job losses among vulnerable groups of workers
population
(rural migrant workers in particular)
Improving health and safety
Older and less-educated people may face more
for the workforce
barriers to employment
Compiled by the authors.
THE STATE AS EMPLOYER As a socialist country with a commitment to full employment, at least during the state-planned economy period, the state has been a major employer, providing jobs for nearly 80% of its urban workforce. After the Open Door Policy that was initiated in 1978, employment
92 Research handbook on inequalities and work provided by the state, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), government agencies, and public sector organisations, declined from 78% of urban employment in 1978 to only 12% in 2020 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2021b). In 2020, a total of 5.6 million workers were employed by the state sector, less than those in domestic privately owned enterprises (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2021b). The significant decline of state employment means that the state has less influence as an employer in the current labour market in China. While the Chinese government has enacted a series of laws and policy regulations to eradicate inequality in various aspects of society, including employment, inequalities persist. Some of these inequalities are unintended consequences, whereas others are direct results of a policy implemented by the state as an employer to contain costs through the reduction of employment and wage spending. We examine some of these issues in this section. Gender Inequality in Management in Government Organisations An important indication of the Chinese state’s commitment to equality is gender equality in employment. Despite the high proportion of women in employment and a close education level between men and women, women remain under-represented in government and Communist Party organisations. Moreover, government organisations are among the sectors that have the lowest proportion of women employees (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2021a). The majority of women employed in government organisations are in administrative roles or work as officials in the lower ranks. In government organisations, career advancement for women is particularly difficult as promotion criteria may be more elastic and promotion processes less transparent, despite the existence of a standard set of promotion criteria and procedures nationwide (Cooke 2013). In order to increase the number of women in leadership positions in government organisations, the government introduced an affirmative action policy in the early 2000s. This specifies that there must be at least one woman in each management team at each level (Cooke 2013). This does not mean that women will be lifted into leadership positions regardless of their competence. Rather, it creates a small opening for women in politics to advance their careers through competition. However, women are often promoted to a leadership position as a token to fulfil the quotas imposed by the state (Tsang, Chan & Zhang 2011). Female leaders in government organisations are often in deputy positions and sometimes in departments that have fewer resources and engage in non-core functions; hence, female leaders in these positions are less likely to be promoted to critical positions with more resources and power (Cooke 2013). The Dual-track Employment and Remuneration System and Inequalities Although the dominance of the state sector and direct intervention during the state-planned economy period led to significant achievements in gender equality in workplaces in the urban area (e.g., Dai & Zhou 2016; Ma 2018), these achievements have arguably been eroded since the 1980s (Cooke 2013). As a result of marketisation, state sector employers, including SOEs, hospitals and educational institutions, are granted greater autonomy in operating their businesses and human resource management practices. They have also been put under growing pressure to make their business financially sustainable. The dual-track employment and remuneration system, now widely adopted in the state sector, is an example of a market-oriented model in response to pressure (Feng et al. 2020).
Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China 93 Specifically, the dual-track system bifurcates employees into standard employment (also known as permanent employment with job security) and temporary or fixed-term employment; the latter is filled mainly by rural migrant workers, women and graduates from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Although the basic salary and performance-related pay are usually the same for permanent and temporary employees, there are large differences in the other types of pecuniary rewards, such as housing funds, annual bonuses, social insurance and many other welfare benefits (Feng et al. 2020; Zhou 2018). For instance, based on data collected from public hospitals in western China, Zhou (2018) revealed that the endowment insurance for permanent employees is almost twice that for contract or temporary workers. if non-pecuniary rewards are taken into consideration, employment inequalities are much larger. Indeed, standard or permanent employees are entitled to a wide range of non-pecuniary or intrinsic benefits, such as promotion opportunities and extensive training and development programmes. By contrast, contract employees are normally viewed as temporary ‘outsiders’ within the state sector who are much less likely to qualify for career promotion and associated pay increases, if at all (Feng et al. 2020; Meng 2021). Constituting a large proportion of employment in the state sector, fixed-term or contract employees are disadvantaged in promotion, training and development, as well as pay and benefits. These diverse forms of employment discrimination/inequalities largely originate from the dual-track employment system and other discriminatory practices within the workplace (Cooke & Zhao 2021). The dual-track institutional system is accompanied by traditional cultural beliefs and gender bias that may exacerbate gender discrimination in the organisation, thus generating intersectional effects. Intersectionality ‘seeks to understand the multiplicative effects of belonging to or identifying with multiple social groups along with visible social identities (e.g., being a woman, being Black)’ (Post et al. 2021, p. 2008; see also Collins & Bilge 2016). Acker (2012) argued that gender inequality in the organisational context is a complex phenomenon intersecting with class and ethnicity. In the Chinese organisational context, ethnicity is less of an issue in most of the provinces that are populated predominantly by the han people. There, by contrast, family backgrounds and residential status (i.e., urban vs. rural hukou) are the main sources of discrimination. In particular, the intersectional effects for women from rural or disadvantaged social backgrounds are stronger than for women holding urban hukou and from family backgrounds of higher social status because the former also tend to have lower educational attainments or graduated from universities that are less well-ranked and hence are less well-positioned in the labour market (Feng et al. 2020).
STATE AS REGULATOR Major Labour Laws and Intentions Another important role of the state is as regulator. Since the 1950s and especially since the 1980s, the state has promulgated a series of legislation and policy regulations that are aimed at reducing inequality in the labour market through better protection of workers’ rights, thus contributing to an inclusive employment agenda. These regulatory efforts are responses to the key issues addressed in specific periods of China’s political, social and economic development. In this section we discuss the positive impacts of some of the labour laws on particular groups of employees and the broader society.
94 Research handbook on inequalities and work In the early period after the founding of socialist China, women in China were confronted with considerable social and employment discrimination because of traditional cultural values. In this regard there was mounting pressure on the central government to secure the livelihoods of women. Major pieces of laws promulgated in the early 1950s include the Labour Insurance Regulations of the People’s Republic of China (1951) and the Announcement on Female Workers’ Production Leave by the State Council (1955). These laws and regulations were accompanied by early political propaganda (e.g., ‘women hold up half the sky’), all of which are aimed at promoting gender equality and women’s development and motivating women to participate in employment to help achieve the state development agenda. Women’s labour rights have also been incorporated into the constitution framework. For instance, the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter the Constitution) stipulates that ‘the state protects the rights and interests of women, applies the principle of equal pay for equal work for men and women alike and trains and selects cadres from among women’ (People’s Republic of China 1982). Bowen et al.(2007) hold that the Constitution and its amendments were introduced to provide women with equal rights in the society and family domains, which they were deprived of under the Chinese traditional culture. The principle of ‘equal pay for equal work for men and women’ reflects the state’s espoused commitment to protect women’s constitutional rights and interests. In addition, both the Special Rules on the Labour Protection of Female Employees formulated in 1988 and the Law of 1992 on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests were enacted to protect females’ lawful rights and improve gender equality in China. It is stipulated that women are entitled to equal rights and interests with men in all aspects of work and society as a whole (Yang 2020). These laws responded to the opening up of the Chinese economy in the late 1970s, which has led to considerable changes in the wage structures and widening pay gaps between men and women and between blue-collar and white-collar workers (Appleton et al. 2014). In the early 1990s, as a result of deepening marketisation reform, there was a massive influx of rural migrant workers into urban regions. Urban employment provided the rural migrant workers with much-needed income and their labour supply was critical for urban economic development. However, this labour market situation also led to multiple forms of workplace exploitation, such as wage arrears, low wages and the lack of provisions for social insurance (Friedman & Lee 2010). Further regulation was thus necessary to respond to this labour market situation. For instance, the Chinese government established its first minimum wage regulation, Regulations Concerning Minimum Wages in Enterprises (amended in 1994), in 1993. According to this regulation, all companies are required to comply with the minimum wage standards set by the provincial government. Specifically, when setting the minimum wage, the local government should take into consideration local socioeconomic status, including local average income, productivity, employment rate, economic development and minimum living expenses (Wang & Gunderson 2011). Despite the minor differences across the provinces, the minimum wage regulation at the province level sought to ensure that workers’ minimum wages are commensurate with local minimum living expenses. In 2007, the Chinese government stepped up its legislative efforts and passed two important employment-related laws (the Employment Promotion Law and the Labour Contract Law). The Employment Promotion Law, which came into force in 2008 and was amended in 2015, attempts to create employment and regulate labour market management (International Labour Organization 2011). This law’s rationale reflects, first, that because of the economic
Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China 95 transitions, SOE reforms and intensifying global competition, there are increasing demands for the government to provide more job opportunities for rural migrant workers, laid-off SOE employees and university graduates in the labour market. Therefore, the first reason for the enforcement of the Employment Promotion Law is to promote employment and improve job security. Second, the absence of employment-related laws at the central government level has resulted in a disorganised employment management situation at the local level. A central law is hence needed to regulate the labour market (Cooke 2011). One of the key elements of the Employment Promotion Law is anti-discrimination against vulnerable groups of employees. Anti-discrimination is mentioned in the extant legislation system (e.g., the Constitution) but it is the Employment Promotion Law that seeks to create a broader statement on employment fairness and equality. According to the Employment Promotion Law, employees cannot be discriminated against in employment regardless of their age, race, gender, disability, religious belief or rural origin. Victims of employment discrimination are entitled to seek legal redress. However, the effectiveness of this law remains unclear because there is no specification of how and where potential victims of employment discrimination can seek justice (Cooke 2011; see next section for further discussion). The Labour Contract Law enacted in 2008 aims at regulating the responsibilities and rights of both the employer and employee. There are three important focuses in the Labour Contract Law. First, it stipulates the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’; organisations are required to pay the same remuneration to workers doing the same work regardless of whether they are permanent employees or dispatch workers (Friedman & Lee 2010). This reflects an international trend towards employment fairness and equal opportunity. Second, it encompasses articles on the main forms of employment discrimination, such as the non-provision of a formal employment contract, wage arrears, overtime and non-compliance with the social insurance premium. The Labour Contract Law provides more comprehensive guidelines than the previous laws on the employment relationship, from the formation to the termination of contracts (Cooney 2007). The third feature of the Labour Contract Law is the provision of open-ended labour contracts. That is, employees can demand an open-ended employment contract after working for the employing organisation for ten years or signing two consecutive fixed-term contracts. This open-ended contract can make it difficult for employers to dismiss their workers, hence establishing a formal and stable employment relationship between the employer and workers (Wang et al. 2009). In principle, this law provides a great level of protection for vulnerable workers. In reality, however, employers continue to find ways to bypass labour laws to evade their obligations and contain labour costs, as discussed below. Ineffective Enforcement of Labour Regulations in China Despite the potentially desirable effects of labour laws in providing for a greater level of fairness in employment, their implementation is confronted with significant challenges, including the following three key factors. First, the inconsistent contents of various regulations may cause confusion in the interpretation. Specifically, the Chinese regulatory framework consists of a multitude of labour laws, regulative instruments and administrative policies at the central, provincial and municipal levels. Some regulations may be worded ambiguously or there may be inconsistencies among them so that they create confusing channels for the local government to manage labour disputes and provide legal assistance. Due to flexibility in the interpretation and implementation
96 Research handbook on inequalities and work of the labour regulations, employers may deploy tactics to bypass regulatory constraints; for example, using agency employment and fixed-term employment instead of permanent employment to the disadvantage of certain social groups of workers who lack bargaining power in the labour market (Cooke 2011). Second, the detailed norms regulating employment relations have not been fully identified in some laws (Cooney 2007). For example, the Employment Promotion Law (2008) stipulates that ‘in the event of any employment discrimination in violation of the provisions of the Law, the relevant worker(s) shall be entitled to initiate legal proceedings in the people’s court’. However, the definition of employment discrimination is not clarified in the Employment Promotion Law. This is consistent with Feng et al.’s (2020) finding that the scope of ‘equality’ is not explicitly defined in labour laws. In addition, the implementation of the legislation and policy regulation can be rather flexible at the local level. The lack of general precision and strict penalties can give the employing organisation some scope to avoid liabilities. Wang et al. (2019) observed that some organisations sidestep compliance with the Employment Contract Law through cost-minimising employment mechanisms, such as signing non-standard contracts with rural migrant workers. As Wang et al. (2019) suggested, stricter implementation and supervision of China’s labour laws can play an important role in instilling a sense of morality among managers and employers and clarifying their legal responsibilities to promote inclusive employment. Third, some quasi-governmental organisations at the local level (e.g., local trade union branches) may lack the power to enforce the labour law (Friedman & Lee 2010). Although grassroots trade union organisations can work with other administrative agencies to enforce the legal rules and administrative regulations, they often lack the authority to impose penalties (e.g., correction notices and fines) on non-compliant employers (Cooney 2007; Cooney et al. 2013). Indeed, Chinese trade unions differ from their Western counterparts in that the Chinese grassroots unions are typically subject to the control of management, without much autonomy to resolve labour disputes let alone to challenge the employer directly (Chan 2018). It should be noted that despite various institutional, resource and operational deficiencies, the Chinese trade unions have played a positive role in addressing workplace inequalities through lobbying for labour law reforms at the strategic level and taking action to defend workers’ rights (Cooke 2021). Unintended Consequences of Labour Laws Despite the state’s good intentions in promulgating labour laws, they have unintended adverse effects not only on the individual workers but also on the wider labour market. First, the promulgation of the Labour Contract Law (2008) has led to employers terminating formal and long-term employment contracts to contain costs. Akee et al. (2019) revealed that after the passage of the Labour Contract Law, some organisations might have dismissed employees who had been employed by the same employer for over ten years to circumvent the new law. These dismissed employees could suffer from welfare losses, financial hardship and psychological depression. Their findings lend support to Feng et al.’s (2020) argument that although the Chinese government acts as a promoter of social equality, its effort to reform the legislative system and the labour market may have repercussions on inclusive employment. Second, although it was expected by the central government that the implementation of the Labour Contract Law could lead to a shrinkage of employment agencies or job centres and
Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China 97 thus create a more direct employment relationship between the employees and the employing organisation, the deployment of agency workers (also known as dispatched workers) has become a pervasive phenomenon as an unintended consequence of the promulgation of the Labour Contract Law (Cooke 2011). Specifically, an increasing number of employers have deliberately hired workers with fixed-term employment or agency contracts to cut costs. Dispatch or agency employees are formally employed by third-party employment or outsourcing agencies and hence they are not covered by employment contracts with the companies where they perform work or services. As a result, dispatch employees may receive much lower salaries and less social security coverage than the formal employees of the employing company, even though they might be performing similar tasks. It has been argued that the growing number of dispatch workers has eroded the intended consequence of the Labour Contract Law as a labour protection law (Cairns 2015). Even though the state has amended the Labour Contract Law (in 2014) and tightened the circumstances under which a company can deploy agency workers through the stipulation of the ‘Adoption of the Interim Provisions on Labour Dispatch’ (introduced in 2015), companies continue to creatively mobilise new forms of employment to contain labour costs and shift the risks to the workers, and the number of employment agencies has been increasing (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2020). Non-employment-related (Social) Policies, Intentions and Unintended Implications In addition to the labour regulations, the state has also launched several non-employment-related social policies to eradicate inequalities and protect public health. These policies, despite good intentions, also have unintended consequences that could exacerbate the inequalities/discrimination in the labour market as well as in human resource management within the organisations. We use the birth-control policy and COVID-19 policy as examples for illustration. Following the strict enforcement of the One-Child Policy by the Chinese government in the early 1980s, the Two-Child policy replaced the One-Child policy and was fully enforced in 2016. In May 2021, the Three-Child policy was initiated, allowing married couples to have up to three children. The state anticipated that the new Three-Child policy could protect the legal rights of women in employment, alleviate the low fertility level and address China’s demographic crisis (e.g., a shrinking working-age population and ageing population) (Lindberg 2021). Some studies summarised the benefits of the new family planning policy, including a decline in abortions of unapproved pregnancies, addressing the social problems of an ageing population, managing the socio-economic problems related to unregistered children and a more normal gender ratio (Fan et al. 2020; Zeng & Hesketh 2016). For example, the new policy can enhance the health status of women by driving down abortions of unapproved pregnancies (Zeng & Hesketh 2016). These findings indicated that the Three-Child policy has the potential to improve the gender and social inequalities in contemporary China. However, the implementation of the Three-Child policy might worsen employers’ discrimination against female workers (i.e., denial of recruitment, wage reductions, being fired or demoted during pregnancy) as employers have to bear a substantial burden of the social security premiums for maternity. Employment discrimination against young women of childbearing age could even be more severe (Zhu et al. 2022). Lindberg (2021) maintained that employers are likely to be worried that their female workers who already have one child would have a second or third child. Consequently, gender discrimination against young women in the job-seeking and promotion stages may be apparent in China. Shen and Jiang (2020) also
98 Research handbook on inequalities and work observed that professional women with two children could experience career interruptions, pay reductions and a decrease in social benefits because of sustained discrimination in the labour market. During the COVID-19 period, the Chinese government set up a bundle of policies to respond to the pandemic. These policies were mainly public health-driven, intending to protect vulnerable people who were most likely to be affected by the coronavirus. The lockdown policy in some of the most affected areas, for example, requires all non-essential businesses to be closed and all residents to stay home to suspend the spread of the coronavirus. During the lockdown period, the government urged companies to switch to remote work mode so that the health of the potentially exposed workers could be protected. In addition, the Chinese central government worked with major telecom operators to initiate the ‘travel information checking’ (行程卡) app service. Individuals, especially workers who need to travel between provinces, are required to download this app on their smartphones and track their travel information for the past two weeks. In doing so, the government authority is able to manage COVID-19 exposure with crowd tracing and provide early warnings (CAICT 2021). The COVID-19 policies in China may have a significant influence not just on public health, as expected, but also on social and workplace inequalities. Specifically, the lockdown policy has exerted heavy pressure on low-paying industries (e.g., small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies and restaurants), causing job losses among vulnerable groups of workers (rural migrant workers in particular). In addition, the remote work policy may deepen the pay gap, as the higher-paid white-collar employees are able to access resources to work from home whereas the blue-collar workers often have limited options (Goldin & Muggah 2020). Zhu et al. (2022) stated that the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated policies could have a devastating impact on gender inequalities at both organisational and societal levels. When working from home, women with care responsibilities tend to have less time to establish and maintain social networks due to their familial obligations. A cumulative effect is that women may be deprived of earning and career-promotion opportunities. Furthermore, the ‘travel information checking’ policy can have unintended negative impacts on older or less-educated people in that they are typically unfamiliar with smartphones and cannot keep up with the mobile app technology. As a result, they are likely to face more barriers to employment. In short, like other societies, there are signs that COVID-19 and policies to combat this pandemic have varying impacts on different categories of workers, leading to new kinds of inequalities as well as entrenching existing inequalities such as the gender pay gap (Collins et al. 2021; McKinsey & Company 2020).
CONCLUSIONS This chapter makes three contributions to this handbook on inequalities and work. First, we identified sources of discrimination that undermine equality in employment by focusing on two key categories of vulnerable workers (women and rural migrant workers) who have been exposed to multiple forms of social, institutional and workplace inequalities in China. These forms of discrimination and inequalities are largely the combined effects of traditional cultural norms and the economic agenda of a developmental state. In particular, the intersectional effects of inequalities for rural migrant women are the strongest in terms of job security, remu-
Inequalities in the labour market and workplaces in China 99 nerations, working conditions and opportunities for human capital development and career advancement. Second, we explored the two crucial roles of the state as the employer and the regulator in addressing employment-related inequalities. As an employer, the Chinese state, via its employing organisations, may be engaged in employment discrimination or exclusion due to the dual-track employment and remuneration system. Women and those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds are the main recipients of discriminatory and unfair treatment. As a regulator, the Chinese government has promulgated a series of laws and policy regulations that are aimed at reducing inequality in the labour market through better protection of these workers’ rights, thus contributing to a fair and inclusive employment agenda. However, the intended effects of the regulations are frustrated by employers’ deliberate labour practices to evade them. Tasked to prioritise economic development, local governments often turn a blind eye to non-compliance with regulation, thus entrenching and even exacerbating labour market and workplace inequalities. Third, through the lens of the birth-control policy and the COVID-19 policy, we illustrated how the state’s non-employment-related (social) policies could unintentionally result in discriminatory practices. Indeed, some equality-driven legislative regulations and social policies have aggravated employer discrimination against vulnerable groups of workers, resulting in persistent social and economic inequalities. Further actions are required from the state to address social and workplace inequalities in order to promote inclusive employment, inclusive workplaces and inclusive development. The ‘common prosperity’ initiative promoted by the Chinese government in 2021 is a major step towards achieving an inclusive and sustainable development agenda. It remains to be seen how this ambitious, grand vision can be translated into practice at the workplace level to achieve a greater level of equality.
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8. The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation in Nigeria’s public sector Ifedapo Adeleye, Nkiru Nwokoroku and Olawale Ajai
INTRODUCTION Rising inequality in the world of work has been a persistent cause of concern in recent decades – from the Global North to the Global South. In 2015, when all 193 members of the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, reducing inequalities within and among countries was one of those goals. The Covid-19 pandemic has heightened the importance of addressing inequality as there are serious concerns that it may further exacerbate inequality in many countries. This ‘inequality pandemic’, as Qureshi (2021) put it, makes disadvantaged people more vulnerable to job losses and declines in well-being and requires policies to tackle the deep underlying drivers of inequality. While inequality manifests in different ways (e.g., urban–rural, ethnic and gender inequalities) across time and space, ethnic and racial inequality has been a colossal challenge around the world. Inequality can be vertical (i.e., among individuals or households) or horizontal (among groups, based on ethnicity or religion). There is perhaps no better place to explore these complex dynamics of ethnic inequality, how they play out in the world of work and the appropriate policies to tackle it, than Nigeria (Adeleye et al., 2019). Nigeria has three major ‘territorially separated and politically polarized ethnic groups’ (Sowell, 2004: 108) and continues to experience significant social and political tensions as a result of the ‘severe horizontal inequalities’ (Demarest et al., 2020: 315) among ethnic groups and regions. To address these challenges, the country has enshrined the ‘Federal Character Principle’ in its constitution as a way of institutionalising ethnic representation or achieving ethnic balancing in public service (Mustapha, 2009). Our objective in this chapter is to increase understanding of the politics of inequality, an area that is receiving increasing attention in academic and policy circles as a result of rising inequality. In particular, we explore the potential and limitations of policy interventions in addressing inequality in the world of work in complex environments. The rest of this chapter is organised into three main sections. In the first section, which focuses on unpacking inequality and work in the Nigerian context, we discuss ethnicity and ethnic inequality, horizontal inequalities and the historical context of inequality and explore how the intervention vs. voluntaristic policy options have played out in the country. The second section provides a critical analysis of the Federal Character Principle and its promise and limitations. In the final and concluding section, we discuss key implications of our analysis on inequality in Nigeria for policy and practice, as well as avenues for future research in this area.
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UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY AND WORK IN THE NIGERIAN CONTEXT Context is critical to understanding inequality in the world of work. From history to law, economics, government and politics, the national and institutional contexts shape how inequality emerges and develops in societies. In this section we provide important contextual information on inequality in Nigeria focusing on four issues: the configuration of ethnic cleavages and ethnic inequality, the severe state of horizontal inequalities among ethnic groups, the historical origins of inequality in the northern vs. southern regions, and policy interventions to tackle pervasive inequality. Ethnicity and Ethnic Inequality in Nigeria Many Nigerians owe their allegiance first and foremost to their ethnic/religious group than to an entity called Nigeria. (Mamman & Baydoun, 2009: 94)
Nigeria is an ethnically diverse country of over 200 million people characterised by the problems associated with tripolarity: the politicisation of ethnicity and ethnic differences that make cross-ethnic relations and alliances difficult (Bangura, 2006). Nigeria’s tripolar ethnic structure consists of the Hausa–Fulani in the north, the Igbos in the southeast and the Yorubas in the southwest. These three ethnic groups account for 29%, 21% and 18%, respectively, of the nation’s population. There are hundreds of other ethno-linguistic groups across the country, including the Ijaw, who account for about 10% of the population. As the quote that introduced this section suggests, ethnicity is an important dimension of identity for many Nigerians and has historically influenced political alliances and voting patterns. These ethnic cleavages are compounded by religious factors. Islam is the dominant religion in the north (although there are many Christians in that region, particularly in the north-central area) and Christianity is the most popular religion in the south (there is a significant population of Muslims in the southwest). The population is nearly evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, with a minority practising various indigenous religions. To create a political system that addresses the challenges of governing ‘territorially separated and politically polarized ethnic groups’ (Sowell, 2004: 108), Nigeria adopted a federal system of government in 1954 that now has 36 federating units or states and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. These states are grouped by political convention mainly into six geopolitical zones (north-central, northeast, northwest, southeast, south-south and southwest), which, as we highlighted earlier, correspond loosely with ethnic and religious identities. This significant overlap between ethnicity, religion and geography among regions characterised by an uneven distribution of natural, human and capital resources has produced intense rivalry among the three major ethnic groups, with the needs of minority groups often being overlooked. One important point to note here is that although Nigeria is a federal republic, the constitution allocates considerable economic and political power to the central government, giving the larger ethnic groups an oversized role in electing the President (via popular vote) and an incentive to pursue cross-ethnic alliances that would ultimately prioritise their groups or regions. This alongside corruption contributes to ethnic inequality in Nigeria. The following describes the nature and extent of inequalities among Nigeria’s ethnic groups and regions.
The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation 105 Horizontal Inequalities in Nigeria Since attaining independence, Nigeria has experienced recurrent tensions due to the severe horizontal inequalities that exist between different regions and ethnic groups. After the end of the Biafran civil war, consecutive regimes embarked on a reform process intended to address the sensitive issues of inequality and ethnic domination. (Demarest et al., 2020: 315)
Horizontal inequalities – ‘inequalities in economic, social, or political dimensions or cultural status between culturally defined groups’ (Stewart, 2008: 3) – are severe and persistent in Nigeria. These inequalities manifest in economic, educational, social and human capital indicators. For example, while more than 80% of pregnant women have access to healthcare facilities in the southeast, less than 30% do in the northwest zone. The maternal mortality rate in the northeast was more than nine times that of the southwest (Mustapha, 2009). This inequality is also evident in access to financial services; in 2020, for example, the financial exclusion rates for states in the southwest and southeast were between 13 and 30% whereas those in the northeast and northwest were between 40 and 76% (EFINA, 2021). Another area with rife inequalities is education, as the literacy rate in the northern zones is significantly lower than in the south. While literacy rates in all three southern zones are approaching 90% for men and in the 80% range for women, in the northwest and northeast, men’s literacy rates are below 60% and women’s are around 30% (Statista, 2022). As a result of these inequalities, federal educational institutions are required to base about 30% of their admissions on affirmative action quotas, with ‘cut-off marks’ in national examinations significantly lower for students whose state of origin is educationally disadvantaged. In 2012, for example, students from Anambra State in the southeast seeking secondary education in the federal government-owned ‘unity schools’ had to make a cut-off score of 136 (out of 200), while Kebbi in the northwest had a cut-off score of 35 (Adeleye et al., 2014). These apparent educational inequalities have been a major source of concern across the country, and there are widespread debates on whether solutions such as cut-off marks are fair or even effective. We will discuss the issue of policy interventions in more detail later on in the chapter. Our focus now will turn to understanding the historical context of these severe inequalities. Historical Roots of Inequality in Nigeria Ethnic inequality in Nigeria has remained remarkably persistent for wealth, education and access to certain public services… The ethnic gap has remained intransigent over time for access to electricity, education and wealth with the Northwest and Northeastern ethnic zones reporting below national mean access on these three variables. (Archibong, 2018: 342)
The severe and persistent nature of horizontal inequalities in Nigeria, as illustrated in the quote above, raises several pertinent questions: How did these inequalities arise in the first place? Why do the inequalities continue for such long periods of time? Can government policies significantly reduce these inequalities and if so, how? Theories that seek to explain the origins of persistent horizontal inequalities focus on two broad mechanisms: differential geographical endowments and historical institutions (Archibong, 2018). The differential geographical endowments thesis posits that inequalities persist due to factors like variations in endowments of natural resources and geography. This seems plausible, particularly in countries like Nigeria where there is such a wide variation
106 Research handbook on inequalities and work in natural resources (e.g., oil, gas, water, arable soil) as well as climate across the different regions. The second perspective, the historical institutions thesis, argues that these persistent inequalities could be explained by differences in historical legal traditions, precolonial political centralisation or colonial administrative heritage/legacy. This thesis appears to provide a stronger explanation of the Nigerian situation and is discussed briefly below. Nigeria was ‘created’ in 1914 when the British government consolidated the Northern Nigeria Protectorate and the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria under colonial official Sir Frederick Lugard. There were considerable differences in culture and governance between and within these two regions, and the British colonial regime adopted a pragmatic approach based on the realities and institutional arrangements on the ground at the time. In the northern region, for instance, where there was a relatively sophisticated tax bureaucracy operated by Islamic rulers in the Sokoto Caliphate, the British embraced an indirect rule system. In practical terms, this meant that they worked through somewhat independent local leaders rather than ruling their lands directly. One particularly interesting aspect of this system was a pact made in 1903 by the colonial autocrats with the Sultan of Sokoto regarding ‘non-intervention in matters of religion or “tradition”’ (Archibong, 2018: 333). In contrast, in the southern region, which consisted of diverse ethnic groups and where there was neither a centralised state nor a sophisticated tax system, the British operated more freely. Christian missionary education spread rapidly through the south, creating a new educated elite that fought for more local power and control, giving the region an educational and political advantage over the north. Essentially, the south mostly adopted Britain’s administrative, educational and economic systems, a legacy that remains (Nwaobi, 2006). As Archibong (2018) concluded in a recent empirical study, historical institutions are the best predictor of horizontal inequalities in Nigeria. To Intervene or Not To Intervene: The Politics of Inequality in Nigeria Affirmative action and the Federal Character Commission are unavoidable necessities forced on Nigerian national life by the cleavages and inequalities that have scarred the nation. … Affirmative action and group prerogatives cannot be a permanent feature of national life; when they end is the stuff of politics and enlightened, compassionate political engagement. (Mustapha, 2009: 574)
From the literature review and evidence we have presented so far in this chapter, there is no debating that horizontal inequality exists in Nigeria. The debate instead is on what, if anything, the government should do to tackle this issue. Navigating the politics of inequality is a complex undertaking. Citizens, policymakers and advocates differ on whether governments should embrace an interventionist policy that requires extensive regulations and programs or a voluntaristic approach that limits governments’ involvement. Indeed, this decades-long debate has been fierce in Nigeria and culminated in one of the most consequential constitutional innovations in the country – the ‘Federal Character Principle’. The principle was first introduced in the 1979 constitution and enshrined in the 1999 constitution. Nigeria’s regulatory approach is consistent with the constrained outcomes approach as opposed to constrained processes, which have strict ‘positive discrimination’ targets or quotas and demonstrate the relative precedence of ethnic origin over gender issues (Klarsfeld et al., 2012; Adeleye et al., 2014). Countries adopting this approach (e.g., India, Malaysia and Singapore) tend to have medium to high levels of mature affirmative action policies that cover employment in public service institutions and public education.
The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation 107 Mustapha’s position, as seen in the quote above, captures the dilemma the Federal Character Principle poses for even those sympathetic to its goals. Is it really necessary (or a necessary evil)? Is it sustainable? Is it effective in tackling the underlying causes of these persistent inequalities? We will explore these important questions in the next section. First, we need to return to the question at the start of this section: should the government intervene or not intervene in addressing Nigeria’s severe horizontal inequalities between its ethnic groups and regions? Like Mustapha (2009), we think that it is appropriate and necessary to intervene. We will address this issue in more detail in the final section when we discuss policy recommendations. The Promise and Limitations of the Federal Character Principle An ambitious goal to help achieve national unity and peace was established in the Federal Character Principle codified in Nigeria’s constitution in 1979. In 1996, the Federal Character Commission (FCC) Act established the FCC with a mandate to promote, monitor and enforce compliance with the Federal Character Principle. The 1999 constitution designated the FCC as an independent federal executive body. The Federal Character Principle is a constitutional innovation of sorts and to many it holds promise. We will review two key objectives or mandates of the principle in this section and also provide an analysis of its limitations. While our primary focus is on the principle itself, our discussion will also cover implementation issues and challenges. Promise one: equitable distribution of public sector positions The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from few State or few ethnic groups or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies. (Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, Section 14: 3)
The objective of the Federal Character Principle is clear: to institutionalise ethnic representation in Nigeria’s public service. The concept is somewhat similar to that of representative bureaucracy, which posits that having a demographically diverse public service that reflects the wider society will produce policy outcomes that better represent the interests of all groups, especially those that have been historically excluded or disadvantaged (Bradbury & Kellough, 2011). To put it simply – representation matters. Now that the Federal Character Principle has been in existence for over four decades, is it delivering on the mandate to ensure equitable distribution of public sector positions? This question is receiving more attention in academic circles as scholars examine the impact and effectiveness of both the Federal Character Principle and the FCC (see, for example, Mustapha (2009)). Demarest et al. (2020) also provide a critical appraisal of the FCC focused on its monitoring and enforcement responsibilities. Their analysis provides a breakdown of political office appointments by geopolitical zone in President Buhari’s administration as of 2018.This shows that high-level appointments at the minister level (the political heads of the various government departments) complied with the Federal Character Principle, which requires that each of the 36 federating states be represented in the Federal Executive Council.
108 Research handbook on inequalities and work Given the strong interest politicians at the national and state levels have in these ministerial appointments and the high visibility of the roles to the general public, it is not surprising that there is a strong commitment to ensuring diversity and equitable representation, but the same cannot be said for the other political offices (presidential advisers and senior special assistants and chief executive officers of ministries, departments and agencies). Demarest et al.’s analysis shows a higher number of presidential adviser and assistant positions are held by people from the northwest and southwest geopolitical zones – the zones from which the President and Vice President originate. Appointments for the chief executives of ministries, departments and agencies are more balanced. One plausible justification for this difference in ethnic and regional representation for the ministers and chief executives vs. the political adviser and assistant positions is that while the former are primarily responsible to the nation, the latter are focused on supporting the President and Vice President. Nevertheless, many journalists and citizens raised concerns about the lack of federal character in these latter appointments. We will return to this issue in a later section. Overall, it appears that the Federal Character Principle has been successful in creating a sense of awareness of the principle of representative bureaucracy in Nigeria. While the principle and its implementation are far from perfect, it is fair to say that it has helped to reduce blatant instances of ethnic favouritism. The very fact that there is an agency collecting data and monitoring compliance can be a deterrent to flagrant tribalism. Empirical evidence lends credence to this. In a multi-country study of ethnic inequalities in the public sector, Bangura (2006) found that countries like Nigeria that embraced ethnicity-sensitive policies had achieved progress in having a balanced or ethnically diverse workforce compared to those with so-called ethnicity-blind policies. Promise two: equitable distribution of socio-economic expenditure The second mandate of the Federal Character Commission, which is aligned with the goal of representative bureaucracy, is to ensure an equitable distribution of socio-economic services, amenities and infrastructural facilities. The potential impact of this mandate is much broader as it would benefit not just public servants but entire communities or regions. Achieving this ambitious goal requires developing a distributional formula, a process that will surely create intense politicking and controversy in a polarised country like Nigeria. In 2017, President Buhari’s request to the World Bank to prioritise the northeast geopolitical zone created an uproar in the south: Contrary to President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim on Friday that his discussion with the President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, was twisted, a huge chunk of the financial institution-backed projects in partnership with the Federal Government is based in the North, Sunday Punch can report. The President has always been accused by his critics of favouring the northern part of the country. (Akinloye, 2017)
The northeast zone was experiencing internal displacements and economic hardship as a result of brutal attacks by Boko Haram, one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups. Even before Boko Haram (which means ‘Western education is forbidden’) started its decade-long campaign there, the region had the worst social, economic and human capital performance in the country. Put simply, this is a region that appears to qualify for special federal government intervention; hence, there should not have been so much controversy about this. However,
The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation 109 in a polarised and developing society like Nigeria, many do not appear to see horizontal inequalities as a legitimate basis for distribution of socio-economic services or projects. This probably explains why the Federal Character Commission has not taken much action on this front, even though its 1996 enabling act empowered it to do so. The modest action taken by the agency so far was proposing a distribution formula in 2013 that required a minimum of 2% and a maximum of 5% of the budget for every sector allocated to each of the 36 states (Demarest et al., 2020). Interestingly, after nearly a decade, the proposed formula has not received presidential approval. Given the apparent lack of action to this mandate, the practical challenges of monitoring and enforcing compliance, and the political backlash it is likely to generate, it is unrealistic to expect progress in the near future. In summary, the use of the Federal Character Principle to promote equitable distribution of socio-economic services and reduce horizontal inequalities is limited, despite its potential usefulness. Limitation one: lack of strategy to address underlying talent pipeline problems The Federal Character Principle uses a strict quota system to address the issues of ethnic balancing and horizontal inequalities. The formula adopted by the Federal Character Commission requires that each state should have between 2.5% to 3% of the federal workforce. In units with a smaller number of people, geopolitical zones are used instead of states, with each zone required to have between 15% and 18% of the workforce. The challenge with this approach is that it assumes that each state or zone has a sufficient talent pool to hire from. While this may not be a problem for high-level political office holders (which tend to hire a relatively small number of people) or for general/administrative positions in the civil service, it poses a serious challenge for agencies that hire a large number of technical or professional employees. A case in point is the national oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC): NNPC once sought to use the federal character in the employment of oil-sector engineers. Despite repeated efforts, northern candidates with the requisite skills were not available. The NNPC was then given special dispensation to recruit from anywhere in the country. (Mustapha, 2009: 570)
This lays bare the limitation of Nigeria’s constrained outcomes approach, which focuses narrowly on strict quotas to address horizontal inequalities. The talent pipeline problem is widespread across technical and professional jobs. For example, even though over 50% of the country’s population is in the northern region, it accounted for just 10% of engineers, 10% of architects, 15% of university professors, 25% of lawyers and fewer than 10% of bank executives (Adamu, 2003: 15). The practical implication of this is that the Federal Character Principle cannot be applied in several key sectors or professions. Therefore, the priority over the decades has been to ensure that there is sufficient representation of the northern elite among the most senior and powerful positions of the federal workforce to compensate for the ‘bureaucratic inequalities’ resulting from the dominance of southern workers (Mustapha, 2009). The predictable outcome is constant inter-ethnic rivalry for leadership positions, widespread accusations of ‘tribalism’ or ethnic favouritism and a toxic workplace climate. Put simply, the constrained outcomes approach of the Federal Character Principle (alone) cannot address the severe horizontal inequalities in Nigeria. A serious human capital development plan is needed, and all tiers of government must work together on crafting and implementing this long-term plan. For large or systemically important players like the
110 Research handbook on inequalities and work NNPC, the Federal Character Commission should demand a medium- and long-term strategy to address the talent pipeline challenge and not just grant their exemption requests. Limitation two: lack of political independence Although the 1999 constitution granted independent federal executive body status to the Federal Character Commission, it is questionable whether the organisation is really independent. The executive chairman, secretary and commissioners of the agency are appointed by the President, who also determines their budget. Given the sensitivity around monitoring and enforcing equitable distribution of public sector positions and the highly charged Nigerian context in which it operates, the commission and its employees should have more protections from political interference. Several events in recent years lend credence to the criticism that the FCC’s organisational structure makes it beholden to the presidency. In 2018, for example, when President Buhari (a northerner) provoked outrage by appointing northerners as heads of all the four military branches, the Acting Executive Chairman of the Commission, Dr Shettima Bukar Abba, rose to his defence: Security issues are not issues of federal character, they are issues of federal character at the recruitment level… if you subject them to federal character at the top level you are creating mediocrity in security issues… Nigerians are unfair criticising the President on (security appointments). It is just like the justice (judicial system), to appoint a judge you don’t jump one particular level to another, unless you want to retire all of them. (Ojeme, 2018)
The (acting) head of the FCC supporting actions that so flagrantly violated the Federal Character Principle that his organisation was meant to enforce and in an institution that is so central to national unity and peace suggests that there is a political independence problem. Interestingly, as a side note, controversies like this have raised fresh concerns about whether the Federal Character Commission consistently applies the Federal Character Principle – even in its own workforce (Oloja, 2017). The seeming lack of independence and accountability for the FCC poses a threat to the legitimacy of the agency and its mission.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY, PRACTICE AND RESEARCH Nigeria has attempted to confront the severe and persistent horizontal inequalities between its ethnic groups and regions by using the Federal Character Principle to institutionalise ethnic representation in the public sector. As our analysis in this chapter has shown, the strict affirmative action quota system employed may be necessary but it is not sufficient. Neither is the extensive use of ‘state of origin’ for employment and education purposes under the Federal Character Principle, as it privileges those indigenous to a state over other residents (Agbiboa, 2017). Furthermore, in an era where inter-state and inter-ethnic marriages have become commonplace and where migration to urban centres around the country is happening rapidly, this traditional concept is looking increasingly untenable. The ongoing effort to amend the constitution to confer indigeneship based on ten years of residence in a state (Aborisade, 2020) is therefore a step in the right direction, not least because it promotes inclusive citizenship. Still, on policy-related issues there is a need for interventions to go beyond the narrow focus on ethnic inequalities. From literacy rates to financial access, it is clear that an intersectional
The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation 111 approach that is sensitive to gender inequality is required. We especially recommend incorporating gender into the Federal Character Principle, as there is a significant opportunity to make a difference here. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Index (World Economic Forum, 2021), which benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education and health criteria, ranked Nigeria 139th out of 156 countries. There appears to be public support for this amendment and the recent endorsement of this idea by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is welcome. Real action is now needed. What is also needed is a more holistic approach to the practice of diversity that emphasises inclusion and belonging, not just equality and diversity as the existing affirmative action programs do. This is actually a challenge for Nigerian organisations in general, as poor workplace inclusion, social exclusion and non-inclusive societal attitudes towards minorities are widespread (Adeleye et al., 2014; Society for Human Resource Management, 2009). In other words, there is a need to learn how to (better) leverage workforce diversity by building an inclusive workplace climate that enables people to reach their full potential. This requires a paradigm shift, moving beyond affirmative action quotas and the so-called legal case for diversity. As advocates for the business case for diversity would argue, what is the benefit of having such a culturally diverse workforce if it does not increase employee productivity, help to attract and retain diverse talent and improve organisational performance? Even while tackling bureaucratic and horizontal inequalities, the business case for diversity in Nigeria’s public service needs to be clearly articulated. In addition, we recommend embracing the moral case for diversity. Such an approach to managing diversity and inequality can gain broader appeal in Nigeria where religion is a central part of people’s identities. Despite the burgeoning literature on ethnic inequalities and diversity management in Nigeria, there are still gaps in our understanding that need to be researched. One fundamental question is how to balance the competing logics of giving preferential treatment to balance ethnic inequalities vs. building a fair, meritocratic and high-performance organisation (Adeleye et al., 2019; Healy and Oikelome, 2007). More comparative, multi-country studies on public sector diversity management that explain the links between ethnic diversity, inequalities and governance are needed (Bangura, 2006). Given the broad interest in this area across fields such as economics, development, political science and human resources management, a multidisciplinary approach would be beneficial. Another interesting avenue for future research is exploring the origins of different forms of ethnic inequality (e.g., access to education, public services, financial services, etc.) and what initiatives have been successful (or not) in narrowing some of these inequalities in recent years (Archibong, 2018). This will help policymakers and public service administrators (better) understand how to craft appropriate policies and practices to tackle these inequalities. Finally, as this chapter has made clear, governance institutions matter. Policies to combat inequality and exclusion can only work with good governance and accountability systems – indeed, any policy is only as good as its implementation. More studies like those by Mustapha (2009) and Demarest et al. (2020) are needed to explore the role, impact and limitations of the Federal Character Commission and other key institutions and how they can be reinvented to make them a meaningful force in tackling ethnic inequalities in the workplace.
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REFERENCES Aborisade, S. (2020). Resident of a state for 10 years should become indigene – Senate. March 8. Retrieved from https://punchng.com/resident-of-a-state-for-10-years-should-become-indigene -senate/. Adamu, F. (2003). Globalisation and economic glocalisation in northern Nigeria. Development Studies Association, UK. Retrieved from www.devstud.org.uk/publications/papers/conf03. Adeleye, I., Atewologun, D. & Matanmi, O. (2014). Equality, diversity and inclusion in Nigeria: Historical context and emerging issues, in A. Klarsfeld, L. Booysen, E. Ng, I. Roper and A. Tatli (eds), International Handbook on Diversity Management at Work: Country Perspectives on Diversity and Equal Treatment (Second Edition). Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar, pp. 195–216. Adeleye, I., Fawehinmi, A., Adisa, T., Utam, K. & Ikechukwu-Ifudu, V. (2019). Managing diversity in Nigeria: Competing logics of workplace diversity, in A. Georgiadou, M. Gonzalez-Perez and M. Olivas-Lujan (eds), Diversity within Diversity Management: Country-based Perspectives. Emerald Publishing, pp. 21–41. Agbiboa, D. (2017). Federalism and group-based inequalities in Nigeria. Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies. Pennsylvania: Global Centre for Pluralism. Retrieved from https://www.pluralism .ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Nigeria_EN.pdf. Akinloye, B. (2017, October 15). ICYMI: North got lion’s share of World Bank projects under Buhari. Retrieved from https://punchng.com/north-got-lions-share-of-world-bank-projects-under-buhari -documents/. Archibong, B. (2018). Historical origins of persistent inequality in Nigeria. Oxford Development Studies, 46(3), 325–347. Bangura, Y. (2006). Ethnic inequalities in the public sector: A comparative analysis. Development and Change, 37(2), 299–328. Bradbury, M. & Kellough, J. E. (2011). Representative bureaucracy: Assessing the evidence on active representation. The American Review of Public Administration, 41(2), 157–167. Demarest, L., Langer, A. & Ukiwo, U. (2020). Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC): A critical appraisal. Oxford Development Studies, 48(4), 315–328. EFINA (2021). Access to financial services in Nigeria survey. Retrieved from https://www.a2f.ng. Healy, G. & Oikelome, F. (2007). A global link between national diversity policies? The case of the migration of Nigerian physicians to the UK and USA. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 8(11), 1917–1933. Klarsfeld, A., Combs, G., Susaeta, L. & Belizón, M. (2012). International perspectives on diversity and equal treatment policies and practices, in C. Brewster and W. Mayrhofer (eds), Handbook of Comparative Human Resource Management, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar, pp. 393–415. Mamman, A. & Baydoun, N. (2009). Managerial perspective on the impact of globalisation in an African commercial bank: Implications for strategy implementation. International Journal of Organisational Analysis, 17(3), 184–201. Mustapha, A. R. (2009). Institutionalising ethnic representation: How effective is affirmative action in Nigeria? Journal of International Development, 21(4), 561–576. Ndujihe, C. (2022, May 2). Federal Character Principle: Why implementation must begin with commission. Retrieved from https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/05/federal-character-principle-why -implementation-must-begin-with-commission-chidoka-akinloye/. Nwaobi, G. (2006). The Nigerian wars, regional crises and ethnic disturbances: Policy responses and democratic implications. MPRA Paper No. 96. Retrieved from https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/96/. Ojeme, V. (2018, March 22). Federal character not required in appointment of service chiefs – FCC. Retrieved from https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/03/federal-character-not-required-appointment -service-chiefs-fcc/. Oloja, M. (2017, 18 June). A Federal Character Commission without federal character! The Guardian. Retrieved from https://guardian.ng/opinion/a-federal-character-commission-without-federal -character/. Onah, E. I. (2014). Nigeria: A country profile. Journal of International Studies, 10, 151–162.
The Federal Character Principle and the politics of ethnic representation 113 Qureshi, Z. (2021). Tackling the inequality pandemic: Is there a cure? Washington, DC, USA: The Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/tackling-the-inequality -pandemic-is-there-a-cure/. Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) (2009). Global Diversity and Inclusion: Perceptions, Practices and Attitudes. Alexandria, USA: SHRM. Sowell, T. (2004). Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. New Haven, USA: Yale University Press. Statista (2022). Nigeria: Literacy rate by zone and gender. Statistica. Retrieved from https://www.statista .com/statistics/1124745/literacy-rate-in-nigeria-by-zone-and-gender/. Stewart, F. (2008). Horizontal inequalities and conflict: An introduction and some hypotheses, in F. Stewart (ed.), Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies (pp. 3–24). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Ugoh, S. C. & Ukpere, W. I. (2012). Policy of the Federal Character Principle and conflict management in Nigerian federalism. African Journal of Business Management, 6(23), 6771–6780. World Economic Forum (WEF) (2021). The global gender gap report 2021. Retrieved from https://www .weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2021/digest.
9. State regulation and quotas – international perspectives on the use of gender quotas for corporate boards Cathrine Seierstad and Hilde Fjellvær
Ten years after the first proposal, the Women on Boards Directive has finally been adopted. By setting a target of 40% women on boards for stock-listed companies and increasing transparency in recruitment procedures, this directive takes a major step towards gender equality on boards in the 27 countries of the European Union. (EWOB chair Hedwige Nuyens, 30 November 2022, cited in Gaudioano, 2022)
Gender equality is and has been an important goal for policymakers and organisations for decades. Various initiatives and policies to increase gender equality in the labour market have been introduced at both national and supranational levels, and since the late 1970s/1980s, most countries have had different types of gender equality initiatives/policies in place. These range from gender mainstreaming to liberal and radical equal opportunity initiatives (such as quotas and earmarking of positions). While liberal equal opportunity approaches are concerned with fair procedure and equality of opportunity, radical approaches are concerned with outcome and equality of results (Jewson and Mason, 1986). Equality pillars, such as equal rights, equal pay and equality in decision-making, have been important goals for strategies at supranational, such as the EU, and country levels (e.g., European Commission, 2016). Nevertheless, despite progress in some areas, women are underrepresented in areas of the labour market, particularly in the upper echelons in the private sector. In 2022, the proportion of women at board level in the largest European companies was 30.6%, but with great variations between countries, ranging from 45.3% in France to 8.5% in Cyprus (European Parliament, 2022). Moreover, international movements, such as MeToo, have revealed how there is a need for continued development and varied use of different strategies, initiatives and policies focusing on gender equality to combat discrimination at various levels and in various forms in many areas and industries. Previous discussions of the most useful types of policies or initiatives to achieve gender equality in the upper echelons in the private sector, particularly at board level (see Klettner et al., 2016; Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad, 2020), tend to focus on whether hard or radical (quotas) or softer approaches (targets) are the most appropriate. As Klettner et al. (2016: 413) illustrate, this debate centres around whether ‘it is best to prescribe outcome and force compliance or suggest outcome and permit flexibility around their achievement’. One gender equality policy initiative that has received a lot of attention and support but also scepticism is the radical or hard approach: the use of gender quotas for corporate boards. While quotas have been common in politics and areas of the public sector in many countries, quotas as an equality strategy have traditionally been absent in the private sector. Yet in 2003 Norway proposed the use of quotas for public limited companies (PLCs). The quota regulation was introduced in 2006 and fully implemented from 2008. After the Norwegian introduction of quotas on corporate boards, political actors and leaders in other countries have increasingly put the question of how to combat male dominance in the upper echelon on the agenda and we 114
State regulation and quotas 115 have witnessed what has been referred to as ‘an avalanche’ of quota initiatives, particularly in European countries (Machold et al., 2013). Multiple European countries (Spain, Iceland, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Portugal and Greece) have since introduced quotas while an array of other countries (e.g., UK, Sweden, Denmark) opted for softer initiatives, such as targets and policies targeting more gender equality at board levels. In addition to national initiatives, the use of quotas for corporate boards has also been discussed at various points in time at the EU level. In 2012, the Directive on improving gender balance among non-executive directors was proposed by the commission, but it failed to get support among the EU Member States. However, in June 2022 a political agreement was eventually reached between the European Parliament and the Council, and the Directive was adopted in November 2022; hence regulations, for gender balance on corporate boards are to be included from the EU level. Also, outside Europe, quotas have been debated and introduced in specific contexts (e.g., Quebec, Israel, Kenya, NASDAQ). Moreover, countries both with and without quota regulations are discussing and evaluating whether to introduce, expand or remove the quota initiatives. Hence, the use of quotas for corporate boards is currently on the agenda as an equality strategy worldwide and knowledge of the experiences we have to date is imperative. While political debates tend to focus on quotas or targets with a rather sharp distinction between these two approaches, the reality is that there are great variations in both quota and target designs and their achievements (see, e.g., Seierstad et al., 2017a, 2017b; Terjesen et al., 2015; Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad, 2020; Teigen, 2021). Moreover, the processes for introducing the various initiatives, arguments/rationales for introduction and antecedents in terms of the contextual setting and push factors also vary. In this chapter, we discuss the use of quotas on corporate boards at the national level. We will first outline the chronological development of quota introductions across Europe. We then examine antecedents and push factors for introducing quotas before we take a closer look at the actual variations in quota design. Finally, we will comment on what we can learn from the different quota scenarios and discuss how differences in the design, content and context of the quota laws can be essential for change for wider equality and diversity at both board levels and beyond, a topic of great concern for policymakers and practitioners.
THE USE OF QUOTAS – CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS Since the early 2000s, codes of good governance in different countries have featured recommendations about gender diversity among directors on corporate boards (see Seierstad et al., 2017a, 2017b). However, due to the lack of progress, countries have increasingly moved away from self-regulation to harder measures, such as gender quotas. That the avalanche of quotas (Machold et al. 2013) started in Norway is perhaps not surprising as quotas historically have been a widely used tool to increase gender equality in areas of politics (voluntary at political party levels) and in the public sector (public commissions, boards and councils) since the 1980s. For a long time, Norway has been considered one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, yet with strong vertical segregation in the private sector. In 2003, the Parliament adopted gender quotas for corporate boards (public limited companies), inter-municipal companies and state-owned companies. The new approach with quotas on corporate boards was the first in its form, but it is worth emphasizing that the law applies to public limited companies and not limited companies, which is the most common form of company in Norway.
116 Research handbook on inequalities and work The regulation requires a minimum representation of each sex of 40% and was implemented in 2006 with a two-year grace period ending in 2008. There are sanctions for non-compliance; hence, there has been full compliance in the Norwegian case (on PLC boards). After the introduction, the acceptance and support of quotas on PLC boards has been and remains high in Norway (Teigen et al., 2019). However, the lack of an expected domino or spillover effect – i.e., an increase of women on boards (WoBs) in other types of companies, in particular limited companies (see Seierstad et al. 2021) – has led to a new political initiative. Thus, the government and current Minister of Trade have been reviewing the possibility of expanding the use of quotas to other company forms, such as limited companies over a certain size which is currently (2023) being discussed in parliament. The first country to follow the introduction of quotas in Norway was Spain. While Norway has a long tradition of using quotas in areas of the labour market, the case of Spain is different. The quota law for corporate boards was adopted in 2007, to be implemented by 2015. The Spanish quota law also requires a set quota of 40% and applies to listed companies and companies with more than 250 employees. In Spain, the introduction of a quota law in Norway was used as an argument for the introduction of their quota law, but this was also part of a wider awareness of gender equality in the labour market in general (Gabaldon and Gimenez, 2017). In comparison to the Norwegian law, the Spanish law is not mandatory and there are no sanctions for non-compliance. As a result, the Spanish quota is not yet fulfilled. Iceland, the third country to introduce quotas for corporate boards, adopted the law in 2010, to be in place by 2013. The law was introduced relatively shortly after the financial crisis that hit the Icelandic economy particularly hard. The need to introduce more women in economic decision-making to avoid male dominance and economic problems together with the Norwegian example was important for the introduction of the quota law in Iceland. Moreover, there was simultaneously an increased focus on equality policies in the labour market in general (Arnardottir and Sigurjonsson, 2017). The Icelandic quota law requires that 40% of each sex must be represented on corporate boards in state-owned enterprises, publicly traded firms and all private limited companies. Hence, a wider group of companies are affected in the Icelandic case than the Norwegian example. However, as in the Spanish case, there are no punitive sanctions for non-compliance. In the case of Iceland, the support for and acceptance of the quota have been high following its introduction (ibid.). In 2011, parallel to the EU discussion of gender quotas for corporate boards from the EU level, three countries adopted quotas for corporate boards. France adopted gender quotas for corporate boards in 2011, to be implemented by 2017. The French law, the Cope Zimmermann law, requires listed and non-listed companies with revenues or total assets over EUR 50 million or more than 500 employees over a three-year period to have a gender balance of a minimum of 40% of each sex. The Cope Zimmermann law does not have as strong sanctions for non-compliance as the Norwegian law, but they are stronger than in Spain and Iceland. They have opted for suspension of board fee payment/open seats, and the compliance of French companies is high (Zenou et al., 2017). In Italy, the quota law, known as the Golfo Mosca Law, was adopted in 2011 and implemented in 2015. The Norwegian example was important for getting support for the introduction of the law and was used in the argumentation. Nevertheless, the actual design of the law varies from the Norwegian one in several dimensions. The quota law applies to boards of listed companies and state-owned companies. These boards should be composed of at least 33% of each sex. There are different steps in the penalties for non-compliance, from issuance of a warning to monetary penalties for
State regulation and quotas 117 non-compliance and, finally, removal of board members (Rigolini and Huse, 2017). Another peculiar element with the Italian law is that it is a time-limited law (ibid.), which will be voluntary after 2022. Belgium also issued a gender quota law in 2011, to be implemented by 2017/2018. Here, publicly listed companies are affected by the law. Due to factors such as several corporate scandals and the financial crisis, different corporate governance regulations as well as financial regulations have been put in place to strengthen the corporate governance regulations in Belgium. In terms of the gender quota law for corporate boards, the sanctioning system is a mix of empty-seat sanctions and financial penalties for directors. The target goal of the Belgium quota law is 33%, like the Italian. Moreover, publicly listed companies must, in their annual report, address the efforts they have made to reach the goal of 33%representation of each sex (Levrau, 2017). A group of countries introduced quotas a few years after the initial EU debate on gender quotas for corporate boards while the debates and evaluations from the countries that had introduced quotas were still highly prominent in Europe. In the Netherlands, the responsibility for increasing the number of women on corporate boards has traditionally been an issue for the companies themselves (Kruisinga and Senden, 2017). This might be a key reason that the quota law, introduced in 2013 with the requirement for gender balance with 30% of the underrepresented sex, had no sanctions for non-compliance and the law was temporary and originally time-bound until 2016 (Kruisinga and Senden, 2017). In Germany, the route of introducing gender quotas for corporate boards was long; the public and political discussion lasted for 15 years before the law was eventually introduced in 2015. The gender quota of 30% applies to supervisory boards of companies that are listed and subject to full co-determination (Kirsch, 2017). Moreover, the German approach also includes what has been labelled a ‘flexi quota’ (ibid.). Companies that are either listed or subject to full co-determination must set targets on their supervisory boards, management boards and the two management levels below the board. Companies should further report on the progress (ibid.). Austria introduced gender quotas for corporate boards in 2017 to be implemented from 2018 to 2022. Prior to the introduction, gender diversity on boards had been on the agenda and since 2008 the Austrian code of corporate governance recommended appropriate attention to gender diversity on the supervisory boards (Mensi-Klarbach et al., 2021). Nevertheless, the progress of this softer approach was modest, and a gender quota law was eventually implemented. Austria followed the case of Germany in terms of both the target quota (30%) and the sanction system of empty seats for non-compliance. One of the latest countries to adopt a gender quota law for corporate boards was Portugal in 2017. The law aimed at a gender balance of 20% in 2018 and 33% in 2020. The law applies to state-owned and local government companies and public listed companies (PLCs) (Casaca et al., 2022). Moreover, in addition to gender balance on the board level, the law requires the companies to design, implement and monitor Gender Equality Action Plans (GEAPs). These must also be publicly available on the respective companies’ websites. The sanctions for non-compliance in Portugal are monetary penalties. The final country to introduce gender quotas for corporate boards was Greece, which in 2020 introduced a quota law of 25% (EuroGender, 2022). Table 9.1 below describes the chronological introduction and some of the key specificities of the different quota laws in Europe. As illustrated, the countries that have introduced quotas in Europe have done so over a relatively long period of time, in different phases and with variations in the specificities of the law.
2011 (2014: 20%, 2017: Companies with 500 or
France
2017 (2018/2022)
2017 (2018: 20%, 2020: All publicly listed
Austria
Portugal
million
companies
companies
All publicly listed
employee
with 2000 or more
companies and companies
All publicly listed
33%
30%
30%
30
33%
33%
40%
40%
40%
sanctions
Empty seat and economic
Empty seat
Empty seats
No sanctions
directors’ benefits suspended
Empty seat and sanctions/
directors
sanctions, removal of
Steps: warning, economic
Clear and monitorable
monitor
Clear definition, hard to
Clear and monitorable
monitor
Clear definition, hard to
Clear and monitorable
Clear and monitorable
monitor
No payment/fees to directors Clear definition, hard to
monitor
Clear definition, hard to
monitor
subsidies and contracts No sanctions
Clear definition, hard to
Clear and monitorable
population
Clear and monitorable quota
Consequences for state
Dissolution
Sanctions
Permanent
Permanent
Permanent
Temporary
Permanent
Temporary
Permanent
Permanent
Permanent
Permanent
Duration of quota
Notes: *Greece is not included due to the lack of research and information available on the case. Sources: Table 9.1 builds on information from Seierstad et al., 2017a, 2017b; Mensi-Klarbach et al., 2021; Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad, 2020; and Casaca et al., 2022.
33%)
2014 (2016)
Germany
of minimum EUR 35
17.5 million and revenue
Balance of at least EUR
companies
(2017/2018)
2013
All publicly listed
companies
2011
33%)
2011 (2012: 20%, 2015: All publicly listed
50 million in revenue
more employees or EUR
more employees
Companies with 50 or
The Netherlands
Belgium
Italy
2010 (2013)
Iceland
250 employees
companies with more than
Listed companies and
2003 (2006/2008)
2007 (2015)
40%)
Quota target
Public limited companies 40%
Regulation scope
Norway
implementation
Year of adoption and
Gender quotas for corporate boards in European countries
Spain
Country*
Table 9.1
118 Research handbook on inequalities and work
State regulation and quotas 119
ANTECEDENTS AND PUSH FACTORS FOR INTRODUCING QUOTAS The previous section briefly outlined the chronological development of the countries with quota initiatives in place in Europe. What is apparent is that they introduced the quota laws at different points in time, but the isomorphic effects from Norway and the developments at international levels have been important for all the countries that have introduced gender quotas for corporate boards. Over the last decades, there has been a sharp increase in studies looking at both the share of WoBs and the use of quotas (Kirsch, 2018). Even though it is outside the scope of this chapter, it is worth acknowledging that a wide range of studies have looked at the group of directors in terms of similarities and differences between male and female directors (Seierstad and Opsahl, 2011; Wang and Kelan, 2013) and the effects of WoBs on performance, mainly in financial terms (Ahern and Dittmar, 2012; Bøhren and Staubo, 2016; Ferreira, 2015; Eckbo et al., 2022). More pertinent is an increasingly important branch of the literature that has focused on institutional contexts and antecedents and push factors in the countries where quotas were introduced. This important body of research examines the great diversity among the countries that have introduced quotas, some of which might seem rather surprising when looking at their history in terms of gender equality and strategies. Research focusing on antecedents and push factors for the introduction of quotas on corporate boards tends to focus either on the specific institutional and cultural context of the countries or the interest, role and motivation of key actors. One of the early and most influential WoBs studies seeking to explain the path to introducing gender quotas on corporate boards is that of Terjesen et al. (2015). They followed the logic of WoBs studies explaining the share of women on boards using different types of national, cultural and economic environmental factors (see, e.g., Grosvold and Brammer, 2011; Iannotta et al., 2016). Terjesen et al. (2014) argue that among the countries that have introduced quotas, three institutional domains are particularly relevant and co-evolve with gender corporate policies. The three institutional domains are (1) the female labour market and gendered welfare state provisions, (2) left-leaning government coalitions and (3) path-dependent policies for gender equality (in both public and corporate domains). Terjesen et al. (2014) argue that most of these factors are prevalent in the countries introducing gender quotas on corporate boards and claim that the role of actors and specific tipping points in terms of elite or celebrity politicians or business leaders have, in addition to the institutional domains, been important for the countries that have introduced quotas for corporate boards. Another body of the literature moves beyond the macro-level focus and investigates the roles of actors from different levels and politicking processes, which are significant in deciding to what extent policy initiatives are turned into policies. For example, Krook (2007) identified how, in the context of politics, actors from civil society, state and international levels have been important for the introduction of quotas in politics. Taking this further, Seierstad at al. (2017) argue that a combination of multiple actors, such as civil society, business/ corporate, state and international actors, is important for the introduction of quotas or other types of initiatives aiming to increase gender diversity on boards. Moreover, Seierstad et al. (2017: 290) argue that active and powerful actors and intra-country dynamics might mitigate an institutional context less welcoming to the use of quotas for corporate boards, suggesting that ‘the politicking and the political games influencing actors pushing for change may be
120 Research handbook on inequalities and work more important than the institutional setting in explaining the use of public policy strategies’. Seierstad et al. (2017) suggest, based on an analysis of the introduction of quotas in Norway, Italy and Germany and targets in the UK, that actors and their roles both vary and have been extremely important in the process of introducing strategies. For example, in the case of Italy, civil society actors, particularly individual women in politics, academia and business, utilised their international and transnational network to lead the process of introducing quotas on Italian boards, and as Seierstad et al. (2017: 303) suggest, ‘international focus on WoB meant that actors and groups of actors were given a platform and an opportunity for change’. This was done in a context in which the institutional factors may not be considered particularly welcoming to the use of quotas in general. Taken together, the roles and types of actors important for introducing quota laws vary in different countries but research in this area is scarce. As actors are important change agents, both for the introduction of strategies as well as for creating wider change for equality, it is important to understand how actors, motivations and politicking in the specific context in which they operate influence the wider institutional environment. As illustrated above, both institutional factors and the role of actors can thus be important antecedents for quota introduction. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that institutional factors and actors, which can be important antecedents in isolation, can become even more impactful in interaction. Moreover, the factors that are more important can vary between countries. In some countries, there is a crucial singular major antecedent, in others a combination of antecedents’ interplay at different levels that leads to the introduction of quotas. Taken together, Krook (2007) suggests that when it comes to the introduction of quotas (in politics), four common stories, either alone or in combination, can explain the introduction in different national contexts and the role and type of actors in this process. These are: (1) women mobilise for quotas to increase women’s representation; (2) political elites recognise strategic advantages for pursuing quotas; (3) quotas are consistent with existing or emerging notions of equality and representation; (4) quotas are supported by international norms and spread through transnational sharing. Thus, these stories of introduction represent antecedents at both macro (institutional) and micro (actor) levels. Seierstad et al. (2017) agree that, also in relation to quotas on corporate boards, different types of stories are visible in the corporate board quota contexts. They identify, in the case of Norway, Italy, Germany and UK, how the stories of women mobilizing and quotas being supported by international norms and through transnational sharing are visible in most of the countries, but the introduction of quotas for boards is consistent with existing notions of equality and representation in Norway alone. In other words, both institutional- and actor-level involvement were influential.
VARIATION IN QUOTA DESIGN, CONTEXT AND SCENARIOS While some research has focused on the diffusion of the use of quotas for corporate boards and antecedents and push factors for introduction, another area that has received relatively little attention is the variations that exists in quota design beyond simple description of the specificities. Variation in quota design and the context in which they operate matters for both acceptability of the law and potential for change (Lépinard and Rubio-Marín, 2018). Hence, it is important to develop a more systematic knowledge of quota designs and different quota scenarios, looking at both design and context.
State regulation and quotas 121 In terms of quota design, Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad (2020) suggest that two dimensions are especially important; namely, hardness and progressiveness. They understand hardness as enforcement and precision of the law (to what extent it is clear who is affected and how this can be monitored). Progressiveness is understood as a combination of year of acceptance, implementation schedule, quota target, requested increase and the scope of the law. Based on an analysis of these factors, the authors cluster the European quota countries based on hardness ranging from hard to soft and progressiveness ranging from high to low. Building on ideas from Lépinard and Rubio-Marín (2018), Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad (2020) suggest that the possibility for a quota law to be accepted, fulfilled and create change for equality depends on the institutional context in which the law is embedded, such as the overall equality climate of the country, the history of using quotas in other areas of the labour market and the political support for quotas for boards. Table 9.2 presents an overview and description of the different European countries’ quota design (hardness and progressiveness) and institutional context factors. This points to very different ‘quota scenarios’ in the various countries Table 9.2 Country
Variations in quota design Quota law
Quota law
Gender equality Quotas in politics
Political support for quotas for
hardness
progressiveness
level
boards at introduction stage
Norway
Hard
High/medium
High
Comprehensive
Broad
Spain
Soft
High
Medium
Medium
Medium/low
Iceland
Soft
High
High
Medium
Broad
France
Medium/hard
High/medium
Medium
Comprehensive
Medium
Italy
Hard
Medium
Low
Medium
Medium/low
Belgium
Hard
Medium/low
Medium/low
Comprehensive
Medium
The Netherlands
Soft
Medium/low
Medium/low
Few
Medium/low
Germany
Hard
Low
Medium/high
Comprehensive
Medium
Austria
Medium/hard
Low
Medium/low
Medium
Medium/low
Portugal
Hard
Medium/low
Medium/low
Medium
Medium/low
Sources: Table 9.2 builds on information from Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad, 2020.
Mensi-Klarbach et al. (2021) suggest that voluntary self-regulation targets and softer initiatives might not initiate the desired change unless there are clear targets and public monitoring of fulfilment or a credible threat associated with the quotas with sanctions for non-compliance, which is what Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad (2020) found. Softer quotas may however be mitigated by a welcoming institutional context. This can be empirically illustrated with the case of Spain where there are no penalties for non-compliance (soft in the hardness dimension) but rather ‘benefits for fulfilments’ and where the quota law target is not met (Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad, 2020). In Iceland, on the other hand, where we also find no sanctions for non-compliance (soft in the hardness dimension), the institutional context is gender-aware with a strong focus on and monitoring of gender equality, and the desired change for board positions has been achieved. Hence, Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad (2020) suggest that investigating the institutional contexts matters when introducing and designing corporate board quotas (CBQs). For example, in an unfavourable institutional context, a soft CBQ might not lead to the intended increase, whereas in a more supportive institutional context, even soft CBQs can result in the proposed changes. The scope of the companies affected by regulation (a dimension of progressiveness) is a factor that varies for the countries that have introduced quotas for corporate boards. In
122 Research handbook on inequalities and work Germany this is rather narrow and in Norway it is medium-narrow (see Mensi-Klarbach and Seierstad (2020)). This means that in these countries a relatively low share of companies are affected by the law. On the other hand, in countries such as Spain and Iceland, the scope is rather wide (ibid.). An interesting factor when focusing on equality and corporate boards is the extent to which we can observe a spillover effect; that is, for example, if company boards not affected by the law will have an increase in women on their boards. If that is the case, then the wider equality effect of the law is high. Few studies to date have looked at this, but Seierstad et al. (2021) investigated the share of women in PLCs (affected by the law) in Norway and limited (not affected by the law) boards and found only a small increase in women on limited company boards; hence, there is little spillover effect from the law to other types of companies. Hence, as the spillover effect of gender representation on boards of companies not affected by the law is rather limited (Seierstad et al., 2021), the scope of companies affected is important for creating real change in terms of gender representation and equality on boards in the private sector. Norway, with a medium-narrow scope, is currently expanding the scope to include limited companies to create real change in terms of equality in a broader set of boardrooms. Another interesting element is the extent to which companies with regulation for board positions have a spillover effect on leadership positions within the companies. Research on this is also limited to date (e.g., Bertrand et al., 2019; Seierstad et al., 2021; Wang and Kelan, 2013) but has found only a relatively modest increase in women in CEO positions in companies affected by the quota regulation for board positions in Norway. Important steps to secure spillover effects for the quota laws for corporate boards might instead be initiated by countries introducing a broader scope of measures. One example is Germany, where the flexi-quota requires companies beyond the fully regulated ones to set targets for gender diversity and comment on their achievements. Similarly, in Portugal, the requirement is that regulated companies need to design and monitor an equality policy for leadership levels in the organisation. It will be both important and interesting to follow the wider equality effects in these countries where the quota design has a broader scope. There is an assumption, sometimes explicit but also implicit, that the introduction of quotas for board positions will strengthen wider gender equality. Simultaneously, there is an acknowledgement that triggering cultural, societal and organisational change is challenging. The involvement and support of a wide range of actors (Seierstad et al., 2017) as well as a situational fit (Burnes, 1996) is important in this regard. Hence, quota design together with the context in which the laws are embedded affect the possibility of the quota law creating real changes for wider equality.
CONCLUSION How to increase equality in the upper echelons is on the agenda at national and supranational levels, and the use of quotas for corporate boards has developed into a much-used strategy. The research field on quotas for boards is relatively new as the phenomenon only started around 20 years ago and is still very much emerging. To date, research has been dominated by streams focusing on differences between male and female directors and the effect of WoBs in terms of various forms of financial performance. What has received little attention in comparison is systematic research on the use of quotas, variations in quota design and the wider equality effects of this strategy. Nevertheless, there is an increasing interdisciplinary body of research
State regulation and quotas 123 focusing on these phenomena. This chapter has explored some of this research focusing on the chronological introduction of quotas for boards, antecedents and push factors for quota introduction and variations in quota design and scenarios. What is apparent from our analysis of the use of quotas in different countries is that: ● ● ● ●
the rationale or push factors for the introduction of quotas and target initiatives vary; there is great variation in quota and target designs; there are variations in the achievements of the different initiatives; the spillover effects of quotas for boards in terms of wider equality reach in the upper echelons are limited.
This creates a complex and diverse picture that makes it difficult to fully understand the effects of the various elements and there is clearly a need for further research in this field. We will comment on some avenues we see as particularly pertinent. The institutional contextual factors are important antecedents for the introduction and further development of gender equality initiatives. A supportive institutional environment can help promote the introduction and development of strategies. However, we need to better understand how this interacts with the influence of key actors. Hence, the interaction between the institutional and cultural context and the effects of the intervention by key actors need to be studied further. Moreover, there are great variations in quota design. There is a commonly used distinction between quotas and targets, but there are also differences within the quota category. Previous research has identified hardness and progressiveness as important variables to understand and describe the variation in quota design. Whereas hardness measures the enforcement and precision of the law, progressiveness is a more elusive concept as it includes a higher number of measures. We suggest that both concepts, but particularly progressiveness, may benefit from further use and development. An even more systematic understanding of not only how but also why quota designs and effects vary will help us understand more of the complexities involved. There has at least implicitly been an expectation that quotas for boards will lead to greater gender equality in the upper echelons and in the organisations in general. Nevertheless, we know little about the different types of spillover effects in the different countries with quotas in place. This includes the effects on other types of boards not affected by quotas and within the companies affected by quotas but beyond the board level. We need to know more about different push factors as well as forces that may hinder the development of further gender equality beyond the quota setting. To conclude, with the increased focus and adoption of the law at the EU level (European Commission, 2022), there is a need for politicians at both national and supranational levels and practitioners to look at the experiences we have from the countries that have introduced quotas to date and for researchers to explore this further, as research is still premature. What is apparent is that using quotas is not a quick fix for wider equality, and there is a need for both broad actor involvement and support and for policies below the board level and beyond the largest companies. In a time where the focus on sustainability and social justice is high, there should be the time and possibility for countries and organisations to act and take steps in addressing the gender imbalance at the upper echelons. As suggested by the European Commission (2022), ‘Legislative action to address gender imbalance continues to drive progress’ and the share of women on boards tends to be higher in countries with quotas in place. A range of strategies, including but certainly not limited to quotas, need to be implemented. However, the
124 Research handbook on inequalities and work change process for further equality will also require support, acceptance, monitoring and work from a wide range of actors and stakeholders at different levels.
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State regulation and quotas 125 Kirsch, A. (2017). Women’s access to boards in Germany – Regulation and symbolic change. In C. Seierstad, P. Gabaldon & H. Mensi-Klarbach (eds), Gender diversity in the boardroom: The use of different quota regulations. Vol. 1. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 205–232. Kirsch, A. (2018). The gender composition of corporate boards: A review and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 29, pp. 346–364. Klettner, A., Clarke, T. & Boersma, M. (2016). Strategic and regulatory approaches to increasing women in leadership: Multilevel targets and mandatory quotas as levers for cultural change. Journal of Business Ethics, 133, pp. 395–419. Krook, M. L. (2007). Candidate gender quotas: A framework for analysis. European Journal of Political Research, 4, pp. 367–394. Kruisinga, S. A. & Senden, L. (2017). Gender diversity on corporate boards in the Netherlands: Waiting on the world to change. In C. Seierstad, P. Gabaldon & H. Mensi-Klarbach (eds), Gender diversity in the boardroom: The use of different quota regulations. Vol. 1. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 177–204. Lépinard, É. & Rubio-Marín, R. (2018). Introduction. Completing the unfinished task? Gender quotas and the ongoing struggle for women’s empowerment in Europe. In É. Lépinard & R. Rubio-Marín (eds), Transforming gender citizenship. The irresistible rise of gender quotas. London: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–37. Levrau, A. (2017). Belgium: Male/female united in the boardroom. In C. Seierstad, P. Gabaldon & H. Mensi-Klarbach (eds), Gender diversity in the boardroom: The use of different quota regulations. Vol. 1. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 155–176. Machold, S., Huse, M., Hansen, K. & Brogi, M. (eds). (2013) Getting women on to corporate boards: A snowball starting in Norway. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Mensi-Klarbach, H. & Seierstad, C. (2020). Gender quotas on corporate boards: Similarities and differences of quota scenarios in Europe. European Management Review, 17(3), pp. 615–631. Mensi-Klarbach, H., Leixnering, S. & Schiffinger, M. (2021). The carrot or the stick: Self-regulation for gender-diverse boards via codes of good governance. Journal of Business Ethics, 170, pp. 577–593. Rigolini, A. & Huse, M. (2017). Women on board in Italy: The pressure of public policies. In C. Seierstad, P. Gabaldon and H. Mensi-Klarbach (eds), Gender diversity in the boardroom: The use of different quota regulations. Vol. 1. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125–154. Seierstad, C. & Opsahl, T. (2011). For the few not the many? The effects of affirmative action on presence, prominence, and social capital of women directors in Norway. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 27(1), pp. 44–54. Seierstad, C., Gabaldon, P. & Mensi-Klarbach, H. (2017a). Gender diversity in the boardroom: The use of different quota regulations. Vol. 1. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seierstad, C., Gabaldon, P. & Mensi-Klarbach, H. (2017b). Gender diversity in the boardroom: Multiple approaches beyond quotas. Vol. 2. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seierstad, C., Warner-Søderholm, G., Torchia, M. & Huse, M. (2017). Increasing the number of women on boards: The role of actors and processes. Journal of Business Ethics, 141, pp. 289–315. Seierstad, C., Healy, G., Le Bruyn, E. S. & Fjellvær, H. (2021). A ‘quota silo’ or positive equality reach? The equality impact of gender quotas on corporate boards in Norway. Human Resource Management Journal, 31(1), pp. 165–186. Teigen, M. (2021). The making and circulation of corporate quotas. In H. Byrkjeflot, L. Mjøset, M. Mordhorst & K. Petersen (eds), The making and circulation of Nordic models, ideas and images. Routledge. pp. 192–208. Teigen, M., Karlsen, R. & Skjeie, H. (2019). Framing and feedback: Increased support for gender quotas among elites. European Journal of Politics and Gender, 2(3), pp. 399–418. Terjesen, S., Aguilera, R. V. & Lorenz, R. (2015). Legislating a woman’s seat on the board: Institutional factors driving gender quotas for boards of directors. Journal of Business Ethics, 128, pp. 233–251. Wang, M. & Kelan, E. (2013). The gender quota and female leadership: Effects of the Norwegian gender quota on board chairs and CEOs. Journal of Business Ethics, 117, pp. 449–466. Zenou, E., Allemand, I. & Brullebaut, B. (2017). Gender diversity on French boards: Example of a success from a hard law. In C. Seierstad, P. Gabaldon & H. Mensi-Klarbach (eds), Gender diversity in the boardroom: The use of different quota regulations. Vol. 1. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 103–124.
10. Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace1 David Perfect
INTRODUCTION This chapter explores religion or belief freedom and discrimination in British workplaces.2 It does so through analysing selected legal cases in which employees who considered they had been prevented from manifesting their beliefs (in different ways) made claims of religious discrimination and the broader implications of these cases for employees and employers. To set the context, the first section summarises the legal framework for religion or belief and presents the latest available data on Employment Tribunal (ET) cases. Subsequent sections examine specific cases and their implications when employees have manifested their belief through: their clothing or religious symbols, expressing their religious views, seeking changes to their working patterns or opting out of specific work duties. Usually after being sanctioned by their employers, some employees have also argued that their particular beliefs should be protected by law. Key secondary sources are also provided.3 The final section considers possible future legal developments and outlines areas for further research. For reasons of space, the chapter excludes the small minority of employers with an ethos based on religion or belief and employment ‘for purposes of an organised religion’.4 Similarly, it omits non-British workplace religious discrimination cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and only refers briefly to Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) cases (see especially McCrea, 2016; Vickers, 2016, 97–158; Hunter-Henin, 2020, 119–75). Disputes that have occurred outside the workplace, for example concerning discrimination in hotel accommodation, are also omitted.5
THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK Two strands of religion or belief law exist in the UK: human rights law, which protects freedom of religion or belief; and equality law, which relates to discrimination on grounds of religion or belief. Unlike the human rights framework, the equality law framework is directly applicable to the workplace. The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) embedded the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into United Kingdom law from 2000, thereby introducing the right of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Under Article 9 (1) of the ECHR, there are absolute rights to hold a religion or belief and change religion and a qualified right to manifest a religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance. Under Article 9 (2), the freedom to manifest a religion or belief is subject to ‘necessary’ limitations. Courts therefore must decide whether there has been an interference with a claimant’s right to freedom of religion or belief and, if so, whether this interference is proportionate and can be justified (Sandberg, 2011, 81–99; Vickers, 2016, 97–134). 126
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace 127 Equality law in Great Britain has gradually evolved since the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. The Equality Act 2010 (EA), as well as consolidating existing legislation, established the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) (from 2011), which requires public authorities to pay due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations, including for religion or belief (Sandberg, 2011, 100–30; Vickers, 2011; Vickers, 2016, 135–227). Under the EA, discrimination in the workplace occurs where someone is treated less favourably ‘because of’ religion or belief. This is defined broadly to include any religion, any religious or philosophical belief, a lack of religion and a lack of belief. Neither religion nor belief is defined further, leaving the courts to decide whether a particular religion or belief is protected. While generally proving straightforward for ‘religion’, defining ‘belief’ has been more challenging. Since 2009, the courts have been guided by five criteria laid down by Justice Michael Burton in Grainger plc v Nicholson that the belief must: ● ● ● ● ●
be genuinely held; be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint; be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; be worthy of respect in a democratic society (Sandberg, 2011, 55–56; Edge and Vickers, 2015, 12–21; Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016, 19–22; Vickers, 2016, 12–31).6
The legislation covers not only the claimant’s own religion or belief but also the discriminator’s perception of, or association with, religion or belief. While still comparatively rare, some cases have been concerned with employer perceptions in different ways.7 The courts must decide whether an individual has been treated less favourably because of their religion or belief and, if so, whether this treatment can be justified. Importantly, each case is decided on its facts, which of course always differ; an Equality and Human Rights Commission assessment of key workplace cases concluded that the ‘legal judgments… are consistent and appropriate given the facts’ (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016, 6). Religion or belief case law is still evolving, partly because some key judgments have been made by ETs and are not therefore binding on higher courts (Perfect and Perfect, 2019, 264). Besides domestic cases, religion or belief law must also take account of ECtHR judgments, which supersede those of domestic courts (McCrea, 2016). How far UK courts will take account of CJEU judgments made after Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union and the end of the Brexit transition period in December 2020 remains unclear. While CJEU rulings are no longer binding on UK courts, judges can still take them into account if deemed appropriate (Hunter-Henin, 2020, 182–84). Religion or belief discrimination claims in the workplace are usually first heard by an ET. Between April 2022 and March 2023, ETs in Britain accepted 819 such claims, with the number of claims on grounds of disability (7,444), sex (3,999), race (3,968) and age (1,951) being much higher.8 Since 2007–08, the number of religion or belief claims has varied between 1,000 (2009–10) and 339 (2014–15). The substantial fall after 2012–13 was due to the introduction of ET fees in July 2013, which the Supreme Court declared unlawful in July 2017; religion or belief claims then increased from 384 in 2016–17 to 670 in 2017–18. Of the 540 religion or belief claims disposed of in 2020–21, only 3% were successful at hearing while 12% were unsuccessful at hearing, with a further 26% resulting in an Advisory, Conciliation
128 Research handbook on inequalities and work and Arbitration Service conciliated settlement. Across all jurisdictions, 8% of claims were successful and 5% unsuccessful at hearing in 2020–21 (Ministry of Justice, 2023, Tables ET_1, ET_2 and ET_3; Pyper et al., 2017).
MANIFESTING A BELIEF THROUGH DRESS CODES OR RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS Two of the best-known and most discussed religion or belief cases concern Christian employees who were instructed by their respective employers not to wear a religious symbol, refused to comply and faced sanctions. While both claimants, Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, were unsuccessful in domestic courts, Eweida won at the ECtHR. A member of the check-in staff at British Airways (BA) and a Coptic Christian, Eweida regularly wore a silver cross on a chain at work to express her faith. A new BA uniform policy in 2004 prohibited the wearing of religious jewellery but permitted certain items of clothing, such as turbans and headscarves, considered mandatory to a religion. When Eweida began wearing a cross openly in 2006 and refused to remove it, she was sent home on unpaid leave. After strong criticism by leading politicians and religious leaders, BA amended its policy in 2007 to allow staff to display a faith or charity symbol while wearing the uniform. Eweida returned to work but her discrimination and victimisation claims were dismissed in turn by an ET, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) and the Court of Appeal (CA).9 Eweida appealed to the ECtHR, which ruled in a majority opinion (the UK’s Judge Nicolas Bratza supported the minority) in January 2013 that her Article 9 right to manifest her belief had unjustifiably been breached. The ECtHR stated that domestic courts had given too much weight to the employer’s legitimate need to project a corporate image and not enough to the employee’s right to wear a visible cross, which did not adversely affect that corporate image.10 A nursing sister at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust and member of the Free Church of England, Chaplin wore a crucifix on a chain over her uniform. In 2007, new uniforms for the first time included a V-neck tunic for nurses. In June 2009, Chaplin’s manager asked her to remove her ‘necklace’, stating that it contravened the policy restricting the wearing of jewellery. After several alternatives were rejected either by Chaplin or her employer, she was redeployed to a temporary post that lacked the uniform restrictions but ceased to exist in July 2010. Meanwhile, an ET had rejected her discrimination claim.11 Subsequently, her case went straight to the ECtHR where it was linked with Eweida’s. The ECtHR unanimously ruled against Chaplin in January 2013, the key difference from Eweida’s case being that the Trust had imposed its restriction on health and safety grounds to reduce the risk of injury when handling patients. Moreover, the policy applied equally to non-Christians and Christians (for differing perspectives on these cases, see Gibson, 2013; Pitt, 2013; McCrea, 2014; Wintemute, 2014; Catto and Perfect, 2015, 137–41; Hambler, 2015a, 194–97; Howard, 2015; Griffiths, 2016; Vickers, 2016, 103–10, 202–04; Hunter-Henin, 2020, 130–31; Adenitire, 2021; Sandberg, 2022).12 Two important cases involved Muslim women. Appointed as a junior classroom assistant at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in 2005, Aishah Azmi asked to be allowed to wear the niqab, a veil which covered her head and face except for her eyes. The school agreed. However, after observing Azmi in the classroom, the head teacher concluded that the veil detrimentally affected her teaching because it limited her diction and
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace 129 prevented children from observing her facial expressions. Azmi was asked to remove the veil when working directly with children. After stating she would only remove the veil if no male staff were present, Azmi was suspended on full pay. The EAT dismissed her discrimination claim, arguing that although Muslim women would be put at a disadvantage, the rule was justified since the school had found she was a more effective teacher when not wearing a veil. Moreover, Azmi had not covered her face when attending her interview or signalled that her religious beliefs restricted her work (Hambler, 2015a, 192–94; Griffiths, 2016; Vickers, 2016, 170–74, 201).13 Tamanna Begum was offered a nursery assistant apprenticeship at the Barley Lane Montessori Day Nursery in Ilford, Essex, in 2011. At her interview, she had worn a jilbab, a long, loose-fitting garment, which covered her shoes when sitting. She was asked to wear a shorter jilbab at work, since the longer one might constitute a trip hazard to herself or the children in her care. Begum declined the offer. An ET dismissed her subsequent discrimination claim since the nursery had not prohibited Begum from wearing an ankle-length jilbab but only requested her to wear a shorter one. Moreover, the requirement that no garment constituting a trip hazard should be worn applied equally to staff of all religions and was a means to protect the health and safety of staff and children. The EAT rejected Begum’s appeal in May 2015 (Cranmer, 2015a).14 In another case, a Sikh trainee prison officer, Jagdip Singh Dhinsa, wished to wear his kirpan (a ritual dagger) while on duty. However, an ET ruled that the decision of his employer to refuse this was appropriate and necessary to maintain prison security and keep staff, visitors and prisoners safe (Vickers, 2016, 202).15 The outcome of the Chaplin and Begum cases suggests that the courts regard health and safety considerations as paramount. However, an ET judgment in December 2021 that a nurse, Mary Onuoha, was unfairly constructively dismissed for insisting on wearing a necklace with a Christian cross at work calls this into question (Pocklington, 2022).16 Implications for Employees and Employers Following the Eweida ECtHR judgment, employers must now take seriously requests by employees to manifest their beliefs, including through the clothing and religious symbols they wear. Previously, they could reject a request and rely on the courts accepting the ‘right to resign’ as a defence (Sandberg, 2011, 84–86; Vickers, 2016, 54–55). Employers are not required, however, always to accede to such requests. If there are communication (Azmi), security (Dhinsa) and perhaps health and safety (Chaplin and Begum but not Onuoha) considerations, they can legitimately reject them and expect the courts to concur. Moreover, the ECtHR in Eweida did not discount corporate images altogether, so an employer can still rely on this factor to some extent (Vickers, 2016, 204). Recent CJEU judgments also have a potential impact. In March 2017, the court ruled that a Belgian receptionist, Samira Achbita, who had been dismissed for refusing to take off her hijab (headscarf), had not experienced direct discrimination and confirmed the importance of the employer’s corporate image as part of their right to conduct a business. However, a French design engineer, Asma Bougnaoui, who had been sacked following a customer complaint about her wearing a hijab had experienced indirect discrimination (Howard, 2017; Vickers, 2017; Howard, 2020; Hunter-Henin, 2020, 119–75).17 In July 2021, CJEU judgments in two German cases that both related to employees being disciplined for wearing a hijab at work
130 Research handbook on inequalities and work reiterated that a corporate image of neutrality can be a legitimate aim, although the court also placed greater emphasis on employers having to show the necessity of a neutrality policy. An employer in Britain, particularly a multinational, might still therefore successfully impose a neutrality clause on its employees to prevent expressions of religious belief in the workplace and this could especially disadvantage Muslim women (Howard, 2020; 2022; McCrea, 2021).18
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AT WORK Freedom of expression cases often concern conversations or actions; for example, the distribution of literature by one employee that offends another. Often such cases relate to opposition or hostility to same-sex relationships. Others involve the promotion of Christian beliefs or proselytisation. In general, cases brought by employees on these grounds have failed. Opposition to Same-sex Relationships An accountancy assistant at Lambeth Borough Council and member of the Celestial Church of Christ Worldwide, Tunde Apelogun-Gabriels’ prayer group was permitted to hold meetings at his workplace. Staff complained that a document based on Biblical extracts, which he distributed to various staff members (including those outside the group), was homophobic and offensive; its headings included: ‘male homosexuality is forbidden by law and punished by death’. A disciplinary hearing found Apelogun-Gabriels guilty of gross misconduct and he was dismissed. In October 2006, an ET rejected his argument that because the distributed material came from the Bible he was protected and upheld his dismissal (Hambler, 2015a, 219–21; Vickers, 2016, 210–11; Pearson, 2017, 104).19 Denise Haye worked for Lewisham Borough Council as an administrative assistant and attended the New Beginnings Ministry church. In 2009, she emailed Reverend Sharon Ferguson, the head of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM), from a work computer to condemn the LGCM as sinful, using very strong language. When Ferguson complained, Haye was dismissed for using Lewisham’s email system to state ‘homophobic views’. In June 2010, an ET dismissed Haye’s discrimination claim. Any non-Christian employee would have been treated similarly, while the council’s approach was a proportionate means to ensure it exercised control over the views employees transmitted during their employment (Hambler, 2015a, 220, note 91; Pearson, 2016).20 Sarah Mbuyi, who attended an Evangelical Christian church, gave a Bible to a colleague (‘LP’), a lesbian in a civil partnership, as a gift on LP’s return to work at Newpark’s nursery, Shepherds Bush, London, after an accident. In January 2014, during a workplace discussion, Mbuyi referred to her church activities over Christmas, with LP stating she would not wish to attend church until it recognised her relationship and allowed her to marry there. Mbuyi responded by stating that ‘God is not okay with what you do’, adding ‘we are all sinners’. Following a disciplinary hearing in which Mbuyi stated that LP had moved the conversation on to church and sexuality but admitted saying homosexuality was a sin, she was sacked for gross misconduct, including for giving LP a Bible. An ET dismissed Mbuyi’s claim of harassment but upheld that of discrimination. Newpark had made stereotypical assumptions about Mbuyi and her beliefs, could not provide a non-discriminatory explanation for her treatment
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace 131 and had not warned that dismissal would result from inappropriate conversations. Dismissal was therefore not proportionate (Cranmer, 2015b; Hambler, 2015b).21 A housing manager at Trafford Housing Trust and a member of an Evangelical church, Adrian Smith commented on Facebook in February 2011 that marriage of same-sex couples in church was ‘an equality too far’. After he posted another message stating that marriage in church should be between a man and a woman (although he had no objection to civil marriages between same-sex couples), Smith was demoted to a non-managerial position, with his salary cut by 40%. Since this was not a discrimination claim, the case was held before the High Court, which ruled that no reasonable reader would have concluded that Smith’s Facebook posts were made on the Trust’s behalf. Smith was entitled to promote his religious views in his own time and a code of conduct did not extend so far into an employee’s private life as to fetter his religious expression outside work. Smith received an apology but did not return to his old job and soon resigned (Hambler, 2015a, 221–22; Vickers, 2016, 211–12; Pearson, 2017, 106–07).22 A pastoral assistant at Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, and member of Fairford Christian Fellowship, Kristie Higgs publicly opposed the Department for Education’s proposals for the teaching of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in primary schools. When a new RSE programme was introduced, Higgs posted one message on Facebook that urged others to sign a petition opposing making the teaching of relationships mandatory and another that shared the post of an anti-trans US activist. After receiving an anonymous complaint that Higgs was posting ‘homophobic and prejudiced views’, the school dismissed her in January 2019 for bringing the school into disrepute. In October 2020, an ET, while accepting that the belief of Higgs in marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman was a belief under the EA, nevertheless rejected her discrimination claim (Sandberg, 2020b; Cowan and Morris, 2022).23 However, in June 2023, the EAT allowed her appeal and referred the case back to the ET to decide whether the school’s actions could be justified to protect the rights of others (Cranmer, 2023).24 Implications for Employees and Employers Apelogun-Gabriels and Haye show that employees cannot simply speak or act in ways that directly attack those in same-sex relationships. However, as Mbuyi demonstrates, an employee can engage in a two-way conversation that criticises another’s lifestyle, although exactly how they do so will be significant. Smith suggests that an employee can safely express their own views on sexuality outside the workplace on private social media, provided they are careful to avoid implying that these are also their employer’s views; Higgs shows the dangers of insufficient care being paid in this respect. Promotion of Christian Beliefs A member of the Christian Revival Church (CRC), Victoria Wasteney was head of forensic occupational therapy at East London NHS Foundation Trust, working primarily at the John Howard Centre, a secure mental health services facility. She was permitted to organise Christian worship services at the Centre using CRC volunteers, but in January 2012, two months after they commenced, staff escorts complained they felt under pressure to participate. A consultant psychiatrist was also concerned that a vulnerable patient had been taken to them.
132 Research handbook on inequalities and work Following further complaints, the services were suspended while the CRC declined to participate in redesigned ones. In June 2013, Enya Nawaz, a Muslim occupational therapist on her first placement, complained that Wasteney had tried to impose her religious views by inviting her to CRC services, giving her CRC literature and DVDs and asking her to pray with her. Wasteney was suspended and received a written warning. An ET rejected her discrimination claim, finding that the Trust had acted because her actions blurred ‘professional boundaries and placed improper pressure on a junior employee’. The Trust had also considered alternatives to suspension, the sanction was not oppressive and it was not unreasonable to treat the matter as a disciplinary one. The EAT ruled in April 2016 that Wasteney was disciplined because of her own actions and not because she was manifesting her Christian beliefs (Cranmer, 2016).25 Sarah Kuteh was a nursing sister at Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, Kent, and a member of the Heart of God Ministry church. In March 2016, other staff informed their managers that patients had complained about Kuteh outlining her faith during assessments. For example, a patient about to undergo bowel cancer surgery was told he would be more likely to survive if he prayed. Kuteh agreed to stop making such comments, but one patient stated that Kuteh had given her a Bible and said that she would pray for her, while another complained that Kuteh was preaching at her. Kuteh was dismissed in August 2016 for gross misconduct. An ET, the EAT and the CA (in 2019) all dismissed her claim (Cranmer, 2019c).26 Similar lessons can be drawn from the case of Duke Amachree, a homelessness prevention officer at Wandsworth Borough Council. When informed by Ms X, a potential housing client, that she was suffering from an incurable disease, Amachree apparently told her that her ‘problem was that I did not have God or faith in my life and was therefore ill as a result’. Initially suspended, Amachree was later dismissed following an interview with the Daily Mail in which he provided information about Ms X that meant others could identify her (Catto and Perfect, 2015, 150–52; Hambler, 2015a, 209–12).27 Implications for Employees and Employers The Wasteney judgment shows that more senior employees must not impose their beliefs on more junior ones and contrasts with Mbuyi, discussed above, where both staff members were at the same level. Both Kuteh and Amachree demonstrate that employees must avoid imposing their beliefs on vulnerable service users.
CHANGING WORK PATTERNS Some employees request not to work on a specific day or time or seek time off to participate in a specific religious festival. These cases suggest that employers must take requests for time off work seriously and accommodate them when they can reasonably do so. However, they can revoke an agreement that allows an employee to alter their work pattern if organisational circumstances change. A residential care worker at Brightwell children’s home, Merton, London, which provided short residential breaks for seriously disabled children, and a Baptist, Celestina Mba believed that Sunday should be a day of rest. For two years, Merton Borough Council could accommodate her wish not to work on Sundays within the shift rota system but eventually insisted
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace 133 she must do so occasionally. Mba refused and eventually resigned in May 2010. An ET found that the council was justified in requiring Mba to work the occasional Sunday, a decision later supported by the EAT and (in December 2013) by the CA (Smith, 2014; Hambler, 2015a, 143–46, 197–98; Griffiths, 2016; Vickers, 2016, 168–69; Adenitire, 2021).28 A Muslim, N. Cherfi, was employed by G4S Security Services Ltd as a security guard at a client’s site in Highgate, London, regularly leaving the site during Friday lunchtimes to attend Finsbury Park Mosque. In October 2008, G4S informed Cherfi that he could no longer do so since it was contractually obliged to ensure a specified number of security guards were present during operating hours. G4S offered to change Cherfi’s contract so that he worked Monday to Thursday and either on Saturday or Sunday but not on Friday. A prayer room was also available on site. However, Cherfi would not work weekends and instead stopped working Fridays, taking days off either as sick leave, annual leave or authorised unpaid leave. In March 2009, G4S told Cherfi that this arrangement could not continue. An ET rejected Cherfi’s discrimination claim since the requirement was objectively justified and proportionate. The EAT agreed in May 2011, finding that G4S had tried to accommodate Cherfi and that there were no reasonable alternative approaches (Hambler, 2015a, 141–42; Vickers, 2016, 193).29 A Seventh Day Adventist, L. Harvey, was appointed as a bus driver by City of Oxford Bus Services in June 2015. He was not asked on his application form about any restrictions on his ability to work but at interview stated that he could not work on the Sabbath; i.e., from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. In October 2015, a new shift rota required him to work on Friday evenings and Saturday daytimes. Harvey was temporarily allowed not to work on the Sabbath and told he could continue to exchange shifts, but that if he failed to attend work he could be dismissed; by April 2016, he had missed 22 shifts over 10 months. After receiving a written warning and temporarily joining another service that did not require Sabbath work, he was moved back to the original service and informed that it was unfair on other drivers to allow him to avoid working on the Sabbath and that this could adversely affect industrial relations. An ET ruled that the company had failed to demonstrate that the requirement for Sabbath work was essential and that it could have found cover for Harvey. However, in December 2018, the EAT ruled that the ET had failed to balance the company’s legitimate aim against the policy’s discriminatory impact and allowed its appeal. The case was referred back to the original ET, but Harvey withdrew his claim in August 2019 (Cranmer, 2019b).30 Jake Fugler, who was Jewish, worked as a technician for Macmillan Hair Studios in London. On 25 September 2004, Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish festival, fell on a Saturday. Fugler’s request for a day’s holiday was refused as Macmillan discouraged holidays on Saturdays, the salon’s busiest day, and several other staff had already booked the day off. After arguing with the salon owner, Fugler walked out. In June 2005, an ET found Macmillan had unfairly constructively dismissed Fugler for failing to consider other ways of accommodating its staffing needs and upheld his discrimination claim (Sandberg, 2011, 109; Catto and Perfect, 2015, 152–54). Similarly, in March 2022, an ET found that NNE Law Limited had discriminated against Philip Bialick, an Orthodox Jewish litigation executive, for dismissing him for taking annual leave in April 2020 during the Jewish holiday of Passover (Cranmer, 2022a).31 A quality engineer for London Underground and a Roman Catholic from Sardinia, Francesco Gareddu was allowed between 2009 and 2013 to take five consecutive weeks’ annual leave during August to attend religious events with his family in Sardinia. However, when he formally requested five weeks’ leave in 2015, his request was turned down. An ET dismissed his discrimination claim firstly because he did not necessarily attend the same fes-
134 Research handbook on inequalities and work tivals every year and secondly because his motive for wanting the lengthy period of time off related to his family arrangements and not his religious beliefs. The EAT agreed in December 2016 (Cranmer, 2017).32 Implications for Employees and Employers The Fugler and Bialick judgments, in particular, demonstrate that employers must always take time-off-work requests seriously and seek to accommodate them unless there are good reasons not to do so. However, the other cases show that even when employers have granted requests to change working patterns, they can legitimately withdraw them provided they can justify their actions.
OPTING OUT OF WORK DUTIES Two key cases involved Christian employees who wished to opt out of some contractual duties. Both applicants ultimately lost at the ECtHR in 2013, although one had succeeded at the ET level. A member of an Evangelical Anglican Church, Lillian Ladele worked for Islington Borough Council from 1992, becoming a registrar of births, deaths and marriages in 2002. Although technically employed by the Registrar General and not by Islington until 2007, she was paid by the local authority and had to abide by its ‘Dignity for All’ equality and diversity policy. When the Civil Partnership Act of 2004 gave same-sex couples the rights and responsibilities comparable to civil marriage from December 2005, Islington, unlike some other local authorities, designated all its registrars as Civil Partnership Registrars. Considering that civil partnerships conflicted with her Christian beliefs, Ladele refused to conduct them. At first, she made informal arrangements with colleagues to avoid doing so, but after two of them accused her of homophobia, Islington threatened to dismiss her in 2007 (she eventually resigned with effect from September 2009). An ET found the council guilty of discrimination and harassment since its policy of requiring all registrars to perform civil partnerships put individuals who held an orthodox view that marriage was a union between a man and a woman at a disadvantage. However, this decision was reversed by the EAT, with the CA upholding the EAT’s decision.33 In January 2013, the ECtHR ruled against Ladele in a majority opinion. It argued that the council’s actions were a proportionate means to uphold its Dignity for All policy and protect the rights of same-sex couples. In contrast, in a minority opinion, Judges Nebojša Vučinić and Vincent De Gaetano argued strongly that once a certain threshold is reached, conscience is an absolute right that cannot be qualified, including by the rights of others.34 Gary McFarlane worked as a counsellor for Relate Avon, which provided relationship counselling services. A member of a Pentecostal church, he believed that homosexual activity was sinful. Although willing to counsel same-sex partners where no sexual issues arose, he eventually asked to be exempted from offering psychosexual therapy to same-sex couples. This request was refused. After McFarlane had voluntarily signed up for Relate’s postgraduate psychosexual counselling course, he agreed to undertake psychosexual therapy with same-sex couples if asked. However, following complaints from other therapists and an investigation,
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace 135 Relate found him reluctant to do so and he was summarily dismissed in March 2008 for gross misconduct. Both an ET and the EAT rejected McFarlane’s appeal against his dismissal, while in April 2010, the CA refused to allow him to appeal to a higher domestic court.35 After his case was joined with Ladele’s, the ECtHR ruled unanimously against McFarlane in January 2013, since he had enrolled voluntarily on the Relate programme knowing that he could not then avoid psychosexual counselling for same-sex couples; his dismissal was therefore justified (for differing perspectives on these cases, see Sandberg, 2010; 2011, 111–16; Gibson, 2013; McCrea, 2014; Wintemute, 2014; Catto and Perfect, 2015, 141–48; Hambler, 2015a, 157–78; Howard, 2015; Griffiths, 2016; Vickers, 2016, 120–27, 208–09; Pearson, 2017, 84–102; Hunter-Henin, 2020, 158–63).36 Implications for Employees and Employers More than any other case, Ladele has divided academic and public, as well as legal, opinion. One dispute concerns whether the ECtHR judgment means that local authorities can ignore informal shift arrangements that allow registrars to avoid performing civil partnerships or marriages of same-sex couples. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (2016: 34) concluded that local authorities should not allow informal arrangements between staff ‘where there is the potential for a discriminatory or detrimental impact on other staff or on service users’. In sharp contrast, Hambler (2012) and Leigh and Hambler (2014) argue that a conscientious objection clause, similar to that enshrined in law for abortion since 1967, should exist for registrars. Much less sympathy has been expressed for McFarlane’s predicament, despite the well-publicised intervention by former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey (Sandberg, 2010; Catto and Perfect, 2015, 146–48).
BELIEFS Some employees have argued, usually in the context of a dispute with their employers, that their particular beliefs should be recognised as philosophical beliefs under the EA. The courts have often rejected such claims. However, as noted, in Grainger v Nicholson, the EAT ruled that manmade climate change was such a belief. Other accepted beliefs have included Devon Maistry’s belief in public sector broadcasting (Perfect and Perfect, 2019);37 Jordi Casamitjana’s belief in ethical veganism but not George Conisbee’s belief in vegetarianism (Cranmer, 2020; Cranmer and Sandberg, 2020; Sandberg, 2020a);38 and Maya Forstater’s gender-critical beliefs (Hambler, 2020; Sandberg, 2020a; 2021; Wintemute, 2021; Cowan and Morris, 2022; Cranmer, 2022b).39 Although political beliefs were originally excluded from protection, the beliefs in democratic socialism of Cornelius Olivier and Keith Henderson and Chris McEleny’s belief in Scottish independence have been accepted as beliefs (Sandberg, 2015; 2020a; Cranmer, 2019a; Perfect and Perfect, 2019, 270).40 In contrast, Steven Thomas’ belief in English Nationalism and Andrew Dunn’s belief in the need to challenge ‘political correctness’ have not.41 Nicholson received a favourable out of court settlement but despite the courts protecting their beliefs, Maistry, Olivier and Henderson all lost their discrimination claims (Perfect and Perfect, 2019, 270).
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FUTURE LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS AND RESEARCH Religion or belief law is relatively recent and still evolving. New cases will further refine the extent to which employees can make requests related to religious clothing or symbols or time off work for religious reasons; what they can and cannot say (or do) to workplace colleagues; and whether informal opt-outs from specific work duties will remain permissible. Employers will also increasingly have to take note of protected beliefs, such as ethical veganism or gender-critical beliefs, although their precise workplace impact remains to be seen. ET data show that most individuals who take a religion or belief case to court are unsuccessful. Many of those who have lost high-profile cases have been Christians (although the Christian applicants Eweida, Mbuyi and Onuoha all won and Higgs may yet do so). Consequently, some Christian groups, including many witnesses to an All-Party Parliamentary Group inquiry (Christians in Parliament, 2012), have called for a legal duty of reasonable accommodation for religion or belief, which forms part of US and Canadian law (the duty differs significantly in the two countries) (Gibson, 2013; Edge and Vickers, 2015, 50–56).42 Although such a duty is supported by some commentators (e.g., Gibson, 2013; Griffiths, 2016; Bowers, 2021), it is opposed by others (e.g., Pitt, 2013; Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016). After a detailed assessment, Vickers (2016, 228–74; 2019) concluded that, on balance, employees would not receive stronger protection from a duty than from the existing indirect discrimination provisions. Nevertheless, there is scope to build on the work of Gibson (2013) to assess whether such a duty in British law would have made any difference in earlier cases.43 Gaps in the research evidence remain. Through systematically analysing coverage of 13 cases by selected newspapers, Perfect and Perfect (2019) show that there is far greater media coverage of some cases than others, both at the time of the case and in subsequent cross-referencing. A much larger study using a similar methodology would be useful. Moreover, there has been little research on employer knowledge about particular legal cases, except for a small-scale (and unrepresentative) survey by Donald et al. (2012, 143–45), or on employer interpretations of their PSED requirements with regard to religion or belief, unlike for some other protected characteristics (e.g., Kotecha et al., 2018). Why far fewer discrimination claims are made for religion or belief than for age, disability, race or sex and why the proportion of successful religion or belief discrimination claims is below average also remain unclear and merit further research.
NOTES 1.
I am grateful to Frank Cranmer, Chantal Davies, Geraldine Healy, Myriam Hunter-Henin and Lucy Vickers for their very helpful comments. 2. The chapter does not therefore cover Northern Ireland where equality law differs slightly from that in Great Britain. 3. Perfect and Perfect (2019) provide additional sources for cases which reached at least ET stage up to March 2018. 4. For a discussion of the law and cases, see Sandberg (2011, 117–29) and Vickers (2016, 174–86). 5. The best known British case is probably Bull and Bull v Hall and Preddy, on which see Hunter-Henin (2020, 163–66), for example. 6. Grainger plc v Nicholson [2009] UKEAT 0219/09/ZT. The Grainger criteria were based on an earlier ECtHR ruling in Campbell and Cosans v UK [1982] ECHR 1.
Religion or belief legal cases in the workplace 137 7. In Shunmugaraja v Royal Mail Group Ltd [2019] ET 1601036/2017; [2020] ET 1601036/2017 (H), an ET found Royal Mail guilty of religious discrimination, racial harassment and victimisation against a former postal worker, Mathan Shunmugaraja, because of his co-workers’ actions. It later awarded him substantial damages (Webber, 2021). In Master v Springfield Fuels Ltd [2019] ET 2413565/2018, the employer was found guilty of discrimination for its perceptions about a Muslim nuclear engineer, Mo Master (Faragher, 2021). 8. Sex discrimination claims include complaints made in relation to marriage, civil partnership and gender reassignment as well as sex. Annual figures for 2021–22 are not available due to a change in the case management system. Annual figures for 2022–23 are currently only available for ET claims, not disposals. 9. Eweida v British Airways [2007] ET 2702689/06; [2008] UKEAT 0123/08/2011; [2010] EWCA Civ 80. 10. Eweida and Others v UK [2010] App nos 48420/10 (Eweida), 59842/10 (Chaplin), 51671/10 (Ladele) and 36516/10 (McFarlane) [2013] ECHR 37. 11. Chaplin v Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust [2010] ET 1702886/2009. 12. See note 10 for ECtHR case citation. 13. Azmi v Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council [2006] ET 1801450/06; [2007] UKEAT 0009/07/30003. 14. Begum v Pedagogy Auras UK Ltd (t/a Barley Lane Montessori Day Nursery) [2015] UKEAT 0309/13/RN. 15. Dhinsa v SERCO [2011] ET 1315002/2009. 16. Onuoha v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust [2021] ET 2300516/2019. 17. Samira Achbita and Centrum voor Gelijkheid van Kansen en voor Racismebestrijding v. G4S Secure Solutions NV [2017] EUECJ C-157/15; Asma Bougnaoui, Association de Défense des Droits de l’Homme (ADDH) v. Micropole Univers SA [2017] EUECJ C-188/15. 18. IX v WABE e.V. [2021] EUECJ C-804/18; MH Müller Handels GmbH v MJ [2021] EUECJ C-341/19. 19. Apelogun-Gabriels v London Borough of Lambeth [2006] ET 2301976/05. 20. Haye v London Borough of Lewisham [2010] ET 2301852/2009. 21. Mbuyi v Newpark Childcare (Shepherds Bush) Ltd [2015] ET 3300656/2014. 22. Smith v Trafford Housing Trust [2012] EWHC 3221 (Ch). 23. Higgs v Farmor’s School [2020] ET 1401264/2019. 24. Higgs v Farmor’s School [2023] EA 2020-008906-JOJ. 25. Wasteney v East London NHS Foundation Trust [2015] ET 3200658/2014; [2016] UKEAT 0157/15/LA. 26. Kuteh v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust [2017] ET 2302764/2016 [2019] EWCA Civ 818. The EAT judgment was not reported. 27. Amachree v Wandsworth Borough Council [2010] ET 2328606/2009. 28. Mba v London Borough of Merton [2012] UKEAT 0332/12/SM; [2013] EWCA Civ 1562. 29. Cherfi v G4S Security Services Ltd [2011] UKEAT 0379/10/DM. 30. Harvey v The City of Oxford Bus Services Ltd T/a Oxford Bus Company [2017] ET 3323826/2016; [2018] UKEAT 0171/18/JOJ. 31. Fugler v MacMillan – London Hairstudios Ltd [2005] ET 2205090/2004; Bialick v NNE Law Limited [2022] ET 2405912/2020. 32. Gareddu v London Underground Limited [2015] ET 2201116/2015; [2017] UKEAT 0086/16/DM. 33. Ladele v London Borough of Islington [2008] ET 2203694/2007; [2008] UKEAT 0453/08/RN; [2009] EWCA Civ 1357. 34. See note 10 for ECtHR case citation. 35. McFarlane v Relate Avon Ltd [2009] UKEAT 0106/09/DA; [2010] EWCA Civ 880. The ET judgment was not reported. 36. See note 10 for ECtHR case citation. 37. Maistry v BBC [2011] ET 1313142/2010. 38. Casamitjana Costa v The League Against Cruel Sports [2020] ET 3331129/2018; Conisbee v Crossley Farm Ltd & Others [2019] ET 3335357/2018.
138 Research handbook on inequalities and work 39. Forstater v CGD Europe and Others [2020] ET 2200909/2019; [2021]: UKEAT 0105/20/JOJ [2022] ET 2200909/2019. 40. Olivier v Department for Work and Pensions [2013] ET 1701407/2013; Henderson v General Municipal and Boilermakers Union [2015) UKEAT/0073/14/DM; [2016] EWCA Civ 1049; McEleny v Ministry of Defence [2018] ETS S/4105347/2017. The ET judgment in Henderson was not reported. 41. Thomas v Surrey and Borders NHS Partnership Foundation Trust and Brett [2020] ET 2304056/2018; Dunn v University of Lincoln [2019] ET 2601819/2017. 42. Christians in Parliament (2012, 7) suggested that: ‘Reasonable accommodation is a concept that has merit and warrants further consideration’. 43. Gibson (2013, 612–14) argued that in the four cases the ECtHR considered in 2013, accommodation may have been possible in Ladele (as well as Eweida), but not in McFarlane or Chaplin.
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11. The pay ‘transparency agenda’: toward regulation or voluntarism to expose gender pay gaps in the UK and the US Emily Pfefer
INTRODUCTION: PAY GAP TRANSPARENCY AND PAY INEQUALITY The year 2022 marked 47 years since the European Community’s Equal Pay Directive (75/117/EEC) enshrined the principle of equal value, 52 years since the United Kingdom (UK) Equal Pay Act (1970) passed, and 59 years since the United States (US) Equal Pay Act (1963) became law. Yet the gender pay gap (GPG) has remained resilient internationally with multiple interconnected explanations (O’Reilly et al., 2015; Rubery and Grimshaw, 2015; Healy and Ahamed, 2019). Acker’s (1989, 2006b, 2006a) conceptual and empirical analyses (focusing on high-income countries) demonstrate that gender and intersectional race-based inequality is re-produced through embedded organisational structures that combat regulative reform. Against this troubled context, an international movement to promote pay transparency as an important tool to reduce pay inequality is justified by the belief that sunshine is the optimal disinfectant and employers who know that pay is transparent will make fair remuneration decisions (Eisenberg, 2011). Employees must also know what their co-workers earn, especially potential comparators, to enable challenges to inequality, including by raising the issue with their line manager or bringing a claim against their employer (Lyons, 2012). Such information is sometimes revealed through social networks or accidental discovery (Ramachandran, 2012). The potential power of pay transparency is illustrated by the American woman Lilly Ledbetter’s experience. Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber as the sole female supervisor in her division for 19 years. Her employer forbade employees from discussing pay; she only learned of the discrepancies that led to her discrimination claim after someone anonymously left salary information on her desk. Partly due to the veil of secrecy over Goodyear pay, whether she experienced illegal discrimination was never settled, despite her case reaching the US Supreme Court in 2007. The majority opinion argued that Ledbetter’s case lacked standing because the alleged discrimination originated with a pay decision that was made years before she brought her complaint, beyond the 180-day statute of limitations. The decision led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 2009, which statutorily restored the previously longstanding legal interpretation that each new payslip following a discriminatory action is a new discriminatory act, restarting the clock (Lyons, 2012; Kulow, 2013; Kim, 2015). For Acker (1989, 1991), pay transparency includes company reporting, protecting pay discussion rights, and establishing pay bands through union-negotiated job evaluation. However, varying forms of pay transparency do not necessarily provide workers sufficient information to bring change nor push employers to reform processes that generate inequality. Transparency may 141
142 Research handbook on inequalities and work unhelpfully become an end in itself, all of which underscores the importance of unpacking the breadth and nuance of the pay ‘transparency agenda.’ This chapter focuses on the UK and US, two nations with variable performance in the pay ‘transparency agenda’, which for the UK, a former European Union member, has been influenced by the European Commission’s (2014) focus on the issue, as elaborated in the Commission Recommendation of 7 March 2014 on Strengthening the Principle of Equal Pay between Men and Women through Transparency. There are some important differences between these nations, with a regulative focus on the public sector, more recently widening to large private employers, in the UK, whilst regulative efforts have often but not exclusively targeted private employers through the procurement process (federal contractors) in the US; localised bans on public (and sometimes private) employers from soliciting applicant salary history in the US are a notable exception. Nevertheless, both nations also continue to struggle with wider than average GPGs, providing fertile ground for critical reflection. The latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2022) indicator publication reported an OECD average GPG of 11.7% in 2020 based on median employee earnings; the equivalent in the UK was 12% (14.3% in 2021) and an even higher 17.7% in the US (16.9% in 2021). This chapter will explore pay transparency at varying levels of disaggregation and pay transparency by whom as important nuances for researchers in this field. Pay transparency may be promoted through both voluntary and regulative means. The chapter is organised to reflect on variations in pay transparency from the widest national to the narrowest individual level. This chapter will first consider national government statistics and then sectoral regulative and voluntary schemes and organisational voluntary and mandatory company reporting before moving down to individual employees through varying protections of pay discussions and, conversely, up to the limits on the transparency that employers can demand in the form of salary history data from applicants. However, a recurrent if somewhat shifting deficiency is the predominance of pay transparency related to a single category, gender, rather than to other identities, including ethnicity, age, religion, disability, or gender intersected with these categories. Accordingly, this chapter will focus on gender with consideration of developing ethnicity-related pay transparency.
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT PAY STATISTICS AND EQUAL PAY DAYS IN THE UK AND US At the national level, pay transparency is created through government statistics, which are published by the UK and the US. As such, there is no obvious regulative or voluntary pressure on employers through the publication of government statistics, although researchers use them to analyse pay inequality in specific industries or sectors (e.g., Healy and Ahamed, 2019). National pay inequality transparency is created through the publication of unadjusted pay gaps, which compare pay between groups at the aggregate level without controlling for factors that may impact pay. In the UK, the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is considered the most reliable source for pay data because it is based on a sample of employer-reported tax records (Scruton, 2015). The ASHE is used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to report the UK’s headline GPG (Smith, 2020). However, neither race nor ethnicity appear in the ASHE;
The pay ‘transparency agenda’ 143 an alternative source must be used to explore ethnicity and pay in the UK, like the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is generated through self-reporting by employees and sometimes proxy household members (Leaker, 2008). In the US, the primary source of government statistics on pay is the Current Population Survey (CPS), which samples households monthly and is jointly conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Census Bureau. The CPS is used by the Census Bureau and BLS to report the headline GPG. The CPS contains ethnicity data; however, the sample is too small to report on smaller demographic groups beyond white, Asian, Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino ethnicities. An alternative, the American Communities Survey (ACS), is published annually and draws on a larger sample than the CPS to enable more detailed analysis, including by more granular ethnicity categories. For example, to report the pay gap between American Indian or Alaska Native women and non-Hispanic white men, the ACS should be used (Fontenot et al., 2018; Miller and Vagins, 2018). When ethnic pay gaps (EPGs) are reported, they are often framed as an intersectional nuance on the GPG. In the US, the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), a coalition of women’s and civil rights activists and trade unions, founded Equal Pay Day (originally ‘National Pay Inequality Awareness Day’) in 1996. It usually happens in spring and recognises how long into a year women must work to equal men’s earnings for the previous year (Grossman, 2012). An NCPE member, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) (American Association of University Women, 2021), has more recently highlighted additional days to reflect the larger disparity, compared to white men, experienced by women of colour, specifically Asian, African-American, Native American and Latina women. In the UK, Equal Pay Day, recognised by the Fawcett Society (2020), is usually in autumn at the point when women are considered to be working for free for the remainder of the year based on the aggregate GPG. The Fawcett Society published a multi-year analysis of intersectional gender/ethnic pay gaps (G/EPGs) in 2017, urging the ONS to publish these alongside the annual ASHE-based GPGs in the UK (Breach and Li, 2017). The ONS released EPG analysis for the first time in July of 2019 and again in October of 2020 using the Annual Population Survey (APS), which is based on LFS data (Evans, 2019, 2020). National pay transparency through government statistics is an established awareness driver, but it is of limited use to drive specific change in sectors or organisations.
SECTORIAL REGULATION AND VOLUNTARY PRESSURE TO PRODUCE PAY TRANSPARENCY IN THE UK Within sectors, there are clear examples of both regulative and voluntary pressure to produce pay transparency in the UK. The UK fundamentally shifted statutory responsibility for promoting equality (not only eliminating discrimination) to public sector employers through regulation in the 2000s: the race equality duty in 2001, the disability equality duty in 2006 and the gender equality duty in 2007 (Gow and Middlemiss, 2012). The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was established in October 2007, bringing enforcement of these duties within a single agency (Women and Equalities Committee, 2019). The gender equality duty, which came into force in 2007, required public sector employers to undertake equal pay audits every three years (New JNCHES Equality Working Group, 2011). Equal pay audits require analysing pay of men and women doing equivalent work, including identifying causes
144 Research handbook on inequalities and work of differences revealed and working to remedy unjustified discrepancies (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2018). Audits are seen by trade unions as an essential tool to combat pay inequality across all employment sectors (Trades Union Congress, 2015). The UK’s Equality Act 2010 is the current legislation to ensure equality at work and in society; section 149 of the Act created the combined Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), replacing the previous separate duties. The PSED general duty came into force in April 2011 across Great Britain, requiring public employers to demonstrate ‘due regard’ for three principles. The principles required employers to ‘eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010… advance equality of opportunity between people from different groups… [and] foster good relations between people from different groups’ (Equality Challenge Unit, 2017, pp. 1–3). Presenting a renewed opportunity to promote ‘pay transparency’, the PSED’s specific duties for England came into force in September 2011. The three specific duties included: publishing equality information, including about employees with protected characteristics; setting at least one measurable equality objective to support the PSED duties; and publicly publishing compliance with the first two objectives (Brill, 2011). The first reporting deadline for Schedule One public authorities was January 31, 2012 (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2011; HM Parliament, 2011). PSED compliance could have helped make workplace inequality visible as a first step toward narrowing inequality. Public employers could choose to use equal pay audits to demonstrate part of their compliance with the specific duties, although audits were no longer specifically required. When Acker (2006a) wrote about visibility in organisations, she acknowledged that inequality tends to be visible to those whom it harms (women, ethnic minorities) and invisible to those who benefit from their (often white) male privilege. PSED compliance could be equally visible to everyone in organisations, particularly given the requirement to publish compliance publicly online. However, the risk was that compliance would be low or worse become a superficial tick-box exercise, as suggested by Ahmed’s (2007) critique that equality and diversity work within UK universities had become embedded within ‘performance culture.’ In her analysis of university engagement with the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000, from whence the race equality duty came, Ahmed (2007, p. 102) cautioned against the risk that ‘the document becomes not only a form of compliance but of concealment, a way of presenting the university as being “good at this” despite not being “good at this”’. The UK’s financial services sector is a good example of a sector that has been subject to considerable gender equality scrutiny, which might reasonably be expected to have improved conditions. The sector experienced pressure to voluntarily create pay transparency from the EHRC’s Financial Services Inquiry into sex discrimination. The Inquiry responded to the sector’s wide GPG, as well as its reputation for persistently male-dominated workplaces with long, inflexible hours. The EHRC employed legal powers under section 16 of the Equality Act to call the inquiry, including mandatory disclosure powers to procure otherwise private information. However, the Inquiry’s 2009 recommendations were voluntary. With no sanctions possible, the Inquiry could mainly appeal to the reputational integrity of the sector to shame leaders into compliance. The recommendations included an appeal for greater pay transparency, including through publishing annual equal pay audits (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2009; Healy and Ahamed, 2019). The Inquiry’s findings were followed by further scrutiny of the sector by the Treasury Committee (2010) and a review by HM Treasury that led the ministry to establish the Women
The pay ‘transparency agenda’ 145 in Finance Charter (Gadhia, 2016). Signatory firms committed to supporting women into senior positions and to transparently report on progress (Healy and Ahamed, 2019). Despite significant scrutiny and voluntary transparency pressure on the financial services sector, Healy and Ahamed (2019) exposed the subsequent persistence of its GPG using LFS data a decade after the EHRC’s Inquiry. Although they found a decline in the sector’s GPG – greater than the decline elsewhere in the economy – the decline was small. The pay gap remained resilient and was strikingly widest between senior men and women.
ORGANISATIONAL-LEVEL COMPANY REPORTING OF PAY GAPS – VOLUNTARISM GIVES WAY TO REGULATION IN THE UK AND THE US At the organisational level, support is growing for company-wide aggregate pay transparency as a tool to narrow the GPG. In the UK, regulation mandating employers above minimum sizes to publicly report their GPGs has emerged, following ineffective efforts to encourage this through voluntarism. In the US, fitful efforts to mandate private disclosure to federal enforcement agencies continue to unfold. In the UK, several years of voluntary encouragement by government for company-wide GPG reporting eventually shifted to a regulative mandate. Section 78 of the UK’s Equality Act 2010 authorised government to require companies with 250 or more employees to publicly report their GPG. However, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition Government, coming to power shortly after the last Labour government’s Act passed, chose to initially attempt a voluntary reporting scheme – Think, Act, Report – from September 2011 (Miller and Swinson, 2012). One year on, only 54 companies had signed up to this voluntary scheme, representing a workforce in excess of one million (Miller and Swinson, 2012). The government maintained its conviction ‘that the voluntary, business-led approach which Think, Act, Report sets out is the best way to encourage employers to drive culture change, tackle the complex issue of equal pay and promote equal opportunities for everyone’ (Miller, 2016, p. 8). However, by the May 2015 general election, the Conservative Party revised its confidence in voluntarism. The Party’s manifesto committed to implement section 78 (Conservative Party, 2015) and the Conservative Government subsequently launched a consultation on mandatory GPG reporting. By February 2016, only 300 employers had pledged to ‘think’ and merely 7 had ‘reported’ their GPG (Government Equalities Office, 2016). In 2017, parliament approved two regulations mandating all private, voluntary and public employers of 250 or more employees to publish public GPG reports. The first reports were due March 30, 2018, whilst private and voluntary employers were given until April 5, 2018 (HM Parliament, 2017a, 2017b). Initial concern by advocacy groups, including the Trades Union Congress (TUC) (2015) and the Fawcett Society (Olchawski, 2015), about the limitations of this mandate have not been quelled by initial assessment. Amidst the recent Covid-19 crisis, the government lifted the annual mandate for 2020, ostensibly to reduce the burden on struggling businesses (Milne, 2020). However, the cancellation occurred within two weeks of the deadline; companies should have already held their data, as the report would have been based on a snapshot from nearly a year prior (HM Parliament, 2017a), creating the impression that GPG reporting is an administrative burden on business. The annual mandate was restored for 2021 but with a 6 month delay (Gov.uk, 2021).
146 Research handbook on inequalities and work The regulations only require reporting of six descriptive statistics, including the mean and median GPG based on all employees’ hourly pay, mean and median bonus GPG, proportion of men and women who receive a bonus, and proportion of men and women in each pay quartile (HM Parliament, 2017b, 2017a). They do not require an equal pay audit, nor do they require employers to act to remedy problems. A comprehensive review of GPG reporting led by the Fawcett Society commended the UK regulations for achieving high levels of reporting compliance, transparency in the required reports, and placing gender inequality firmly on the agendas of large companies (Cowper-Coles et al., 2021). However, it also recommended requiring smaller companies to report and implementing automatic fines for non-submission and observed that the mandate is fundamentally limited by only requiring basic statistics to be reported; there is no legal obligation to publish action plans to address the complex and structural explanations for the inequality that is revealed (Cowper-Coles et al., 2021). Like its predecessor ‘Think, Act, Report’, the transparency of the GPG mandate risks becoming an end in itself. Recalling the previous observation that the UK’s best source of pay data, the ASHE, contains gender but not race or ethnicity data (Leaker, 2008), it may be unsurprising that UK government action regarding the EPG lags behind the GPG mandate. The UK government launched an employer consultation on ethnicity pay reporting, which closed in January 2019 (Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2018). There is cause for concern that voluntarism, as with GPG reporting (Government Equalities Office, 2016), would yield low engagement with EPG reporting. A PwC survey (2019) of 80 large UK employers published in March 2019 found that, on a voluntary basis, only 5% had analysed their EPGs; the majority (75%) had not even collected employee ethnicity data, with many citing data protection concerns and small numbers as the primary reason. A repeated PwC survey (2020) of more than 100 large UK employers published in September 2020 indicated marginal improvement, with 10% having analysed their EPGs and two-thirds collecting ethnicity data. In June 2021, the TUC representing British workers, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) representing British employers, and the EHRC jointly called on the government to mandate EPG reporting (Trades Union Congress, 2021). Finding just 13 of FTSE 100 employers were voluntarily reporting their EPGs, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (CIPD, 2021) called for this mandate to be brought in by 2023. However, by June 2022, the government had yet to respond to the consultation submissions (Gov.uk, 2022) but had released a policy paper in March 2022 committing only to publish voluntary guidance for employers who wished to report their EPGs (Badenoch, 2022). In the US, fitful efforts to mandate private disclosure of company-level gender and ethnic pay inequality to federal anti-discrimination enforcement agencies have ensued. Whilst the UK’s GPG reporting mandate applies across all sectors, US pay transparency regulations to prevent employment discrimination in the private sector commonly target federal contractors, which employ about one-fifth of the workforce. Soon after then-President Obama took office in 2009, his administration formed an Equal Pay Task Force, which led his Department of Labor’s (DoL) Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP) to publish their intention to create a regulation on equal pay reporting in August 2011 (National Women’s Law Center, 2020a). In April 2014, Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum further instructing the DoL to publish a regulation to mandate federal contractors (and subcontractors) to disclose summary pay data to the DoL, including by sex and race, in recognition of the need for better data to combat the persistent pay gap for women and minorities (The White House, 2014).
The pay ‘transparency agenda’ 147 In August 2014, the DoL’s OFCCP proposed a regulation to require federal contractor employers with 100 or more employees and federal contracts/subcontracts of 30 or more days or valued at USD 50 000 or more to submit annual equal pay reports. These would have reflected the number of workers, aggregate employment wages, and hours worked within each of ten prescribed job categories (related to skill level, knowledge required, and responsibility) by race, ethnicity, and sex (Friedman, 2014). These employers were already subject to an annual obligation to confidentially disclose their workforce demographic data, including race/ ethnicity and sex, to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is shared with the OFCCP (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2019). Concern about data confidentiality and burdening employers with a separate report prevented commencement of equal pay reporting. Instead, in February 2016, the EEOC proposed expanding the existing annual demographic reporting obligation of these employers to include information about pay. Employers would have had to report the number of employees earning within 12 pay bands for ten prescribed job categories and hours worked (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2016). This would have also included private employers with 100 or more employees (who were also already subject to the demographic reporting requirement) and would have commenced from the financial year 2017. However, then-President Trump halted this expanded reporting before it began. Successful litigation by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) forced the EEOC to collect the expanded data for the financial years 2017 and 2018 during 2019. However, the EEOC then ceased to collect this pay data for 2019 onwards until the initial collection could be assessed (National Women’s Law Center, 2020a). The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2020) commissioned an independent review of this pay data by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (2022). The NWLC also published a memorandum in November 2020 encouraging President Biden to issue an executive order to direct the DoL’s OFCCP to require certain prospective and actual federal contractors/sub-contractors to go beyond the expanded pay reporting by conducting equal pay audits and making the results public. This would include a requirement for the companies to annually publish their mean and median pay gaps by gender, race, and ethnicity overall and within job categories, as well as a written explanation of any gaps and the organisation’s action plan to narrow them (National Women’s Law Center, 2020a). Although this has not happened, President Biden signalled a broad intention to prioritise combatting gender and ethnic pay inequality, including through promoting employer pay transparency, by establishing the White House Gender Policy Council in March 2021 and publishing the first-ever United States government strategy on gender equity and equality in October 2021 (The White House, 2021).
INDIVIDUAL PAY TRANSPARENCY – PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO DISCUSS PAY IN THE UK AND THE US So far, this chapter has explored pay transparency downwards: transparency by powerful actors getting nearer to the individual level (the national government, sectors, organisations) to inform comparatively weaker employees. Individual employees can create transparency by discussing their pay, although pay conversations may be discouraged by an income-talk taboo (Fox, 2014) or money taboo (Trachtman, 1999; Edwards, 2005). Acker’s (1991) analysis of
148 Research handbook on inequalities and work Swedish unionised banks posits that this taboo reflects capitalist control maintained by an understanding of pay as a judgment of workers’ value. However, few studies explore the relationship between the GPG and a reluctance to discuss pay; Pfefer (2020) found opacity rather than transparency and income-talk taboo in a multi-layered analysis of the relationship between organisational salary environment and the GPG and G/EPG inside UK higher education. The UK’s Equality Act 2010 protects pay discussions if employees suspect illegal discrimination (Doherty, 2011). US legislation to protect pay discussions dates back to 1935 (Colella et al., 2007); however, many employers still impose secrecy (Rosenfeld, 2017). In the UK, the Equality Act 2010, section 77, came into force in October 2010; it prohibits employers from enforcing contractual bans on employee discussing wages if employees suspect illegal discrimination. However, pay secrecy clauses (PSCs) were not banned nor did the protection necessarily weaken the income-talk taboo. Section 77 only protects those willing to speak and keeps the burden for creating transparency on employees, who must realise that they should suspect discrimination and convince their colleagues (or former colleagues) to discuss their pay (Doherty, 2011). In April 2014, the government intensified this burden by abolishing the statutory Equal Pay Questionnaire, which had given employees a tool to seek information about male comparator pay from their employers directly (Women and Equalities Committee, 2014). Section 77 assumes an openness that may not exist and only protects those who share information to determine whether there is pay discrimination. It may be challenging for employers to gauge motivations for pay disclosures, whilst employees may not understand their legal protection, as they may still see PSCs in their contract (Gow and Middlemiss, 2012). A representative UK-wide survey by gender equality campaign group the Fawcett Society (2018) indicated weak public awareness of the protection, with 60% of respondents unaware and 31% believing that they were contractually banned from discussing their pay. However, asserting the right to discuss wages in policy is a positive step, likely better than nothing. Legislation ‘may have a symbolic impact and constitute a driving force for gender equality standards’ (Rubery and Koukiadaki, 2016, p. ix). In the US, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) 1935 bans PSCs against non-supervisory employees (Gely and Bierman, 2003; Bierman and Gely, 2004; Colella et al., 2007). Ironically, the exclusion of supervisory employees likely means that higher paid employees, who may experience more room for pay discretion, are unprotected; Lilly Ledbetter mentioned at the start of this chapter was a supervisory employee (Kim, 2015). Specifically, Section 7 of the NLRA provides non-supervisory employees ‘the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection’ (National Labor Relations Board, 2022). The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), charged with enforcing the Act, has consistently deemed conversations about wages to be ‘protected concerted activity’ and therefore PSCs are in such cases banned. This protection stems from an understanding that overcoming pay secrecy is critical to unionisation and collective bargaining (Kim, 2015). However, despite having longer-standing legal protection of pay discussion than in the UK, formal PSCs and informal discouragement of pay discussion remain common in the US, particularly in the private sector and amongst non-unionised workers (Kim, 2015; Rosenfeld, 2017), although there may be a shift from formal bans to informal discouragement (Sun et al., 2021). Furthermore, the protection is subject to caveats. The legislation does not apply
The pay ‘transparency agenda’ 149 to employees with supervisory duties, and courts have frequently found loopholes to protect employers. For successful claims, the potential remedy is too weak to deter most employers as no damages may be awarded and employees may only receive limited back pay, re-instatement, or an abolition of the discussion ban (National Women’s Law Center, 2012; Kulow, 2013). The Paycheck Fairness Act has been repeatedly introduced in the US Congress since 1997 (American Association of University Women, 2017), most recently passing in the House of Representatives in April 2021 and being referred to the Senate. Amongst other things, this Act would strengthen the limited protection for discussing wages afforded by the NLRA 1935 by amending Section 15 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 to include non-retaliation protection for any employee who ‘has inquired about, discussed, or disclosed the wages of the employee or another employee (such as by inquiring or discussing with the employer why the wages are set at a certain rate or salary)’ (Congress.gov, 2021). In another example of the tendency of US pay transparency efforts to target federal contractors, then-president Obama signed Executive Order 13665 in April 2014, which prevents federal contractor (and sub-contractor) employers from retaliating against their employees for discussing pay (National Women’s Law Center, 2020a).
SALARY HISTORY BANS – A REGULATED RIGHT TO PAY SECRECY FROM EMPLOYERS ON THE LOCAL LEVEL IN THE US Up to now, this chapter has focused on promoting transparency: transparency downwards from powerful actors to less powerful actors and also between individual employees. However, salary history bans (SHBs) by US states and municipalities present the other side of the coin, limiting the transparency that employers can demand of applicants to combat pay inequality. Employers who require applicants to reveal their salary history before negotiating starting salaries strengthen their inherently asymmetric power over workers (Sisson, 2016). This enables employers to know what the candidate has earned while the candidate likely may not know precisely what employees in similar roles earn in the company, given the income-talk taboo (Fox, 2014). The impact of this knowledge/power imbalance is problematic because it allows employers to hire candidates who may have faced discriminatory salary depression elsewhere at lower rates than they might have done without salary history knowledge. The candidate may accept the offer as a pay rise without knowing that a higher salary may have been agreed. Basing recruitment pay offers on salary history allows employers to turn prior historical or societal pay discrimination into market justifications to pay women and minorities less (Ramachandran, 2012; Monopoli, 2016). SHBs are rapidly attracting the interest of US equality advocates. Although there are no federal SHBs yet, the NWLC has advocated for an executive order to impose one on federal contractors and to require the publication of salary ranges in job advertisements (National Women’s Law Center, 2020b). President Biden’s government strategy on gender equity and equality has committed the administration to ‘pursue policies to eliminate reliance on prior salary history in compensation decisions, which can perpetuate and compound the effects of prior discrimination’ (The White House, 2021). SHBs have been implemented in at least 20 US states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as shown in Table 11.1. A growing number of US municipalities have also established SHBs before their state has acted or to establish more comprehensive bans than their state’s law. In addition, the state of
150 Research handbook on inequalities and work Table 11.1
Salary history bans (US states and territories)
State
Implementation Date
Employer Applicability
California
January 1, 2018
All employers
Colorado
January 1, 2021
All employers
Connecticut
January 1, 2019
All employers
Delaware
December 14, 2017
All employers
District of Columbia
November 17, 2017
Agencies of the DC government
Hawaii
January 1, 2019
All employers
Illinois
15 January, 2019/29 September, 2019
State employers/all employers
Maine
September 17, 2019
All employers
Maryland
October 1, 2020
All employers
Massachusetts
July 1, 2018
All employers
Michigan
July 8, 2019
State employers
Nevada
1 October, 2021
All employers
New Jersey
February 1, 2018/January 1, 2020
State employers/all employers
New York
January 9, 2017/January 6, 2020
State employers/all employers
North Carolina
April 2, 2019
State employers
Oregon
October 6, 2017
All employers
Pennsylvania
September 4, 2018
State employers
Puerto Rico
March 8, 2017
All employers
Rhode Island
January 1, 2023
All employers
Vermont
July 1, 2018
All employers
Virginia
July 1, 2019
State employers
Washington
July 28, 2019
All employers
Source:
Author derived from HR Dive (2022).
Alabama has banned retaliating against applicants for refusing to provide wage history; this does not bar employers from asking (HR Dive, 2022). Preliminary research into the effectiveness of US SHBs provides some indication of a positive impact on inequality, at least in the private sector. Agan et al.’s (2021) field experiment combined with a survey of working Americans suggests that SHBs reduce pay inequality between men and women but also reduce pay offers (especially for men). Sinha’s (2022) systematic assessment of the real-world impact of US SHBs using nationally representative data (CPS earners data from January 2010 to December 2019) uses a staggered difference-in-difference regression to capture the continued implementation of new SHBs. Sinha (2022) demonstrates overall that the bans have narrowed the GPG in hourly and weekly wages by two percentage points due almost entirely to increased female earnings without reducing male earnings. However, this intended effect appears to occur only in the private sector, with the GPG actually widening in the public sector. Bessen et al.’s (2020) difference-in-difference regression similarly relies on CPS earnings data from January 2013 to February 2020, finding that SHBs increase new starter pay overall, but especially for women and non-white workers, and increase the employer practice of including wage information in job advertisements. SHBs have begun to attract support from advocacy groups in the UK, including the Young Women’s Trust (Clarke, 2018) and the Fawcett Society (2021).
The pay ‘transparency agenda’ 151
CONCLUSION This chapter has explored pay transparency at varying levels of disaggregation and pay transparency by whom as important nuances for researchers in this field, with a focus on the pay ‘transparency agenda’ within the UK and the US. As has been illustrated, pay transparency may be promoted through both voluntary and regulative means and there are variations from the widest national to the narrowest individual level. However, more established pay transparency related to gender rather than ethnicity or gender intersected with ethnicity remains a recurrent, if somewhat shifting, deficiency. National pay transparency through government statistics is an important driver of pay inequality awareness in both nations, although this is more strongly established for the GPG than for ethnicity-related inequality. Furthermore, government statistics are of limited use to drive specific change in sectors or organisations. Sectorial regulative transparency pressure through the PSED and sectorial voluntary transparency pressure on the financial services sector could both be observed in the UK. Whilst the PSED provided an opportunity to make organisational inequality public and visible, ‘compliance’ can become a form of ‘concealment’, as Ahmed (2007) notes. Despite significant voluntary pressure stemming from the EHRC’s Financial Services Inquiry, Healy and Ahamed (2019) found that a decade later the GPG remained resilient and was strikingly widest between senior men and women. Within organisations, there is growing support for company-level aggregate pay transparency as a tool to narrow the GPG. Regulation mandating employers above minimum sizes to publicly report their GPGs has emerged in the UK, following ineffective efforts to encourage this through voluntarism. However, these reports were framed as an administrative burden by the UK government during the Covid-19 pandemic and, despite generally high compliance, remain at risk of becoming an end in themselves rather than driving substantive change. A UK government consultation on EPG reporting has gone without response since it closed in January 2019, although the government has indicated an intention only to publish voluntary guidance. In the US, fitful efforts to mandate private disclosure of gender and ethnic pay inequality to federal enforcement agencies continue to unfold. Individual employees in both the UK and US enjoy varying protections of transparency through pay discussions. The UK’s Equality Act 2010 protects pay discussions if employees suspect illegal discrimination (Doherty, 2011), although public awareness of this protection is subpar (Fawcett Society, 2018). Legislation to protect pay discussion in the US dates back to 1935 (Colella et al., 2007); however, it does not apply to employees with supervisory responsibilities, the penalties are weak (National Women’s Law Center, 2012; Kulow, 2013), and many US employers still impose secrecy (Rosenfeld, 2017). There have been recurrent, unsuccessful efforts to robustly protect all US employees from retaliation for discussing their pay since 1997 (American Association of University Women, 2017; Congress.gov, 2021), although employees of federal contractors are protected (National Women’s Law Center, 2020a). Conversely, SHBs limiting the transparency that employers can demand from applicants (to strengthen their inherently asymmetric power over employees) have been advocated in the US (and to a limited extent in the UK) as a tool to combat pay inequality. SHBs prevent employers from turning past discrimination experienced by applicants into a market justification for continuing to underpay disadvantaged groups, including women and ethnic minorities.
152 Research handbook on inequalities and work Preliminary research into the effectiveness of US state SHBs provides some indication of a positive impact on inequality, at least in the private sector, and a nudge toward increased inclusion of pay information in job advertisements.
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154 Research handbook on inequalities and work Fontenot, K. R., Semega, J. L., and Kollar, M. A. (2018) ‘Income and Poverty in the United States: 2017, Current Population Reports’. Washington, DC. Available at: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/ Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.pdf. Fox, K. (2014) Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Friedman, D. S. (2014) ‘Pay Transparency’, Compensation & Benefits Review, 46(5–6), pp. 292–294. doi: 10.1177/1541204014560482. Gadhia, J.-A. (2016) ‘Empowering Productivity – Harnessing the Talents of Women in Financial Services’. London. Available at: https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/assets/pdf/Virgin-Money -Empowering-Productivity-Report.pdf. Gely, R. and Bierman, L. (2003) ‘Secrecy/Confidentiality Rules and the National Labor Relations Act’, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law, 6(1), pp. 121–156. Available at: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jbl/vol6/iss1/3. Gov.uk (2021) ‘Gender Pay Gap Reporting: Changes to Enforcement’. Available at: https://www.gov .uk/guidance/gender-pay-gap-reporting-changes-to-enforcement (Accessed: 10 October 2021). Gov.uk (2022) ‘Ethnicity Pay Reporting’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ ethnicity-pay-reporting (Accessed: 1 June 2022). Government Equalities Office (2016) ‘Closing the Gender Pay Gap: Government Response to the Consultation’. London: Government Equalities Office. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/ consultations/closing-the-gender-pay-gap. Gow, L. and Middlemiss, S. (2012) ‘Equal Pay Legislation and Its Impact on the Gender Pay Gap’, International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 11(4), pp. 164–186. doi: 10.1177/1358229112440442. Grossman, J. L. (2012) ‘The Lady in Red: Equal Pay Day and the Continuing Problem of Gender-Based Pay Discrimination’. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/faculty_scholarship/ 944. Healy, G. and Ahamed, M. M. (2019) ‘Gender Pay Gap, Voluntary Interventions and Recession: The Case of the British Financial Services Sector’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(2), pp. 302–327. doi: 10.1111/bjir.12448. HM Parliament (2011) ‘The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011’. Available at: http:// www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/2260/pdfs/uksi_20112260_en.pdf. HM Parliament (2017a) ‘The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017’. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/172/contents/made. HM Parliament (2017b) ‘The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities Regulations 2017)’. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/353/contents/made (Accessed: 12 September 2017). HR Dive (2022) ‘Salary History Bans’. Available at: https://www.hrdive.com/news/salary-history-ban -states-list/516662/(Accessed: 13 February 2022). Kim, M. (2015) ‘Pay Secrecy and the Gender Wage Gap in the United States’, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 54(4), pp. 648–667. doi: 10.1111/irel.12109. Kulow, M. (2013) ‘Beyond the Paycheck Fairness Act: Mandatory Wage Disclosure Laws – A Necessary Tool for Closing the Residual Gender Wage Gap’, Harvard Journal on Legislation, 50(2), pp. 385–435. Available at: http://heinonline.org.ezproxy.library.qmul.ac.uk/HOL/Page?handle=hein .journals/hjl50&id=397. Leaker, D. (2008) ‘The Gender Pay Gap in the UK’, Economic & Labour Market Review, 2(4), pp. 19–24. doi: 10.1057/elmr.2008.54. Lyons, S. (2012) ‘Why the Law Should Intervene to Disrupt Pay-Secrecy Norms: Analyzing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Through the Lens of Social Norms’, Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems, 46(3), pp. 361–392. Miller, J. (2016) ‘FTSE 100 Bosses Earn Average of £5.5m a Year, Report Says’. BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37005457 (Accessed: 2 April 2019). Miller, M. and Swinson, J. (2012) ‘Think, Act, Report One Year On’. London. Available at: https://www .gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/128778/think-act-report-annual -report.pdf.
The pay ‘transparency agenda’ 155 Miller, P. and Vagins, D. J. (2018) ‘The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap: Fall 2018 Edition’. Washington, DC. Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596219.pdf. Milne, A. (2020) ‘UK Companies Given Break from Reporting Gender Pay Gap due Coronavirus’, Reuters. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-gender/uk-companies -given-break-from-reporting-gender-pay-gap-due-coronavirus-idUSKBN21B2KG (Accessed: 15 May 2020). Monopoli, P. A. (2016) ‘The Markey Myth and Pay Disparity in Legal Academia’, Idaho Law Review, 52(3), pp. 867–887. Available at: http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/ajicl.2011.0005. National Labor Relations Board (2022) ‘Interfering with Employee Rights (Section 7 & 8(a)(1))’. Available at: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee -rights-section-7-8a1 (Accessed: 6 February 2022). National Women’s Law Center (2012) ‘Combating Punitive Pay Secrecy Policies: Fact Sheet’. Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/paysecrecyfactsheet.pdf. National Women’s Law Center (2020a) ‘Compensation Disclosure: Requiring Federal Contractors to Disclose Compensation Gap Information by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity’. Available at: https://nwlc .org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NWLC.NA_.GFI-equal-pay-disclosures-public.pdf. National Women’s Law Center (2020b) ‘Equal Pay: Banning Salary History Inquiries and Requiring Transparency in Job Posting Salary Ranges for Federal Contractors’. Available at: https://nwlc.org/wp -content/uploads/2021/05/NWLC.NA_.GFI-SalaryHistory_SalaryRanges-public.pdf. New JNCHES Equality Working Group (2011) ‘The Gender Pay Gap – A Literature Review’. Available at: http://ucea.ac.uk/download.cfm/docid/39012615-27AC-42CA-9FE9EC1B5F23B422. O’Reilly, J., Smith, M., Deakin, S., and Burchell B. (2015) ‘Equal Pay as a Moving Target: International Perspectives on Forty-years of Addressing the Gender Pay Gap’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 39(2), pp. 299–317. doi: 10.1093/cje/bev010. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2022) ‘Gender Wage Gap (Indicator)’. doi: 10.1787/7cee77aa-en. Olchawski, J. (2015) ‘Closing the Gender Pay Gap: Responding to this Government Consultation: The Fawcett Society’. London. Pfefer, E. (2020) ‘The Silence of Transparency: A Critical Analysis of the Relationship between the Organisational Salary Environment and the Gender and Gender/Ethnic Pay Gap in UK Higher Education’. London: Queen Mary University of London. Available at: https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/ handle/123456789/67809. PwC (2019) ‘Taking the Right Approach to Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting’. Available at: https://www .pwc.co.uk/human-resource-services/assets/pdfs/ethnicity-pay-gap-report.pdf. PwC (2020) ‘Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting – A Focus on Inclusion, Equality and Fairness’. Available at: https://www.pwc.co.uk/human-resource-services/assets/pdfs/ethnicity-pay-report.pdf. Ramachandran, G. (2012) ‘Pay Transparency’, Penn State Law Review, 116(4), pp. 1043–1079. Available at: http://heinonline.org.ezproxy.library.qmul.ac.uk/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/ dlr116&id=1051. Rosenfeld, J. (2017) ‘Don’t Ask or Tell: Pay Secrecy Policies in U.S. Workplaces’, Social Science Research, 65(July 2017), pp. 1–16. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.01.009. Rubery, J. and Grimshaw, D. (2015) ‘The 40-year Pursuit of Equal Pay: A Case of Constantly Moving Goalposts’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 39(2), pp. 319–343. doi: 10.1093/cje/beu053. Rubery, J. and Koukiadaki, A. (2016) ‘Closing the Gender Pay Gap: A Review of the Issues, Policy Mechanisms and International Evidence’. Geneva. Available at: www.ilo.org/publns%0Ahttp://www .ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents/publication/wcms_540889.pdf. Scruton, J. (2015) ‘Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2015 Provisional Results’. London. Available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ ons/dcp171778_424052.pdf (Accessed: 20 April 2016). Sinha, S. (2022) ‘US Salary History Bans -- Strategic Disclosure by Job Applicants and the Gender Pay Gap’. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/2202.03602. Sisson, K. (2016) ‘Employment Relations Matters’. Research Studies and Reports, Paper 29. Available at: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/research/irru/erm/ch3employrelationship.pdf. Smith, R. (2020) ‘Gender Pay Gap in the UK: 2020’. London. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employ mentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/genderpaygapintheuk/2020.
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12. Women’s representation and the gender pay gap: rank, institutional research intensity and ethnicity in UK business schools Geraldine Healy, Emily Pfefer and Almudena Sevilla
INTRODUCTION This chapter explores women’s representation and the gender pay gap (GPG) in UK business schools. Business schools, characterised by high student demand and increased academic numbers,1 are an increasingly important part of university economies. At the sectoral level, universities are subject to UK equality regulation and have a common system of pay determination and similar hierarchies by academic rank up to professor. The sector consists of different types of universities broadly distinguished by research intensity and is characterised by multiple disciplines where women’s numerical representation varies. Business schools are subject to university equality policies, are communicators of equality principles to students and business and produce much diversity research. These factors together have the potential to lead to high awareness of diversity and pay gap policy requirements and therefore a high positive equality reach, where alignment with intended effects of equality initiatives is high (Seierstad et al., 2021). Paradoxically, on-going debates critique business schools for lacking diversity, being ‘nodes of power and influence that disseminate knowledge about “diversity” and change in organisations, but which fail to embody the ideals and practices they teach’ (Reilly et al., 2016:1036; Ford et al., 2012; Tatli, 2012) and failing to challenge systemic racism in management and organisation studies (Dar et al., 2020; Nkomo, 1992). Nevertheless, despite their importance to universities, there is little if any research on pay gaps in UK business schools. Our study seeks to remedy this gap by exploring the importance of women’s representation to the GPG in the multi-faceted context of UK business schools. Conceptually, we draw on the numerical representation concept and in relation to women’s over- or under-representation both horizontally and vertically. Thus, we see the concept of women’s numerical representation as meaningful when seen in a multi-faceted context; in this case, that of the university/business school sector. Our focus on women’s numerical representation is based on the literature identifying segregation as a key explanatory factor linking women’s representation to their pay (Blackburn et al., 2001; Charles, 2003; Dex et al, 2008). Many occupations are either horizontally segregated, (dominated by one sex) or vertically segregated (one sex (usually male) dominates the hierarchies) (Blackburn et al., 2001; Charles, 2003; Dex et al., 2008; Acker, 2006b; Bailey et al., 2016; Fagan & Teasdale, 2020). Dex shows that female-dominated (70% women) occupations have lower wage growth than the women’s wage growth in male-dominated (70% men) or integrated occupations. Academia is an integrated occupation with 42% of full-time academics being female (UK Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2021); however, academics work in disciplines char157
158 Research handbook on inequalities and work acterised by male/female-domination or integration which, following Dex et al. (2008), may affect their pay. Moreover, a recent systematic review of the GPG literature recognised that although occupational segregation explains part of the GPG, women who cross into traditionally male-dominated occupations are not able to overcome inequality and that representation remains responsible for the largest portion of the GPG across all sectors (Bishu & Alkadry, 2017). Sectoral studies show the link between workforce composition/representation and organisational environments, including wage determination systems (Grimshaw et al., 2001; Peetz, 2015; Rubery et al., 2005) and the analytic importance of organisational types to gender equality (Jewell et al., 2020; Tomlinson et al., 2019), specifically in academia in relation to varying research intensity (Bailey et al., 2016; Krishen et al., 2019). Studies analysing academic
Figure 12.1
A framework for women’s representation in the multi-faceted context of the GPG in UK business schools
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 159 pay gaps show the recurrent importance of women’s numerical representation (Mumford & Sechel, 2020; Renzulli et al., 2013; Dex et al, 2008; Umbach, 2007; Bishu & Aldry, 2017); however, studies on UK business schools are rare. We therefore introduce a multi-faceted organising framework for women’s representation and the GPG in UK business schools (see Figure 12.1). This is influenced by Layder (1993) and the importance he attributes to the interrelated levels of macro and setting contexts of analysis2, Acker’s (2006b) emphasis on the interrelated nature of different components in inequality regimes and Grimshaw et al.’s (2001) call for a multi-faceted approach to closing the pay gap. Our framework is motivated by studies that show multiple explanatory factors recur in the pay gap/wage inequality explanations (Bailey et al., 2016; Charlesworth & Macdonald, 2014; McCall, 2005; Hultin & Szulkin, 2003). Grimshaw et al.’s (2001) comparative analysis highlights the interrelated roles of labour market regulation, changing pay setting arrangements, workforce composition and employer strategy in shaping the changing prospects of women’s pay. McCall (2005) calls for inter-categorical complexity involving adopting existing analytical categories to document relationships of inequality among social groups and changing configurations of inequality along multiple and conflicting dimensions. To highlight relevant dimensions in the complex and interconnected business school context, our multi-faceted framework explores the effect of women’s representation on the GPG by rank (considering pay determination variation), university type, discipline and in relation to the intersectional gender/ethnic pay gap (G/EPG). We investigate the relationship between women’s representation and the GPG for full-time academics in the complex UK business school environment using administrative-level data containing salaries of the entire academic population between 2009 and 2016. Our sample consists of employment records of all full-time, permanent academics employed in UK business schools in UK universities analysed with standard Mincer regressions. Overall, we find a negative correlation between the GPG and female representation, which holds for rank and university type but not academic discipline, and when taking an intersectional approach, predominantly for white and Black women. We find that the adjusted GPG is more than triple for business school professors, where female representation is low, than for the more gender-balanced non-professors. We also find that academics in research-intensive universities have the greatest GPG, lowest representation of women and highest pay compared to post-1992 universities, indicating an undervaluation3 of women’s academic work compared to men in the same or similar roles. The relationship between women’s representation and academic discipline is less clear, but we reveal a clear pay hierarchy between disciplines, predominantly for professors. Our analysis finally underlines the importance of intersectionality. Analysis by ethnicity and gender reveals a more consistent adjusted G/EPG across the pay distribution and university types for Asian women, with Black women the most disadvantaged. Moreover, we warn that closing the GPG should not be presented as tantamount to gender equality since often a low GPG is synonymous with lower pay and a high GPG with high pay. The strength of our study and its novel contribution lies foremost in presenting an in-depth examination of the GPG in all business schools in all UK universities using administrative data from the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA),4 leading to a particularly authoritative account. The use of administrative data means that there is no survey response bias, a complete population, and no (potentially GPG-correlated) measurement error in earnings/rank. Studies on academic pay employ varied, sometimes overlapping methodological approaches, including representative university-wide surveys (e.g., Bailey et al. 2016; Mumford & Sechel,
160 Research handbook on inequalities and work 2020), representative studies on national data (Umbach 2007) and academic fields (Mumford & Sechel, 2020; Krishen et al., 2019; Gruber et al., 2020), and case studies of one or more universities (Bandiera et al., 2016; Fagan & Teasdale, 2020; Frank, 2020; Johansson & Śliwa, 2014; Krishen et al., 2019). Secondly, we introduce a multi-faceted framework with women’s representation as an integrating concept. This allows us to engage more deeply with sectoral and occupational characteristics of business schools in UK universities. The framework offers a systematic approach to the complex nature of pay equality and the GPG and will be valuable to researchers working in complex multi-level employment sectors such as universities. Thirdly, we offer an important contribution on the intersectional G/EPG.5 We show how the experience of predominantly white women is not the same for all women, as Black women experience the greatest pay gaps across nearly all facets of our framework. Our access to the complete HESA database enables us to introduce a complexity that other researchers may avoid. The depth of our granular approach is rare, and intersectional studies rooted in sectors and occupations are rarer because small sample size compromises the robustness and external validity of findings (Brynin et al., 2019; Longhi & Brynin, 2017; Woodhams et al., 2015). Intersectional gaps are similarly neglected in studies of academic pay, again because of sample size (Fagan & Teasedale, 2020) or because ethnicity is disconnected from gender (Blackaby & Frank, 2000). Our study makes conceptual and policy contributions in exposing intersectional differences.
RATIONALE FOR A MULTI-FACETED FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT Macro Context of UK University Business Schools Universities are subject to multiple legislative and voluntary drivers that influence equality reach. Legislation includes the Equality Act 2010 and associated Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations 2017 aimed at improving pay transparency.6 Transparency is seen as one means to fairer pay (Scheller & Harrison, 2018; Scott et al., 2020; Healy & Ahamed, 2019; Pfefer, 2020). Since 2007, the Times Higher Education has published annual GPG data by university, enabling institutional comparison. However, Pfefer (2020) finds low awareness amongst academics of this publicly available data, suggesting little equality impact. Moreover, Ahmed (2007) shows how university equality policies are impeded by bureaucratic constraints, and argues that ‘you end up doing the document not doing the doing’. Moreover, policies can be circumvented by those in positions of influence to undermine fairness, inadvertently or intentionally (Noon et al., 2013). Voluntary sectoral initiatives have also been introduced to improve women’s equality in universities, including the internationally recognised Athena Swan Charter (AdvanceHE, 2021); while its success is unclear, indications are that it raises equality awareness (Gregory-Smith, 2018; Fagan & Teasedale, 2020). Pay determination for academics is vertically segregated with sector-wide collective bargaining for non-professorial staff, resulting in a publicly available single pay spine, providing a degree of transparency, regulation proximity, and positive equality reach, whereas professors’ pay is individually negotiated. This difference is important because collective bargaining may have a positive effect on reducing the GPG, especially in male-dominated
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 161 workforces (Elvira & Saporta, 2001), although there may be some pay dispersion within the spine. However, individual pay systems offer greater potential for wage dispersion (Healy & Ahamed, 2019; Acker, 2006a, 2006b). This applies to professors, who experience high regulation distance through individual bargaining, which provides a mechanism for introducing wage discrimination (Bailey et al., 2016) and leaves the work environment’s gendered norms and culture to provide conditions to enable or obstruct women’s pay equality. In contrast, low regulation distance results from collective bargaining, regulation, or other instruments, which increase transparency (Peetz, 2015). Academic Rank and Female Representation The UK’s academic workforce is characterised by a hierarchy, with professors being the most senior. However, alongside women in other highly qualified occupations (Magnusson, 2016; Broadbent et al., 2018), women academics fare less well through exclusion and marginalisation in pay and promotions than male academics internationally, including the UK, wider Europe, and the USA (Blackaby et al., 2005; Booth et al, 2000; McNabb & Wass, 1997; Ward, 2001, Mumford & Sechel, 2020; Zinovyeva & Bagues, 2015; Healy & Ahamed, 2019). Women’s limited advancement is seen as the main determinant of their lower average salary (McNabb & Wass, 1997), with Ward (2001) positing that academic rank alone explains around one-third of the GPG. Similarly, Santos and Dang Van Phu’s (2019) study of UK Russell Group universities finds that being a woman has a negative and significant association with academic rank. Moreover, Doucet et al.’s (2012) Canadian study reveals that the level of female representation is negatively related to remuneration; higher female representation tends to depress remuneration, showing some link with Dex et al.’s (2006) study. Similarly, Mumford and Sechel (2020) find that in the male-dominated economics discipline, men are considerably more likely to work in higher paid ranks. While there is little in-depth research on business schools, their exceptions to other academic schools are sometimes recorded. Bailey et al. (2016) show that working in a business faculty is a major explanatory factor of gender differences relating to discretionary pay. In American business schools, the higher the position, the lower the female representation, especially when including intersectional analysis by race, sexual orientation, and ethnicity (Krishen et al., 2019). This leads to our first hypothesis: H1: The under-representation of women in the professoriate will result in a higher GPG than within the non-professoriate, where women’s representation is higher. University Type and Women’s Representation The UK university environment is characterised by different university types classified by research intensity. The importance of institutional type and prestige is highlighted by Leahey (2007), Kolpin and Singell (1996) and Tomlinson et al. (2019), with Jewell et al. (2020) recognising its importance in shaping wage inequality. Drolet and Mumford (2012) note that women’s representation relative to men in occupations and different types of firms account for part of the UK GPG. University types are shown to influence the GPG in several international studies, showing greater gaps and wider wage dispersion in research-intensive universities (Bailey et al., 2016; Mumford & Sechel, 2020; Umbach, 2007). Mumford and Smith (2007) and Kolpin and Singell’s (1996) analyses of US economics departments reveal
162 Research handbook on inequalities and work that the highest-rated departments are least likely to hire female faculty. Recent UK research (Mumford & Sechel, 2020) finds that women (unlike men) working in old universities are more likely to be in lower ranked jobs and finds substantial unexplained GPGs. University type is therefore shown to be an important and underexplored avenue of inquiry in GPG research. Business schools are located within different university types. For our UK study, four university types are identified: pre-1992 ‘old universities’7 divided into Russell Group (RG) and other research-intensive universities (other-RI), post-1992 universities (often called ‘new universities’), and post-2004 universities (see Online Table A.1 for a listing of institutions by category8). Pre-1992 universities are the most research-intensive, carrying historical reputations, with the RG claiming the highest status and a coordinated voice. Excellent research is carried out in the less research-intensive post-1992 universities (predominantly former polytechnics) but in lower volumes than pre-1992 universities. ‘Old universities’ dominate the results of the Research Excellence Framework, a UK-wide system to reward and rank excellent research. Post-2004 universities are the least research-intensive, having become universities under the Higher Education Act 2004, meaning research degree awarding powers are no longer a condition of becoming a ‘university’ (Kumari 2017). Our analysis is rare in bringing the above four university types into a GPG analysis. We expect to find that women are under-represented in research-intensive universities and experience a greater GPG. H2: The under-representation of women in universities with high research intensity will result in higher GPGs than in universities with mixed representation, lower research intensity, and lower GPGs. Women’s Representation in Business Disciplines Multi-disciplinary business schools are characterised by horizontal segregation between academic disciplines. In US universities, Umbach (2007) finds that faculty in disciplines characterised by relatively low demand, high teaching loads, and low amounts of research funding earn less than those in other disciplines; despite disciplinary characteristics, women faculty members earn less than men. Binder et al.’s (2010) study of one US public university suggests that the decentralised nature of US salary determination may lead to penalties for women at department level. Mumford and Smith’s (2007) UK research also reveals a substantial within-workplace and within-discipline GPG. In contrast, Binder et al.’s (2010:128) results show that women do not face wage penalties in departments where they are well-represented but face a serious penalty in ‘women-scarce’ departments. The differences in these findings may relate to Fagan and Teasedale’s (2020) UK case, which indicates differences between male-dominated, mixed, and female-dominated disciplines, and conceptualises academic disciplines as ‘gendered spaces’, which occupy a physical space and develop their own sets of rules influenced by wider disciplinary norms, albeit located within a wider gender substructure (Acker, 1990). While the rules and regulations by which disciplines function are influenced by the wider university and their external environment, including their professional associations, disciplines may also be mediated by local homosocial norms and practices shaped by gender and representation. Thus, we may see greater variation in the GPG at the level of the discipline which leads to our third hypothesis:
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 163 H3: The degree of women’s representation in academic disciplines has an uneven effect on salary and the GPG between disciplines. The Intersection of Ethnicity and Gender in Business Schools Early work on intersectionality is a powerful critique of white feminism and the invisibility of Black women in gender and race analyses (Crenshaw, 1991; hooks, 2000). Today, it is used to incorporate multiple inequalities, sometimes through the lens of inequality regimes (Acker, 2006a, 2006b; Healy et al., 2011, 2018), yet original concerns highlighting invisibility remain pertinent. Acker (2006) focuses her work on inequality regimes at the level of the organisation and its sub-units, arguing that gender and raced representation patterns are constantly created and renewed through organising practices in the workplace pointing to differential gender and race evaluations in pay determination, resulting in white men tending to earn more than any other gender/race category. Organising practices in our study work at the interrelated levels of the university, the business school, and the discipline. Acker’s concerns are echoed in the importance of intersectionality in the inequality literature (Crenshaw, 1991; Longhi & Brynin, 2017; Rodriguez et al., 2016; Healy et al., 2011). However, intersectional pay gap studies rooted in sectors and occupations are rare (exceptions include Brynin et al., 2019; Gruber et al, 2020; Rollock, 2019; Longhi & Brynin, 2017; Woodhams et al., 2015), often because studies on more than one protected characteristic9 are neglected in quantitative research, mainly because of small sample size or to avoid analytical complexity, which effectively hinders intersectional analysis (McCall, 2005). Yet representation by gender and ethnicity categories may reveal what Brynin et al. (2019:70) term ‘diversification of inequality’, with ethnicity a more potent source of inequality than gender. Moreover, Woodhams et al. (2015) find that employees with more than one protected characteristic experience multiple disadvantages. Research on academics indicates that ethnicity is related to lower rank and lower pay (Blackaby & Frank, 2000). In contrast, LSE data (LSE Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce, 2016) provide an important distinction; women’s earnings gaps only appear at the top of the earnings distribution while ‘non-whites’ are paid less at every point. This differential pattern of inequality underlines the importance of bringing ethnicity into pay gap analysis, whereby representation and hierarchy is complicated by intersectional differences. Furthermore, the persistence of gender and ethnicity pay gaps is a matter of contemporary employment relations concern in HE and is core to the 2019-23 ongoing dispute between the University and College Union (UCU) and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, leading to strike actions over falling pay, the gender and ethnicity pay gap, precarious employment practices, and unsafe workloads, alongside pension changes (UCU 2020). Disquiet with the position of women and ethnic minority groups is evidenced by UUK (2018) data, which shows that in 2016–17, 67.5% of UK professorial posts were filled by white men and 22.9% by white women, whilst ethnic minority men held just 7.5% and ethnic minority women held the remaining 2.1%.10 Cognisant of Woodham et al.’s (2015) study concerning multiple disadvantages and in the light of the 2016 LSE study, we may expect to find that women from ethnic minority groups are likely to be the most disadvantaged in pay throughout the earnings distribution and university types. However, as Woodham et al. (2015) acknowledge, ethnic minority disadvantage relative to white men is not monolithic.
164 Research handbook on inequalities and work H4: Intersectional analysis by gender and ethnicity will reveal that ethnic minority women experience the widest G/EPG relative to white men at all levels in the pay distribution and in all university types but that there is variation by ethnic group.
RESEARCH METHOD Our analysis utilises HESA 2009–2016 UK administrative data, which contain information on the entire population of academics on a contract of employment at a UK HE institution. To ensure a degree of homogeneity, our sample includes full-time, open-ended (permanent) traditional academics (teaching and research) whose contract is attached to the cost centre ‘business and management studies’. Teaching and research academics make up the majority of full-time, permanent business and management studies academics (89.1%). Our sample consists of 53 383 academic salary observations (reported in real 2016 value) in business and management schools, of which 11 252 are in RG universities, 13 660 in other-RI universities, 23 517 in post-1992 universities, and 4954 in post-2004 universities. Definitions of variables and sample summary statistics are provided in Online Tables A.1 and A.2. Method Our hypotheses will be tested using Mincer earnings regressions, a standard wage equation to determine the extent to which there is a GPG, conditional on other characteristics (Mincer, 1974). Responding to H1, we investigate the relevance of female representation by academic rank (non-professor and professor) to the GPG in business schools. We then estimate Equation 12.1 separately for non-professors, professors, and our full sample: wijt = α + β Fijt + X′ ijt γ + ηj + δt + εijt
(12.1)
Responding to H2, we investigate the relevance of female representation by university type (RG, other-RI, post-1992, and post-2004) to the GPG in business schools. We formally test H2 by investigating whether the higher the research intensity, the higher the GPG using the model specified by Equation 12.1 and separately estimating it for all academics, non-professors, and professors within each university type. Responding to H3, we investigate the relationship between female representation in a discipline and the discipline’s mean salary and GPG for all academics in our sample and then by rank (non-professors and professors). Responding to H4, we investigate the relationship between intersectional (gender/ethnic) representation and the G/EPG in business schools, including by rank and university type (RG, other-RI, post-1992, and post-2004). We generate eight intersectional dummies by interacting our variable female with each of four ethnicity categories, collapsed from an initial ten ethnicity categories provided by HESA (see Online Table A.1). Technical details of our method are provided with Online Table A.2.
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 165
THE GPG IN UK BUSINESS SCHOOLS – FINDINGS H1 posits that the under-representation of women in the professoriate will result in a higher GPG than within the more gender-balanced non-professoriate. The UK’s academic workforce is an integrated occupation in Dex et al.’s (2008) terms. Table 12.1 shows this characterisation to apply to UK business schools also, where women’s representation is 37.4%; however, it also reveals that the business school professoriate is male-dominated, with significantly under-represented women making up only 21.4% of the professoriate. Table 12.1
The representation of women amongst full-time academics by academic rank in UK business schools
(1)
(2)
(3)
Professor
Non-Professor
Full Sample
Per cent female
0.214
0.407
0.374
Per cent male
0.786
0.593
0.626
Observations
9146
44 237
53 383
Notes:
2009–16 HESA academic records.
Moreover, we find that the adjusted GPG within the male-dominated professoriate (5.5%) is more than triple the GPG within the nearer gender-balanced non-professorial roles (1.8%) (see Online Table A.3). To test the significance of this result, we conduct an immediate form of two-sample T-test, treating the female coefficients for non-professors and professors as means and converting the standard errors to standard deviations. This yields a t-statistic of 12.9648, indicating that our finding of a higher professorial GPG is statistically significant (p-value: 0.0000); H1 is confirmed. This GPG distinction within rank would be obscured without our multifaceted approach. Using our professor dummy as a control (see Online Table A.3), we find an adjusted GPG in our full sample of 2.5%, only marginally higher than for non-professors (1.8%). Table 12.2
The representation of women amongst full-time academics by university type and academic rank in UK business schools
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
RG
Other-RI
Post-1992
Post-2004
Full Sample
All academics
Per cent female
0.327
0.347
0.405
0.408
0.374
Per cent male
0.673
0.653
0.595
0.592
0.626
Observations
11 252
13 660
23 517
4954
53 383
Non-professors
Per cent female
0.390
0.399
0.414
0.417
0.407
Per cent male
0.610
0.601
0.586
0.583
0.593
Observations
7774
9810
21 903
4750
44 237
Professors
Per cent female
0.185
0.215
0.275
0.211
0.214
Per cent male
0.815
0.785
0.725
0.789
0.786
Observations
3478
3850
1614
204
9146
Notes:
2009–16 HESA academic records.
H2 posits that under-representation of women in universities with high research intensity will result in higher GPGs than those with more mixed representation and lower research intensity. In Table 12.2, we observe that female representation is lower in more research-intensive
166 Research handbook on inequalities and work universities. It is lowest within the most research-intensive RG (32.7%), followed by other-RI (34.7%) universities, and higher in post-1992 (40.5%) and post-2004 (40.8%) universities. Although female representation amongst the non-professors only ranges from 39 to 41.7% across all university categories, female representation amongst the professoriate is markedly lower in the research-intensive RG (18.5%) and other-RI (21.5%) universities than in post-1992 (27.5%) universities. Figure 12.2 indicates that, in contrast to lower female representation in more research-intensive universities, the GPGs in such institutions are wider, particularly for professors.
Notes: 2009–16 HESA academic records. Categories include: Russell Group (RG) (N=11 252), other-RI (N=13 660), post-1992 (N=23 517), post-2004 (N=4954) (see Online Table A.1 for institutions included). Adjusted GPGs based on coefficients for female dummy from OLS regressions estimating Equation 12.1 on each university category for all academics and by rank; all coefficients shown for female dummy significant at the 99% confidence level (***p < 0.01); post-2004 professor result omitted because not significant at the 95% confidence level (**p < 0.05). Controlling for age, age-squared, ethnic minority, disability, tenure, professor dummy (all academic regressions only), highest qualification, previous employment, discipline dummies (reference category business and management (B&M)), and university and year dummies. The 95% confidence intervals, based on robust standard errors, shown indicate uncertainty in comparing the adjusted GPG for the small post-2004 university all academics result with others and between the published professorial GPG results.
Figure 12.2
The adjusted gender pay gap of full-time academics in UK business schools by university type and academic rank
Figure 12.3, Panel A demonstrates that women academic’s mean annual salary (2016 value) in RG and other-RI universities is GBP 56 270 and GBP 59 246 respectively, while in post-1992 and post-2004 universities, women average just GBP 49 513 and GBP 46 924, respectively. This means that women’s mean real salaries are considerably higher in research-intensive universities (13.6% in RG and 19.7% in other-RI universities) than post-1992 institutions where
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 167 the GPG is lower. A similar comparison is observed to a lesser extent amongst non-professors (Panel C) and a greater extent amongst professors (Panel E).
Notes: 2009–2016 HESA academic records. Salaries are in 2016 value (CPI), pounds sterling (GBP). Categories include: Russell Group (RG) (N=11 252), other-RI (N=13 660), post-1992 (N=23 517), post-2004 (N=4954).
Figure 12.3
The real salaries of full-time academics in UK business schools by gender and institutional category (2016 value)
168 Research handbook on inequalities and work Given our characterisation of universities by research intensity, there may be a question of whether our GPG results are swayed by highly paid ‘super star’ researchers. Figure 12.3, Panel B provides qualified support for this view. The mean salaries in the RG and other-RI categories are generally higher than median equivalents, suggesting highly paid outliers inflate the means. Both men and women are highly paid outliers, although skewing is greater for men. Women employed by higher paying research-intensive universities also appear to face a wider GPG in business schools, especially amongst the professoriate; H2 is confirmed. H3 posits an uneven effect of women’s representation on salary and GPG within academic disciplines. We find variation as well in female representation within disciplines in UK business schools, as well as for the mean salary and within-discipline GPG. Our sample contains nine disciplines, reflecting the multi-disciplinary nature of business schools. Table 12.3 shows women’s representation by academic discipline along the per cent female row. In Dex et al.’s terms, three disciplines are male-dominated (under 30% female) and none are female-dominated (above 70% female). Data are ordered by women’s representation, from the highest with around 50% women (human resource management (HRM), psychology, and marketing) to the lowest with around 25% women (finance; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and economics). The relationship between women’s representation by discipline and wages demonstrates no obvious pattern, but there is some hierarchy of pay. The two top earners (finance and economics, hovering around GBP 65 000 in real annual salary) have amongst the lowest representation of women (26.8% and 24.7%, respectively), but psychology (the third highest earners on about GBP 61 500) approaches representational parity (47.7% female representation). Salaries in the remaining disciplines oscillate around GBP 55 000, indicating no clear relationship between female representation and salary level (ranging from 53.3% in HRM to 25.8% in STEM). The GPG row in Table 12.3 presents OLS regression coefficients from estimating Equation 12.1 on each discipline; this exposes variation between disciplines but again no consistent relationship with representation. Psychology has the widest adjusted GPG at 4.9% (yet the second highest female representation), followed by STEM (3.7% GPG) with the second lowest female representation. The only disciplines without statistically significant GPGs are HRM (with the highest female representation) and Accounting (with median female representation of the nine disciplines). Given our earlier observation (H1) of GPG variation within rank, we re-run our disciplinary analysis on professors and non-professors. The per cent female rows in Table 12.4 confirm our expectation to find lower female representation for professors than non-professors in every discipline. However, there is considerably more variation across the disciplines by mean salaries for professors than non-professors. The hierarchy of pay by discipline observed in Table 12.3 is markedly steeper for professors in Table 12.4. The mean salary range for non-professors in a discipline is less than GBP 5000 – from GBP 49 488 (HRM) to GBP 54 136 (psychology); the range for professors approaches GBP 29 000 – from GBP 81 648 (HRM and social science (SS)) to GBP 110 162 (finance). The GPG range across disciplines is also notably wider for professors. The GPG range for non-professors in a discipline is not significant (HRM and accounting) to 4.1% (psychology). The GPG range for professors in a discipline is not significant (marketing, accounting, SS, and finance) to 16.4% (psychology). However, there remains no obvious relationship between female representation in a discipline and that discipline’s wages or GPG for non-professors
-0.049***
(0.011)
53 944
-0.008
(0.006)
3226
Salary (2016 value)
GPG
Observations
4529
(0.005)
-0.017***
54 486
0.450
Marketing
(3)
6751
(0.004)
-0.024***
55 553
0.399
(5)
(6)
4533
(0.004)
0.003
56 428
0.396
Accounting
20 878
(0.002)
-0.029***
57 608
0.382
B&M
Business school academic disciplines Social science
(4)
3539
(0.006)
-0.026***
63 838
0.268
Finance
(7)
3399
(0.006)
-0.037***
57 346
0.258
STEM
(8)
5231
(0.005)
-0.028***
66 345
0.247
Economics
(9)
(10)
53 383
(0.001)
-0.025***
58 107
0.374
Full Sample
Notes: 2009–16 HESA academic records. Disciplines listed in descending order of female representation, as shown by the per cent female row (see Online Table A.1 for discipline details). Salary (2016 value) row reports mean salary of all academics in sample in 2016 value (CPI), pounds sterling (GBP), by discipline and for the full sample, per column (1–10) labels. GPG row reports the adjusted GPG within each discipline in columns 1–9 using OLS regression coefficients on the female dummy by estimating Equation 12.1, excluding discipline dummies, on each discipline. Remaining controls include: age, age-squared, ethnic minority, disability, tenure, professor dummy, highest qualification, previous employment, and university and year dummies. GPG row, column 10 estimates the full Equation 12.1, including controlling for discipline dummies (reference category: B&M). Robust standard errors in brackets. ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1.
1297
61 458
0.477
HRM
0.533
Psychology
(2)
(1)
The representation of women, mean salary, and gender pay gap among full-time academics in UK business schools by discipline
Per cent female
Table 12.3
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 169
(5)
3867 (6)
17 387
(0.002)
-0.020***
50 782
0.411
B&M
447
Observations
-0.005
573
(0.022)
0.264
246
(0.051)
-0.164***
92 741
0.239
3491
(0.007)
-0.066***
91 604
0.222
666
(0.020)
-0.013
90 675
1027
(0.015)
-0.011
81 648
0.220
Social science
717
(0.019)
-0.036*
110 162
0.134
Finance
(7)
2822
(0.005)
-0.020***
52 068
0.302
Finance
(7)
1412
(0.016)
-0.052***
100 544
0.130
Economics
(8)
3819
(0.005)
-0.021***
53 700
0.290
Economics
(8)
567
(0.028)
-0.148***
83 355
0.125
STEM
(9)
2832
(0.006)
-0.025***
52 139
0.285
STEM
(9)
(10)
9146
(0.004)
-0.055***
92 135
0.214
All professors
(10)
44 237
(0.001)
-0.018***
51 072
0.407
professors
All non-
Notes: 2009–16 HESA academic records. Disciplines listed in descending order of female representation, as shown by the per cent female rows (resultant ordering differs for non-professors and professors; see Online Table A.1 for discipline details). Salary (2016 value) rows report mean salary of non-professors/professors in 2016 value (CPI), pounds sterling (GBP), by discipline and for all non-professors/professors in the sample per column (1–10) labels. GPG rows report the adjusted GPG within each discipline in columns 1–9 using coefficients from OLS regression on the female dummy by estimating Equation 12.1, excluding professor dummy and discipline dummies, on non-professors and professors in each discipline. Remaining controls include: age, age-squared, ethnic minority, disability, tenure, highest qualification, previous employment, and university and year dummies. GPG row, column 10 estimates Equation 12.1, now additionally controlling for discipline dummies (reference category B&M) but still excluding the professor dummy on non-professors and professors. Robust standard errors in brackets. ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1.
-0.078***
(0.022)
GPG
89 201
0.305
0.347
81 648
Per cent female
Salary (2016 value)
B&M
(4)
5724
(0.004)
0.007
50 530
0.426
Accounting
Accounting
Marketing
HRM
Psychology
(3)
3956
-0.026*** (0.004)
(6)
(2)
1051
-0.017*** (0.005)
0.431 50 870
(5) Business school academic disciplines
Social science
(4)
Business school academic disciplines
-0.041***
(0.012)
49 457
0.471
Marketing
(3)
(1)
2779
Observations
Professors
0.011*
(0.006)
GPG
54 136
0.527
0.563
49 488
Per cent female
Psychology
(2)
HRM
(1)
The representation of women, mean salary, and gender pay gap among full-time academics in UK business schools by discipline and academic rank
Salary (2016 value)
Non-Professors
Table 12.4
170 Research handbook on inequalities and work
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 171 or professors. We find no statistically significant relationship between female representation by discipline and mean wage or GPG (see Online Table A.4 for formal test); H3 is supported. H4 posits that intersectional analysis by gender and ethnicity will reveal that ethnic minority women experience the widest G/EPG relative to white men at all levels of the pay distribution and in all university types but with variation by ethnic group. Taking an intersectional gender/ ethnicity approach, we find a more consistent adjusted G/EPG across rank and university type for Asian women, with Black women consistently earning the least. Table 12.5, Column 3 illustrates the white male predominance amongst academics in UK business schools, with white men accounting for just over half (50.8%) and white women 30%. By contrast, Asian women represent 5.3% of academics in our sample, other women 1.2%, and Black women just 0.9%. As indicated by Table 12.1, the professoriate is more male-dominated (78.6%) than the non-professor academic workforce (59.3%). Taking an intersectional approach, Table 12.5 demonstrates a stronger white male predominance in the professoriate (69.4%) than among non-professor academics (47%); indeed, white men are the only group whose professorial representation exceeds their non-professorial representation. Table 12.5
The representation of Black, Asian, other, and white women and men amongst full-time academics by academic rank and university type in UK business schools
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Variables
Non-Professor
Professor
Full sample
RG
Other-RI
Post-1992
Post-2004
Black female
0.0102
0.00186
0.00880
0.00302
0.00498
0.0124
0.0153
Black male
0.0220
0.0139
0.0206
0.0109
0.0112
0.0294
0.0268
Asian female
0.0608
0.0179
0.0534
0.0620
0.0548
0.0479
0.0565
Asian male
0.0792
0.0613
0.0762
0.0930
0.0969
0.0617
0.0495
Other female
0.0139
0.00339
0.0121
0.0118
0.0131
0.0120
0.0105
Other male
0.0220
0.0167
0.0211
0.0224
0.0246
0.0197
0.0149
White female
0.322
0.191
0.300
0.250
0.274
0.333
0.326
White male
0.470
0.694
0.508
0.547
0.520
0.484
0.501
Observations
44 237
9146
53 383
11 252
13 660
23 517
4954
Notes:
(7)
2009–16 HESA academic records.
Table 12.2 illustrates higher male representation in the nearer male-dominated research-intensive universities. Taking an intersectional approach, Table 12.5 similarly demonstrates higher white male representation in the most research intensive universities; 54.7% in RG and 52% in other-RI universities compared with just 48.4% in post-1992 and 50.1% in post-2004 universities. Table 12.6 estimates the G/EPG of our full sample by rank, and by university type. Focussing on the women, Table 12.6, column 3 demonstrates that the G/EPG for Black women (8.4%) is widest, followed by other (6.8%) and Asian (6.7%) women; the G/EPG is narrowest for white women (2.5%) – the same as the GPG in the full sample in Online Table A.3. Table 12.6, columns 1–2 intersectional analysis by rank, demonstrate that Black women academics experience the worst disadvantage of all women relative to white men at all levels of the pay distribution, with an adjusted gap of 7.7% for Black female non-professors and a truly shocking 13.1% for Black female professors. By contrast, the gap experienced by Asian women (5.8% for non-professors and 5.5% for professors) is more consistent by rank. Meanwhile, white women experience a higher professorial (5.7%) than non-professorial G/EPG (1.7%),
172 Research handbook on inequalities and work although both results are much narrower than for Black women and nearly the same as the GPG for women professors and non-professors (see Online Table A.3). Table 12.6, columns 4–7 indicate that this trend generally continues across university types. Black women academics experience the widest G/EPG of all women groups in RG (11.4%), other-RI (13.8%), and post-1992 universities (6.7%), and white women experience the narrowest G/EPG across all university types. Meanwhile, Asian women experience a more consistent G/EPG across university types, ranging from 5.2% in post-1992 to 8.6% in post-2004 universities. H4 is confirmed. Table 12.6
The intersectional gender/ethnic pay gap among full-time academics by academic rank and university type in UK business schools estimated with OLS regression models
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Variables
Non-Professor
Professor
Full sample
RG
Other-RI
Post-1992
Post-2004 -0.081***
Black female
-0.077***
-0.131***
-0.084***
-0.114***
-0.138***
-0.067***
(0.006)
(0.024)
(0.006)
(0.010)
(0.013)
(0.008)
(0.011)
Black male
-0.089***
-0.035**
-0.090***
-0.041***
-0.074***
-0.090***
-0.088***
(0.004)
(0.016)
(0.004)
(0.014)
(0.011)
(0.005)
(0.010)
Asian female
-0.058***
-0.055***
-0.067***
-0.078***
-0.069***
-0.052***
-0.086***
(0.003)
(0.012)
(0.003)
(0.006)
(0.005)
(0.004)
(0.009)
Asian male
-0.030***
-0.034***
-0.038***
-0.034***
-0.028***
-0.052***
0.007
(0.002)
(0.009)
(0.003)
(0.005)
(0.005)
(0.004)
(0.010)
Other female
-0.058***
-0.129***
-0.068***
-0.094***
-0.085***
-0.050***
-0.027
(0.006)
(0.022)
(0.006)
(0.010)
(0.009)
(0.010)
(0.021)
Other male
-0.026***
-0.057***
-0.034***
-0.032***
-0.045***
-0.031***
-0.024
(0.005)
(0.012)
(0.004)
(0.010)
(0.008)
(0.007)
(0.020)
White female
-0.017***
-0.057***
-0.025***
-0.051***
-0.030***
-0.014***
-0.013***
(0.002)
(0.005)
(0.002)
(0.004)
(0.003)
(0.002)
(0.005)
Professor
0.413***
0.458***
0.430***
0.305***
0.355***
(0.003)
(0.005)
(0.004)
(0.005)
(0.016)
Constant
9.674***
10.574***
9.662***
9.874***
9.762***
9.798***
9.619***
(0.023)
(0.080)
(0.022)
(0.036)
(0.036)
(0.021)
(0.052)
Observations
44 237
9146
53 383
11 252
13 660
23 517
4954
R-squared
0.581
0.633
0.752
0.764
0.846
0.482
0.510
Controls
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
University dummies
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Year dummies
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Notes: 2009–16 HESA academic records. Based on OLS regression coefficients estimating Equation 12.1 on non-professors, professors, the full sample and by university type. Dummy variables for Black female, Black male, Asian female, Asian male, other female, other male, white female, and white male generated from interacting the female dummy with each of four ethnicity categories, collapsed from an initial ten ethnicity categories provided by HESA (see Online Table A.1). White male is the reference category for the other seven dummies. Controlling for age, age-squared, disability, tenure, highest qualification, previous employment, discipline dummies (reference category B&M), and university and year dummies in all columns; additionally controlling for professor dummy in columns 3–7. Robust standard errors in brackets. ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1.
Therefore, Table 12.6 demonstrates the value of our multi-faceted approach. Taking an intersectional gender/ethnicity approach, we find that the worst disadvantage compared to white men is experienced by Black women academics at all levels of the pay distribution and across three of the four university types, with a more consistent disadvantage experienced by
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 173 Asian women by rank or university type. Meanwhile, white women’s G/EPG reflects nearly the same disadvantage as the GPG in our full sample, by rank, and by university type; a single focus on disadvantage by gender obscures larger disadvantages of ethnic minority women.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Our multi-faceted approach has provided a rich analysis and following McCall (2005) documents relationships and configurations of inequality along multiple and conflicting dimensions. We systematically expose the effect of women’s numerical representation on the complex GPG. Despite the equality and diversity pressures faced by universities and business schools, it is striking that the adjusted GPG of the male-dominated professoriate in UK business schools is more than triple that of the more gender balanced non-professors. This finding underlines the financial importance of a professorial appointment and affirms past research asserting senior-ranking under-representation as an important driver for the academic GPG (McNabb & Wass, 1997; Ward, 2001; Santos & Dang Van Phu, 2019; Mumford & Sechel, 2020). The interrelationship between women’s representation and the pay determination system (i.e., collective bargaining or individual pay determination) helps explain the GPG difference within rank and corroborates research that academic pay regulation is an important GPG explanation (Rubery et al., 2005; Peetz, 2015). In the UK, low regulation distance (through collective bargaining) applies to all university types regardless of research intensity. Nevertheless, there remains a relatively small GPG for non-professors, which may be explained by managerial discretion (albeit limited) as to where on the pay spine academics are placed on appointment or promotion. Equally, the professorial GPG may be constrained when subject to pay banding, although banding seems to have little narrowing effect (Frank, 2020). University type is shown to be a significant facet in our framework, reflecting earlier studies showing that institution type and prestige are drivers of pay inequality (Kolpin & Singell, 1996; Leahey, 2007; Jewell et al., 2020; Tomlinson et al., 2019), including in university contexts with respect to research intensity (Bailey et al., 2016; Mumford & Sechel, 2020; Umbach, 2007). Academics who work in research-intensive universities receive higher pay than their counterparts in post-1992 universities, with the greatest GPGs revealed where women are significantly under-represented; i.e. professors in research-intensive universities. Thus, research-intensive universities have lower female representation and a higher GPG yet higher pay than women in post-1992 universities, but not equal with their male counterparts. In contrast to our findings on rank and university type, we find that women’s representation in academic disciplines has an uneven effect on salary and the GPG. We observe a negative relationship between female representation and the GPG by academic rank and university type but do not observe this when analysing by discipline. This may be because universities give greater or lesser autonomy to managers at the discipline level and where equality norms and values vary (Pfefer 2020; Fagan & Teasdale, (2020). Finally, we find different patterns of inequality for Black and Asian women compared to white women across all UK business schools at all levels in the pay distribution and in all university types. This finding reinforces the importance of bringing ethnicity into pay gap analysis, whereby representation and hierarchy are complicated by intersectional differences, as found in the LSE single-institution study (LSE Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce, 2016). We build on our preliminary analysis (see Online Table A.5) in which we interacted
174 Research handbook on inequalities and work our dichotomous ethnic minority dummy with our female dummy, which illustrated that GPG analysis masked wider inequality faced by ethnic minority women, overall and within rank and university type. Our more granular G/EPG analysis (see Table 12.6) has shown that Black women specifically experience the widest inequality of all women groups, at all ranks, and within three of four university types, while Asian women experience more consistent inequality. Methodologically, we contribute to G/EPG studies by exploring ethnicity at more than dichotomous granularity to provide evidence of varied experience by different ethnic groups. Our intersectional approach further reveals that our initial expectations about pay inequality predominantly reflect the experience of white women in UK business schools. While attention to the GPG remains important, it should also not be conflated with remuneration. In a rare account of university type and GPG, we show the mean real wage for women is considerably higher in research-intensive universities (13.6% in RG and 19.7% in other-RI universities) than post-1992 institutions where the GPG is lower, indicating that research is more highly rewarded than teaching. We reveal a clear pay hierarchy between the disciplines, predominantly for professors, which may be caused by multiple factors, including male-dominance (Dex et al., 2008), market factors (Umbach, 2007), the working environment (Rubery et al., 2005), and homosocial reproduction (Hudson et al., 2017), and we would add historical pay relevance. Our findings, following Brynin et al. (2019), reveal a ‘diversification of inequality’ in UK universities, with ethnicity a more potent source of inequality than gender. We find that low intersectional representation of ethnic minority groups leads to low pay and high G/EPGs, but with variation. It is notable that the white female G/EPG narrows in declining order of research intensity/prestige; the same can be said for Black women, although they experience wider G/EPGs than white women, while the G/EPG for Asian women followed a more consistent pattern of undervaluation by rank and across university types. Thus, our findings suggest serious challenges to university equality projects in that high pay is not equal pay and a low GPG may be linked to low pay. Women of all ethnicities are valued differently and lesser than their white male colleagues but Black women are the most disadvantaged. The use of administrative population-level data, as opposed to survey data, is a strong aspect of this research, supporting Jewell et al.’s (2020) call for greater research access to administrative data. Nevertheless, limitations remain. HESA data identify only two levels of hierarchy (professor and non-professor) and do not collect individual productivity data. We address the absence of productivity data by using university type as a proxy for research intensity. Moreover, our data do not reveal the effect of numerical representation on women’s agency, a relationship that merits further research. Our understanding of the discipline level of the G/ EPG would also profit from qualitative research on representation, local norms, and practices, including the way discretion determines pay in universities. Finally, the G/EPG would benefit from more in-depth analysis of disaggregated ethnicity categories than we could explore. Although our analysis represents an improvement over using a dichotomous ethnic minority variable, we recognise that our Asian and other women categories may conceal important variations of experience. The policy implications of our findings for UK universities should focus on the negative equality effects of individual and discretionary pay systems. Whilst regulations require universities to publicise their pay gaps by all staff, future action plans should also be required. Our intersectional sensibility exposes inequalities that a conventional GPG analysis misses and makes the case for mandatory reporting of ethnicity pay gaps by sex11 (i.e., intersectional pay gaps). Moreover, it should be a requirement for universities (and other large organisations)
Women’s representation and the gender pay gap 175 to undertake and publicise annual equality pay audits at the level of academic discipline or at least school/department. This happens in some schools, often at the initiative of a female leader (Pfefer, 2020), but remains far from universal and transparent. Moreover, recruitment practices need to be reformed to encourage a diverse academic workforce paid according to their experience and not routinely placed at the bottom of a pay scale (Pfefer, 2020). In this we support the abolition of requiring historical pay data on application forms, which simply reproduces past discrimination. Finally, our chapter reminds policymakers that closing the GPG is not synonymous with equal pay between men and women of all ethnicities and at different levels of the hierarchy. A small GPG is often linked to relatively low pay. Work on closing the GPG in academia remains important but should prompt questioning as to why women professors are underpaid compared to their male colleagues, why the gap between professorial pay and other academics’ pay is so great, and why Black women experience the worst pay outcomes. Our focus on women’s representation in a multi-faceted context provides the basis for this questioning.
NOTES 1. In the decade to 2016–17, the increase was 39.1% (UUK 2018). 2. Our data do not allow an investigation of agency. 3. Undervaluation occurs when women are paid less for doing the same or broadly similar work as men or where women are concentrated in jobs associated with women’s work and is considered an institutionalised employment process (Grimshaw & Rubery, 2007; Koskinen Sandberg et al., 2018). 4. All statistics used in this article are at the level of anonymization and aggregation ensuring no personal data are published, thereby ensuring confidentiality of individuals in line with HESA guidance. 5. The intersectional pay gap in this article is confined to the interrelationship of the dichotomous variables, female, and ethnicity categories (Black, Asian, white, and other). Arguably, the results of a quantitative intersectional analysis offer legitimacy and authority (Rodriguez et al., 2016). 6. In 2018, the UK government also consulted on widening pay gap transparency through ethnicity pay gap reporting. In 2023, the government’s response confirmed it would not be mandating ethnicity based reporting at this time, pointing instead to guidance on voluntary disclosure published earlier in 2023 (Department for Business and Trade 2023). 7. In the US, ‘old universities’ would fit in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, R1, doctoral universities with very high research activity. 8. This and all other online tables referenced in this chapter can be found at the companion website to this book here: https://www.e-elgar.com/textbooks/forson. 9. Protected characteristics in the 2010 Act are: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation (Equality and Human Rights Commission 2021). 10. UUK (2018) figures exclude academics with unknown nationality. 11. Rather than the single focus on ethnicity as in the consultation document (see endnote 6) or the single focus on sex in mandatory gender pay gap reporting.
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13. Using public procurement to promote equality in employment: assessment of the evidence from Australia, South Africa and the UK Tessa Wright, Hazel Conley and E.K. Sarter
INTRODUCTION This chapter examines UK and international evidence on the use of public procurement to address employment inequality and labour market disadvantage. While there is growing policy and practitioner interest in using public sector spending power to achieve additional social, economic and community benefits, the academic research on its extent and effectiveness is limited. This chapter outlines legal and policy interventions in three countries that have adopted social procurement as a strategy to promote employment equality outcomes. Social procurement can be defined as ‘the acquisition of a range of assets and services, with the aim of intentionally creating social outcomes (both directly and indirectly)’ (Furneaux and Barraket 2014, 269). With the emphasis on social outcomes, we argue that social procurement can encompass purchasing with the goal of directly or indirectly fostering equality. The chapter examines research on the UK, South Africa and Australia as countries that have introduced regulations to encourage the use of public procurement to achieve additional social objectives, in particular in relation to gender, race and socio-economic inequality. The second part of the chapter assesses the available evidence on how effective such interventions have been in advancing employment equality. The idea of using public purchasing power to advance equality in employment has been around for some time in different parts of the world and has at its core the use of government or public authority contracting to produce social justice results (McCrudden 2007). However, it has often been politically and legally contested and took some years to be explicitly permitted by the European Union (see, for example, Sarter 2015). This chapter highlights three different regulatory and policy approaches: South Africa, Australia and the UK. South Africa provides the most authoritative legal framework by including human rights, equality and procurement obligations in its constitution and supporting legislation. It places public procurement at the heart of its strategy to redress racial disadvantage following the apartheid period, linked to a policy of broad-based black economic empowerment that seeks to strengthen small businesses that are majority owned by black people. It also enshrines an intersectional approach that recognises the interconnections between socio-economic, racial and gender inequality by setting specific targets for businesses owned by black women, by black young people and by black disabled people. The Australian federal state, however, has adopted two separate procurement approaches for indigenous populations and for gender equality. Like the South African emphasis on empowerment through small business opportunities, Australia’s Indigenous Procurement Policy sets a target to increase contracts from indigenous-owned businesses. The Australian federal state implemented a different strategy for gender equality, 180
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 181 with legislation that requires private sector employers to report on various gender equality indicators in order to enter into a government contract. In the UK there is no unified approach to social procurement as the devolution of powers to national governments has resulted in significant differences in policy towards using public procurement for social ends between the four nations. The focus of procurement policy in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales has primarily been on the reduction of socio-economic inequality. Northern Ireland adopted a policy earlier than the other nations, using procurement to tackle the intersecting socio-economic and religious disadvantage in employment. Governments in Scotland and Wales have introduced legislation on social procurement and the reduction of socio-economic inequality, while the attitude of the Westminster government has fluctuated but in recent years has been hostile to linking equality objectives to public procurement, as will be shown. Thus each case examined in this chapter has adopted public procurement as a strategy to address distinct social problems. In South Africa the legacy of apartheid was significant economic disadvantage for the black population, with the post-apartheid government introducing a radical constitution supported by state policies to use public procurement to increase wealth among black small businesses, including those run by women and other disadvantaged groups. In Australia economic disadvantage among indigenous populations was similarly addressed by providing opportunities for indigenous-owned businesses, while workplace gender inequality was tackled through requirements on employers contracting with government. The UK context varies across nations, with Northern Ireland’s history of political and religious conflict resulting in socio-economic disadvantage in some communities. Widening socio-economic inequality, exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis and government austerity policies, has been a driver for using social procurement to generate benefits for disadvantaged communities in Scotland, Wales and at the local level in England. Equality legislation in the UK is separate from procurement regulations, although the Public Sector Equality Duty does cover the procurement function in England, Wales and Scotland, as explained below. The scope of the Public Sector Equality Duty has recently been extended in Scotland and Wales to include socio-economic inequality, whereas in England it only covers the protected characteristics of: age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation. After outlining the legal and policy frameworks driving public procurement for social and equality ends in the selected countries, the chapter assesses the evidence from academic studies of the effectiveness of this strategy in practice. It highlights some key requirements necessary for success and argues that there is significantly greater potential for using public spending power to advance equality in employment where the political commitment exists.
POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL PROCUREMENT This part of the chapter outlines the legal framework and policy approaches to the use of social procurement to achieve equality aims in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom.
182 Research handbook on inequalities and work South Africa Commitment to equality for all, freedom from discrimination and state duties to uphold socio-economic rights are enshrined in the South African constitution, together with a requirement to use public procurement to overcome disadvantage. Section 217 states that national, provincial and local governments must ‘implement a Procurement Policy that will provide for categories of preference in the allocation of contracts; and the protection or advancement of persons, or categories of persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination’ (Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition of the Republic of South Africa n.d.). The constitution is supported by the 2017 Preferential Procurement Regulations, which stipulate a preference point system for the procurement of goods and services to strengthen the contribution of small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs). Furthermore, in order to align public procurement with the 2003 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act, which established a legislative framework for the promotion of BBBEE, including charters, codes of good practice and preferential procurement, the Regulations encourage tenders that advance certain designated groups, including small businesses that are majority owned by black people. It is notable that South Africa, due to the legacy of apartheid, has enshrined an intersectional approach that takes account of the interconnections between socio-economic, racial and gender inequality in its procurement requirements, in particular by setting specific targets for business that are majority owned by black women, by black young people and by black disabled people, as well as black people in townships of underdeveloped areas. The socio-economic rights enshrined in the constitution include rights to adequate housing, healthcare services, sufficient food and water and social security (Davis 2008). Additionally, socio-economic duties require the state to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the socio-economic rights. These duties, at the least, can require decision-makers to pay attention to the interests of citizens who normally would have little or no voice and would be consistent with other policies on prioritising disadvantage in public procurement strategies and the BBBEE Act. Australia At a federal level, Australia is using public procurement to address gender equality at work through the Workplace Gender Equality Procurement Principles (Australian Government 2013). These require employers to demonstrate compliance with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 in order to compete for government contracts worth at least AUS 80 000 (approximately USD 60 000). The Act promotes equality in the workplace by requiring private sector employers to report on various gender equality indicators to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). The WGEA must issue a letter of compliance in order for the employer to enter into a government contract. A second mechanism adopted by the federal government is to urge organisations seeking the Employer of Choice for Gender Equality (EOCGE) citation (a coveted award that requires personal commitment by the CEO (McSorley 2017)) when a company applies to participate to have procurement guidelines that encourage gender equality across their supply chain. To gain the citation, applicants must have: (1) gender equality procurement guidelines that ensure (for
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 183 example) that suppliers are compliant with the Workplace Gender Equality Act, (2) a gender equality policy or (3) conducted a gender pay gap analysis (Oxenbridge and Galea 2020). Procurement targets have been used by the government to increase economic activity among First Nations in Australia. The Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP), introduced in 2015, set a target that three per cent of all procurement should be from indigenous-owned businesses by 2020. Unlike the gender equality requirements, there is no minimum threshold value for contracts (McSorley 2017). The ‘nudge’ mechanisms adopted by procurement policy on gender equality are a softer approach than the use of targets set for indigenous Australian businesses. McSorley (2017) argues for a bolder, more strategic approach to gender equality in procurement to include the introduction of targets and pre-qualification schemes, in which companies are accredited for a certain number of years when they meet specified criteria for government contracts. The trade union movement has called for government procurement to be used to promote local and better-quality jobs as part of its campaign to tackle high levels of inequality, unemployment, and insecure jobs (ACTU 2018a). A poll commissioned by the Australian union federation ACTU showed that more than three in four Australians wanted the government to spend public money on contractors who created good, secure jobs rather than simply choosing the cheapest option (ACTU 2018b). The construction sector is Australia’s third largest employer and the most male-dominated (Galea and Powell 2018). At state level the Victoria and New South Wales governments, for example, are using procurement to promote change through a construction industry cultural taskforce that brings together representatives from government and construction companies. Its aims include using public procurement to encourage family-friendly working hours and greater employment diversity (Galea et al. 2019, 2). United Kingdom In the UK during the 1980s some local authorities adopted ‘contract compliance’ to require companies to whom they awarded contracts to introduce equal opportunities policies (Orton and Ratcliffe 2005), with the Greater London Council (GLC) under Labour leadership making particular use of this practice (Djan Tackey et al. 2009). The GLC was prevented from pursuing this policy by legal changes made by the Conservative government in 1988, but interest in using public procurement to achieve equality outcomes was revived under the Labour government elected in 1997. Northern Ireland was the first part of the UK to place a duty on public authorities to consider equality, and the government linked this to its procurement practice. Using procurement to achieve equality objectives was given a spur in the rest of the UK by the introduction of the race equality duty in 2001 which required public authorities to promote race equality in all their functions, including procurement (CRE 2003; McCrudden 2007). Since then, public procurement has been recommended as an innovative mechanism to advance equality by several government bodies and enquiries (Acas 2006; EHRC 2013a; OGC 2008; Business Innovation and Skills Committee 2013; Women and Work Commission 2006). However, since the formation of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government in 2010 and under subsequent Conservative governments, there has been no emphasis on linking procurement to equality aims and indeed exhortation to avoid ‘procurement gold-plating by the public sector’ (Department for Culture, Media, and Sport 2013; Wright and Conley 2013).
184 Research handbook on inequalities and work The UK legal framework for including social criteria in public procurement currently comprises both domestic law obligations and requirements originating from EU directives, although the latter are being reviewed following Brexit. Until the mid-1990s the European Commission was not favourable to the practice of linking procurement to social objectives (McCrudden 2012), although a conflict of goals grew between principles of avoiding hindrances to market building and the single market and a recognition that public purchasing accounts for large amounts of spending that could be used strategically as a lever to foster social goals (Sarter 2015). Building on previous case law, from 2004, the inclusion of social criteria was explicitly allowed by procurement directive 2004/18, Commission guidance in 2010 (European Commission 2010) and the 2014 EU Procurement Directive (Public Sector), which clarified and strengthened the use of social procurement. This was transposed into UK legislation through the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (Cabinet Office 2015). Further UK legislation not stemming from EU law concerning procurement and equality is the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), introduced in the Equality Act 2010, requiring public authorities in England, Wales and Scotland to have ‘due regard’ to eliminating unlawful discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity in the exercise of their functions. Public functions include employment, service delivery and the procurement function (McCrudden 2012). A public authority remains responsible for meeting the general duty of the PSED even when the services may have been out-sourced. Therefore, public authorities may need to introduce obligations relating to equality in contracts with private sector contractors in order to comply with their responsibilities under the PSED (EHRC 2012; 2013a). The Equality Act 2010 devolved aspects (specific duties) of the PSED to English, Scottish and Welsh governments and, while the Coalition government chose not to implement a specific duty relating to procurement for England, the Scottish and Welsh governments have, which is considered in more detail below. The Equality Act 2010, and thus the PSED, does not cover Northern Ireland, which has had a provision in place since 1998 requiring public bodies to have ‘due regard’ to the need to promote equality of opportunity, also described below. In 2013 the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 came into force in England and Wales. It requires public authorities to consider how the services they commission and procure can improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the area. However, the legislation is quite limited, applying only to contracts for services and framework agreements above certain monetary thresholds, thus excluding goods and works contracts, and it only applies to the pre-procurement stage (Floyd 2013). The Act introduces the concept of ‘additionality’ into procurement by enabling public authorities to specify social or community benefits. However, it is limited by only introducing a duty to consider and consult rather than a requirement to have a policy for maximising social benefits from procurement (Macfarlane and Anthony Collins Solicitors 2014). There is no definition of social value in the legislation, and it does not explicitly refer to equality, although we argue that it can be used to promote equality outcomes (Wright 2015). Nonetheless, the introduction of the Social Value Act has stimulated interest in the inclusion of social concerns in public procurement and has been taken up by the voluntary and social enterprise sector to highlight their value as alternatives to private sector organisations in government contracting. Their research shows that social value is becoming more embedded in government guidance on procurement; for example, in the Best Value statutory guidance 2015 and from the Crown Commercial Service in 2017 (Social Enterprise UK 2017). In October 2019 the UK government established a Procurement Transformation Advisory Panel to advise on reform of public procurement law after Brexit. A National Procurement
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 185 Policy Statement was issued in June 2021, applying to all public bodies and setting out the priorities for using public sector procurement for ‘generating economic growth, helping our communities recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, and supporting the transition to net zero carbon’ (HM Government 2021). The government position on using procurement for equality objectives was indicated, however, by a warning that ‘Contracting authorities should ensure that they do not “gold-plate” contracts with additional requirements which could be met more easily and for better value outside of the contract compliance process’ (HM Government 2021, 4). Notably, the language of avoiding ‘gold-plating’ has followed through government rhetoric on equality and procurement linkages since its 2013 statements. Despite the position of the Westminster government, policy direction on the use of social procurement has diverged significantly within the UK, resulting from the devolution of powers to national governments. Northern Ireland was first to adopt public procurement as a means to achieve socio-economic goals, while Scotland and Wales have more recently introduced legislation on social procurement and the reduction of socio-economic inequality. The differences between the nations are outlined here. Northern Ireland Following decades of violent conflict ignited by inequality, Northern Ireland adopted a more proactive strategy on using procurement to achieve social aims than the rest of the UK. The need for equality between different communities in Northern Ireland was a key feature of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, codified in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. In order to implement the equality obligations of the Act, the higher rate of unemployment experienced by Catholics was addressed indirectly through the introduction of the Unemployment Pilot Project from 2002 (McCrudden 2011). Housing and unemployment were significant issues of contention between the two communities in Northern Ireland. Seven devolved government departments required contractors for construction works and services to include plans in their bids for employing those registered as unemployed for at least three months (Erridge 2007). The pilot project is an example of the integration of socio-economic goals (addressing areas of unemployment) with legislation requiring the promotion of equality of opportunity (on religious grounds). Despite the evidence of success from this pilot and other examples of public procurement projects that incorporate equality issues in Northern Ireland, there were concerns that the opportunities to link equality objectives to public procurement were not being fully exploited. Therefore, the Northern Ireland Assembly initiated an Inquiry into Public Procurement Policy, which recommended ‘a clear policy directive on securing social benefit’ and ‘the use of clauses setting quotas for employing apprentices and the long-term unemployed in all suitable public contracts’ (cited in McCrudden 2011, 95). The relative success of the proactive legislation in Northern Ireland prompted the use of similar legislation, including procurement, to confront institutional discrimination in the rest of the UK in the form of the PSED. Scotland The Scottish government, led by First Ministers from the Scottish National Party since 2007, has encouraged the use of community benefits clauses in public contracting since 2008. To strengthen this, the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 came into force in 2016, which contains a sustainable procurement duty and community benefit requirements. The sustainable procurement duty requires contracting authorities to consider how the procurement process
186 Research handbook on inequalities and work can ‘improve the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of the authority’s area’; ‘facilitate the involvement of small and medium enterprises, third sector bodies and supported businesses in the process’, and ‘promote innovation’. Wellbeing includes ‘in particular, reducing inequality in the area’. In addition, there is a specific duty to consider whether to impose community benefit requirements as part of the procurement where the estimated value of the contract is equal to or greater than GBP 4 million. A report on the use of community benefit clauses in Scottish procurement found that many people in the priority groups targeted by the clauses gained employment and/or apprenticeships (Sutherland et al. 2015). The priority groups were commonly unemployed people or young people not in employment, education, or training; however, no mention was made of targets based on protected characteristics, such as ethnicity or gender, for example. The Scottish government introduced a specific duty under the PSED provisions of the Equality Act 2010, which is based on protected characteristics, for public authorities to show that they have had due regard to whether the award criteria and conditions of public procurement decisions should include considerations to enable them to better perform the equality duty (EHRC 2013b). The Scottish government implemented provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to tackle socio-economic inequalities when it introduced the Fairer Scotland Duty in April 2018. The Duty places a legal responsibility on particular public bodies in Scotland to actively consider how they can reduce inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage, when making strategic decisions (Scottish Government 2018). Wales The Welsh government, led by the Welsh Labour Party since Wales gained devolved government, also takes a proactive approach to procurement and encourages the inclusion of community benefit commitments in contracts. All organisations that win contracts from the Welsh government are expected to sign up to its Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains (Welsh Government 2016). This covers modern slavery; blacklisting; false self-employment; the unfair use of zero hours contracts; and payment of the Living Wage. Its procurement policy is supported by the passing of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act (2015), which obliges public authorities to consider the long-term economic, social, environmental, and cultural impact of their actions and align them with the principles of sustainability. Public bodies must specify and publish well-being objectives and explain how they contribute to the seven well-being goals, one of which promotes ‘a more equal Wales, defined as a country where each individual can fulfil their potential without regard to their individual circumstances or background. This includes their socio-economic situation and background’. Like Scotland, the Welsh government has introduced a specific duty under the PSED for public authorities to consider furthering their equality obligations through public procurement (EHRC 2014). To give additional support to the aims of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, the Welsh government has also implemented the provision in the Equality Act to take account of socio-economic inequality. In March 2021 the Socio-economic Duty came into force in Wales, placing a legal responsibility on public bodies when they are taking strategic decisions to have due regard to the need to reduce the inequalities of outcome resulting from socio-economic disadvantage (Welsh Government 2021).
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 187 England Legislation and policy in England do not encourage the use of public procurement for equality outcomes. There is no specific duty in the PSED to cover procurement and the socio-economic duty has not been implemented in England; however, neither does it prevent proactive measures at local level and some local authorities have adopted policies of progressive procurement, such as in Manchester, Preston and London (Brown and Jones 2021; CLES 2017). In Manchester and Preston the model adopted urges public procurement by ‘anchor institutions’, such as universities, colleges, hospitals or housing associations, to spend money locally, following a strategy of community wealth-building promoted by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) (Brown and Jones 2021; CLES 2010). While the model does not directly link to obligations to foster equality for protected groups under the PSED, it is firmly based on tackling socio-economic inequalities that have been exacerbated by government austerity policies over many years. Just as with previous use of contract compliance in the 1980s, progressive procurement requires political leadership at the local level dedicated to redressing social inequality, facilitated by progressive Labour leadership at Preston and Manchester City Councils. In London, city-wide government was restored in 2000 with the creation of the Greater London Authority (GLA) led by the Mayor of London. London had been without city-level government since the abolition of the Greater London Council by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986. The election of left-wing mayor Ken Livingstone led to a new period of active pursuit of equality and diversity strategies by the GLA and its constituent bodies, such as Transport for London, combined with the use of public procurement. While this policy was not pursued under the Conservative Mayoralty of Boris Johnson from 2008 to 2016, the GLA resumed a policy of responsible procurement after the election of Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2016, which includes promoting diversity in supply chains and ‘fair and inclusive employment practices’ (GLA 2021).
ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EQUALITY AIMS IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT This section examines the available academic literature on the outcomes of using public procurement to pursue employment equality objectives in Australia, South Africa and the UK. Several common themes are discussed here that facilitate or frustrate the achievement of these objectives. Enabling Legislation and Enforcement Most of the research points to the importance of enabling legislation that permits the use of public procurement for additional social objectives rather than simply pursuing value for money. In the UK the equality duty in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the race equality duty introduced in 2001 and the broader public sector equality duty contained in the Equality Act 2010 provided the impetus for projects at national and local levels that linked public procurement and employment equality (McCrudden 2012; Orton and Ratcliffe 2005; Wright and Conley 2020; Duncan and Mortimer 2007). Similarly in Australia the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and associated procurement principles drove equality reporting by con-
188 Research handbook on inequalities and work tractors (Oxenbridge and Galea 2020), while in South Africa the Preferential Procurement Regulations set targets for majority black-owned businesses, with contractors assessed according to an accreditation mechanism that gives scores based on contribution to the policy of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (Quinot 2019). Internationally, research has found that ‘soft law’ enabling approaches, that is, instruments which, in contrast to hard law (which is legally binding and therefore enforceable), are not legally binding, often do not contain sufficient force to require equality actions. The effect is that contractors may take a minimal, compliance-only approach to the law, resulting in little real change to existing practice on recruitment or the gender pay gap; for example, see Duncan et al. (2007) on Wales; McSorley (2017) on Australia; McCrudden (2004) on Malaysia, South Africa, Canada and Europe; Sarter (2020) on Germany; and Sarter and Thomson (2020) on Scotland. Even where targets had been set for increasing under-representation in the workforce or improving labour conditions through contractual processes, sanctions or penalties were rarely applied for non-compliance (Djan Tackey et al. 2009). However, ‘naming and shaming’ of non-compliant companies can be an effective tool. In Australia analysis of reports to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) from private sector employers competing for government contracts showed that five companies had been listed as non-compliant in 2015–16, but within three months of presentation of the list in parliament, only one company remained non-compliant (McSorley 2017, 20). Political Leadership Even without strong legal obligations in place, the willingness of political leaders to use existing legal frameworks for social procurement was highly significant in the cases examined. South Africa offers the strongest example of leadership from the top as the only country to include equality commitments in its constitution and to have developed regulatory mechanisms to pursue equality as a human right through procurement over a period of 20 years (Quinot 2019). Australia has introduced gender equality reporting requirements for contractors at federal level, while states such as Victoria are also adopting social procurement strategies (Oxenbridge and Galea 2020). However, it has been argued that targets for increasing women’s representation were routinely not enforced nor underpinned by an implementation strategy. The Australian Human Rights Institute (a research centre at the University of New South Wales working in partnership with government and industry to advance human rights) has called for the government to encourage a more proactive approach that goes beyond targets on female participation to include requirements for part-time roles, shared and flexible parental leave and women’s leadership programmes (Galea et al. 2018). In the UK leadership was at national level in the case of the Welsh Assembly’s inclusion of action on of black and minority ethnic (BME) employment in its Housing Action Plan (Duncan and Mortimer 2007) and the Northern Ireland Unemployment Pilot Project (Erridge 2007) and at local level with the creation of the West Midlands Common Standard (WMCS) to address race equality (Orton and Ratcliffe 2004; 2005) and the targets for London’s Olympic Park construction (Wright and Conley 2020). This demonstrates that even in England, where national government support for equality and procurement linkages is non-existent or equivocal, local action is possible and achievable (Orton and Ratcliffe 2005; Brown and Jones 2021; Wright 2015).
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 189 Monitoring Monitoring of progress on the contractual obligations set was found to be essential although often absent. While the WMCS established a clear system of contract monitoring that involved meeting with companies to examine whether formal, written policies were being implemented and a three-yearly review of their equal opportunities policies, the evaluation found that in practice this was lacking, with only one company showing evidence of an annual monitoring exercise (Orton and Ratcliffe 2005, 263). Similarly the evaluation of the UK government procurement pilots found little routine monitoring of requirements once contracts were in place, primarily because ‘contract managers prioritise delivery of the subject of the contract above all other considerations, including the equality and diversity requirements’ (Djan Tackey et al. 2009, 2). Welsh social housing contractors were only monitored and reviewed on an ‘ad hoc basis’ and additionally most did not undertake monitoring of employees’ ethnic origin, with the result that they were unaware whether BME people were under-represented within the construction industry (Duncan et al. 2007, 322). A more systematic approach to monitoring was taken by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), albeit an outsourced one. The ODA contracted a ‘delivery partner’ – CLM, a joint venture made up of three project management firms – for implementation of the project, who were required to report to the ODA the results of their monitoring of contractors’ action plans and progress against targets (Wright and Conley 2020). It may be that having numerical targets in place stimulates monitoring action, but firm procedures for reporting progress are also necessary. The reporting obligations of the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 for companies with over 100 employees wanting to compete for government contracts require contractors to provide the WGEA with data on gender equality policies in relation areas such as recruitment, retention, promotion, governing bodies and action on gender pay gaps, as well as workforce data including remuneration. Civil society groups, such as trade unions and gender advocacy groups, also have an important role in monitoring equality targets and actions, although this has been underused (Wright and Conley 2020). The importance of involving civil society groups is considered in more detail below. Involvement of Civil Society Trade unions have a vital role in ensuring fair treatment in the workplace and therefore in making sure that agreed procurement targets are met (Wright and Conley, 2020). In Australia trade unions have been seeking to improve labour standards through involvement in procurement processes. An example was a programme in the state of Victoria set up to improve labour standards and service quality in school cleaning contracts. It established a system of accreditation for firms bidding for school cleaning contracts involving the state, business and employee representatives. An evaluation (Howe and Landau 2009) found the programme to be effective in its development of labour standards with anticipated improvements in the employment conditions of cleaners if effectively enforced. An important element in the establishment of minimum standards and their enforcement was found to be the formal involvement of trade union and industry representatives, but the authors concluded that the involvement of stakeholders in monitoring and evaluation could be improved (Howe and Landau 2009, 586).
190 Research handbook on inequalities and work In the UK, trade union engagement in the establishment and monitoring of procurement objectives is important in large public infrastructure sites such as the London Olympic Park (Wright and Conley 2020) where unions have a more formalised status than in most construction projects (TUC et al. 2008). In a similar way, other forms of civil society can have a significant role in monitoring performance against procurement targets and the enforcement of standards in the workplace. As an organisation that champions women’s economic advancement, the UK Women in Construction (WiC) project had premises on London’s Olympic Park and good working relationships with many in the contractors and construction union (the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT)), in particular through the union’s training for women. Wright and Conley (2020) contend that there is scope for further collaboration on large public infrastructure schemes, which are more likely to be unionised. Similarly McCrudden (2012, 111) argues that equality and procurement linkages require workplace negotiation and agreement that open up opportunities for trade unions. Furthermore, during the development of the Olympic Park the WiC project maintained ongoing contact with women on placements and in employment. The following section shows that support is an essential component of retention in male-dominated sectors. As noted above, the role of public procurement in the promotion of equality and redressing decades of apartheid in South Africa is given force in Section 217 of the constitution and the concept of BBBEE. Brunette et al. (2019) note that the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) was critical of this approach because it sought primarily to build a black capitalist class but did not sufficiently include the interests of black workers. Indeed, COSATU has increasingly highlighted the level of corruption that continues in relation to public procurement and, in 2012, set up a non-profit organisation, Corruption Watch (https:// www.corruptionwatch.org.za/), to collate reports of corruption from the general public, largely in relation to public procurement. In addition to the criticism and activism of COSATU, Brunette et al. argue that public discontent with repeated corruption scandals related to public procurement has resulted in a raft of reforms and auditing mechanisms that, amongst other things, attempt to embed transparency and civil society engagement into the procurement process. Support and Training Ensuring adequate training opportunities in order to qualify for available jobs was identified as necessary for the success in some of the national examples we have reviewed. For example, the Northern Ireland unemployment pilot project training was put in place so that participants had the capacity to produce successful results (Erridge 2007). One of the criticisms levelled at the BBBEE policy in South Africa was that it led to tokenism, with the inclusion of women in positions for which they were not trained, together with lack of support for capacity building among the targeted groups (English and Hay 2015). An assessment of the WiC project highlighted its success in providing ongoing support to women on placements or in work, even some time after participating in the project (Wright 2014). This contributed to the retention of women in an industry known for high exit rates due to the prevalence of sexual harassment and hostile workplace cultures, among other factors (Watts 2007). As mentioned above, WiC worked with the construction trade union on women’s training, and unions are often involved in health and safety training in larger construction sites (James
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 191 et al. 2015). There is therefore greater scope for the involvement of advocacy groups and trade unions in supporting the beneficiaries of equality initiatives established through public procurement to ensure their retention and the success of the social procurement objectives (Wright and Conley 2020).
CONCLUSIONS The examples we have explored in this chapter showed general agreement that experience to date demonstrates far greater potential for the incorporation of equality objectives within procurement processes. For example, the procurement standard used in the West Midlands in the UK was found to have a significant impact on the adoption of equal opportunities policies by contracting firms, some engaging with equalities issues for the first time; ‘in such cases, the impact of the WMCS was dramatic’ (Orton and Ratcliffe 2005, 262). The research found examples of companies providing training on equalities issues, developing more formalised recruitment practices and the adoption of positive action strategies; however, in line with other research, monitoring was lacking. The authors were optimistic that the successes evidenced could be further developed to provide a means of redressing racial inequality in employment (Orton and Ratcliffe 2005). Similarly, evaluations of the Northern Ireland pilot found minimal extra costs stemming from the requirements, identified no legal challenges, showed good results in achieving sustainable employment among the unemployed target group, and observed that contractors were supportive of using public procurement to achieve social objectives (Erridge 2007; McCrudden 2011). Although the outcomes of the pilot were modest – 51 newly created jobs – this was believed to be an efficient use of resources, resulting in one person employed for every GBP 0.61 million of project spend, which compared favourably with the construction industry standard of one person employed for every GBP 1 million of the project spend (Erridge 2007, 1039). Political commitment was considered in most of the research to be more important than regulation on its own, and the South African case represents an example of strong political leadership to implement regulation to enforce equality and human rights advances by means of public procurement (Quinot 2019). However there have been criticisms of its implementation in practice on the grounds of tokenism and inadequate training for work opportunities (English and Hay 2015), as well as reports of corruption, monitored by the trade unions (Brunette et al. 2019). While Australia has introduced fairly rigorous gender equality reporting requirements for companies wishing to apply for federal government contracts, the assessments so far suggest that the main effect has been in ‘naming and shaming’ non-compliant contractors, whereas more needs to be done to ensure enforcement and proactive engagement with equality issues by companies. A ‘compliance-only’ approach was found to be common in the research, so the challenge is to identify mechanisms for both encouraging commissioners to adopt progressive procurement as a strategy for achieving social and equality benefits and, once objectives have been set, for the engagement of contractors not previously undertaking equality actions. Monitoring was essential in achieving objectives set through procurement and in ensuring action throughout supply chains but was often missing or inadequate. Research has also identified a key role for civil society in setting equality objectives for public procurement, monitoring outcomes and in training provision, particularly trade unions and gender advocacy groups (Wright and Conley 2020; McCrudden 2012; James et al. 2015). Furthermore these
192 Research handbook on inequalities and work groups can also be instrumental in providing vital support for the intended beneficiaries of social procurement policies, and may help to ensure they remain in employment. The chapter is limited in its international scope, and has omitted, for example, research from Germany (Sarter 2020), Spain (Medina-Arnáiz 2010) and the US (Wright and Conley 2020; Moir et al. 2011; Price 2002) that may contain valuable lessons. Furthermore there is research on increasing supplier diversity through the encouragement of women- or black-owned businesses that we have not been able to cover (Oxenbridge and Galea 2020; Ram and Smallbone 2003; English and Hay 2015). However, the chapter has drawn attention to examples of proactive strategies adopted to promote employment equality for a range of under-represented groups that could be developed more widely. The Northern Ireland case, for example, shows the integration of socio-economic goals – addressing areas of unemployment – with action to promote equality of opportunity on religious grounds and may offer lessons for Scotland and Wales, where socio-economic duties on public authorities have recently been introduced. While South Africa provides a regulatory model for the integration of goals for addressing socio-economic inequality alongside measures to promote race and gender equality, its implementation in practice has not been without problems. Quinot (2019) reminds us that procurement law is a constant work in progress. The South African case is an example of almost 20 years of experimentation with various mechanisms to improve the practice of social procurement.
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Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 193 Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition of the Republic of South Africa. n.d. ‘B-BBEE Procurement, Transformation and Verification’. Djan Tackey, Nii, Helen Barnes, Harriet Fearn, and Rachel Pillai. 2009. ‘Evaluation of the Race Equality Procurement Pilots’. DWP Research Reports. London: DWP. Duncan, Rosanna, and Julianne Mortimer. 2007. ‘Race Equality and Procurement: An Investigation into the Impact of Race Equality Policy on the Procurement of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Contractors and Consultants in the Welsh Social Housing Sector’. Construction Management & Economics 25 (12): 1283–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446190701474198. Duncan, Rosanna, Julianne Mortimer, and Jane Hallas. 2007. ‘Implementing Race Equality within the Procurement Process in Wales’. Facilities 25 (7/8): 316–28. EHRC. 2012. ‘The Essential Guide to the Public Sector Equality Duty’. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission. EHRC. 2013a. ‘Buying Better Outcomes: Mainstreaming Equality Considerations in Procurement’. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission. EHRC. 2013b. ‘Procurement and the Public Sector Equality Duty: A Guide for Public Authorities (Scotland)’. Glasgow: Equality and Human Rights Commission. EHRC. 2014. ‘Procurement and the Equality Duty: A Guide for Listed Public Authorities in Wales’. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission. English, Jane, and Paula Hay. 2015. ‘Black South African Women in Construction: Cues for Success’. Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology 13 (1): 144–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JEDT-06 -2013-0043. Erridge, Andrew. 2007. ‘Public Procurement, Public Value and the Northern Ireland Unemployment Pilot Project’. Public Administration 85 (4): 1023–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2007 .00674.x. European Commission. 2010. ‘Buying Social: A Guide to Taking Account of Social Considerations in Public Procurement’. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Floyd, Louise. 2013. ‘The Elephant in the Room: The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012’. Law Quarterly Review 129 (April): 180–83. Furneaux, Craig, and Jo Barraket. 2014. ‘Purchasing Social Good(s): A Definition and Typology of Social Procurement’. Public Money & Management 34 (4): 265–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962 .2014.920199. Galea, Natalie, and Abigail Powell. 2018. ‘Women in Construction: Goverment Can Do More to Shake up the “Boys Club”’. ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Galea, Natalie, Abigail Powell, Louise Chappell, and Martin Loosemore. 2018. ‘Gender on the Tender: Shifting Gender Equality in the Australian Construction Sector’. Sydney: UNSW. Galea, Natalie, Alison Mirams, Gabrielle Trainor et al. 2019. ‘Capturing Social Sustainability in the Construction Stage: The Next Step for Green Star’. GLA. 2021. ‘GLA Group Responsible Procurement Policy 2021’. London: Greater London Authority. https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_group_responsible_procurement_policy_2021.pdf. HM Government. 2021. ‘National Procurement Policy Statement’. https://assets.publishing.service.gov .uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/990289/National_Procurement_Policy _Statement.pdf. Howe, John, and Ingrid Landau. 2009. ‘Using Public Procurement to Promote Better Labour Standards in Australia: A Case Study of Responsive Regulatory Design’. Journal of Industrial Relations 51 (4): 575–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185609339520. James, Philip, David Walters, Helen Sampson, and Emma Wadsworth. 2015. ‘Protecting Workers through Supply Chains: Lessons from Two Construction Case Studies’. Economic and Industrial Democracy 36 (4): 727–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831x14532296. Macfarlane, Richard, and Anthony Collins Solicitors. 2014. ‘Tackling Poverty through Public Procurement’. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. McCrudden, Christopher. 2004. ‘Using Public Procurement to Achieve Social Outcomes’. Natural Resources Forum 28 (4): 257–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-8947.2004.00099.x. McCrudden, Christopher. 2007. Buying Social Justice: Equality, Government Procurement, and Legal Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
194 Research handbook on inequalities and work McCrudden, Christopher. 2011. ‘Procurement and the Public Sector Equality Duty: Lessons for the Implementation of the Equality Act 2010 from Northern Ireland?’. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 11 (1/2): 85–98. McCrudden, Christopher. 2012. ‘Procurement and Fairness in the Workplace’. In Making Employment Rights Effective: Issues of Enforcement and Compliance, edited by Linda Dickens, 87–114. Oxford: Hart Publishing. McSorley, Louise. 2017. ‘Australia Case Study: Can Smart Design of Government Procurement “Buy” Increased Women’s Workforce Participation?’. In Gender-Smart Procurement: Policies for Driving Change, edited by Harris Rimmer. London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs Chatham House. Medina-Arnáiz, Teresa. 2010. ‘Integrating Gender Equality in Public Procurement: The Spanish Case’. Journal of Public Procurement 10 (4): 541–63. Moir, Susan, Meryl Thomson, and Christa Kelleher. 2011. ‘Unfinished Business: Building Equality for Women in the Construction Trades’. Boston, MA: Labor Resource Center. OGC. 2008. ‘Make Equality Count’. London: Office of Government Commerce. Orton, Michael, and Peter Ratcliffe. 2004. ‘“Race”, Employment, and Contract Compliance: A Way Forward for Local Authorities?’. Local Economy 19 (2): 150–58. Orton, Michael, and Peter Ratcliffe. 2005. ‘New Labour Ambiguity, or Neo-Liberal Consistency? The Debate About Racial Inequality in Employment and the Use of Contract Compliance’. Journal of Social Policy 34 (2): 255–72. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0047279404008578. Oxenbridge, Sarah, and Natalie Galea. 2020. ‘Gender Equitable Procurement and Supply Chains: Insight Paper and Guide’. Commissioned Research Paper. Sydney: Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Price, Vivian. 2002. ‘Race, Affirmative Action, and Women’s Employment in US Highway Construction’. Feminist Economics 8 (2): 87–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545700210167314. Quinot, Geo. 2019. ‘Constitutionalising Public Procurement through Human Rights: Lessons from South Africa’. In Public Procurement and Human Rights: Opportunities, Risks and Dilemmas for the State as Buyer, edited by Olga Martin-Ortega and Claire Methven O’Brien, 78–95. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Ram, Monder, and David Smallbone. 2003. ‘Supplier Diversity Initiatives and the Diversification of Ethnic Minority Businesses in the UK’. Policy Studies 24 (4): 187–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 0144287042000216117. Sarter, E.K. 2015. ‘The Legal Framework of Contracting: Gender Equality, the Provision of Services and European Public Procurement Law’. Wagadu 13 (Winter): 55–83. Sarter, E.K. 2020. ‘The Development and Implementation of Gender Equality Considerations in Public Procurement in Germany’. Feminist Economics 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2020 .1718731. Sarter, E.K., and Emily Thomson. 2020. ‘Fulfilling Its Promise? Strategic Public Procurement and the Impact of Equality Considerations on Employers’ Behaviour in Scotland’. Public Money & Management 40 (6): 437–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2019.1684615. Scottish Government. 2018. ‘Fairer Scotland Duty: Interim Guidance for Public Bodies’. http://www .gov.scot/publications/fairer-scotland-duty-interim-guidance-public-bodies/. Social Enterprise UK. 2017. ‘Our Money, Our Future: Chris White’s Review of the Social Value Act’s Effect on Public Sector Spending’. London: Social Enterprise UK. Sutherland, Victoria, Alexander McTier, Andrea Glass, and Alan McGregor. 2015. ‘Analysis of the Impact and Value of Community Benefit Clauses in Procurement’. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. TUC, LOCOG, and ODA. 2008. ‘Principles of Cooperation between London 2012 and the Trades Union Congress’. Watts, Jacqueline H. 2007. ‘Porn, Pride and Pessimism: Experiences of Women Working in Professional Construction Roles’. Work, Employment & Society 21 (2): 299–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0950017007076641. Welsh Government. 2016. ‘Code of Practice: Ethical Employment in Supply Chains’. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2021. ‘A More Equal Wales: The Socio-Economic Duty Equality Act 2010 Statutory Guidance’. Cardiff: Welsh Government. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/ 2021-03/a-more-equal-wales.pdf.
Using public procurement to promote equality in employment 195 Women and Work Commission. 2006. ‘Shaping a Fairer Future’. London: Women and Work Commission. Wright, Tessa. 2014. ‘The Women into Construction Project: An Assessment of a Model for Increasing Women’s Participation in Construction’. London: Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, Queen Mary University of London. Wright, Tessa. 2015. ‘Can “Social Value” Requirements on Public Authorities Be Used in Procurement to Increase Women’s Participation in the UK Construction Industry?’ Public Money & Management 35 (2): 135–40. Wright, Tessa, and Hazel Conley. 2013. ‘It’s Better to “Gold-Plate” Equality Law than Protect Institutional Prejudice’. The Guardian, 16 September 2013. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ 2013/sep/16/gold-plate-equality-law-institutional-prejudice. Wright, Tessa, and Hazel Conley. 2020. ‘Advancing Gender Equality in the Construction Sector through Public Procurement: Making Effective Use of Responsive Regulation’. Economic and Industrial Democracy 41 (4): 975–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X17745979.
14. The European Union, the member states and equality – an uneasy relationship? Marco Peruzzi
INTRODUCTION This chapter aims to explore the role of supranational organisations and the nation state in providing protection against discrimination, using the privileged vantage point offered by the European Union and its complex relationship with the member states in the development and implementation of EU equality law. In this perspective, particular attention will be given to the process of constitutionalisation of EU equality law promoted and supported by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), its implications from a political and legal perspective, its limits and the prospects of protection it offers. As the discourse develops, it will emerge that EU equality law is not only one of the cornerstones of the European integration process but an integral part of the very identity of the EU as a common legal order. In pursuing a guarantee of uniform protection of constituent values, it also provides a crucial viewpoint for understanding the complexity of such a process and the tensions that vibrate between different national identities and the construction of a unitary one.
THE COMPLEXITY OF THE SYSTEM OF EU EQUALITY LAW EU equality law is a multi-layered system of norms. First of all, the principle of equality, requiring ‘that similar situations shall not be treated differently unless differentiation is objectively justified’, is part of the general principles of EU law.1 In the EU legal order, these general principles co-exist with the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (henceforth, the Charter) enshrining both broad and specific enunciations of the principle of equality (Art. 20, 21 and 23).2 Since the Treaty of Lisbon of 2009, they have shared the same constitutional value and the same possibility to also be granted a direct effect at domestic level in disputes between private parties.3 While in the Treaties4 equality is recognised among the founding values of the Union (Art. 2 TEU) and the transversal aims that the Union shall pursue when defining and implementing all its policies and activities (Art. 3.2 TEU and Art. 8 and 10 TFEU), since the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), the Treaty has also contained two provisions that directly lay down a prohibition on discrimination: Art. 18 TFEU, setting out the right to equal treatment on grounds of nationality (only) for the EU citizens involved in a transnational situation5, and Art. 157 TFEU on gender pay equality. The wording of the latter has changed, embedding the developments reached by the ECJ in its case-law and strengthening the social connotation of its function.6 In particular, the Treaty of Amsterdam added an express reference to pay equality for ‘work of equal value’ and, following Art. 2(2) of the Agreement on Social Policy (ASP), it included a specific legal base enabling the adoption of legislation to ensure 196
The European Union, the member states and equality 197 the application of the principle of equality of treatment and opportunities between women and men in matters of employment and occupation (not just pay) through the ordinary legislative procedure. This freed the related legislative process from the need to use, as legal bases, the internal market provision (now Art. 115 TFEU) and/or the flexibility clause (now Art. 352 TFEU), which required reliance on the connection of the topic with the market-oriented integration of the EU. Not accidentally, while the ECJ had recognised that the Treaty provision on sex discrimination had a ‘double aim, which is at once economic and social’ since the Defrenne II decision of 1976, it was not until the 2000 case Deustche Post that the ECJ finally asserted the secondary role of the economic aim compared to the social one in Art. 157 TFEU.7 The Treaty of Amsterdam also introduced a specific provision authorising the adoption of legislative acts aimed at combatting discriminations based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (Art. 19 TFEU). It is noteworthy that, unlike Art. 157 TFEU, this provision does not include a direct prohibition of discrimination and does not allow use of the ordinary legislative procedure, which is based on the qualified majority rule. In this case the Council is required to act unanimously and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. This different formulation mirrors the intention of the constituent powers, namely the member states, to keep the guidance on equality law in their own hands as represented in the venue of the Council, curbing the prominence of the ECJ as previously manifested in the implementation of Art. 157. However, this choice did not prevent the Court from maintaining its leading role, which remained central and determining thanks to the constitutionalisation process of equality law, from the disruptive solution adopted by the Court in Mangold in 20058 to the landing place offered by the Charter in 2009 once it gained the value of primary law.9 The final layer of the system of EU equality (hard) law is made up of the sources of secondary law, namely the directives, which provide for contents, procedural rules and institutional structures aimed at ensuring the effectiveness of the anti-discrimination protection within specific, defined and yet differentiated scopes. On the one hand, these directives represent the result of the political debate and choices of legislative actors built on the elaboration previously achieved by the ECJ; on the other hand, throughout the process of constitutionalisation mentioned above, they are defined by the ECJ as a source that ‘merely gives expression to, but does not lay down, the principle of equal treatment in employment and occupation’,10 while such a principle, as a general principle of EU law and then a principle laid down in constitutional written EU law provisions (e.g., the Charter), ‘is sufficient in itself to confer on individuals an individual right which they may invoke as such’.11
THE LEADING ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE The relationship between the different layers of norms described above, especially between primary and secondary law, is blurred in some respects and its governance is basically left in the hands of the ECJ (Muir 2018). As a matter of fact, the judicial activism of the Court has been key for the development of EU equality law since the beginning. The Court promoted the social aim of the prohibition of discrimination and enhanced the enforceability of the right by recognising its value as a fundamental right/general principle of the EU and the direct effect of the Treaty provision on gender pay equality even between individuals. It progressively provided anti-discrimination law with
198 Research handbook on inequalities and work contents (e.g., definition of direct and indirect discrimination, discrimination by association) and procedural protections (e.g., partial inversion of the burden of proof), paving the way for subsequent legislative action. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that one of the states that most contributed to this process of jurisprudential elaboration of anti-discrimination law was the United Kingdom: on the one hand, references for preliminary rulings by its national courts created opportunities for the definition of key concepts, and on the other hand, the Opinions of its Advocates General (AGs) strongly influenced the approaches adopted by the Court. One example is the construction of indirect discrimination, transplanted from US law into European law by the Court in Jenkins12 thanks to the framing perspective advanced by AG Warner in his Opinion. If notwithstanding Brexit the contributions made by the UK to EU anti-discrimination law over the last four decades are likely to remain, the absence of the UK will have a far from neutral impact on the future development of EU anti-discrimination law, as will be highlighted later in the discussion with respect to the issue of discrimination on grounds of religion (Suk 2017). Returning to the subject of the Court’s judicial activism, the constitutionalisation process developed from Mangold on further increased and strengthened this leading role. Most of all, it allowed the Court to keep the guidance on equality law in its hands despite the intention of the member states to shift it into the venue of the Council, where national instances are specifically represented with the additional guarantee of the unanimity rule (see above the formulation of Art. 19 TFEU). This helps to explain the subsequent resistance of the member states against the 2008 Proposal of the European Commission, aimed at extending the protection against discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation to areas outside employment (COM (2008) 426 final, 7 July 2008). By identifying the general principle of equality as the very source of protection and considering equality directives as a mere expression of it, able to give it substance but not to constrain its effects, the Court basically overcomes the limits of direct applicability of secondary law in domestic disputes between individuals. EU equality law is thus enabled to affect vertical and horizontal relationships as well as legal orders at the national level, forged by the interpretative choices that the Court channels into national disputes through the direct link with domestic courts, regardless of the mediation of national political institutions called to implement the directives and regardless of contrasting national legislation, which shall be disapplied in accordance with the principle of primacy of EU law over national law. This is even more remarkable in view of the fact that, as the Court recalled recently in its ruling on the HR Rail case of 2022, ‘in proceedings under Art. 267 TFEU, which is based on a clear separation of functions between the national courts and the Court of Justice, any assessment of the facts in the case is a matter for the national court. However, in order to give the national court a useful answer, the Court may, in a spirit of cooperation with national courts, provide it with all the guidance that it deems necessary’.13 This process certainly grants the protection of anti-discrimination law with improved uniformity, justiciability, enforcement and effectiveness. Still, it has clear implications on the level of both the relationship between EU institutions (the Court versus the legislator, representing member state governments) and the interaction between EU and national legal orders.14
The European Union, the member states and equality 199
THE UNCERTAIN BALANCE IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE EU AND NATIONAL ORDERS As the field of equality law mainly constitutes a shared competence and lies on the adoption of legislation, accordingly with Protocol 25 the scope of the Union’s exercise of competence should only cover those elements governed by the Union act in question and therefore not the whole area. In other words, the scope of the EU intervention should be that defined by legislation. The above-mentioned process of constitutionalisation strongly affects the perimeters of the EU intervention in the equality field, beyond the limits deriving from Art. 19 and 157(3) TFEU. This makes the balance of the relationship between the European and domestic systems more uncertain. As some legal scholars maintain, the principle of subsidiarity as set by Art. 5(3) TEU and the Union’s obligation to respect the national identities of the member states laid down in Art. 4(2) TEU can hardly serve to mark the boundaries of this process. Horsley considers the application of the principle of subsidiarity in this matter mostly inappropriate: since its logic is linked to the transnational relevance of an issue or the negative externalities of a national regulation, its application would challenge a European intervention such as that in the field of anti-discrimination law and thus the pursuit of the related core policy objectives set out in the Treaties (Horsley 2012, p. 275). In the same direction, Muir stresses that ‘key conflicts on the definition of fundamental rights standards […] cannot be solved by comparative efficiency tests: they are instead concerned with prioritizing and balancing values’: ‘a subtle and highly sensitive balance between various values as well as levels of authority is therefore encapsulated in EU legislation giving expression to a fundamental right’ (Muir 2018, p. 49). As Davies’ perspective of analysis explains, within such balancing mechanisms and processes, the most relevant legal instrument is to be found in the principle of proportionality, not in the principle of subsidiarity (Davies 2006). As for the limit of national identities, it is important to recall the Opinion of the AG Kokott in the case Achbita regarding the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of religion. The case, brought to the ECJ’s attention by the Belgian Court of Cassation, concerned the dismissal of a Muslim receptionist who had decided to wear a headscarf despite the fact that the company’s internal regulations, which were designed to ensure an image of neutrality towards customers, prohibited employees from wearing visible signs of their political, philosophical or religious beliefs in the workplace. France had pointed out ‘the fact that, according to the introductory phrase of Art. 3(1), Directive 2000/78 applies only within the limits of the competences conferred on the Community’ and therefore the Directive is ‘not intended to apply to situations concerning the national identities of the Member States’. After explaining that national identity does not limit the scope of the Directive as such, but must be duly taken into account in the interpretation of the principle of equal treatment, AG Kokott argued that ‘this may mean that, in Member States such as France, where secularism has constitutional status and therefore plays an instrumental role in social cohesion too, the wearing of visible religious symbols may legitimately be subject to stricter restrictions (even in the private sector and generally in public spaces) than in other Member States the constitutional provisions of which have a different or less distinct emphasis in this regard’.15
200 Research handbook on inequalities and work The issue was differently addressed by the AG Tanchev in his Opinion on the case Egenberger regarding a difference in treatment based on religion in matters of employment carried out by an auxiliary organisation to a church. In particular, the case concerned the non-recruitment of a candidate who did not belong to any religious confession by the German Diaconate. The job offer expressly required membership of an Evangelical Church or a Church belonging to the Association of Christian Churches in Germany, as well as identification with the charitable and welfare mission of the Diaconate. Among other tasks, the job position included the drafting, on behalf of the Diaconate, of a parallel report to that of the German state on the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. While AG Kokott’s words can be read as an invitation to take national context and identity into account when identifying balancing points in the application of the principle of equality, AG Tanchev seems to place more emphasis on the role of the European Union in defining the terms of protection against discrimination. Specifically, for AG Tanchev, ‘there are insufficient imperatively worded provisions of primary law in the Treaties to either put to one side the balancing exercise undertaken by both the European Court of Human Rights and this Court in the event of a competition arising between or among fundamental rights, or to cut away at the competence of the EU with respect to the judicial protection of the prohibition on discrimination on the basis of religion, when a religious organisation relies on Art. 4(2) of Directive 2000/78’.16 It is noteworthy that the issue of respect for national identities, as analysed by the AGs in their Opinions, never made it into the related judgments of the Court. Furthermore, in relation to the question of the room for manoeuvre left to member states in these delicate matters, it is also interesting to note that there was no (written) Opinion of an AG in the last case on this topic, Wabe from 2021, where the Court confirmed an approach based on indirect discrimination17 despite earlier criticism highlighting – inter alia – its restrictive impact on the domestic sphere, specifically on ‘the freedom of Member States to provide greater protection towards minorities’ (Spaventa 2017). The case, similar to Achbita but originated by a German dispute, concerned the suspension of a Muslim employee from her duties following her refusal to comply with the employer’s ban on teaching staff wearing any visible political, philosophical or religious signs in the workplace when in contact with parents or their children. As in Achbita, the prohibition stemmed from an internal rule designed to guarantee a policy of neutrality towards users, linked in this case specifically to the objective of ensuring the individual and free development of children as regards religion, personal beliefs and politics. It may be very interesting to recall – especially in a perspective of reflection on the development of EU anti-discrimination law after Brexit – the different and distinctive approach offered by the UK AG Sharpston in her Opinion on the Bougnaoui case, decided by the Court in 2017 in parallel to Achbita but with an opposite outcome to the latter. The two cases indeed had significant differences: in Achbita, the employer’s prohibition was applying the specific internal rule mentioned above; in Bougnaoui, it was linked to a client’s wish that the company’s services should no longer be provided by an employee wearing an Islamic veil. Beyond these differences, it is very important to highlight how AG Sharpston adopted a significantly contrasting position to that of AG Kokott, both because she identified the unequal treatment as a case of direct and not indirect discrimination, thus subject to a much narrower possibility of justification, and because she formulated arguments that would preclude the possibility of invoking the issue of neutrality or the protection of other values related to the
The European Union, the member states and equality 201 functioning of democratic society as elements that may legitimate the employer’s ban on wearing the headscarf (Suk 2017). AG Sharpston’s different perspective with respect to the protection of the religious freedom of Islamic workers in the construction of the European standard of anti-discrimination protection on religious grounds is not, as we have seen, confirmed in the more recent Wabe ruling, which is instead in ideal continuity with Achbita.
THE CONSTITUTIONALISATION PROCESS OF EU EQUALITY LAW AND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE EU INTERVENTION Any investigation into the boundaries of the constitutionalisation process triggered and fostered by the ECJ cannot disregard the fact that the provisions of the Charter are addressed to the member states only when they are implementing Union law and they do not establish any new power or task for the Union (Art. 51.1).18 On the basis of this normative fact, one can firstly wonder if a limit to the judicial activism of the Court can be found in the list of grounds of prohibited discrimination that can be considered protected and relevant under EU law. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the content of Art. 21(1) of the Charter does not mirror the scope of legislative competence of the EU as defined by Art. 19 TFEU: not only is the list of the grounds indicated by Art. 21 not (expressively) exhaustive but some of them – such as social origin, genetic features, language, membership of a national minority, property, birth – are not included in the provisions of the Treaty enabling legislative action in this field. Back in 1996, in Grant, the ECJ asserted that ‘although respect for the fundamental rights which form an integral part of those general principles of law is a condition of the legality of Community acts, those rights cannot in themselves have the effect of extending the scope of the Treaty provisions beyond the competences of the Community’ (par. 45). Therefore, ‘Community law as it stands at present does not cover discrimination based on sexual orientation’ (par. 47).19 Consistently, ten years later, in Chacon Navas, the ECJ confirmed that the fact that the general principle of non-discrimination, being included among the fundamental rights and thus the general principles of EU law, binds member states in respect of situations falling within the scope of EU law does not imply that ‘the scope of Directive 2000/78 should be extended by analogy beyond the discrimination based on the grounds listed exhaustively in Art. 1 thereof’ (par. 56). As the AG Geelhoed argued in his Opinion on Chacon Navas, ‘the Court must respect the choices made by the Community legislature’ and cannot widen the scope of the rules ‘by relying on the general policy of equality’: this would otherwise result ‘in the creation of an Archimedean position, […] a lever to correct, without the intervention of the authors of the Treaty or the Community legislature, the decisions made by of the Member States in the exercise of the powers which they – still – retain’.20 Accordingly, with the Grant doctrine the ECJ has developed its interpretative choices in the field of equality law within the boundaries of the list of grounds selected by the constituent powers for possible legislative intervention of the EU. It is noteworthy that only the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010 allowed – but actually required – the Court to extend the protection of antidiscrimination law by adopting
202 Research handbook on inequalities and work a broader notion of disability without betraying the exhaustive nature of the list of the protected grounds. Specifically, this ratification led to a shift in the Court’s interpretation from a bio-medical model to a bio-psycho-social model. In application of the latter model, the notion of disability has evolved to refer to a limitation resulting from long-term physical, mental or psychological impairments, which, in interaction with barriers of various kinds, may hinder the full and effective participation of the person concerned in working life on an equal basis with other workers.21 Similarly, the Court’s interpretative choices have remained respectful of the boundaries drawn by the specific scope of the secondary sources ‘giving expression’ to the principle and, more generally, by the limits of EU competence. In this respect, the example of the application of the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation may be significant. Once sexual orientation was promoted to the status of a risk factor protected by EU legislation, the Court’s action nevertheless moved within the perimeter of the scope of application of Directive 2000/78 (i.e., the field of employment and occupation) and did not interfere with national choices on marital or family status, which are excluded from the scope of EU competence. In this perspective, the Court was able to consider the impact of the differentiation of rules between marriage of heterosexual couples and civil partnerships of same-sex couples where that differentiation precluded the provision of an occupational benefit, such as access to a survivor’s pension by the surviving partner under an occupational pension scheme. On the contrary, the Court has always stopped short of considering the differential impact resulting from the introduction or non-introduction of national legislation on same-sex partnerships because of the exclusive competence of the member states in matters of civil status (see Recital 22 of Directive 2000/78). In this sense, the Court ruled out, for example, that there could be indirect discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in access to the above-mentioned survivor’s pension due to the absence, at a given moment in history, of a law recognising any form of civil partnership for same-sex couples.22 Having said that, the blurred relationship and interaction between primary and secondary law sources resulting from the process of constitutionalisation of equality law give rise to multiple questions. If in fact the list of protected grounds for legislative action is still exhaustive, the result of such legislative action is considered to be a mere specific and concrete expression of the constitutional principles enshrined in the Charter, which are the very source of protection and which, however, do not refer exclusively to the list of protected grounds and the scope of equality legislation (see above). This leads to questions about the applicability of the principles of non-discrimination enshrined by the Charter within the implementation of EU law but outside the scope of equality legislation, either with regard to the same protected grounds but in other fields of law or beyond the list of protected grounds that can be covered by equality legislation. As for the first question, the ECJ has confirmed such a possibility in significant cases.23 It is important to preliminarily specify that such cases concerned vertical relationships and either an evaluation essentially aimed at determining the validity of an EU legislative provision (Wolfgang Glatzel) or the consistency of a national law implementing an EU legislative act (Geoffrey Léger).24 In Wolfgang Glatzel from 2014, the Court stated the applicability of the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of disability enshrined in Art. 21 of the Charter in the implementation of the EU secondary law on driving licences. In this perspective, it concluded that
The European Union, the member states and equality 203 even when a person does not meet the medical requirements laid down in the legislation for the issue of a driving licence due to a situation that qualifies as a disability within the meaning of the Charter, the difference in treatment may be objectively justified in the light of overriding considerations of road safety. Security considerations are also at the core of the other case mentioned above, again decided by the Court by referring to the respect of the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in the Charter in a regulatory field outside equality law but nevertheless covered by EU legislative action. Specifically, in Geoffrey Léger from 2015 the Court addressed the issue of compliance with the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in the implementation of EU secondary law on blood donations. While confirming that the guarantee of protection of LGBTQ+ people from discrimination must be ensured transversally in all areas of application of EU law, the conclusion reached by the Court is marked by a questionable pragmatic approach. It certainly excludes that security considerations can be automatically linked to the characteristic of sexual orientation but on the other hand it allows that such a link can be justified and be the basis for a permanent deferral from blood donation. The response of the French legislator, which was the one directly concerned by the case, was not long in coming and gradually outpaced the critical areas left open by the Court’s reasoning: as of July 2016, the French legislation made it possible for LGBTQ+ people to donate blood on condition that they declared not having been sexually active for one year. The time period was reduced to four months in 2019 and finally removed in 2022, making it possible to donate blood today regardless of sexual orientation. As for the second question mentioned above, concerning the applicability of the principles of non-discrimination enshrined by the Charter beyond the list of protected grounds for which equality legislation is allowed, an interesting insight can be found in the case YS from 2020 with regard to discrimination on grounds of property. The case centred on an Austrian law that aimed to limit public spending and ensure the long-term continuity of state-funded pensions by limiting automatic pension increases from occupational pension arrangements in state-controlled companies. In particular, as of 2018, it introduced a ban on applying the annual increase to such occupational pensions, potentially against the contractually agreed index-linking clause, in cases where the total pension income of the person entitled exceeds a certain amount. Since the application of this law affected more men than women, more elderly people than young people and only people with relatively large occupational pensions, the Court was asked whether the regulation at issue might be discriminatory on grounds of gender and age but most notably, as far as the reasoning being developed here is concerned, on the basis of property. While ruling out a violation of the principle, the Court admits the possibility of assessing the conformity of national legislation with it, even with regard to the last risk factor mentioned. It is important to highlight that in this case it is precisely the applicability of the equality directives that provides the link to EU law necessary to make the Charter applicable to a situation – property-based inequality – not covered by the scope of those directives. What is puzzling in the Court’s reasoning, as Xenidis appropriately observes, is that the Directive not only provides the link to EU law but also the framework for testing whether the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of property under Art. 20 and 21 of the Charter has been infringed. In identifying possible limitations to the exercise of that right, the Court does not apply the open test of justification and proportionality provided for in the Charter itself, namely by Art. 52(1), but imports the specific test of justification provided for
204 Research handbook on inequalities and work in the Gender Equality Directive. As Xenidis points out, there is a paradox in this process: when directives are identified as acts that not only give expression to the principle of equality enshrined in the Charter with respect to the grounds they cover but function as sources from which the normative content of the fundamental right to equality enshrined in the Charter can be drawn even as it operates beyond the perimeter of the risk factors covered by equality legislation, it could be said that ‘the constitutionalisation of EU anti-discrimination law leads to a form of “deconstitutionalisation” of the Charter’ (Xenidis 2021, p. 1684). In symmetrical and opposite terms to this last reflection, the question arises as to whether the relationship between primary and secondary law sources characterising equality law can be found or reproduced with regard to the principle of equal treatment between typical and atypical workers, as provided by Directives 97/81/EC on part-time contracts, 1999/70/EC on fixed-term contracts and 2008/104/EC on temporary agency work. In this case, the nature of the contractual work relationship, considered by anti-discrimination provisions laid down in secondary law sources, is not included among the grounds expressively referred to in Art. 21 (even if the list is not exhaustive) (see Bell 2019). The interconnection between the equal treatment clauses provided by the Directives on atypical workers and the general principle of equality is acknowledged by the case law of the ECJ. In Wippel, the Court specifically clarified that ‘the prohibition on discrimination enunciated in the [Directive on part-time contracts] is merely a particular expression of a fundamental principle of Community law, namely the general principle of equality under which comparable situations may not be treated differently unless the difference is objectively justified. That principle can therefore apply only to persons in comparable situations’.25 For Peers such interconnection should lead to the same legal implication established in the field of the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of personal characteristics; that is, the horizontal direct effect of the rule, the so called Kücükdeveci effect (Peers 2013, p. 55). In contrast, Muir welcomes the cautious approach of the Court, arguing that there is ‘a clear line between the policy dimension of these equal treatment clauses and the constitutional right to equal treatment’ as those clauses ‘are not ends in themselves’; ‘they are part of policy choices designed to either promote […] or deter […] certain forms of employment’ (Muir 2018, pp. 131 and 125). In a more general system perspective, Barbera emphasises the need for an impetus to be given to the operation of the principle of non-discrimination for (all) flexible workers. She observes how the function of the anti-discrimination technique in the field of atypical jobs, as aimed at preventing an unreasonable fragmentation of protections, is in danger of being compromised precisely by the proliferation of forms of work contracts, which makes it increasingly difficult to make the comparison necessary to identify discrimination (Barbera 2019). As Bell points out, the Court’s own reasoning, as developed in Wippel, gives contestable relevance to differences in contractual terms with respect to the application of anti-discrimination law, implying that they may render a particular group of workers incomparable to all others, thereby excluding any recourse to the protections available not only under the atypical work directives but also under those on equality. In particular, Bell criticises the Court’s reasoning insofar as it conflates the definition of direct gender discrimination, which requires the identification of another person in a comparable situation, with that of indirect discrimination, which does not rely on that kind of comparison, requiring instead ascertaining whether those affected by a specific pattern of work, in this case those without fixed working hours, are disproportion-
The European Union, the member states and equality 205 ately women and therefore whether women are placed at a particular disadvantage compared to men (see Bell 2019). If this last reflection highlights the need not to simplify the relationship between the fragmentation of contract types and the identification of the comparator in the field of equality legislation, the development of the Court’s case law would also seem to highlight the possibility of extending anti-discrimination protection for atypical workers in this context of increasing flexibility.26 It is noteworthy that, following Milkova,27 in the case Almudena Baldonedo Martín from 2020, the ECJ clarifies that ‘a difference of treatment based on whether the employment relationship is statutory or contractual may, in principle, be assessed with regard to the principle of equal treatment, [as] enshrined in Art. 20 and 21 of the Charter’ as long as the national measure at issue ‘involves “implementing of EU law” for the purposes of Art. 51.1 of the Charter’.28 While in Milkova, through what has been described as a pirouette (Xenidis 2021, p. 1678), the Court relied on the material scope of Directive 2000/78/EC, in particular Art. 7.2 on positive action measures, as a gateway to the general principle of equal treatment enshrined in the Charter and in Baldonedo Martín the link was provided by Directive 1999/70/EC on fixed-term work, what is not clear, as Xenidis rightly observes, is the method by which the Court links the legal nature of the employment relationship to the general principles of equal treatment enshrined in the Charter. Besides the fact that it is unclear whether the link is grounded in Art. 20 or Art. 21, ‘there is no methodological indication on how the differentiating criterion […], namely the legal nature of the employment relationship, is covered under Art. 21.1 […] Since it does not explicitly list legal relationships as protected grounds, it is legitimate to ask whether its applicability derives from its openly framed list of protected characteristics’ (Xenidis 2021, p. 1679). How this (progressively extended) link between the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of the nature or flexibility of the employment relationship and the constitutional principle of equality will evolve is not yet known.29
CONCLUSIONS The relationship between the EU and the member states in the field of equality law runs along blurred lines but it could be described as based on a sort of circularity. The constitutional traditions common to the member states strongly moulded the general principles of EU law. As explained by the AG Trabucchi in his Opinion on Defrenne II, ‘the principle of equal treatment is enshrined in the legal system of Member States, the majority of which have erected it into a principle formally underwritten by the constitution itself’.30 The general principles of non-discrimination have progressively become the very source of protection in the field of equality, able to infuse the secondary law sources and called to give them expression and substantive content with the authority of primary law. This process of constitutionalisation has allowed the Union, specifically the Court, to enforce EU equality law directly in the domestic sphere, both in vertical and horizontal disputes, through the ‘peripheral arm’ of national courts (Cartabia 2016, p. 488),31 overcoming the mediation – and contrasting choices – of national legislators. As Barbera highlights, in this way the Court pushes in the direction of a diffuse equality check, giving individual citizens rights that are enforceable towards everyone (Barbera 2019, p. 39).
206 Research handbook on inequalities and work The room for manoeuvre left to national courts can certainly vary from case to case. However, as emphasised by Thym, ‘the Åkerberg Fransson and Melloni judgments made crystal clear that the ECJ retains full control over the relative autonomy of domestic human rights standards. National courts may continue to apply domestic guarantees “provided that the level of protection provided for by the Charter, as interpreted by the Court, [is] not thereby compromised”. Put differently, Luxembourg determines the freedom of action for national courts and has the upper hand in cases of conflict’ (Thym 2013, p. 405). While Achbita and more recently Wabe show that the Court is not afraid to adopt controversial interpretative choices on delicate topics, all the more important given that they are meant to be applied uniformly by the member states and are central for the process of social and cultural integration of the Union, the case Dansk Industri also shows that national courts are not afraid to disobey the prescriptions of the Luxembourg judges (Barbera 2019, p. 42).32 Crises and ruptures in the process of European integration can strongly influence the development of anti-discrimination law and in particular the Court’s interpretative choices. In the course of the analysis, the possible impact of Brexit, for example on the construction of the EU standard of anti-discrimination protection on religious grounds, was highlighted. In this perspective, it may be significant to also recall the Abercrombie case of 2017 since some legal scholars relate the choice of the Court, almost surrendering to the arguments put forward by the Italian government to protect the national legislation under examination, to the contextual crisis of the integration process. The case focused on the test of compliance with the principle of non-discrimination of Italian legislation allowing on-call workers to be dismissed on grounds of age on reaching the age of 25. Following the government’s statements, the Court justified the rules in question on the grounds that they concern a contract dedicated to ‘young people who are looking for a first job’ in spite of the fact that Italian legislation does not reserve this contract for first-time jobseekers:33 this could be read as a symptomatic indication of how difficult it is for the Court to scrutinise and challenge the decisions of national political actors at a time of crisis in the process of European integration (Barbera 2017, p. 28). Nevertheless, and despite the many complexities that have been highlighted during this analysis, there is still the certainty that it is precisely this process of European integration that has founding values in the application of anti-discrimination law and the principle of equality. The Court of Justice was not afraid to point this out very strongly when it recently rejected the appeals of Poland and Hungary against the Regulation allowing the EU to suspend payments from the EU budget to countries that violate the rule of law. Addressing the issue of the relationship between the Union’s identity and national identities, the Court affirms that Art. 2 TEU, which enshrines the values to which ‘the rule of law’ refers, is not merely a statement of policy guidelines or intentions, but contains values [like non-discrimination and equality before the law] which are an integral part of the very identity of the European Union as a common legal order, values which are given concrete expression in principles containing legally binding obligations for the Member States. Even though, as is apparent from Art. 4.2 TEU, the European Union respects the national identities of the Member States, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, such that those States enjoy a certain degree of discretion in implementing the principles of the rule of law, it in no way follows that that obligation as to the result to be achieved may vary from one Member State to another. Whilst they have separate national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, which the European Union respects, the Member States adhere to a concept of ‘the rule of law’ which they share, as a value common to their own constitutional traditions, and which they have undertaken to respect at
The European Union, the member states and equality 207 all times. Accordingly, and notwithstanding the fact that the Commission and the Council must make their assessments taking due account of […] the particular features of the legal system of the Member State in question and the discretion which that Member State enjoys in implementing the principles of the rule of law, that requirement is in no way incompatible with the application of uniform assessment criteria.34
NOTES 1. Albert Ruckdeschel & Co and Hansa-Lagerhaus Ströh & Co v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-St Annen; Diamalt AG v Hauptzollamt Itzehoe [1977] ECLI:EU:C:1977:160, par. 7. 2. In the mosaic of sources, it is important to include also Art. 22, on the Union’s obligation to respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity; Art. 24 and 25 on the rights of the child and of the elderly; and Art. 26 on integration of persons with disabilities. 3. See Alaimo and Caruso (2011); Sciarra (2014); Rossi and Casolari (2017); and Barbera (2019). 4. The reference to the Treaties is to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). 5. For the interpretation of this provision see the case law of the ECJ in Gianfranco Perfili [1996] ECLI:EU:C:1996:24, and María Martínez Sala v Freistaat Bayern [1998] ECLI:EU:C:1998:217. EU migration legislation includes some equal treatment provisions for third-country nationals. However, they are not related to EU anti-discrimination law, and in its case law the ECJ has carefully avoided ‘an organic connection with the constitutional version of the right to equal treatment’ (Muir 2018, p. 135). 6. As for the discrimination based on nationality, the enabling provision was inserted in the Treaty of Maastricht. 7. Gabrielle Defrenne v Société anonyme belge de navigation aérienne Sabena [1976] ECLI: ECLI:EU:C:1976:56, par. 12; Deutsche Post AG v Elisabeth Sievers [2000] ECLI:EU:C:2000:76. 8. Werner Mangold v Rüdiger Helm [2005] ECLI:EU:C:2005:709. 9. See Muir (2018). 10. Seda Kücükdeveci v Swedex GmbH & Co KG [2010] ECLI:EU:C:2010:21, par. 50. 11. Association de médiation sociale v Union locale des syndicats CGT and others [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2, par. 47. 12. J.P. Jenkins v Kingsgate (Clothing Productions) Ltd. [1981] ECLI:EU:C:1981:80. 13. XXXX v HR Rail SA [2022] ECLI:EU:C:2022:85, par. 46. 14. See Sciarra (2001) and Dawson et al. (2013). 15. Samira Achbita and Centrum voor gelijkheid van kansen en voor racismebestrijding v G4S Secure Solutions NV, Opinion [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:382, par. 31, 125; Judgment [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:203. 16. Vera Egenberger v Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung e.V., Opinion [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:851, par. 96; Judgment [2018] ECLI:EU:C:2018:257. 17. IX v WABE eV and MH Müller Handels GmbH v MJ, [2021] ECLI:EU:C:2021:594. 18. See Lo Faro (2019). 19. Lisa Jacqueline Grant v South-West Trains Ltd. [1998] ECLI:EU:C:1998:63. 20. Sonia Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA., Opinion [2006] ECLI:EU:C:2006:184, par. 53–54; Judgment [2006] ECLI:EU:C:2006:456. 21. HK Danmark v Dansk almennyttigt Boligselskab and HK Danmark v Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, Judgment [2013] ECLI:EU:C:2013:222. See Weddington (2019). 22. David L. Parris v Trinity College Dublin e a. [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:897, par. 46, 58; Tadao Maruko v Versorgungsanstalt der deutschen Bühnen [2008] ECLI:EU:C:2008:179, par. 72–73, 59. 23. Wolfgang Glatzel contre Freistaat Bayern [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:350; Geoffrey Léger contre Ministre des Affaires sociales, de la Santé et des Droits des femmes et Etablissement français du sang [2015] ECLI:EU:C:2015:288. 24. See O’Cinneide (2015). 25. Nicole Wippel v Peek & Cloppenburg GmbH & Co. KG. [2004] ECLI:EU:C:2004:607, par. 56.
208 Research handbook on inequalities and work 26. See the reflection on the comparison test from Xenidis (2021). 27. Petya Milkova v Izpalnitelen direktor na Agentsiata za privatizatsia i sledprivatizatsionen control [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:198. 28. Almudena Baldonedo Martín v Ayuntamiento de Madrid [2020] ECLI:EU:C:2020:26, par. 56, 59. 29. Mark Bell (2019) highlights how this perspective is nurtured by the European Pillar of Social Rights. 30. Gabrielle Defrenne v Société anonyme belge de navigation aérienne Sabena [1976] ECLI:EU:C:1976:39. 31. See also Calafà (2014). 32. See also De Witte (2018), Madsen et al. (2017), Holdgaard et al. (2018), and Neergaard and Sørensen (2017). 33. Abercrombie & Fitch Italia Srl v Antonino Bordonaro [2017], ECLI:EU:C:2017:566, par. 35; see Bonardi (2017). 34. Hungary v Parliament and Council [2022] ECLI:EU:C:2022:97, par. 232–235; Poland v Parliament and Council [2022] ECLI:EU:C:2022:98).
REFERENCES Alaimo, A. and Caruso, B. (2011), ‘Dopo la politica i diritti: L’Europa “sociale” dopo il Trattato di Lisbona’, in Parisi, N. and Petralia, V. (eds), L’Unione europea dopo il Trattato di Lisbona, Torino: Giappichelli, p. 201.Barbera, M. (2017), ‘Il cavallo e l’asino’, in Bonardi, O. (ed.), Eguaglianza e divieti di discriminazione nell’era del diritto del lavoro derogabile, Rome: Ediesse, pp. 17–35. Barbera, M. (2019), ‘Principio di eguaglianza e divieti di discriminazione’, in Barbera, M. and Guariso, A. (eds), La tutela antidiscriminatoria, Torino: Giappichelli, pp. 5–84. Bell, M. (2019), ‘EU Equality Law and Precarious Work’, in Belavusau, U. and Henrard, K. (eds), EU Anti-Discrimination Law Beyond Gender, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 75–94. Bonardi, O. (2017), ‘Il divieto di discriminazione per età alla deriva: note sul caso Abercrombie’, Rivista giuridica del lavoro e della previdenza sociale, pp. 545–559. Calafà, L. (2014), ‘Giudici (quasi) federali e diritto del lavoro recente’, Lavoro e Diritto, 2–3, pp. 457–487. Cartabia, M. (2016), ‘La fortuna del giudizio di costituzionalità in via incidentale’, in Scritti in onore di Gaetano Silvestri, Torino: Giappichelli, pp. 481–500. Davies, G. (2006), ‘Subsidiarity: The Wrong Idea, in the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time’, Common Market Law Review, 43(1), pp. 63–84. Dawson, M., Muir, E. and de Witte, B. (eds) (2013), Judicial Activism at the European Court of Justice, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. De Witte, F. (2018), ‘Interdependence and Contestation in European Integration’, European Papers, 3(2), pp. 475–509. Holdgaard, R., Elkan, D. and Krohn Schaldemose, G. (2018), ‘From Cooperation to Collision: The ECJ’s Ajos Ruling and the Danish Supreme Court’s Refusal to Comply’, Common Market Law Review, 55(1), pp. 17–53. Horsley, T. (2012), ‘Subsidiarity and the European Court of Justice: Missing Pieces in the Subsidiarity Jigsaw’ Journal of Common Market Studies, 50(2), pp. 267–282. Lo Faro, A. (2019), ‘La Carta e le Corti dieci anni dopo: a che punto siamo?’, Rivista giuridica del lavoro e della previdenza sociale, pp. 343–364. Madsen, M. R., Olsen, H. P. and Sadl, U. (2017), ‘Competing Supremacies and Clashing Institutional Rationalities: The Danish Supreme Court’s Decision in the Ajos Case and the National Limits of Judicial Cooperation’, European Law Journal, 23(2), pp. 140–150. Muir, E. (2018), EU Equality Law. The First Fundamental Rights Policy of the EU, Oxford: OUP. Neergaard, U. and Sørensen, K. E. (2017), ‘Activist Infighting among Courts and Breakdown of Mutual Trust? The Danish Supreme Court, the CJEU, and the Ajos Case’, Yearbook of European Law, pp. 1–39.
The European Union, the member states and equality 209 O’Cinneide, C. (2015), ‘The Constitutionalization of Equality within the EU Legal Order: Sexual Orientation as a Testing Ground’, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 22(3), pp. 370–395. Peers, S. (2013), ‘Equal Treatment of Atypical Workers: A New Frontier for EU Law?’, Yearbook of European Law, 32(1), pp. 30–56. Relano Pastor, E. (2019), ‘Religious Discrimination in the Workplace’, in Belavusau, U. and Henrard, K. (eds), EU Anti-Discrimination Law Beyond Gender, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 183–202. Rossi, L. S. and Casolari, F. (eds) (2017), The Principle of Equality in EU Law, Cham: Springer. Sciarra S. (ed.) (2001), Labour Law in the Courts: National Judges and the European Court of Justice, Oxford: Hart Publishing. Sciarra, S. (2014), ‘Association de médiation sociale. The Disputed Role of EU Fundamental Principles and the Point of View of Labour Law’, in Scritti in onore di Giuseppe Tesauro, Naples: Editoriale Scientifica, pp. 243–247. Spaventa, E. (2017), ‘What Is the Point of Minimum Harmonization of Fundamental Rights? Some Further Reflections on the Achbita Case’, EU Law Analysis, 21 March. Suk, J. C. (2017), ‘Equality After Brexit: Evaluating British Contributions to EU Antidiscrimination Law’, Fordham International Law Journal, 40(5), pp. 1535–1552. Thym, D. (2013), ‘Separation versus Fusion – or: How to Accommodate National Autonomy and the Charter?’, European Constitutional Law Review, 9, pp. 391–419. Weddington, L. (2019), ‘The Influence of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on EU Anti-Discrimination Law’, in Belavusau, U. and Henrard, K. (eds), EU Anti-Discrimination Law Beyond Gender, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 339–361. Xenidis R. (2021), ‘The Polysemy of Anti-Discrimination Law: The Interpretation Architecture of the Framework Employment Directive At The Court Of Justice’, Common Market Law Review, 58(6), pp. 1649–1696.
PART III CULTURE, ORGANISATIONS AND INEQUALITY
15. Inequalities and the media: spread and reception of hate speech against migrants and refugees in social media David Blanco-Herrero, Javier J. Amores and Carlos Arcila-Calderón
INTRODUCTION Although it is a generally well-known term, the exact definition of what can be considered hate speech is usually the first challenge when addressing this issue. Many legal documents from regional, national, and international institutions offer alternative definitions of what can be considered illegal hate speech – which is the type that constitutes a form of hate crime. These documents usually highlight that a hate crime or discourse is motivated by intolerance of or discrimination toward (usually minority) groups. In fact, Hughes (1998) points out that hate crimes can happen to anybody, but hate crimes are aggravated when they happen to the traditional victims of prejudice or when prejudice against a real or perceived characteristic of the victim was present. In a similar line, Díaz López (2018) follows the Spanish Juridic Dictionary of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation to state that hate crimes are those motivated by hate or prejudice toward a stereotype characterised by one real or perceived feature of the victim (ethnicity, sex, beliefs, etc.). Hate crimes can also refer to crimes including an offensive, humiliating, or intimidatory component directed toward a social group that has traditionally been victim of discrimination, no matter the motivation of the author. Although this only applies to the Spanish case used here as an example, most Western countries refer to discrimination as a basis for hate crimes. In fact, following the definition of discrimination provided by the International Labour Organization in its Convention No. 111 (1958), we can understand it as ‘any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation’. It is easy to see that, beyond employment opportunities, discrimination can be also found in discourses in the media with a clear connection to illegal hate speech. Until now, we have been referring to illegal hate speech using a legal and jurisdictional approach. However, the United Nations distinguishes three types of expression in its Rabat Action Plan (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2012): ‘expression that constitutes a criminal offence; expression that is not criminally punishable, but may justify a civil suit or administrative sanctions; expression that does not give rise to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, but still raises concern in terms of tolerance, civility and respect for the rights of others’. That is, the problem with hate speech is not only the part that can be considered illegal but a broader form of communication that can have particular intentions or consequences even if it is rightfully protected by freedom of speech. 211
212 Research handbook on inequalities and work Following this line, the taxonomy of hate speech designed by Miró Llinares (2016) and used, for example, by Arcila-Calderón et al. (2020b) does not only focus on those discourses that can be considered illegal according to the previous definitions. This taxonomy includes discourse that promotes violent acts that can cause physical harm, discourse that offends or morally harms a person, and discourse that offends or morally harms a collective. One of the most relevant texts in the field, the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of the European Union, defines hate speech as ‘public incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined on the basis of race, colour, descent, religion or belief, or national or ethnic origin’. Similarly, the Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech (2020) of the United Nations refers to ‘Any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor. This is often rooted in, and generates, intolerance and hatred, and in certain contexts can be demeaning and divisive’. These definitions share a similar approach with those about illegal hate speech referenced in the first paragraphs and are clearly connected with elements such as division, discrimination, fear, abuse of power over minorities, rejection of ‘the other’, and, in general, inequality. In the following pages hate speech is addressed as a cause and, at the same time, consequence of inequality. Although it is a frequently underlying element in many works about hate speech, the connection between this phenomenon and inequality has not received sufficient attention. This is the knowledge gap that this chapter tries to fill. We start with a literature review from this perspective, which is followed by methodological and empirical discussion and exemplification of how hate speech needs to be combated as a way to help fight inequality.
LITERATURE REVIEW Once defined, it is important to point out that hate speech – perhaps together with disinformation – is one of the most relevant communication issues nowadays. Its importance can be explained by different factors, from societal ones – such as polarisation or globalisation – to more specific communicational ones – for instance, the role of social media or even freedom of speech. Its consequences are also multiple, the most dramatic being the increase in the number of hate crimes (Müller and Schwarz, 2020). This is why there have been many efforts not only to define it but also to comprehend it, model it, and fight it. Hate speech has been broadly studied in the past years, but despite all the efforts to articulate a definition and a common perspective, it remains multifaceted and the approaches are still diverse. Some works focus more on the different levels of graveness of the problem (Miró Llinares, 2016; Bautista, 2017; Arcila-Calderón et al., 2020b), whereas others pay attention to the different publics and victims; to cite just some examples, Burnap and Williams (2015), and Evolvi (2018) focus on Islamophobia, Arcila-Calderón et al. (2021a) pay attention to hate based on gender and sexual orientation, Amores et al. (2021) address political intolerance, and Schäfer and Schadauer (2019) tackle rejection of refugees and migrants. These last studies understand that discourse aimed at different groups has specific features, as these groups also face different forms of inequality. That is, the type of rejection and inequality faced by members of the LGTBQ+ community is not the same faced by immigrants
Inequalities and the media 213 or by religious minorities. Therefore, in order to properly understand how hate interacts with inequality, it is necessary to pay attention to those groups independently, which is what this chapter does. Hate Speech Against Immigrants and its Connection with Inequality Among all vulnerable groups that usually face different forms of discrimination, migrants and refugees are the ones usually in the centre of the analysis because it is a most common form of hatred against ‘the other’. The Hate Crime Reporting portal of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE, n.d.) shows that the most reported type of hate crime is that motivated by racism and xenophobia. This takes place in a context with three interconnected patterns that make the problem of hate speech against immigrants more relevant: first, the increase in transnational human mobility due to reasons that go from globalisation to instability; second, the growth in political forces with anti-immigration and nationalistic discourses in different countries; and third, the increasing interest that immigration issues receive in the media, especially in the European context (Damstra et al., 2019). In fact, a biased representation of migration in the media can lead to negative attitudes towards immigrants, leading in turn to stronger rejection (Eberl et al., 2018; Schemer, 2012). This is strongly connected with studies on national identity (Esses et al., 2005) and ‘the other’ and the ‘exogroup’ in Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1978). This reinforces the fact that inequality between ‘us’ and the ‘others’ can be an essential component of rejection and hatred. This is also highlighted in most of the existing works about prejudice, such as the seminal works of Allport (1954). Within the field of Social Sciences there are also many works that have focused on the ‘exogroup’ (Brewer, 1999; Peherson et al., 2011), that is, people belonging to different social groups, as the basis for rejection and prejudice. Strongly related with this, the potential discrimination experienced by minorities – whose members are considered part of an ‘exogroup’ – has been analysed in multiple aspects of life, including the labour market (Valfort, 2015; Heath and Di Stasio, 2019; Ramos et al., 2021). More specifically, different forms of hate speech have been also studied as a problem within organisations and at the workplace (Olsen, 2019; Zaman et al., 2021). These approaches are of great relevance given the important role played by labour in achieving more equal societies. Therefore, discrimination or hatred in this context pose a grave danger and can be affected by the levels and discourses of hate speech online or in the media. This discussion about inequality, prejudice, and rejection of ‘the other’ offers the basis for the study of a more complex form of rejection: hate speech. That is the approach used by Arcila-Calderón et al. (2020a), who studied verbal rejection of migrants and refugees as a preliminary form of hate speech. This can ultimately lead to hate crimes and physical violence, something that the work by Müller and Schwarz (2020) and Williams et al. (2020) already proved. Similarly, Brown (2000) and Contrada et al. (2001) show that rejection of the ‘other’ can go from subtler verbal rejection to violent hate crimes, including genocide. Historical examples of this can be found in anti-Jewish propaganda in Nazi Germany leading to the Holocaust but also in the role of hate speech spread during the Rwandan Genocide (Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014). More recently, Mathew et al. (2019) have pointed out the need to analyse hatred due to its capacity to trigger real violence, highlighting the role of Facebook in the killing of Rohingya people in Myanmar (Stecklow, 2018) and the anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka (Safi, 2018).
214 Research handbook on inequalities and work Hate Speech Against Immigrants and the Media Together with the aspects addressed up to this point, there is an additional element of hate speech that has not been pointed out yet: its publicity. Sellars (2016) states that hate speech is usually expressed publicly or to members of a group in a context in which violence could be present. In fact, without this element of publicity, the effects of hate speech would be almost insignificant as its spread would be impossible. That is why many works have studied the spread of prejudice against immigrants by the media: some investigations have detected a clear presence of hate speech in some media (Sindoni, 2018), whereas others have seen a more subtle indirect effect of negative coverage (Eberl et al., 2018). However, despite the still relevant role played by mass media, the main scenario for hate speech in current societies is social media. Ben-David and Fernández (2016) show that multiple studies connect the growing popularity of social media with the growing popularity of political extremism. Already in 2002 Rajagopal defended the idea that the anonymity of the Web and the lack of censorship contribute to the dissemination of hate messages. In this sense, Miró Llinares (2016) argues that, even though the Internet has not created the phenomenon of violent communication and hate speech, the particularities of cyberspace lead to a new dimension. In a similar line, Gascón (2012) supports the idea that the Internet poses new challenges related to the spread of hate speech because of the new magnitude that it reaches thanks to online communication. In this line, Evolvi (2018) adds that social networks and online communication make already existing forms of hate more visible and allow their spread. That is why many studies have tried to develop strategies to automatically model and detect this type of online content. Fortuna and Nunes (2018) and Pereira-Kohatsu et al. (2019) have reviewed the attempts to automatically detect hate speech in social media, concluding that the efforts are promising, although the approaches and reliability levels are different. Some examples that should be mentioned here are Burnap and Williams (2015; 2016); Schmidt and Wiegand (2017); Badjatiya et al. (2017); Zhang et al. (2018); and Pereira-Kohatsu et al. (2019). Similarly, recent projects, such as Preventing Hate Against Refugees and Migrants (PHARM),1 funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission, are producing significant advances (Vrysis et al., 2021). Although this automated approach is the most active and the one producing the most relevant results at present, other approaches to this issue come from more traditional or qualitative perspectives. In fact, projects such as the aforementioned PHARM, as well as others such as Dangerous Speech Project2 and CLARA,3 combine multiple perspectives to address hate speech. Additionally, several works have established a connection between hate speech and disinformation (Schäfer and Schadauer, 2019; Grambo, 2019, Evolvi, 2018), which adds complexity to the fight against hate speech in social media. These projects, studies, and publications, as well as other sources – such as legislation, media literacy campaigns, and other strategies that go beyond the scope of this work – contribute to the reduction of hate speech and its harmful effects. However, there is still much to learn about hate speech. The analysis in the next section addresses the current situation in Southern European countries by analysing the features of hate speech against refugees and migrants produced in social media.
Inequalities and the media 215
FEATURES OF RACIST AND XENOPHOBIC HATE SPEECH ONLINE Methodological Explanation As we have previously mentioned, PHARM is one of the most important attempts to analyse and counter hate speech against refugees and migrants in the European context. Specifically, this project has tried to generate a prototype for the automatic detection of racist and/or xenophobic hate in social media and digital news media in Spain, Italy, and Greece. These three Southern European countries were selected as they have experienced the highest migratory pressure in recent years since the Refugee Crisis of the Mediterranean, representing the gateway to Europe for most of the migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Thus, for the development of the detectors of hate speech, we first compiled databases with real messages extracted from the media in which detection was to be carried out. These databases were manually analysed to generate training corpuses4 to produce the predictive models in the same way that the authors had done in previous and preliminary work with other categories of hate in the Spanish context (Amores et al., 2021; Arcila-Calderón et al., 2021a). This chapter focuses on the findings drawn from this manual classification and the subsequent automated analyses. A total of 6000 tweets, 2000 YouTube comments, and 4000 comments from digital news media were collected in each country during 2020. The downloads were filtered based on hashtags and descriptive keywords about migrants and refugees, as well as negative words associated with them. Once the databases were compiled, these samples were manually classified by two coders in each country. This approach had already been followed by the authors in previous successful studies exploring rejection of migrants and refugees on Twitter in Spanish (Valdez-Apolo et al., 2019; Arcila-Calderón et al., 2020a). On the one hand, the messages were classified based on whether they contained hate towards migrants and/or refugees, and on the other hand, on their latent sentiment – whether the message showed a positive or a negative feeling. It should be noted that the works previously referred to, as well as others by Verkuyten (2014) and Verkuyten et al. (2018), conclude that there is greater rejection of economic migrants than refugees. This can be clearly seen in the European approach toward Ukrainian refugees after the Russian invasion in 2022. Although in the case of PHARM no distinction was made between the two groups of displaced persons, it has been attempted here to explore in greater depth the features and latent themes in the racist and xenophobic hate speech, offering a better understanding about it. Findings and Interpretation The results of the manual analysis showed national differences regarding the amount of identified hatred but not so much in terms of the characteristics and themes latent in the detected hatred. Of the total of 36 000 analysed messages (12 000 per country adding tweets, YouTube comments, and comments from digital media), 1286 were identified with racist and/or xenophobic hate speech in Spanish, 5888 in Italian, and 4319 in Greek. This made a total of 11 493 hate messages, which represents 31% of the sample. This figure is not too high considering that the downloaded messages had previously been filtered with potentially hateful words, but
216 Research handbook on inequalities and work this method allows us to obtain more explicit and validated hate speech databases in order to generate more reliable predictive models. Regarding the sentiment analysis, in Spain we found 372 messages with positive sentiments, 5118 with neutral sentiments, and 6502 with negative sentiments; in Italy, there were 1547 messages with positive sentiments, 3684 with neutral sentiments, and 6769 with negative sentiments; and in Greece, there were 206 messages with positive sentiments, 2995 were neutral messages, and 7754 had negative sentiments. This made a total of 2125 messages with positive sentiments, 11 797 that were neutral (mostly informative messages), and a vast majority of 21 025 messages that had negative sentiments. Table 15.1 summarises these results, which are consistent since it can be expected that immigration would be treated in an informative way or with a mostly negative tone. Table 15.1
Presence of hate and sentiments of the analysed messages
Spain
Italy
Greece
Total
Analysed messages
12 000
12 000
12 000
36 000
Including hate
1286
5888
4319
11 493
Positive sentiment
372
1547
206
2125
Neutral sentiment
5118
3684
2995
11 797
Negative sentiment
6502
6769
7754
21 025
Given that the samples had previously been processed so that hate speech would be more likely to be found, these figures do not provide relevant descriptive information. The focus is rather on the features of the content, so we selected the messages expressing hate in order to characterise and understand the types of messages and themes that predominate among hate speech against migrants and refugees in Southern Europe. Using this subsample, we conducted an analysis of the frequency distribution of words, as well as a topic modelling study. These analyses were carried out independently for each of the sources – Twitter, YouTube and comments from digital news media. However, in order not to exceed the limitations of the chapter, and considering that the results were similar in the different samples, only the results extracted from Twitter messages will be included below, given that this was the largest sample. Regarding the most frequent words, it should be highlighted that these were not words meaning hate but the most common words present in all the messages detected as hateful; the study of these words allowed the preliminary discovery of topics or entities, thus enabling a better understanding of the reasons behind those expressions of hatred. There were frequent local references to places in which migration might play a relevant role (the Canary Islands in Spain and Lampedusa in Italy), political figures (in the Greek case, particularly, there were many references not only to the real names but to the names that these people have on Twitter), and reasons why migrants are rejected (with terms such as security, Islam, or violence). The terms were counted once stop words without content – such as articles or conjunctions – had been removed. The terms were counted independently of the use of capital letters; this is relevant because there is a great presence of grammar mistakes in the texts studied in social media, and the differentiation of terms with and without capital letters could pervert the study. That is also why in the next paragraphs the detected terms are presented always without capitalisation, both in the original and in the English translation, even though this is not grammatically correct. The 30 most frequent words extracted from the hate messages of each of the countries were as follows.
Inequalities and the media 217 Most frequent words in racist and/or xenophobic hateful messages in Spain: [(‘llamada’, 55), (‘inmigración’, 51), (‘efecto’, 50), (‘masiva’, 46), (‘inmigrantes’, 35), (‘ilegal’, 33), (‘canarias’, 27), (‘fronteras’, 26), (‘españa’, 25), (‘ilegales’, 23), (‘cerrar’, 22), (‘país’, 22), (‘moro’, 20), (‘hoteles’, 18), (‘gobierno’, 16), (‘francia’, 16), (‘europa’, 15), (‘terrorista’, 13), (‘mierda’, 13), (‘lampedusa’, 13), (‘inmigrante’, 12), (‘bien’, 12), (‘islamista’, 12), (‘personas’, 12), (‘gente’, 10), (‘basura’, 10), (‘hacer’, 10), (‘casa’, 10), (‘matar’, 9), (‘pateras’, 9)]. In English: [(‘call’, 55), (‘immigration’, 51), (‘effect’, 50), (‘massive’, 46), (‘immigrants’, 35), (‘illegal’, 33), ( ‘canary’, 27), (‘borders’, 26), (‘spain’, 25), (‘illegal’, 23), (‘close’, 22), (‘country’, 22), (‘moorish’, 20), (‘hotels’, 18), (‘government’, 16), (‘france’, 16), (‘europe’, 15), (‘terrorist’, 13), (‘shit’, 13), (‘lampedusa’, 13), (‘immigrant’, 12), (‘good’, 12), (‘islamist’, 12), (‘persons’, 12), (‘people’, 10), (‘garbage’, 10), (‘make’, 10), (‘house’, 10), (‘kill’, 9), (‘small boats’, 9)]. Most frequent words in racist and/or xenophobic hateful messages in Italy: [(‘problema’, 132), (‘immigrazione’, 78), (‘nero’, 76), (‘clandestini’, 58), (‘migranti’, 56), (‘musulmani’, 35), (‘italia’, 33), (‘razzista’, 28), (‘violenza’, 20), (‘colpa’, 20), (‘paura’, 19), (‘fuori’, 19), (‘nizza’, 19), (‘africani’, 17), (‘virus’, 16), (‘salvini’, 16), (‘governo’, 16), (‘immigrati’, 14), (‘invasione’, 14), (‘africano’, 14), (‘cinese’, 13), (‘europa’, 13), (‘italiani’, 12), (‘accoglienza’, 12), (‘razzismo’, 11), (‘storia’, 10), (‘cittadini’, 9), (‘odio’, 9), (‘guerra’, 9), (‘sicurezza’, 8)]. In English: [(‘problem’, 132), (‘immigration’, 78), (‘black’, 76), (‘illegal immigrants’, 58), (‘migrants’, 56), (‘muslims’, 35), ( ‘italy’, 33), (‘racist’, 28), (‘violence’, 20), (‘guilt’, 20), (‘fear’, 19), (‘out’, 19), (‘nice’, 19), (‘africans’, 17), (‘virus’, 16), (‘salvini’, 16), (‘government’, 16), (‘immigrants’, 14), (‘invasion’, 14), (‘african’, 14), (‘chinese’, 13), (‘europe’, 13), (‘italians’, 12), (‘welcome’, 12), (‘racism’, 11), (‘history’, 10), (‘citizens’, 9), (‘hate’, 9), (‘war’, 9), (‘security’, 8)]. Most frequent words in racist and/or xenophobic hateful messages in Greece: [(‘λαθρομετανάστες’, 346), (‘bogdanosk’, 59), (‘ελλάδα’, 58), (‘nmitarakis’, 49), (‘χώρα’, 49), (‘πρόσφυγες’, 46), (‘adonisgeorgiadi’, 42), (‘έλληνες’, 41), (‘μόνο’, 41), (‘primeministergr’, 36), (‘μετανάστες’, 36), (‘κυβέρνηση’, 34), (‘απελαση’, 26), (‘ελλήνων’, 26), (‘έξω’, 26), (‘τουρκία’, 25), (‘χαρτιά’, 24), (‘ευρώπη’, 24), (‘όλοι’, 23), (‘grigoris_d’, 23), (‘μεταναστευτικό’, 23), (‘σύνορα’, 23), (‘ellinikilisi’, 21), (‘εδώ’, 21), (‘ενδοχώρα’, 20), (‘επιδόματα’, 20), (‘ισλαμιστές’, 18), (‘annaasimakopoul’, 17), (‘chrisochoidis’, 17), (‘απελαση_τωρα’, 16)]. In English: [(‘illegal immigrants’, 346), (‘bogdanosk’, 59), (‘greece’, 58), (‘nmitarakis’, 49), (‘country’, 49), (‘refugees’, 46), ( ‘adonisgeorgiadi’, 42), (‘greek’, 41), (‘only’, 41), (‘primeministergr’, 36), (‘immigrants’, 36), (‘government’, 34), (‘deportation’, 26), (‘greek’, 26), (‘out’, 26), (‘turkey’, 25), (‘papers’, 24), (‘europe’, 24), (‘all’, 23), (‘grigoris_d’, 23), (‘migrant’, 23), (‘borders’, 23), (‘ellinikilisi’, 21), (‘here’, 21), (‘inland’, 20), (‘allowances’, 20), (‘islamists’, 18), (‘annaasimakopoul’, 17), (‘chrisochoidis’, 17), (‘expulsion now’, 16)].
218 Research handbook on inequalities and work There are coincidences and important points in common in the three countries. On the one hand, in all three samples illegal immigration appears as one of the most frequent concepts, apparently treated as a problem or a threat to the hosting societies. There are also references in the three samples to an invasion, especially an ‘Islamist’ one, as well as to the need to control borders and to expel or deport ‘illegal immigrants’. It is demanded that the nation and nationals are the priority, and in all three countries African and Arab immigrants are the most frequently present. Similarly, the three samples refer in some way to the national government, as well as to certain politicians, possibly with the intention of holding them responsible for illegal immigration or of demanding more control and tougher measures. In all the analyses the word ‘Europe’ appears, which may indicate that immigration is conceived as a continental problem, blaming European institutions for it, but also that Europeans should be a priority over immigrants from other continents, thus strengthening the inequalities and stigmatisation that these migrant groups may suffer. This analysis of the distribution of frequent words served as an exploration prior to the conduction of topic modelling, which delved more deeply into the different latent themes in each of the samples. Below are the main topics with the most predominant words in each of the countries. Main topics in the Spanish sample: Topic 1. Messages against the ‘Islamic invasion’ in Spain and Europe. Muslim criminals do not stop arriving at the Spanish borders. Most representative words: (0.013 * ‘invasión’ + 0.011 * ‘gobierno’ + 0.009 * ‘europa’ + 0.008 * ‘entrar’ + 0.006 * ‘delincuentes’ + 0.006 * ‘inmigración’ + 0.006 * ‘moro’ + 0.005 * ‘ilegal’ + 0.005 * ‘dentro’ + 0.005 * ‘fronteras’). In English: (0.013 * ‘invasion’ + 0.011 * ‘government’ + 0.009 * ‘europe’ + 0.008 * ‘enter’ + 0.006 * ‘criminals’ + 0.006 * ‘immigration’ + 0.006 * ‘moor’ + 0.005 * ‘illegal’ + 0.005 * ‘inside’ + 0.005 * ‘borders’). Topic 2. The Spanish neighborhoods are filling with Islamic terrorists because of the communist government of Spain. Linking Muslim immigrants with radicalism and jihadist terrorism. Most representative words: (0.012 * ‘terrorista’ + 0.010 * ‘barrios’ + 0.009 * ‘moros’ + 0.008 * ‘personas’ + 0.007 * ‘españoles’ + 0.006 * ‘expulsión’ + 0.006 * ‘efecto’ + 0.006 * ‘llamada’ + 0.006 * ‘islamista’ + 0.006 * ‘país’). In English: (0.012 * ‘terrorist’ + 0.010 * ‘neighborhoods’ + 0.009 * ‘moors’ + 0.008 * ‘people’ + 0.007 * ‘spaniards’ + 0.006 * ‘expulsion’ + 0.006 * ‘effect’ + 0.006 * ‘call’ + 0.006 * ‘islamist’ + 0.006 * ‘country’). Topic 3. The need to stop mass immigration, closing the borders and driving out and prohibiting the entrance into Spain of all illegal Moorish, black, Chinese and Indian immigrants. Most representative words: (0.018 * ‘cerrar’ + 0.016 * ‘fronteras’ + 0.013 * ‘ilegales’ + 0.012 * ‘inmigrantes’ + 0.012 * ‘expulsión’ + 0.011 * ‘canarias’ + 0.009 * ‘masiva’ + 0.008 * ‘mierda’ + 0.007 * ‘inmigración’ + 0.007 * ‘negro’).
Inequalities and the media 219 In English: (0.018 * ‘close’ + 0.016 * ‘borders’ + 0.013 * ‘illegal’ + 0.012 * ‘immigrants’ + 0.012 * ‘expulsion’ + 0.011 * ‘canary islands’ + 0.009 * ‘massive’ + 0.008 * ‘shit’ + 0.007 * ‘immigration’ + 0.007 * ‘black’). Topic 4. Call effect of the Spanish government, which allows the massive arrival of boats to our borders and welcomes illegal immigrants in luxury hotels and gives them payments. Most representative words: (0.021 * ‘canarias’ + 0.016 * ‘inmigración’ + 0.014 * ‘llamada’ + 0.014 * ‘efecto’ + 0.012 * ‘masiva’ + 0.011 * ‘ilegales’ + 0.009 * ‘pateras’ + 0.009 * ‘inmigrantes’ + 0.008 * ‘islas’ + 0.008 * ‘españa’). In English: (0.021 * ‘canary islands’ + 0.016 * ‘immigration’ + 0.014 * ‘call’ + 0.014 * ‘effect’ + 0.012 * ‘massive’ + 0.011 * ‘illegal’ + 0.009 * ‘pateras’ + 0.009 * ‘immigrants’ + 0.008 * ‘islands’ + 0.008 * ‘spain’). Main topics in the Italian sample: Topic 1. It is necessary to protect the Italian homeland, as well as its history, culture, and religion, against black and Muslim immigrants who threaten it. Most representative words: (0.014 * ‘musulmani’ + 0.013 * ‘odio’ + 0.010 * ‘mondo’ + 0.007 * ‘storia’ + 0.006 * ‘europei’ + 0.005 * ‘africani’ + 0.005 * ‘cattolici’ + 0.005 * ‘salvini’ + 0.004 * ‘famiglia’ + 0.004 * ‘chiesa’). In English: (0.014 * ‘muslims’ + 0.013 * ‘hate’ + 0.010 * ‘world’ + 0.007 * ‘history’ + 0.006 * ‘europeans’ + 0.005 * ‘africans’ + 0.005 * ‘catholics’ + 0.005 * ‘salvini’ + 0.004 * ‘family’ + 0.004 * ‘church’). Topic 2. Leftist politics protects criminal and murderous illegal immigrants, and they are the main racists in Italy. Most representative words: (0.014 * ‘racismo’ + 0.008 * ‘nero’ + 0.006 * ‘assassino’ + 0.005 * ‘francese’ + 0.005 * ‘mundo’ + 0.005 * ‘uguaglianza’ + 0.005 * ‘color’ + 0.004 * ‘papa’ + 0.004 * ‘contra’ + 0.004 * ‘lgbt’). In English: (0.014 * ‘racism’ + 0.008 * ‘black’ + 0.006 * ‘murderer’ + 0.005 * ‘french’ + 0.005 * ‘world’ + 0.005 * ‘equality’ + 0.005 * ‘colour’ + 0.004 * ‘papa’ + 0.004 * ‘against’ + 0.004 * ‘lgbt’). Topic 3. Illegal migrants arriving in Italy are violent and dangerous. We must stop taking illegal immigrants in and fight against violators of the system, democracy and values in Italy. Most representative words: (0.014 * ‘clandestini’ + 0.010 * ‘migranti’ + 0.009 * ‘violenza’ + 0.008 * ‘accoglienza’ + 0.007 * ‘immigrazione’ + 0.007 * ‘persone’ + 0.006 * ‘solidarietà’ + 0.005 * ‘ospedali’ + 0.005 * ‘marocchini’ + 0.004 * ‘violenti’). In English: (0.014 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.010 * ‘migrants’ + 0.009 * ‘violence’ + 0.008 * ‘reception’ + 0.007 * ‘immigration’ + 0.007 * ‘people’ + 0.006 * ‘solidarity’ + 0.005 * ‘hospitals’ + 0.005 * ‘moroccans’ + 0.004 * ‘violent’).
220 Research handbook on inequalities and work Topic 4. International mafias take advantage of reception policies in Europe to continue trafficking in refugees and illegal migrants of Arab and sub-Saharan origin, and this becomes a threat to Western culture. Most representative words: (0.016 * ‘migranti’ + 0.011 * ‘colpa’ + 0.008 * ‘immigrazione’ + 0.007 * ‘gente’ + 0.006 * ‘italia’ + 0.005 * ‘male’ + 0.005 * ‘colore’ + 0.004 * ‘razzista’ + 0.004 * ‘minaccia’ + 0.004 * ‘nero’). In English: (0.016 * ‘migrants’ + 0.011 * ‘guilt’ + 0.008 * ‘immigration’ + 0.007 * ‘people’ + 0.006 * ‘italy’ + 0.005 * ‘bad’ + 0.005 * ‘color’ + 0.004 * ‘racist’ + 0.004 * ‘threat’ + 0.004 * ‘black’). Topic 5. The priority of the Italian government is to protect illegal immigrants over Italians, and to attack those who ask for border control. Illegal immigration, the government and the Italian mafia go hand in hand, coexist and have shared interests. Most representative words: (0.021 * ‘immigrazione’ + 0.017 * ‘clandestini’ + 0.010 * ‘lamorgese’ + 0.009 * ‘nizza’ + 0.008 * ‘matteorenzi’ + 0.007 * ‘importate’ + 0.006 * ‘dio’ + 0.006 * ‘italia’ + 0.006 * ‘immigrati’ + 0.005 * ‘differenza’). In English: (0.021 * ‘immigration’ + 0.017 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.010 * ‘lamorgese’ + 0.009 * ‘nice’ + 0.008 * ‘matteorenzi’ + 0.007 * ‘imported’ + 0.006 * ‘god’ + 0.006 * ‘italy’ + 0.006 * ‘immigrants’ + 0.005 * ‘difference’). Topic 6. The government closes Italy to Italians but not to illegal immigrants, who pose a security threat, but also a health threat for importing and spreading the virus. Most representative words: (0.027 * ‘clandestini’ + 0.019 * ‘migranti’ + 0.018 * ‘italia’ + 0.009 * ‘governo’ + 0.008 * ‘sicurezza’ + 0.008 * ‘nero’ + 0.008 * ‘stato’ + 0.007 * ‘chiudere’ + 0.006 * ‘covid’ + 0.006 * ‘virus’). In English: (0.027 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.019 * ‘migrants’ + 0.018 * ‘italy’ + 0.009 * ‘government’ + 0.008 * ‘security’ + 0.008 * ‘black’ + 0.008 * ‘state’ + 0.007 * ‘close’ + 0.006 * ‘covid’ + 0.006 * ‘virus’). Main topics in the Greek sample: Topic 1. We must stop the invasion and kick all illegal immigrants out from Greece, who alter demographics and replace the Greek population with Muslims and Gypsies. Most representative words: (0.026 * ‘λαθρομετανάστες’ + 0.020 * ‘μεταναστευτικό’ + 0.020 * ‘διασποράς’ + 0.018 * ‘χώρα’ + 0.017 * ‘βόμβα’ + 0.016 * ‘ίππος’ + 0.016 * ‘δούρειος’ + 0.007 * ‘ελλάδα’ + 0.007 * ‘απελαση’ + 0.007 * ‘γύφτοι’). In English: (0.026 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.020 * ‘immigrant’ + 0.020 * ‘diaspora’ + 0.018 * ‘country’ + 0.017 * ‘bomb’ + 0.016 * ‘horse’ + 0.016 * ‘trojan’ + 0.007 * ‘greece’ + 0.007 * ‘expulsion’ + 0.007 * ‘gypsies’). Topic 2. Politicians are selling Greece and letting it fill with illegal immigrants. Greek hospitals are full of illegal immigrants, who are supported by taxes paid by Greeks.
Inequalities and the media 221 Most representative words: (0.037 * ‘λαθρομετανάστες’ + 0.011 * ‘ελλάδα’ + 0.008 * ‘έλληνες’ + 0.008 * ‘bogdanosk’ + 0.007 * ‘ισλαμιστές’ + 0.006 * ‘όλα’ + 0.006 * ‘nmitarakis’ + 0.006 * ‘κομμουνιστες’ + 0.006 * ‘αγνοούμενοι’). In English: (0.037 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.011 * ‘greece’ + 0.008 * ‘greeks’ + 0.008 * ‘bogdanosk’ + 0.007 * ‘islamists’ + 0.006 * ‘all’ + 0.006 * ‘nmitarakis’ + 0.006 * ‘communists’ + 0.006 * ‘missing persons’). Topic 3. Need to drive out the external invaders to protect Greek culture and values. Most representative words: (0.081 * ‘λαθρομεταναστες’ + 0.027 * ‘εισβολεις’ + 0.012 * ‘έξω’ + 0.009 * ‘δημοκρατία’ + 0.007 * ‘θρησκεία’ + 0.006 * ‘κέντρο’ + 0.006 * ‘βράδυ’ + 0.005 * ‘μετανάστες’ + 0.005 * ‘αφγανοί’ + 0.004 * ‘μεταναστευτικό’). In English: (0.081 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.027 * ‘invaders’ + 0.012 * ‘out’ + 0.009 * ‘democracy’ + 0.007 * ‘religion’ + 0.006 * ‘center’ + 0.006 * ‘night’ + 0.005 * ‘immigrants’ + 0.005 * ‘Afghans’ + 0.004 * ‘immigrant’). Topic 4. Greek people are afraid of the invasion of illegal immigrants who do not stop committing robberies, rapes and murders. Most representative words: (0.025 * ‘λαθρομετανάστες’ + 0.014 * ‘λάθρο’ + 0.011 * ‘κλεμμένο’ + 0.011 * ‘έλληνες’ + 0.008 * ‘καλά’ + 0.007 * ‘χαρτιά’ + 0.007 * ‘σκουπίδια’ + 0.006 * ‘λοκντάουν’ + 0.006 * ‘βράδυ’ + 0.006 * ‘κουλη’). In English: (0.025 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.014 * ‘illegal’ + 0.011 * ‘stolen’ + 0.011 * ‘greeks’ + 0.008 * ‘good’ + 0.007 * ‘papers’ + 0.007 * ‘garbage’ + 0.006 * ‘lockdown’ + 0.006 * ‘evening’ + 0.006 * ‘ass’). Topic 5. The Greek criminal government cares more about illegal immigrants and Syrian refugees than it does about Greeks. Refugees are assured of citizenship, free food and medicine, while the needs of the Greek people are neglected. Most representative words: (0.023 * ‘λαθρομετανάστες’ + 0.011 * ‘κυβέρνηση’ + 0.009 * ‘πρόσφυγες’ + 0.009 * ‘ελλήνων’ + 0.008 * ‘ισλαμιστές’ + 0.008 * ‘ενδοχώρα’ + 0.008 * ‘νόμου’ + 0.007 * ‘συνεχίζει’ + 0.004 * ‘έρχονται’ + 0.004 * ‘μαζί’). In English: (0.023 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.011 * ‘government’ + 0.009 * ‘refugees’ + 0.009 * ‘greeks’ + 0.008 * ‘islamists’ + 0.008 * ‘inland’ + 0.008 * ‘law’ + 0.007 * ‘continues’ + 0.004 * ‘come’ + 0.004 * ‘together’). Topic 6. The Greek government allows the criminal Islamist invasion. Illegal immigrants come to commit crimes and to spread the virus. Muslim immigrants must be treated harshly so that they learn that they should not come to Greece. Most representative words: (0.068 * ‘ισλαμιστες’ + 0.043 * ‘λαθρομετανάστες’ + 0.036 * ‘εισβολεις’ + 0.013 * ‘cyprus’ + 0.013 * ‘κορονοϊού’ + 0.011 * ‘τουρκία’ + 0.010 * ‘σταλμένοι’ + 0.009 * ‘προπαγάνδα’ + 0.009 * ‘ορθότητας’ + 0.009 * ‘πολιτικής’).
222 Research handbook on inequalities and work In English: (0.068 * ‘islamists’ + 0.043 * ‘illegal immigrants’ + 0.036 * ‘invaders’ + 0.013 * ‘cyprus’ + 0.013 * ‘coronavirus’ + 0.011 * ‘turkey’ + 0.010 * ‘sent’ + 0.009 * ‘propaganda’ + 0.009 * ‘correctness’ + 0.009 * ‘policy’). This topic modelling confirmed what was previously speculated in the analysis of the most frequent words. The main topics present in the samples of the three countries had great similarities and can be divided into three large thematic blocks. First, there are the topics that represent migrants and refugees as a realistic threat (Amores and Arcila-Calderón, 2019; Amores et al., 2020b), that, is a threat to security, or an economic or even demographic threat to hosting societies. The topics that represent migrants as a threat to security are linked in almost all cases with Islamist terrorism, associating immigrants, especially Muslim and illegal ones, with this type of terrorism. In general, immigrants are represented as criminals, thieves, rapists, and murderers. In some cases, especially in the case of the Italian and Greek samples, illegal immigrants are also blamed for the spread of COVID-19. Regarding the topics that represent migrants as an economic threat – that is, as a burden for the welfare of the receiving countries – they tend to point mainly to migrants of Arab origin, making continuous reference to the term ‘mass immigration’ but also ‘Islamic invasion’, especially in Spain. However, in this case it also refers to sub-Saharan immigrants, as well as immigrants of Asian origin, especially Chinese. Second, there are topics that represent migrants and refugees as a symbolic threat (Amores and Arcila-Calderón, 2019; Amores et al., 2020b), that is, a threat to the historical and socio-cultural values of the hosting societies. These topics also point especially to migrants of Arab or sub-Saharan origin as the main symbolic threat, including Muslims as a threat to Christian or Western values. Finally, some topics blame the national or European governments, as well as progressive parties and politicians, for the threats described above. Together with the messages blaming politicians for allowing the ‘invasion’ of illegal immigrants that pose a realistic and symbolic threat, there are messages that attack them for giving aid and protection to these immigrants and refugees and treating them ‘better’ than national citizens. There are also messages that demand tougher measures from the government and politicians, such as the closing of borders or the expulsion or deportation of all illegal immigrants, as well as messages that demand a change of government, promoting more conservative and far-right parties. In the case of the Italian sample, the government and politicians are in addition associated with the Italian mafia trafficking illegal immigrants.
CONCLUSIONS This chapter provided a review of the state of the study of hate speech, highlighting why it is a relevant issue and focusing on that aimed at refugees and migrants in social media as these are the most common victims and platforms. This work also tried to approach the phenomenon of hate speech from the perspective of inequality, an always underlying issue that is not so commonly used to understand the extension of the problem. We have also tried to increase the knowledge about hate speech in Europe, offering a preliminary basis for future works that would be able to delve into specific issues and showing the potential that computational methods might have for these analyses.
Inequalities and the media 223 Future work will need to pay attention to the arrival of Ukrainian refugees, which has led to rather unanimous support of refugees and almost no rejection or hatred. This is not the reaction observed around previous events – see, for instance, Arcila-Calderón et al. (2021b) on the presence of hate speech around the boat Aquarius in 2018. However, this is consistent with our observations given that the rejected migrants are mostly African, Arab, or Muslims, while Ukrainians are considered more similar to Western and European societies, both ethnically and also in their shared common values. Back to our study, only a third of a sample previously filtered using negative terms showed hate speech, which demonstrates that the total amount of hate speech is not great but its impact is significant. The topics mentioned were analogous in the three studied countries, something understandable given their socio-economic similarities and their shared condition of being arrival countries on the way to Europe for migrants. These topics are strongly related to the current events and agree with previously obtained results about the representation of migrants and refugees in the photographs used in the news media of these countries (Amores et al., 2020a), as well as in other Western European countries (Amores et al., 2019). Thus, it could be speculated that the negative framing of migrants and refugees spread by the media may be influencing the hate speech spread on social networks and vice versa. The observations described here show that hate speech is a form of inequality, establishing and highlighting differences between locals and immigrants, especially those that might be different than the local majority in terms of religion (Muslims) or skin colour (migrants from sub-Saharan countries). Although the cultural threat and the fear of terrorism or criminality are of great relevance, the consideration of migrants as an economic burden is also very important. This connects the issue of hate speech with aporophobia,5 making it especially dramatic for immigrants with economic hardships, something that reinforces inequality. In this regard, hate speech and discrimination are of great relevance when they affect labour conditions and access to a job among people belonging to a minority group because a job and fair treatment at the workplace are essential to fight inequality. Especially because they empower people and ensure basic access to other services – i.e., healthcare – which immigrants often do not have. Finally, it should be noted that the results offered here allow only preliminary interpretations given that the complete analysis includes other social media and other analyses. Similarly, these observations cannot be extrapolated to other countries with different contexts and immigration realities. However, they are enough to draw conclusions about hate speech against migrants and refugees in these three countries, confirming that hate speech reproduces inequality patterns and that it is at the same time cause and consequence of it.
NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
https://pharmproject.usal.es. https://dangerousspeech.org/faq/?faq=200#underDS. https://proyectoclara.es. Sets of data used as examples so that the model can ‘learn’ which messages are hateful and which are not. As developed by Cortina (2017), aporophobia refers to the rejection of people without resources. It comes from the Greek and translates to ‘fear to the poor’. This concept transversally relates to other forms of rejection, as it has been observed that hate or discrimination are often aimed at vulnerable people who could be also considered a burden rather than at those with economic resources.
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226 Research handbook on inequalities and work Pereira-Kohatsu, J. C., Quijano-Sánchez, L., Liberatore, F., and Camacho-Collados, M. (2019). ‘Detecting and monitoring hate speech in Twitter’, Sensors, 19(21), 4654. https://doi.org/10.3390/ s19214654. Rajagopal, I. (2002). ‘Digital Representation: Racism on the World Wide Web’, First Monday, 7(10). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v7i10.995. Ramos, M., Thijssen, L., and Coenders, M. (2021). ‘Labour market discrimination against Moroccan minorities in the Netherlands and Spain: A cross-national and cross-regional comparison’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(6), 1261–1284. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1622824. Safi, M. (2018). ‘Sri Lanka accuses Facebook over hate speech after deadly riots’, The Guardian, March 14. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/14/facebook-accused-by-sri-lanka-o f-failing-to-control-hate-speech. Schäfer, C., and Schadauer, A. (2019). ‘Online fake news, hateful posts against refugees, and a surge in xenophobia and hate crimes in Austria’ in Dell’Orto, G., Wetzstein, I. (eds), Refugee News, Refugee Politics: Journalism, Public Opinion and Policymaking in Europe. New York: Routledge, 109–116. Schemer, C. (2012). ‘The influence of news media on stereotypic attitudes toward immigrants in a political campaign’, Journal of Communication, 62(5), 739–757. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01672.x. Schmidt, A., and Wiegand, M. (2017). ‘A survey on hate speech detection using natural language processing’ in Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Social Media. New York: ACL, 1–10. Sellars, A. (2016). ‘Defining hate speech’, Social Science Research Network, SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2882244. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2882244. Sindoni, M. G. (2018). ‘Direct hate speech vs. indirect fear speech. A multimodal critical discourse analysis of the Sun’s editorial “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis”’, Lingue e Linguaggi, 28, 267–292. https://doi.org/10.1285/i22390359v28p267. Stecklow, S. (2018). ‘Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar’, Reuters, August 15. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate. Tajfel, H. (ed.) (1978). Differentiation Between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. London: Academic Press. United Nations (2020). ‘United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech’. https://www. un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN%20Strategy%20and%20PoA%20on%20Hate%20 Speech_Guidance%20on%20Addressing%20in%20field.pdf. Valdez-Apolo, M. B., Arcila-Calderón, C., and Amores, J. J. (2019). ‘El discurso del odio hacia migrantes y refugiados a través del tono y los marcos de los mensajes en Twitter’, Revista de la Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación, 6(12), 361–384. Valfort, M. A. (2015). Religious discrimination in access to employment: A reality. Policy paper. Paris: Institut Montaigne. Verkuyten, M. (2014). Identity and Cultural Diversity: What Social Psychology Can Teach Us. Hove: Routledge. Verkuyten, M., Mepham, K., and Kros, M. (2018). ‘Public attitudes towards support for migrants: The importance of perceived voluntary and involuntary migration’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(5), 901–918. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1367021. Vrysis, L., Vryzas, N., Kotsakis, R., Saridou, T., Matsiola, M., Veglis, A., Arcila-Calderón, C., and Dimoulas, C. (2021). ‘A web interface for analyzing hate speech’, Future Internet, 13(3), 80. https:// doi.org/10.3390/fi13030080. Williams, M. L., Burnap, P., Javed, A., Liu, H., and Ozalp, S. (2020). ‘Hate in the machine: Anti-Black and anti-Muslim social media posts as predictors of offline racially and religiously aggravated crime’, The British Journal of Criminology, 60(1), 93–117. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azz049. Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2014). ‘Propaganda and conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan genocide’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(4), 1947–1994. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju020. Zaman, U., Nawaz, S., Anjam, M., Anwar, R. S., and Siddique, M. S. (2021). ‘Human resource diversity management (HRDM) practices as a coping mechanism for xenophobia at transnational workplace: A case of a multi-billion-dollar economic corridor’, Cogent Business & Management, 8(1), 1883828. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2021.1883828.
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16. Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion Dilek Torunoğlu Tinay, Özlem Ayaz and Mustafa Özbilgin
INTRODUCTION Leadership emergence (LE) represents the process by which an individual becomes a formal or informal leader and receives legitimacy from followers and others (c.f. Walter et al., 2011). There is a crisis of leadership emergence as leadership emergence fails to deliver effective and inclusive leadership behaviours and outcomes. Studies show that across all fields of leadership there are problems with the emergence of leaders in terms of low levels of leader competence and effectiveness and high levels of toxicity and failures (World Economic Forum, 2015; Aycan et al., 2022). The Global Leadership Forecast (Development Dimensions International, 2021) shows that 77 per cent of organisations suffer from poor leadership. One area of worry in the field of leadership has been the complicated relationship between LE and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) outcomes. Leaders continue to come from traditional and privileged backgrounds rather than from among cohorts with demographic diversity (Ozcan 2022). Studies on motivation to lead show that qualified and potential leaders are unwilling to volunteer for senior roles (Aycan and Shelia, 2019). Ensari and Riggio (2020) also note that leadership theory lacks an EDI approach to LE. Chamorro-Premuzic (2019) has already explored why so many incompetent men become leaders. We bring the literature on LE and EDI together to problematise LE and propose an EDI-led transformation of LE. Leadership theory has developed from its modest roots in the Great Man Theory (Carlyle, 1841) and the traits approach (Allport, 1921), which was built up with situational theories and the contingency approach (Fiedler, 1967), to a more contextual paradigm of relational leadership theory. In this chapter, we adopt an emergentist relational approach (Meliou et al., 2021) to leadership, which attends to imbalances of power in the process and context of LE. In this chapter, we first review the concerns over EDI in LE. Then, we examine the ongoing problems with LE, which prove detrimental to EDI outcomes. We explore the emergence of toxic, narcissistic, populist and totalitarian forms of leadership that deny and undermine EDI structures and processes at work. In the subsequent section, we explore how LE could be remedied and transformed for better EDI outcomes. We propose EDI-led transformation of LE to foster representational fairness, accountability structures to contest leadership power and infallibility, the introduction and legitimation of democratic voice mechanisms for followers, the development of scientific LE, alternative pathways for LE, the legitimation of atypical leadership, the development of reflexive followership and the future-proofing of LE with EDI patterns in mind. We discuss what is practical and possible for organisations to transform in their LE in the future in line with changes in the demographic and moral landscape. We first explore the possibility of transforming LE for EDI, with examples of early signs of development in international law, national regulation and corporate policies and practice. However, we also acknowledge the strength of the backlash against progressive LE and EDI structures. 228
Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion 229 We explain how the setbacks and backlash threaten progressive forms of LE where unearned privilege prevails. Despite gloomy circumstances internationally, we argue that EDI-led change could help ease the crisis LE is experiencing today.
Figure 16.1
The crisis of LE, its negative consequences for EDI, and EDI-led transformation of LE
230 Research handbook on inequalities and work Figure 16.1 traces our central argument, outlining LE and problems associated with contemporary practices of LE. Then, the figure moves on to worries about LE and EDI. Finally, the figure summarises how EDI-led transformation of LE could help resolve some of these problems and concerns.
DEFINING MAIN TERMS AND CONCEPTS Leaders arise in leaderless groups when an individual becomes the leader gradually as the members assign the responsibilities of a leading role to this individual (Stevens and Campion, 1994; Morgeson et al., 2005). Emerging leaders can significantly influence other members of the group to which they belong, even in cases where no formal authority has been assigned to them (Schneider and Goktepe, 1983). Accordingly, the behavioural and cognitive mechanisms that motivate LE require understanding how leader motives at the point of emergence later translate into leadership outcomes (Luria and Berson, 2013). The extant literature on LE provides evidence that qualities such as extraversion (Judge et al., 2002), intelligence and domination (Foti and Hauenstein, 2007), motivation to lead (Hong et al., 2011; Oh, 2012; Luria and Berson, 2013) and social skills (e.g., Bray et al., 1974; Connelly et al., 2000; Mumford et al., 1993) are closely related to the emergence of leaders. Yet these qualities appear inadequate when we consider that LE has failed to respond to significant global challenges such as climate change, gender and racial inequalities and the migration crisis, among others. This failure brings doubt to the effectiveness of LE and the competence of emergent leaders. Furthermore, over the past ten years, scholars have also devoted considerable attention to understanding how and when leaders emerge in terms of contextual (e.g., Taggar et al., 1999; Acton et al., 2019) and individual drivers (e.g., Cote et al., 2010; Wolff et al., 2002; Ensari et al., 2011). Notably, there is an increasing focus on the variables depicting the individual characteristics of LE. Given the reality that different leadership styles may develop in different ways and at different times and respond to different kinds of interventions (Foti and Hauenstein, 2007), scholars pursue LE research from the perspective of different antecedents to explain leader effectiveness. However, one major problem arises. To understand when and how LE is needed, scholars mainly concentrate on individual factors and performance where the organisational outcomes or stance of LE remain underdeveloped. In reviewing the multilevel, process-oriented framework, Wellman (2017) proposed a group identity context and shared cognition to pave the way for group-level LE effects. Although this proposed model highlighted the context in LE research, a typology that connects specific forms of LE for the organisational actions will help capture the essentials in understanding when and how particular LE might effectively facilitate the positive outcomes from organisational levels, specifically from an EDI lens. Similarly, the extant literature on LE is primarily concerned with individual mechanisms and mental models of effective leadership. For example, most research on why some individuals are seen as leaders and others as followers predominantly studies the respective identities of individuals who perceive themselves as leaders or followers (DeRue and Ashford, 2010). However, creating responsible actions is central to the management literature and depends on responsible leadership, accountability and ethical leadership. These all belong to research streams that should be conducted at an organisational and systemic level. Thus, the earlier focus of the LE literature on the micro-individual predictors of LE fails to capture the signifi-
Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion 231 cant role that the macro and meso contexts should play in the emergence if the LE is to become effective in addressing global and organisational challenges in a new demographic and moral landscape. Accordingly, we synthesise the LE literature and provide a comprehensive typology that can guide scholars, who need a refreshed research focus (beyond a leader-centric one), and diverse theoretical perspectives to understand problems with LE (Aycan et al., 2022) with a particular focus on EDI concerns. One of the sources of complexity in LE research is that scholars examine various types of LE. The paucity of LE research at the organisational level weakens the future development, cohesion and synthesis regarding research on leadership effectiveness. Although studying the individual-level factors for LE is essential for exploring leadership development in terms of contextual factors (Wellman, 2017) to give solutions for the improvement of effective leadership, an overarching framework is needed to link individual factors and organisational actions in the context of global and local challenges demanding responsible leadership. With the integration of these two levels, theoretical and empirical perspectives can be connected to expand the knowledge of what the broader literature has offered and where new research avenues remain. To resolve these issues, we propose a novel interpretation and review of the literature that serves to aggregate discrete research streams and illustrate the essential relationships the constructs share. Accordingly, we develop a typology model for LE to aggregate currently studied concepts and connect them to emergent leader behaviours and styles. Our proposed typology model depicts three significant types of LE that are mutually exclusive and synthesises their key characteristics. We offer both individual- and organisational-level outcomes. We discuss how each type of LE creates specific kinds of positive outcomes. We also highlight the critical theoretical frameworks that are helpful in potentially explaining LE. Significantly, formal (Carson et al., 2007) and informal (Hollenbeck et al., 1996), perceptual (Neubert and Taggar, 2004) and behavioural (Mann, 1959) and implicit (Ilies et al., 2004) and explicit (DeRue and Ashford, 2010) types of LE have emerged, which, in turn, lead to different emergent leader behaviours, even though theoretical models on LE follow similar directions of causality (remaining essentially with an individual-level focus). Using the distinctions identified above, we construct a typology table in which LE forms can be classified according to the emergent leader behaviours, widely used theories and possible outcomes regarding each mutually exclusive typology. Table 16.1 demonstrates these four basic categories. Table 16.1 presents the definitions, behaviours, critical theoretical frameworks and possible EDI outcomes of each form of LE. The table also offers examples of contemporary emergent leaders from social and corporate fields.
PROBLEMS WITH LE AND EDI OUTCOMES LE has many EDI-related outcomes, as we outlined above. In this section, we focus on some illustrative examples and note that there is considerable overlap among categories regarding impacts on EDI. Studies on formal LE demonstrate negative consequences for EDI. Chamorro-Premuzic (2019) states that, according to Gallup attitudinal worldwide data, 75 per cent of people leave their jobs because of their direct line managers and 65 per cent of Americans would rather change their boss than get a pay raise. According to Chamorro-Premuzic (2019), certain character flaws, such as overconfidence, are helpful for some to emerge as leaders, while some competent people who do not display such confidence
Perceptual emergence
Informal emergence
toxic
or external authority, such as ownership or
power
Socioanalytic theory (Hogan and Holland, 2003)
followers Organisational: voice mechanisms for followers, organisational support and using resources efficiently
(Neubet and Taggar, 2004). For example: Peter
Tatchell, the founder of the Tatchell Foundation,
which was setup to fight for LGBT+ rights
(Carolin 2022)
ambiguity both for leader and the
decreased member confidence, role social role theory (Eagly, 1987)
Negative: toxic leadership
individual’s qualities strongly match the
individual is more likely to be viewed as a leader
stereotyping, unconnected followers, (Arnoff and Wilson, 1985),
advice (Forsyth, 1990)
becomes leader (Taggar et al., 1999); if a target
perceiver’s leader prototype or exemplar, that
Individual: leader-centrism, social Theory of sources of status
Positive: providing central support and
Peer perceptual processes that determine who
against the Covid-19 epidemic (Stern, 2021)
are viewed as informal leaders in the fight
company which invented the Covid-19 vaccine,
Dr Ugur Sahin, founders of BioNTech, the
structures
Organisational: unclear accountability
al., 1996). For example: Dr Ozlem Tureci and
leadership infallibility
leader
capable, assumes leadership (Hollenbeck et
effectiveness, reflexive followership,
Negative: populist leader, paternalistic
Holland, 2003)
team member who, if he or she is willing and
Individual: leader competence, leader
Socioanalytic theory (Hogan and
expectations for leadership behaviour to a fellow harmonious, social obligation
decreased trust
Organisational: leader failures,
Possible EDI outcomes Individual: uncontested leadership
Key theoretical frameworks
Peer-directed role-making interaction; peers send Positive: communication oriented,
leadership (Mergen and Özbilgin 2021b)
For example: Jeff Bezos of Amazon for owner
processes and outcomes (Carson et al., 2007).
selection, and has a responsibility for the unit
Negative: narcissistic, authoritarian,
through a hierarchically positioned internal
Either appointed by an external body or emerged Positive: task-oriented
Emergent leader behaviours
Definition
Formal emergence
Typologies of leadership emergence
Forms of LE
Table 16.1
232 Research handbook on inequalities and work
Explicit emergence
they also predict leadership emergence
discrimination and prejudice may remain intact
categorisation
inequalities are highly embedded in explicit context (Neubert and Taggar,
exemplar representations (Smith and Zarate, 1992)
on implicit theories, schemas or
in the case of a follower identity, explicitly
to be attributed to leadership rather than to external influences (Meindl and Ehrlich, 1987). Over-crediting of
transportation, artificial intelligence and energy
(Khan 2021)
harms EDI
leadership for organisational outcomes
Organisational: group outcomes tend
Tesla, Elon Musk, for his company’s work on
accompanying behavioural support
Ashford, 2010). For example: the founder of
with the direction of another (DeRue and
2004).
Individual: sources of status and status
Prototypes (Rosch, 1978), and
characteristics for LE Negative: status is ascribed based
Thunberg (Cox et al., 2021) Referring to emergence of a group’s leader or,
indicating that a person should act in accordance societal stereotypes, with or without
disregarded
conscientiousness are personality
Organisational: systemic biases may be
Individual: Implicit forms of
For example: environmentalist activist Greta
leadership perceptions or leadership emergence. Positive: extraversion and
characteristics (qualities) should predict
differences and LE (Illies et al., 2004). Personal known to have genetic components and
Explains the connection between individual
environmental concerns (Yavuz et al., 2020)
leader for her supportive behaviour towards
(Lord et al., 1986) and social
Negative: dominance, typical leaders
(Mann, 1959). For example: Anita Rodrick, the
Social cognitive perspective
connection with moral landscape
leader behaviours
in a person earning status within the group
Negative: ability and personality are
Organisational: accountability,
and Zarate, 1992)
behaviours, motivation to lead, atypical
contributions to others or the group result
Implicit emergence
be ignored
Exemplar representations (Smith
Positive: organisational citizenship
Over time valued behaviours and tangible
Behavioural emergence
founder of Bodyshop, was viewed as an industry
Possible EDI outcomes Individual: context dependence may
Key theoretical frameworks
Emergent leader behaviours
Definition
Forms of LE
Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion 233
234 Research handbook on inequalities and work are overlooked. He further explains that there are two sides to the problem. At the same time that competent atypical candidates (e.g., women) for leadership meet many barriers, there is a lack of obstacles for typical candidates (e.g., men), even when they are incompetent. Poor formal leadership presents a universal problem causing anxiety, burnout, distrust (Mergen and Özbilgin, 2021a) and a decline in subordinates’ engagement, leading to economic losses, employee turnover and damaged morale (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019). Informal LE can also lead to adverse EDI outcomes, such as unclear accountability structures for EDI. According to Gallup (2019), high-performing workplace cultures need engaged employees, and 85 per cent of adults worldwide are not engaged or are actively disengaged. However, leadership is often defined as inspiring, engaging and mobilising workers towards common goals (Ellemers et al., 2004). Leadership competence is one of the LE outcomes that EDI scholars contest. Legault (2020, p. 1) defines competence as ‘the psychological need to exert a meaningful effect on one’s environment, … [it] refers to the innate propensity to develop skill and ability, and to experience effectance in action, … promotes the pursuit of challenging and deeply satisfying experiences and is a criterion for psychological growth and well-being’. Legault suggests that the connection between competence and human thriving is a psychological prerequisite for growth and psychological health. We can assume that lack of competence in a leader would induce problems. Perceptual LE is imbued with the problems of leader-centric leadership concerns related to EDI. The upsurge of toxic, narcissistic and aggressive LE and the negative consequences of this on EDI have been problematised in the last ten years (Pelletier, 2010). One problematic area of LE is how narcissism has become a widely accepted leadership quality (Brunell et al., 2008). A narcissistic individual – craving for admiration, concerned with how well s/he is doing, needing constant validation from others, having a grandiose sense of self-importance, dying to exhibit superiority – possesses prototypical leadership characteristics, which will lead people to perceive this person to be of leadership calibre (Nevicka et al., 2011). Nevicka et al. advise that, according to their research results, the perceived suitability of a narcissistic individual as a leader surpasses their performance. They also conclude that narcissistic individuals may have greater chances of reaching leadership positions. The problem is that narcissistic leaders may put group interests as second to their own (Braun, 2017) and exhibit demanding and condescending behaviours toward people (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019). Narcissists are more likely to become leaders because of their extraversion and how they are perceived as fit for leadership roles (Grijalva et al., 2015). Narcissists’ march to leadership has devastating consequences for EDI in organisations, as narcissists do not foster cultures of inclusion or fairness but tend to push for competition, harassment, bullying and other forms of aggression (Braun, 2017). Behavioural LE may ignore the context dependence of EDI concerns. Charisma also presents an ideal norm for LE (Pillai, 1996). Although charisma connotes extraordinary charm, magnetism and the capability of inspiring others, there can be a dark side to it too (Mayo, 2017): charismatic leaders can be absorbed with extreme narcissism and they may tend to abuse their power to take advantage of their followers. While they can give hope to their followers, when they are incompetent or unethical, the power of charisma will be turned against the followers (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019). Furthermore, people may be more tolerant of a bad charismatic leader than they would be of a high-performing president who is not charismatic (Beck et al., 2012). LE suffers from a toxic engagement with the allure of charismatic qualities, which are wrongly conflated with competence. Leader-related problems concerning EDI
Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion 235 that are relevant to LE are highly context-dependent. Küskü et al. (2021) show that in national (macro) and institutional (meso) contexts where there is an absence of supportive regulation to end inequality and discrimination, toxic leadership practices can flourish. Similarly, Mergen and Özbilgin (2021a, 2021b) show that toxic leadership flourishes in contexts where the followers’ beliefs in and support for the leader remain unchallenged and uncontested. In contrast, Meliou et al. (2021) show that responsible leadership emerges from participants’ shared concerns. Resultantly, in better-regulated contexts, it is possible to expect leaders to be supportive of diversity and inclusion (Tatli et al., 2012). In terms of implicit LE, the focus on the leader’s person may disregard relational aspects of EDI. In addition to the leader-related problems in leader emergence, another aspect is related to the agentic pathways. Chan and Drasgow (2001) devised the term ‘motivation to lead’ (MTL), an individual-difference construct affecting the leader’s or leader-to-be’s decision to assume leadership training, roles and responsibilities. They suggest that leadership is an individual decision to make. Aycan and Shelia (2019) added another component to this by introducing the concept of ‘worries about leadership’ (WALs), the worries people have regarding the potential negative consequences a leadership position can cause: failure in the leadership role, losing work–life balance and harming others or oneself during one’s conduct. Explicit LE may harm EDI because of its overcrediting of leaders for the organisation’s success and followers. The widening gap between executive and non-executive pay in organisations over the last few decades is symptomatic of the harm that explicit LE has done to EDI and social justice in organisations. Overall, LE connects with systemic, social, institutional and agentic choices in organisations and has consequences for EDI. In this section, we mainly explored the negative implications of LE for EDI in organisations. The following section explores how LE could be transformed for more positive EDI outcomes.
TRANSFORMING LE FOR EDI: EDI-LED TRANSFORMATION OF LE Leadership is one of the most nebulous concepts of social science. It is used across all levels, from self-leadership to thought leadership and team leadership and from organisational to global leadership. The extensive use of the notion of leadership owes much to how it has served as the last remaining home for undemocratic power and unearned privilege in the new global neoliberal order (Learmont and Morrell, 2021). Meliou et al. (2021) demonstrate that responsible LE happens through the shared concerns of followers and the stakeholders of leadership. In the case of EDI and human rights issues, shared concerns would not be particularly helpful because shared concerns and popular and majority demands should not overrule fundamental and universal human rights. Many equality issues are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and should be protected against populist backlash (Özbilgin, 2018). Thus, in the case of EDI-led transformation, LE should go beyond shared concerns and capture the broad shifts and changes in the global and international labour pools and moral geography (Özbilgin et al., 2016; Ely and Thomas, 2001). In this section, we present some possible ways of overcoming worries about LE through the EDI-led transformation of LE, which receives considerable backlash today (Özbilgin and Erbil, 2021). We define EDI-led transformation of leadership as evidence-based contestation of contemporary manifestations of LE that lead to worries about leadership due to the proliferation of leadership incompetence
236 Research handbook on inequalities and work and leadership toxicity and the lack of accountability in leadership, among other leadership ills that harm EDI at work. There are multiple possibilities for EDI-led transformation of LE. First, the EDI-led transformation of LE could help combat ignorance and incompetence in LE. The evidence-based route to LE and the ignorant and power-grabbing way to LE historically present the two parallel and intertwined courses to LE (Samdanis and Özbilgin, 2020). This duality means that, while certain individuals can emerge as leaders through their competence, education and effectiveness (evidence-based route), others may arise as leaders due to their unearned privileges (i.e., ignorant and power-grabbing path), such as being upper class, male, white, heterosexual, able-bodied and from dominant religious and belief backgrounds, despite lacking requisite competencies. The growth of leadership research and education has allowed an increasing number of leaders to emerge from the former route, while the LE from the latter, the ignorant and power-grabbing route, has come under increased public scrutiny. The competition for leadership talent has created a context where there is a duality in LE: it is possible to find leaders emerging from traditional backgrounds with unearned privileges and a wider cohort of leaders emerging as a result of their superior performance, talent and education. To ensure that LE benefits from the scientific and philosophical route to emergence, it is crucial to reform LE in line with leadership research to make it evidence-based. Research shows that inclusive and responsible leadership is more effective and competent than power-grabbing and ignorant forms of leadership (Lisak and Erez, 2015; Bourke and Espedido, 2019). To achieve such EDI-led transformation, leadership research should be more widely used to identify leadership potential, eliminate bias in LE practices and systems and foster a culture of inclusion. Early signs of such an EDI-led transformation are evident as leaders in global organisations are overwhelmingly declaring their support for the significance of EDI, according to an OECD study (2020), which highlights that the growing commitment to EDI-based transformation of organisations is yet to turn into concrete actions. Second, despite this discursive support, EDI-led transformation of LE requires us to build accountability structures in LE processes. One of the ways that leaders with unearned privileges hold onto power is through leadership agreements and contracts that evade accountability and assume their infallibility (Lin et al., 2013). The frequency by which the dark side of leadership has been explored in research in recent years is a testament to the dominance of certain forms of leadership, such as toxic leaders, charismatic leaders, narcissistic leaders, totalitarian leaders and undemocratic leaders, as explained above. EDI-led transformation of LE offers a path that brings accountability structures to leadership to contest illegitimate and inappropriate use of leadership power and support fair, equitable and inclusive leadership practices. Opening the black box of LE in organisations to public scrutiny is essential. This also requires involving a more comprehensive range of stakeholders than the leadership elite alone. Furthermore, making the LE practices and processes transparent, evidence-based and free from biases could foster EDI-led transformation of LE. However, Healy et al. (2010) warn that such formal arrangements should be considered within the constraints of the institutional contexts, which operate with competing rationalities and priorities. Third, EDI-led transformation of LE could open up pathways to and in leadership positions in organisations. Although downward career mobility is possible for most employees, leadership careers in organisations tend to have unidirectional and upwardly mobile trajectories (Hall and Isabella, 1985; Mumford et al., 2000). Across many fields of leadership, one of the problems of LE regarding EDI has been the lack of availability of leadership roles, as leadership
Transforming leadership emergence through equality, diversity and inclusion 237 vacancies are hard to come by (Carli and Eagly, 2001). There are bottlenecks for leadership candidates from atypical and diverse backgrounds to emerge in organisations (Özcan, 2021). One of the reasons for the absence of available positions is that once a person takes a leadership role, they are unlikely ever to have a role with a lower locus of control and status. Thus, LE often presents a unidirectional upward trajectory. EDI-led transformation of leadership could bring flexibility to pathways into leadership and within leadership positions. Leadership should not be treated as a career destination; it is a resource for the organisation, for which standards need to be elevated so that the employees can benefit (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019). Although radical and unconventional, this idea could open up opportunities for more talented candidates to experience leadership. Multidirectional LE models exist in some professional organisations, such as universities, where disciplinary chairs rotate to allow all members to share leadership in the group. Similarly, kibbutzim have a rotational and shared leadership model. Shared leadership models are becoming common in some organisations (Ben-Zur et al., 2005; Pearce and Conger, 2002), and these may provide EDI-led solutions to the current bottleneck for diverse talent in leadership positions. Fourth, it is possible to overcome the worries about LE through EDI-led talent management. It is a truism to say that the future of leadership cohorts will be more diverse than today. Based on Office of National Statistics data in the UK, talent pools for leadership contain less than 20 per cent traditional candidates, such as white, upper-class, heterosexual, non-disabled men from privileged backgrounds (Samdanis and Özbilgin, 2020). To recruit and retain the most talented individuals, leadership talent acquisition practices should capture the diversity in talent pools (Tatli et al., 2013). EDI-led transformation can help in two regards. First, it can help organisations identify biases in their definitions of talent and make talent management practices more up-to-date and free from discrimination (Pinnington et al., 2015). Second, EDI-led change could also help agents such as head hunters, recruitment agents and other individuals involved to be trained appropriately to identify and nurture future leadership talent better. Future-proofing LE is possible if EDI-led talent-pool analyses for future leaders are conducted. Finally, EDI-led transformation of LE could make leadership practices better fit for a broader range of candidates through co-design. EDI-led transformation of institutions prescribes certain competencies to individuals for effective management of teams and organisations with diverse staff pools, improving levels of comfort with interpersonal differences (Bourke and Espedido, 2019). Further, diversity and inclusion require organisations to accommodate the varied needs of diverse talent. In effect, this would mean flexibility in managing time, place and processes in organisations and co-design of structures, procedures and work practices. Thus, the EDI-led transformation of LE could help leaders develop competencies to manage diverse teams and organisations with a flair for inclusion and equality (Nishii and Özbilgin, 2011). EDI-led transformation offers to bring new voice mechanisms for followers of leaders as the EDI practice often invokes understanding and turns the needs and demands of different diverse groups into organisational design. LE could benefit from new EDI-led voice mechanisms if EDI networks, worker collectives and community groups are actively listened to.
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CONCLUSIONS LE is increasingly problematised in the literature regarding poor outcomes, including the detrimental consequences of ineffective LE on EDI at work. Despite this wide recognition, the literature on what could be done to resolve LE crises has remained relatively anaemic. In this chapter, we questioned whether EDI-led transformation of LE could help overcome the deadlock in LE. EDI-led change in LE offers to transform LE in line with the leadership research and in response to several global challenges, such as demographic change, migration, climate change and the challenges of systemic inequalities, that haunt organisations and many social and economic systems. We identified a number of these EDI-led changes as possible ways forward for the effective transformation of LE.
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17. Women’s long-term social movement participation – an American case Geraldine Healy and Gill Kirton
INTRODUCTION This chapter builds on previous activist research on women and union leadership (Healy & Kirton, 2013; Kirton & Healy, 2008, 2012, 2013a, 2013b) carried out by the authors between 2008 and 2010. In 2008, we coordinated an international network involving a pioneering comparative research study of women’s leadership in UK and US unions, augmented with an additional research visit in 2010. Ten years later, in 2018, we returned to the US to reflect on change and continuity over the ten years with members of our 2008 American network of women trade unionists, and enabling insight into long-term social movement participation. Our 2008–10 international network was a collaborative research project with the south-east region of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the New Jersey State American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).1 The research project aimed to stimulate a cross-national exchange of ideas and experiences on women’s union leadership development and to contribute to global research on women and unions by providing a UK/US comparison carried out and analysed by a cross-national research team. This chapter initially reflects on what we learnt from the 2008–10 international union exchange. We then turn to our smaller and more focused 2018 study on American union women’s experiences through the New Jersey AFL-CIO Women in Leadership Development (WILD) programme. We compare some findings from surveys carried out in 2008 (Kirton et al., 2010) and again in 2018. To put the 2018 findings in context, we draw on the perspectives of women union leaders who took part in our 2008 exchange visit. Finally, we reflect on the value of women-only development programmes at a time when unions remain a consistent voice speaking up for labour. When we first began our research in New Jersey (NJ), the state had a Democratic Governor. We saw first-hand the work that women activists put into electing a democratic president. We were in Princeton, New Jersey, the night that Barack Obama was elected as 44th President of the USA. That the NJ governor hosted the women on our exchange programme was indicative of the close relationship between the New Jersey AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party. When we returned in 2018, the state had become Republican and the United States 45th President was Donald Trump. Thus, the state and the country had shifted from (relatively) labour union-friendly to hostile. New Jersey is generally seen as a progressive state. For example, it enacted the nation’s second Paid Family Leave law. The law provides paid time-off for workers dealing with the most major of life’s events, such as the birth of a child or a sick relative. The leave was extended in 2019 to 12 weeks and a higher proportion of pay. While this was a progressive step for women, it does not compare to the more generous paid maternity leave in most European countries. The New Jersey AFL-CIO is also active on women’s issues; it has, for example, a chapter in the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) (see Kirton, 2015). In 2021, 242
Women’s long-term social movement participation 243 history was made with the election of Elizabeth H. Shuler as the first woman president of the AFL-CIO and Fred Redmond as the first African American to serve as secretary-treasurer. Elizabeth H. Shuler is president of the 58 unions and 12.5 million members of the AFL-CIO and the first woman leader of America’s labour movement.2 In 2022, just one in ten U.S. workers belonged to a union, roughly half the rate of 40 years ago, leading the AFL-CIO to launch a new organising campaign (Jameson, 2022). Nevertheless, U.S. companies have recently faced a burst of organising by their employees, with workers filing for union elections at a rate not seen in years. This has led to organising breakthroughs from AFL-CIO member unions, like the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which formed the first union at an Apple Store in June 2022. Non-AFL-CIO unions also carried out historic campaigns at Starbucks and the Amazon JFK8 facility in New York (Jameson, ibid.).
2008–10 COMPARATIVE STUDY Between 2008 and 2010, we undertook an extensive research project. This included an exchange programme for American and British union leaders, one-to-one interviews and focus groups/round table discussions with American and British union leaders, and a survey of the 2008 AFL-CIO New Jersey WILD conference. In all, 20 women were involved in the exchange programme and 119 women at all levels were interviewed (58 in the UK and 61 in the USA), including women at the most senior levels of the union movement. This was a unique comparative research project on women in union leadership in the UK and the USA and was the first study that sought to investigate systematically the experiences of women in union leadership in two countries using the same research methodologies and the first carried out by a British/American research team (Kirton et al., 2010). The research objectives were to: ● Stimulate a cross-national exchange of ideas and experiences on women’s union leadership development; ● Run a cross-national exchange programme for women union leaders; ● Contribute to global research on women and unions by providing a cross-national UK/US comparison carried out and analysed by a cross-national research team; ● Establish an international e-network of women union activists and leaders; ● Disseminate findings to the UK and US union movements and scholarly community via a project report and academic workshops and publications.
KEY FINDINGS OF THE 2008 STUDY In presenting the key findings we draw extensively on Kirton et al. (2010) and Kirton and Healy (2013b). The similarity in gender union politics and relationships in the two countries was striking. In both countries, in white-collar and blue-collar unions, women reported the perpetual struggle of making their way in a male-dominated union context. They reported the different strategies they adopted to cope with a hostile environment. Such strategies reflected a more participative (often characterised as ‘feminine’) approach to leadership, but also demonstrated an authoritarian approach when deemed necessary. Key influences were
244 Research handbook on inequalities and work attributed to mentors and those who encouraged them to step forward and take a role in the unions. In some cases, such encouragement could be underpinned by a concern about the lack of representativeness of the union, so sex and race/ethnicity were relevant to this support. Nevertheless, it was noteworthy that in the exchange programme Black British women were more likely to publicly raise ‘race’ as a union issue, whereas American Black women were reluctant to do so, perhaps fearing it would threaten a discourse of solidarity in the New Jersey group. A major difference was the US collective bargaining agenda where health care was a crucial issue in union membership, whereas this did not figure in the UK with its National Health Service. Having a National Health Service meant that health care cover was not the negotiating issue in the UK as it is in the US, leading to the greater instrumentality of American unions (Kirton & Healy, 2013b:261). A further difference was the existence in the US of union hiring halls in mainly skilled manual trades, which provide entry to jobs with union-negotiated terms and conditions that usually far exceed those found in the non-union parts of the sector. Union jobs were also better regulated from a health and safety perspective. In both countries the issue of adherence to health and safety regulations was an important union role. The exchange visit was beneficial to both American and British women but in different ways. The realisation that the legislative and healthcare context was more favourable to workers in the European context was surprising to many American women who had been brought up to believe that American workers had the best conditions in the world, whereas the reality is that American workers have fewer benefits than their European counterparts. This knowledge gave the American exchange members the incentive to plan negotiating strategies on a wider range of issues. One difference that stands out in the 2008–10 study is the greater number of British women leaders in our sample with experience of women’s and equality structures – committees, conferences, women’s/equality reps/officers – and who talked about actively promoting women’s and equality issues within their unions. A number of American women returned with the intention of setting up such committees/groups in their local unions. This is not to say that the value of such women-only committees went unquestioned; both American and British women shared ambivalent attitudes towards women-only settings – a strategy widely used in unions since the 1970s to build women’s leadership and voice. British women gained from the positive ‘can do’ outlook of the American women as opposed to their British diffidence. The British women felt that if some of the positive and affirming union culture (through, for example, awards, ceremonies, public votes of thanks) could be engendered in the UK, the British union movement would benefit. The political contexts in the two countries demonstrated interesting differences from the perspective of women union members. Although most UK unions support the Labour Party (although not uncritically), union structures demonstrate a complex pluralist system with delegates and officers standing for election on political slates. Thus, women would find that to get elected in some unions they had to be part of a political grouping, whereas this did not seem to be the case in the US. This politicised context translated to the interviewees’ perspectives, which were more politically and internationally informed in the UK than the US, where ‘business unionism’ predominated. In both countries, we found that unions were greedy institutions demanding considerable depth of commitment, time and loyalty, as well as high levels of work and emotional labour (Franzway, 2000). There was little difference between the American and British women in the time and commitment that they gave to unions. Despite this, women from the exchange
Women’s long-term social movement participation 245 programme reported that the international exchange had encouraged them to put themselves forward for more union positions. This suggests that there is a clear case for further international exchanges supported by the unions. When exploring the experiences of women union leaders in the UK and USA, what was striking was that despite significant differences in the structure of the two countries’ union movements, we found more similarities than differences in their union lives. It was clear that the union movement was more a way of life than a job or a spare time activity and it was passion and dedication to the cause of unionism that motivated women to stay involved even in a hostile climate. We found American and British women to be involved in every aspect of running unions, which highlights the difficulties in justifying their under-representation in senior leadership positions. American and British women union leaders faced many similar day-to-day challenges, but the experiences in unions and the workplace that had made life difficult for women were the very experiences that made them believe in a more democratic, inclusive society. During our early research we reflected on comments to us along the lines of: ‘what’s the point of focusing on women’s leadership when the union movement is in crisis? What we should focus on is the survival of the movement’. Our argument is that the two goals – (i) increasing women’s representation in union leadership and increasing the visibility of their contribution to unions and (ii) working towards the survival of the unions – are not mutually exclusive. For unions in most industrialised countries to thrive, and more importantly to survive, they must recruit and retain women members. Along with other scholars and activists (Bradley & Healy, 2008; Briskin, 1999, 2008; Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Cobble, 2007; Cockburn, 1996; Colgan & Ledwith, 1994; Guillaume, 2021; Healy et al., 2004; Kirton, 2006b; Ledwith et al., 1990), we argue that to recruit and retain women means having an agenda that is fit for purpose – one that serves the needs of a diversity of workers – and this in turn means ensuring that unions are inclusive of diversity at all levels (Kirton & Healy, 2012, 2013a, 2013b). This need not be a zero-sum game with existing long-established leaders losing out to newcomers, but it does mean that the established hierarchy – women as well as men – might need to be prepared to concede power bases and positions for what we might call the greater good. Our cross-national research project showed that many of the challenges of union leadership, especially for women, transcend national boundaries and their specific contexts and are actually at a fairly abstract, conceptual level that union leaders need to get to grips with in order to accomplish the kinds of change that might yield a stronger guarantee of unions’ future (Kirton & Healy, 2013b). We explored initial reasons for union joining among women who became union leaders in the UK and the USA by drawing on concepts from mobilisation theory and the literature on women and unions (Healy & Kirton, 2013). The comparative study demonstrated similarities and differences in early mobilisation influences on UK and US women with respect to family, ideology, instrumentality, and injustice. Our work over time also recognised the progress women have made in both countries in achieving positional power but equally uncovered the way that different power resources are still used to constrain and enable them in their union lives (Healy & Kirton, 2000, 2013). Women-only ‘union networks are shown to facilitate the development of personal resources to challenge injustice in the workplace, but they also provide a range of knowledge and skills… [to enable] an individual’s career to unfold’ (Bradley, Healy, & Mukherjee, 2004; Kirton, 2006c). Kirton (2006a) also points to a context
246 Research handbook on inequalities and work of gendered employment barriers and constraints, so that ‘a trade union career can often constitute an alternative or parallel career for women, …who may commit the energy and resources many people reserve for their paid work careers’. Moreover, our work reveals that while there is a discursive space within unions for alternative (feminine and feminist) visions of leadership, in practice women union leaders also engage in different combinations (often simultaneously) of (masculine) status quo and (feminine and feminist) transformative leadership talk (Kirton & Healy, 2012). Thus, sustaining women’s long-term leadership requires their continuing commitment. We found that women’s commitment is strengthened by their experience of both expressive and intrinsic rewards but that such rewards are offset by costs, some of which are universal to union leadership, but others of which are particularly gendered. It was found that while a gendered collective identity may inform union collective identity, it is the union collective identity and associated solidarity that remain dominant in contemporary British and American women’s union leadership (Kirton & Healy, 2013a).
TURNING TO 2018… In repeating our survey of women attending the WILD conference and running a focus group there, we were informed by the findings from 2008–10 but also by the conceptual insights that emerged from the earlier study. In Kirton and Healy (2013a) we asked what sustains women union leaders’ long-term union participation given an internal environment often hostile to women and an external context antagonistic to unions. In 2018 we asked how relevant this question remained. In Kirton and Healy (2013a) we considered the dynamics of long-term participation by drawing on interrelated social movement concepts of commitment and collective identity in the context of a comparative study of American and British women union leaders. Conceptually, we drew on multi-dimensional approaches to social movements in order to understand women’s long-term leadership, including the importance of gender identity and union commitment and collective identity and solidarity. Klandermans (2004) explains long-term commitment to social movement participation despite decline as based on strong initial commitment combined with positive and gratifying experiences within the movement, which strengthen commitment. Thus, the participation process becomes a central aspect of commitment. Klandermans’ discussion is gender-neutral, but we are very aware that the women and unions literature amply demonstrates that women often experience unions negatively as masculinised organisations that do not cater for their specific needs or listen to their voices (e.g. Bradley & Healy, 2008; Kirton, 2005; Kirton, 2006b; Kirton & Healy, 2013a; Ledwith, 1990; Sinclair, 1995; Tomlinson, 2005). Informed by social movement theory and the women and trade unions literature, we argue that commitment and instrumentality are not oppositional. The evidence on women and unions suggests that women are motivated by a multiplicity of factors that have both ideological and instrumental dimensions (e.g. Healy, Bradley, & Mukherjee, 2004). Union joining and participation may be influenced by tradition, family, socialisation, radical politics, or social identity and spurred by injustice in the workplace (Bradley & Healy, 2008; Healy, Bradley, & Mukherjee, 2004; Healy & Kirton, 2013; Kirton & Healy, 2013a). Thus, union commitment emerges as contested, dynamic, fragile, and gendered (Kirton and Healy 2013a) and dependent
Women’s long-term social movement participation 247 on the difficult task of balancing union, work, and home life (for example, Watson, 1988; Franzway, 2000; Bradley et al., 2004; Bradley and Healy, 2008; Kirton, 2006b). What was particularly interesting in 2018 was our focus on longstanding union leaders; that is, those whom we had met 10 years previously and who remained or who had developed as active leaders over the period. Moreover, the ten years were particularly challenging with the aftermath of the financial crisis and the Trump government. We were curious to know if these years had challenged the thirst for women’s equality, for the very demanding nature of union work, and perhaps enhanced instrumentality at the expense of union and gendered commitment. Thus, we are cognisant that Polletta and Jasper’s (2001:296) point on long-term union participation may be apposite; that is, that social movement participation generated biographical transformations among ‘people whose active participation was of long duration or high intensity’. We present our 2018 findings by firstly providing insight into the comparison between the 2008 and 2018 surveys and then by discussing our focus group with longstanding union leaders.
COMPARING THE 2008 AND 2018 SURVEYS OF THE NEW JERSEY WILD CONFERENCE In 2008 we asked delegates to complete paper questionnaires. By 2018 we were able to take advantage of technological advances by using Qualtrics. In order to complete the survey, 2018 delegates were asked to scan a QR code into their smartphones. Alternatively they could access the survey via any Web browser using a survey link. This made the whole process much easier on a practical level but also more efficient in the data input and analysis. In 2008 145 delegates completed the paper form; in 2018 135 delegates responded electronically. WILD delegates were at all levels of the union movement, from very senior paid officers to lay officials. The delegates also reflected the great diversity of occupations and unions in the USA at both conferences. These included the huge unions, such as the Teamsters and the Communications Workers of America; craft unions, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and smaller unions. Delegates were white-collar and blue-collar workers and, in both years, the majority of delegates were long-serving union members (membership of 11 years or more), with a smaller proportion who identified as ‘new activists/participants’ and/or had less than five years in the union. Table 17.1 shows delegates’ union positions, recognising that some would hold more than one position. In both years, a quarter of delegates were new activists. This is important as there is concern that the union movement is ageing and not bringing in new activists. Nevertheless, we see a stable, not an increasing, proportion of new activists. Table 17.1 indicates a picture of relative stability in most positions but a particular decline in the proportion of business representatives and union organisers attending. The lower attendance of these two groups may reflect the very greedy nature of union work and the constant struggle for more time.
248 Research handbook on inequalities and work Table 17.1
What is your union position? Check as many as applicable
2008
Delegates
N: 145
%*
N: 136
2018 %*
New activist
35
24
32
24
Business representative
30
21
6
4
Member of local committee
83
57
64
47
Member of state federal committee
17
12
11
8
Member of executive council
36
25
31
23
Member of women’s committee
40
28
37
27
Paid union officer/representative
36
25
30
22
Union organiser
39
27
15
11
Total responses:
316
226
Union position
* Notes: In 2008 and 2018 the percentage represents the proportion of delegates who answered the question rather than the total responses.
Table 17.2
How essential are women’s union conferences? Check one
2008
N
%
2018 N
%
Essential
114
79
97
71
Very useful
26
18
35
26
Quite useful
0
0
3
2
Not useful
0
0
1
1
Divisive
0
0
0
0
No response
5
3
1
1
Total
145
136
Table 17.2 shows that in in 2008 and 2018 there was a virtually unanimous view (97%) that women’s union conferences are essential/useful. Importantly, no delegate in either year thought that women-only conferences were divisive. This is very important in the light of a potential perceived clash of women’s issues with class-based issues. These results are a clear testament to the considerable success of the WILD conference in contributing to building women’s leadership and have wider implications for women’s conferences more generally.
PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF THE WILD CONFERENCE Of interest to unions sponsoring delegates are the perceived benefits of the conference. We wanted to know in what ways the conference might help build women’s leadership. We asked delegates what they got from the conference, focusing on the kinds of skills, knowledge and contacts that research has shown to be essential to building a union career. Delegates were able to pick more than one option. The results are presented in Table 17.3. The two most important reasons in 2008 were networking and confidence building. In 2018, networking remained the most important reason, followed by ‘it deepened my understanding of women’s equality’, ‘it inspired me to participate more in my union’ and ‘it developed my understanding of unionism’. There was clear recognition that WILD and similar conferences allow women
Women’s long-term social movement participation 249 Table 17.3
What did you get from the conference? Check as many as you like*
2008
Benefits
N = 145
%
N = 136
2018 %
It gave me a chance to network
96
66
100
74
It built my confidence
72
50
68
50
It deepened my understanding of women’s equality
47
32
85
63
It inspired me to participate more in my union
46
32
74
54
It developed my understanding of unionism
38
26
76
56
No response
5
3
0
0
Notes: In 2008 the question was ‘what did you get from the conference’; this question was slightly amended in 2018 to ‘what do you hope to get from the conference’ to reflect questionnaire timing. *
to learn from each other and to build contacts with other women to discuss union issues and problems. Interestingly, there seemed to be a shift towards more collectivity and equality in the ten years. Confidence building was identified by half of the delegates. This is an important category as being a union representative in all its forms is a difficult and challenging role that requires personal confidence.
DO MALE UNIONISTS UNDERSTAND WOMEN’S ISSUES? In most studies on women-only union events, questions are asked about men’s response to and understanding of equality issues. This survey was no exception. Table 17.4 shows that women were divided in their experience of men. In 2008, whilst few thought men had a very good understanding of women’s equality issues, 42% of women believed that men did have some understanding. However, many women (50%) believed that male unionists did not understand women’s equality issues very well or not at all. This highlights the need for women’s union involvement and leadership, but also reveals that there are issues here for unions to address in raising the importance of equality issues for all union members and officers and developing skills of recognising them and acting upon them. By 2018 it would seem that some progress had been made in the intervening 10 years, with some 68% saying that male unionists understand women’s equality issues ‘very well’ or ‘to some extent’ and the number reporting ‘not very well’ or ‘not at all’ falling from 52 to 33%. However, despite this apparent progress, only 9% reported that male unionists understood women’s issues very well. Table 17.4
Do you think male unionists understand women’s equality issues? Check one
2008
N
%
2018 N
%
Yes, very well
4
3
12
9
Yes, to some extent
61
42
80
59
No, not very well
65
45
38
28
No, not at all
10
7
6
5
No response
5
3
0
0
Total
145
136
250 Research handbook on inequalities and work
REFLECTIONS ON LAST TEN YEARS When asking delegates to reflect on the last ten years, it was evident that women had made advances in their unions. Firstly, there was a clear perception that the number of women representatives had increased in the previous ten years (see Table 17.5). Moreover, more held a belief that union policies on women had improved (see Table 17.6) and more women were reported as being in leadership positions (see Table 17.7). Table 17.5
Looking back on the last 10 years, has there been an increase in the number of women representatives in your union?
#
Answer
%
Count
1
Yes
58.82
80
2
No
20.59
28
3
Don’t know
20.59
28
Total
100
136
Table 17.6
Looking back on the last 10 years, have your union’s policies on women in the workplace/the unions improved?
#
Answer
%
Count
1
Yes
46.32
63
2
No
16.18
22
3
Don’t know
37.50
51
Total
100
136
Table 17.7
Looking back on the last 10 years, has there been an increase in the number of women in leadership and decision-making bodies in your union?
#
Answer
%
Count
1
Yes
57.35
78
2
No
18.38
25
3
Don’t know
24.26
33
Total
100
136
Illustrating this positive shift for women was the following delegate’s experience: Over the past 10 years I have moved up in leadership within my union at an incredibly fast pace. I worked for two different councils during that time and my experience within the two was night and day. It was shocking for me to see what a HUGE difference leadership makes in providing women real access and the ability to create opportunities and change the workplace culture.
Nevertheless, as Tables 17.5 and 17.6 demonstrate, there was a notable minority who did not experience these positive developments. Their views are well-illustrated by the following delegate. It really concerns me that things haven’t changed much in my local… And I’m scared to even ask for support because I’m a single mom and need to work.
Women’s long-term social movement participation 251 There was a clear variability of experience, as would be expected from a diverse range of unions and union members. Nevertheless, fear of ‘rocking the boat’ may be as relevant when a union holds the key to accessing union jobs just as when an employer holds the power over employment opportunities.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT A theme of the conference was the introduction of guidelines on social conduct/sexual harassment, which were distributed to all delegates at the 2018 conference. Our survey provided some evidence of the necessity of sexual harassment guidelines for both the unions and the workplace. We noted that nearly a third of respondents had experienced sexual harassment in their unions (see Table 17.8). The extent of the sexual harassment experience was even greater in the workplace, where 54% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment (Table 17.9). Table 17.8
Have you ever experienced sexual harassment or sex discrimination in your union?
#
Answer
%
Count
1
Yes
30.88
42
2
No
69.12
94
Total
100
136
Table 17.9
Have you ever experienced sexual harassment or sex discrimination in your job?
#
Answer
%
Count
1
Yes
53.68%
73
2
No
46.32%
63
Total
100%
136
The above indicates a clear improvement in union policies on women, with only 16% saying no improvement. Inevitably, some delegates were unable to respond to this question either because they were new to union membership or had not followed union policy development closely enough to comment. Again, because of the range of unions, inevitably policy development would be enacted and experienced unevenly. We return to this point in our focus group discussion below.
OUR NJ NETWORK The highlight of our 2018 trip was meeting up with many of the women who had been part of our 2008–10 exchange network. We were very fortunate to run a focus group with them where we asked about the intervening ten years, their progression in the union, the roles they undertook, and the key issues they faced. Critical issues emerged, including a negotiated maternity agreement, the Code of Conduct being presented to the WILD conference, and the impact of #MeToo. The transcript was rich and recognised the women’s real progress in the union but
252 Research handbook on inequalities and work also that ‘not all was rosy’. We try to give a flavour of this focus group and link where appropriate to the survey findings.
PROGRESSION IN THE UNION AND UNION ROLES We began by asking the group what had changed in their union role since we last met ten years previously. We were greeted with huge enthusiasm, and it was striking how the group members had developed in their unions and their structures. Women had gone from members of an important union council to chairing that council, they had become paid as opposed to lay union officers, they had gone from lay member to Director of Community Affairs and business agent and head of young workers’ programmes in the painters’ union, they ran programmes for women in the carpenters union, they ran for and won public office, they went from international rep to senior international rep and onto the national executive board of CLUW, and one moved union to be national staff rep for the Communication Workers of America. Of crucial importance was the close engagement women posited between union politics and labour politics. One woman is on the Executive Board of EMERGENE (a six-month intensive training programme of 70 hours to train progressive democratic women for public office). Political engagement was a characteristic of the WILD unions over the ten-year period. During our 2008 exchange visit and the 2010 subsequent research visit to NJ, we noted the practical support in getting votes out that was initially given to Hillary Clinton when she ran to be the Democratic nominee and subsequently to the successful Democratic candidate for president, Barack Obama. There was little doubt that these women’s active participation was of long duration and high intensity, rather than either/or, as indicated by Polletta and Jasper’s (2001:296) point on long-term union participation. Moreover, they continued to demonstrate high levels of enthusiasm and a positive supportive environment that was so admired by the British exchange group in 2008.
CHANGE OVER TEN YEARS? The women discussed considerable improvements, supporting the 2018 survey findings, and we give a flavour of these below: I’ve seen a lot of improvement within the last, even within the last couple of years. So even the numbers of [carpenter] apprenticeships, apprentices in our programme we had in Northern and Central New Jersey about 2% women, we’re almost at 10% now. One of the things, and it’s not with the carpenters but I still have to say it, it’s with the iron workers, they now have, and this is a big thing for the trades, is paid maternity leave.
Representation. The following comment underlines the importance of representation in an occupation as well as the union. As women become increasingly represented in the male-dominated trades then younger people coming into those trades are less likely to see women as ‘other’, leading to change.
Women’s long-term social movement participation 253 I think that there’s a whole generation of people who don’t know what construction looks like without the women now. As opposed to the entire generation that I was with that didn’t know what it looked like with. So I think that that is what’s helping crack the door open because all these kids, and they’re not kids anymore, kids to me, have never been on a job where there was no woman floating by. Not many but somebody…
Moreover, strategic organising of different groups and bringing them together was seen as an important step forward; the following quotation illustrates this but also the important link between these women union leaders and political activism. [progress] is being made in the ten years. I mean, for us I can’t say that… I think we are moving in the right direction. So what we did was get everybody together. We had different caucuses, so we had young workers, we had African American, we had women, we had Latino caucuses where we brought everybody together and we started talking about the issues. So I’m so proud that, you know, in 110 years of our organisation that we finally had that happening to open the conversation. As far as our organisation we have plenty of women across the country nationally who are involved and most of them are in political roles, not from the field but women nonetheless in those positions. So for us it’s good. In the state of New Jersey, I’m the only one. We do have other ladies who serve on our executive boards and things like that but not as a paid full-time person.
There was clearly continuing pride in the different caucuses and in the longevity of WILD, particularly given that New Jersey is the only US state AFL-CIO to have a women’s conference. we need organisations like WILD, like CLUW, we need all of this because we’re in times that, you know, women are, women want to be heard, we’re going to be heard, #we’regoingtobeheard.
Sexual harassment. The 2018 survey results showed how rife the incidences of sexual harassment are in both unions and workplaces. The 2018 WILD conference presented a code of conduct agreed with national AFL-CIO unions: …And I’m really proud because this will be one of the first conferences where we’re going to be reading our code of conduct. You’ve seen it before, you’ve seen it before but a code of conduct which it’s finally happening where the national unions and the AFL-CIO realise that sexual harassment is a problem. And we are addressing it as a Labour movement, not just AFSCME or carpenters, it’s everybody is addressing it and it’s uniform… And it, believe me it’s uncomfortable for some of the readers to deal with and address it and acknowledge it but we have to, you know, stand together and address it as well.
The agreed code of conduct was an important step forward for the national AFL-CIO and indicated the power resources that women leaders were able to harness in order to achieve this agreement. There is little doubt that the #MeToo movement provided an enabling mechanism. Such initiatives come from women union leaders, are promoted by women union leaders and will be sustained and enforced through women’s union leadership. Paid maternity leave. That unions such as the carpenters and the ironworkers introduced paid maternity caused admiration in the group and some astonishment that this had come to pass. We were told that while women remain a minority on building sites, most sites now have women, so the demographic has changed. It may well be the case that safety in the construction sector was a driver for this policy change. It was noted that male-dominated unions appeared most progressive although, and perhaps because, women are a relatively small proportion in the union, and the costs of change were also small.
254 Research handbook on inequalities and work Electricians bemoaned the lack of applications from women. There was a view that women were intimidated by the assessment tests. It seemed that men were likely to have greater mentorship in helping them pass the tests and the group recognised that this needed to be the case for women. Law was an important driver, with women gaining opportunities in the male-dominated trades through affirmative action that they would not otherwise have got. The implication is of course that without the law change might not have happened. Old guard versus young members. There was a general welcoming of new younger members and encouragement of their involvement in their unions. The women believed that with the changing of the old guard, the next generation were likely to be less resistant to women’s involvement and progress. There was a strong belief that new young leaders were needed as they do not see gender or colour. This view (and union survival) underpinned the programmes working to build a younger membership, thus the union benefits and equality benefits from such initiatives. It’s not all rosy. Perhaps the desire for a change in the old guard underpinned the view that despite undoubted improvements over time, there was still some way to go. There was little doubt that the mainstream union still demonstrated what Healy and Kirton (2000) called a gendered oligarchy: I see change in certain areas but then when you look, you’d know women only get so far and they are still hitting a glass ceiling – you don’t see presidents of Central Labor Councils… I feel men don’t respect women even though they pretend that they do and say that, now they’re being inclusive and all that. I feel that they do what they feel they have to do and nothing more.
Another agreed, adding that, ‘They tolerate’. However, it was pointed out that this was not the case with the teachers’ union, a women-dominated union that had had women as leaders since 1916. We should add that even in some women-dominated unions, the minority of male members may still dominate the union hierarchies (see Kirton & Healy, 2013b).
CONCLUSIONS In different ways, it was evident that the participation process binds leaders and members to the union and its values and in so doing turns them into long-term movement participants. Over time, the union movement becomes more a way of life or a vocation than a job or a spare time activity and it is passion and commitment to ‘the cause’ that motivates women to stay involved even in a hostile internal and external climate: ‘It’s who I am’. Thus, in our study, the commitment to the union intensified over time in the lives of the women we interviewed and who took part in our exchange programme. The importance of women’s development programmes is not just about what women learn from the programmes, although this is important, it is also about the process of engagement that they experience, the people they meet, the contacts they make in the environment of a safe space and, importantly, the reinforcement of their union commitment. In some way, we can claim that the intense experience of our 2008–10 exchange visits and the women’s subsequent union experience reinforced a strong union commitment. It contributed to shaping the women’s union lives with an impact on their union careers and the building of union collectivism within their contexts. Exchange programmes are rare. However, it was notable that the NJ AFL-CIO WILD annual programme of women’s
Women’s long-term social movement participation 255 development remains the first and only such state-wide multi-union programme in the US, thus augmenting regional or national initiatives, such as CLUW and the United Association for Labor Education Northeast Summer School for Union Women (now in its 45th year). Our work makes a case for unions learning from each other and reinforcing common union values. Polletta and Jasper’s (2001:296) point regarding long-term union participation that social movement participation generated biographical transformations among ‘people whose active participation was of long duration or high intensity’ is apposite to the women we studied. Their biographies were closely linked to their union and gender identity. Despite the resilience of gendered oligarchies, with men still dominating the union hierarchies, their commitment to union diversity was strong and simultaneously optimistic about women’s opportunities, and they remained realistic about the challenges. Nevertheless, the social processes that emerged from their women-only and other diversity groups provided ongoing resources, which maintained and strengthened their union commitment.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for funding the 2008–10 international network. We are particularly grateful to Laurel Brennen, NJ AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, for facilitating our survey at the 2018 WILD conference; the WILD delegates; and of course our 2008 women union leaders who generously shared their experiences with us 10 years on.
NOTES 1. The AFL-CIO is not a union but is the peak body for 58 unions. 2. In the UK in 2013, Frances O’Grady was the first woman elected General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, the UK peak body, with 48 affiliated unions.
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18. Leadership, Africa and the South African context1 Anita Maharaj
INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I will discuss the concept of leadership with an emphasis on attention to diversity. I will develop a case for incorporating Afrocentric leadership values characterised by the Ubuntu philosophy of dignity and collectiveness (Mbigi, 2007) in organisations in South Africa (SA). Ubuntu is a term that represents African Humanism and is often translated as ‘I am because we are’ (Lerutla & Steyn, 2021). Ubuntu is an African moral system that has been influential across a wide geographical area and over a long-time span south of the Sahara. It has risen to prominence in post-apartheid SA (see the SA context below) (Ewuoso & Hall, 2019). Significantly, in SA although people of colour are the majority, they are the minority in leadership positions in the workplace, particularly in private organisations (Commission for Employment Equity, 2020). Afrocentric leadership is diametrically opposite to the dominant Western views on leadership in which an individualistic approach dominates (Van Rensburg, 2013). Consequently, dualistic leadership styles in South African organisations can cause tension. I will put forth that the dominant Eurocentric approach may not only alienate and devalue African Black leaders but may also be detrimental to the achievement of Employment Equity (EE) imperatives in SA. Heeding the emic approach, Mbigi’s (2000) five core values of Ubuntu associated with African leaders are explored using Maharaj’s (2022) qualitative study, investigating what leadership means to African Black leaders in South African organisations. An emic approach selects salient categories of difference for examination by first considering the diversity and power-related dynamics significant to the specific context under investigation, and it is therefore recommended that scholars take an emic approach to diversity research (Tatli & Özbilgin, 2012). Indeed, the chapter argues for a contextual and culturally specific approach to the study of leadership. Although leadership as a construct has received much attention (Marturano & Gosling, 2008) and leadership theories have expanded exponentially (Dinh et al., 2014), there is still no universal understanding or agreement on its definition (Bolden & Kirk, 2009). Traditionally, many definitions of leadership exist. The definition of leadership has evolved and changed in congruence with the evolution of societal context. Virtually all definitions identify the following as central to the concept of leadership: leadership in organisations is a process, involves influence, occurs within a group context, and involves group attainment (Chin, 2010). Moreover, leadership is subjectively interpreted according to culture. Equally, it is recognised that leadership operates at many levels of an organisation and that it may take different forms according to historical and cultural influences (Western, 2013). Indeed, as countries throughout the world become increasingly diverse, the contexts in which leadership occurs within institutions and communities are also becoming increasingly diverse (Chin, 2010). Although women and members of ‘non-White’ racial and ethnic groups 257
258 Research handbook on inequalities and work have been gaining access to leadership roles in the last couple of decades, they remain underrepresented relative to their numbers in the population (Chin, 2010), particularly in the Global North and SA. Significantly, most leadership theories have been developed in North America and have an ethnocentric viewpoint (Ayman & Korabik, 2010). This fails to acknowledge factors (e.g., power and status differentials) that can impact leadership. Factors that privilege the majority group can create obstacles for women and those from ethno-cultural minorities in leadership positions (Ayman & Korabik, 2010). Indeed, there is a lack of scholarship about the experiences of women in management in Africa (Nkomo & Ngambi, 2009) and the literature on the large and growing body of work on gender in leadership generally remains fragmented and incomplete (Shen & Joseph, 2021), in addition to major leadership theories which neglect gender inclusivity (discussed below). Leadership is not universal and can vary as a direct function of either gender or culture; therefore, leadership theories are not generalisable to all individuals regardless of gender and culture (Ayman & Korabik, 2010). In addition, Ayman and Korabik (2010) note that leadership researchers have rarely done cross-cultural studies to understand the limitations of their own theories. Attention to diversity means paradigm shifts in our theories of leadership to make them more inclusive, paying attention to how dimensions of diversity shape our understanding of leadership, the perceptions and expectations of diverse leaders by diverse followers, and how bias influences leadership (Chin, 2010). Although theorists have increasingly incorporated ethnic culture into our understanding of leadership (e.g., Bjerke, 1999; Kao et al., 1999), many start from an ethnocentric stance of comparing leadership in ‘foreign’ countries to that of US-based models of leadership (Bess, 1995). When validating their theories, they rely on an imposed etic (the validation of theories and models of leadership across genders and cultural settings) approach (Ayman & Korabik, 2010). In essence, they are not interested in gauging how the theories work but only if they work. Further, they have not incorporated findings on gender and culture into major theories of leadership (Chin, 2010). When reviewing the major leadership theories – i.e., the trait (implicit leadership theory), behavioural (two-factor approach, transformational leadership, and authentic leadership), and contingency leadership theories (contingency model of leadership effectiveness and path-goal theory) – it is clear that their basic assumptions do not take into account gender and culture. Most cross-cultural leadership studies attempt to validate theories based on a majority culture with minorities and females. Cross-cultural studies based on trait, behavioural and contingency leadership theories are either inconclusive, scant, or have measurement equality issues. This implies that current influential leadership theories are not generalisable based on gender and culture. Further, a review of new relational perspectives on leadership revealed that leadership is generally defined in masculine terms, thus the alienation of the female identity (Fletcher, 2004) and the complication in achieving relational authenticity for females and outsiders due to a lack of legitimacy (Eagly, 2005). Indeed, the effects of under-researched leadership theories (i.e., culture/ethnicity) may have dual implications for current leadership in organisations: disadvantage for diverse cultural/ Black Minority Ethnic (BME) employees whose leadership styles and preferences are not recognised and the limited expertise of current leaders in dealing with diverse groups in a global and multinational workplace. This may result in organisations not gaining the strategic com-
Leadership, Africa and the South African context 259 petitive edge that diversity may confer when managed appropriately (Buttner et al., 2012), in addition to the moral imperative for valuing diversity.
STUDIES: CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP To remedy this gap in the cultural context of leadership theories, Hofstede (1983) developed a series of cultural dimensions from a survey of employees from IBM between 1967 and 1973 in more than 40 countries that extracted data on their cultural attributes. This work was updated and expanded in 1991 and 2001 (Brewer & Venaik, 2010). Hofstede made ground-breaking contributions to the field of cross-cultural research by examining both the ideal and actual culture at both organisational and national levels. He identified culture clusters that organised participating countries by their endorsed values, allowing the identification of both universal and culturally contingent leadership traits and behaviours (Biermeier-Hanson et al., 2015). The combination of these dimension scores explains why the people and organisations of a country differ from those in other countries (Hofstede, 2010). Hofstede’s original work has served as a marker post for subsequent investigators for two decades (Brewer & Venaik, 2010). However, Hofstede’s model has been much criticised (e.g., Javidan et al., 2006; Sivakumar & Nkata, 2001). It ignores cultural heterogeneity and change over time (Sivakumar & Nkata, 2001; Saleem & larimo, 2017). Significantly, due to people of colour being the minority in leadership positions in the workplace in SA, particularly in private organisations (Commission for Employment Equity, 2020), their views and preferences may be overlooked. According to Hofstede’s theory, collectivism refers to a preference for a tightly knit social framework in which individuals can expect their relatives, clan, or another ingroup to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty (Hofstede, 1985: 347–348). At face value, this would seem typical of Western and African constructs, respectively; however, Ubuntu goes beyond mere loyalty to a deep-seated sense of belonging and purpose that comes through community (April & Ephraime, 2006). Further, Hofstede’s model is criticised with regard to validity (measuring what it is supposed to measure) and operationalising culture through numerically measured dimensions (Earley, 2006). It is important to also highlight the US-centric and IBM-centric nature of Hofstede’s data, thus causing issues with generalisability (Javidan et al., 2006). Despite this, Hofstede’s work remains the dominant model for cross-cultural research (Brewer & Venaik, 2010). Project GLOBE was a 62-nation study undertaken in 2004 that used the conceptual dimensions from Hofstede with modifications. GLOBE is one of the most comprehensive studies of cross-cultural leadership to date (House et al., 2004). The GLOBE finding on culture and leadership provides a view of how individuals within cultures are different from or similar to one another in perceptions and expectations of leadership effectiveness (Lerutla & Steyn, 2021). The researchers examined leadership and organisational cultures around the world to identify universals and contingencies in as many countries as feasible with 18 dimensions (House et al., 2004). Using surveys, interviews, and focus groups, middle managers were asked to describe leader attributes and behaviour that they perceived to enhance or impede outstanding leadership. Den Hartog et al. (1999) found that some leadership attributes and behaviours were effective for leadership in all 65 countries studied, whereas some varied in relevance. For example, charismatic/transformational and team-oriented leadership was found to be effective
260 Research handbook on inequalities and work in team building, communication, and co-ordination across many countries (Den Hartog et al., 1999). However, other leadership styles, such as humane or self-protective leadership styles, tended to be perceived differently across cultures (Dickson et al., 2009). Given the above challenges with this dominant model that is used for cross-cultural research in both North America and SA (House et al., 2004), it may be increasingly important to understand leadership experiences of South African Black male and female leaders using the qualitative (research conducted without statistical means (McLeod, 1997)) approach. This allows a contextualised, emic approach to research within the South African context. A discussion of leadership in the African context, and in particular the South African context, is provided below.
LEADERSHIP AND THE AFRICAN CONTEXT Africa is a continent with a history of colonialism, which ingrained Western forms of knowledge and organisational structures while suppressing African identities, cultures, values, and epistemology (Nkomo, 2015). However, the changing nature of the workforce (ethnic, gender, and generational) and the changing nature of work (industrial to informational-based to an experience economy where organisations depend on the knowledge of employees for survival and success) require the interrogation of current management practices for their validity and efficacy (Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999; Howard, 1995; Horwitz et al., 2002). The influence of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, derived from colonialism, is dominant in African leadership practice. African business schools are predominantly structured around Western scholarship (Iwowo, 2016). Researchers have made arguments that Africa has its own values and practices and have criticised Western theories and practices of leadership in the African context, calling for an African-centred leadership approach relevant to African values (Lerutla & Steyn, 2021). African leadership prioritises people and their dignity and the collectiveness of Ubuntu – the notion that ‘I am because we are and I can only be a person through others’ is emphasised. There is an emphasis on solidarity and interdependence (Mbigi, 2007). It is premised on respect for dignity, reciprocity, and a desire for tolerance and forgiveness (Lerutla & Steyn, 2021). Khoza (2012) linked leadership in Africa to humanness and stated that African humanness puts people first. However, Nkomo (2011) warns against totalising the concept of leadership and management in Africa as Africa is a large continent with vast cultural diversity. Ubuntu as a component of leadership in Africa (in general) seems to be commonly associated with Afrocentric leadership (Grobler & Singh, 2018). Additionally, Ubuntu is a proxy for a different mode of leadership (Afrocentric leadership) and is not race-specific but a style of leadership within Africa. Ubuntu is principally a normative ethical system amongst the people of Southern Africa. It should not however be taken as representative of all ethical thinking in Africa (Ewuoso & Hall, 2019). As Ubuntu is a philosophical concept, it is important to both contextualise leadership within the South African context and assess if commonality exists in terms of generic Afrocentric leadership based around Ubuntu (Van Rensburg, 2013), as well as obtain empirical evidence to explain this type of leadership (Yawson, 2017). Mbigi (2000) identified five core values associated with African leaders: respect for the dignity of others, group solidarity, teamwork, service to others, and the spirit of harmony and
Leadership, Africa and the South African context 261 interdependence. Indeed, we are all products of our culture and can only see what our cultural paradigms allow us to see (Mbigi, 2000). Mbigi (2007) relays the Western American worldview as ‘Concentrate on your self-interest and you will automatically serve your customer and society better, which in turn will let you serve your self-interest’ (Smith, 1991). Indeed, collective social goals are a by-product of self-interest. Thus, the pursuit of one’s own selfish interests in pursuit of collective goals will serve the common interests of the larger society (Smith, 1991). Additionally, the Western business culture, typified by phrases such as ‘Don’t just sit there, do something’, is in stark contrast to the African business culture of ‘taking the long view’ (April, 2007). The Western American worldview puts emphasis on the individual lone hero who, through his or her own individual nobility, independence, courage, and conviction, saves organisations and communities from their fate. Thus, the clash of an African (being) versus a Western (doing) approach has become more prevalent (April, 2007). Indeed, well-known Western management techniques often prove less effective when transplanted elsewhere, as a notion of culture is rooted in their value and belief systems (Shen, 2004). This has serious implications for leadership theories and practices as the national host culture impacts on how the challenges of leadership in an organisation are approached (Mbigi, 2007).
THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT The South African workplace is not static but in flux due to the redressing of historical inequality and the implementation of remedial legislation. The apartheid regime in South Africa (1948–1994) set laws that institutionally discriminated against and excluded Coloreds, Indians, and African Blacks socially, politically, and economically, reserving privilege for the White population in every sphere of life. Job discrimination was instituted by various laws; e.g., the Mines and Works Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1904 and 1952 (Horwitz & Jain, 2011; Littrell & Nkomo, 2005). Since 1994, present-day South Africa, in seeking to redress past historical injustice, has enacted two significant workplace legislations. The Employment Equity Act (EEA) of 1998 is a labour law that pledges both fair treatment and affirmative action measures in favour of African Blacks, Coloreds, and Indians; people with disabilities; and women in the workplace. The EEA set out the purpose of the Act as to achieve equality in the workplace by: ● Promoting equal opportunity and fair treatment in employment through the elimination of unfair discrimination; ● Implementing affirmative action measures to redress the disadvantages in employment experienced by designated groups in order to ensure their equitable representation in all occupational categories and levels of the workforce through employment equity policies (including psychometric testing, performance appraisal, and affirmative action policies) (Horwitz & Jain, 2011). The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BBBEE) is used to remedy economic imbalances perpetuated by apartheid (Mparadzi & Kalula, 2007). These legislative imperatives seek to increase diverse leadership styles in organisations and, consequently, the Afrocentric leadership style.
262 Research handbook on inequalities and work Indeed, implementing diverse leadership by legislative reform has implications, as dualistic leadership styles exist in South African organisations that may be potentially conflicting. SA is still dominated by a Eurocentric culture. This poses a serious challenge to organisations as they do not consider the cultural archetypes of those who are being managed and now also those who manage. This may result in less-than-optimal solutions for management challenges in SA as South Africans forgo their value propositions and ignore the structure of society (Khoza, 1994). The challenge in SA is to balance the two management styles. However, Whites still dominate in organisations, so that when Black managers are promoted to leadership positions, they tend to adopt the Eurocentric style of management, which causes conflict with the lower-level workforce, who are predominantly Black (Feldman & Msibi, 2014). Significantly, if African Black managers develop, progress, and manage to a Eurocentric standard, we can expect sub-par performance, lack of progression, and resilient prejudice and stereotyping, as this may be contrary to the dominant culture and internalised values. Nkomo (2011) explains that the colonisation of Africa fostered the view that all things European were positive and all things African were negative. Present-day SA organisations still use these lenses to justify limiting leadership opportunities for African Black professionals, underpinned by the biased view that labels them incompetent and unsuitable for leadership (Myeza & April, 2021). Such stereotyping may have consequences for the development, progression, and validation of African Black leaders in SA even though legislative imperatives seek to increase their representation in organisations through EE, particularly private organisations in South Africa (Commission for Employment Equity, 2020). Table 18.1 offers a description of the different ethnicities in SA. Table 18.1 Ethnicity African Black
A description of the different ethnic groups in South Africa (Klarsfeld, 2010) Description African Blacks, who are the significant majority, represent different ethnic groups, including Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, and Swazi, as well as recent immigrants, particularly from Zimbabwe and Nigeria
White
Whites are descendants from Dutch, French, and British settlers, immigrants from Europe who began arriving in the Cape in the late 17th century, and Portuguese who left the former Portuguese colonies of Southern Africa (Angola and Mozambique) after their independence in the late 1970s
Colored
Coloreds are mixed-race individuals descended primarily from the earliest settlers, their slaves, and the indigenous people
Indian/Asian
Indians/Asians include the descendants of Indian indentured sugar-estate workers and traders who came to South Africa in the mid-19th century, as well as a small Chinese population of about 100 000 people
In the next section, leadership studies in the African context are examined. Drawing on preliminary findings from a qualitative study (Maharaj, 2022), the chapter thereafter explores what leadership means to South African Black leaders using Mbigi’s (2000) five core values associated with African leadership.
RESEARCH IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT: WHAT IS SOUTH AFRICAN LEADERSHIP? Given the above arguments against the Eurocentric approach to leadership and leadership programmes, there is no clear evidence of what leadership is for Africa (Lerutla & Steyn, 2021). Several researchers observe that very little research has been conducted to understand
Leadership, Africa and the South African context 263 leadership in Africa (Amah, 2019; Cerff, 2017; Gumede, 2017; Kuada, 2010; Walumbwa et al., 2011). The paucity of studies with regard to leader preferences in terms of race and gender in the South African context is evident. Whereas some studies show clear disparity in terms of Eurocentric vs. Afrocentric preferences (Booysen, 2001), others show similarity (Thomas & Bendixen, 2000; Littrell & Nkomo, 2005) and convergence (Feldman & Msibi, 2014). All of these studies used surveys, most employing Hofstede’s model (see above criticisms). Surveys have the reputation of telling us what and not why. None give us the rich information that would be gained from gathering the lived experiences and meaning of leadership. Qualitative studies from the literature provide important insights into aspects of ‘African leadership’. Significantly, a qualitative study by Myres (2013) found that inhibiting factors for Black executives in South Africa included high levels of racism. To gain a critical mass of Black executives, a blend of Eurocentric and Afrocentric management styles is advised by Myres, as confrontation with other executives can be detrimental to Black executives’ effectiveness (Myres, 2013). Additionally, a survey was undertaken by April and Ephraim (2006) to incorporate African modes of leadership in an organisation with dominant Anglo-Saxon leadership modes. Concern for and building of the sustainability of the community, its participants’ relationships, and the context of affirmation for employees were noted. Constructs to implement modes of leadership, leadership values, empowerment of leaders, employee inclusion and employee assumption of responsibility were highlighted. April and Ephraim (2006) emphasised that failure to incorporate African modes of leadership would result in moral failure for SA organisations and their leaders. As the first study of its nature contextualised in South Africa, the quantitative study by Grobler and Singh (2018) used a Western leadership taxonomy (an etic approach) and found both generic leadership behaviour and unique behaviours in an Afrocentric leadership taxonomy. Lerutla and Steyn (2021) conducted a qualitative study in order to understand how African leadership is perceived in sub-Saharan Africa in an attempt to formulate an operational definition of leadership in the African context. This study affirmed the notion of a connection between African leadership, its geographical location, and the importance of Ubuntu in leadership (Lerutla & Steyn, 2021). Indeed, these initial indications imply a unique leadership style for parts of the African continent that warrants further research. Taking a contextualised, emic approach, I recently undertook a qualitative study for my doctoral research asking 19 African Black leaders who self-identified as male or female in South African public and private organisations the question, ‘What does the term leadership mean to you?’. The question reflected the concerns of qualitative researchers well, who: …tend to be concerned with meaning. That is, they are interested in how people make sense of the world and how they experience events. They aim to understand ‘what is it like’ to experience particular conditions. Qualitative researchers tend, therefore, to be concerned with the quality and texture of experience, rather than the identification of cause-effect relationships. (Willig, 2008:8)
Given that this chapter is concerned with understanding the leadership values of African Black leaders in the South African context, it is fitting that the research is qualitative in nature (Maharaj, 2022). African Black leaders emphasised that leadership means the growth and benefit of others. Dominant themes were focussed on people and not business imperatives, numbers, or tasks, with a focus on people and their personal circumstances in order to get them to achieve and
264 Research handbook on inequalities and work selflessness in growing others, serving others, and working together. These responses were compared to Mbigi’s (2000) five core values (of Ubuntu) associated with African leaders; i.e., respect for the dignity of others, group solidarity, teamwork, service to others, and the spirit of harmony and interdependence. Typical responses congruent to these themes are explored below.
FOCUS ON THE PERSON RATHER THAN BUSINESS METRICS: RESPECT FOR THE DIGNITY OF OTHERS Participants discussed how leadership is more about ‘Ubuntu’, focussing on the person, understanding their aspirations, and making an impact rather than focussing on tasks. Buhle noted the progressive nature of SA (Ubuntu) in that it emphasises selflessness and the importance of the community in the development of a person into a leader: I think it speaks to South Africa’s development. We have always had that Ubuntu thing… each one teaches one and it takes a village to build a person… (Buhle, 34, African Black male (ABM), Compliance Manager, public organisation)
Buhle made a point about the business focus in the UK, which is transactional, and in SA, which is people-focussed: People greet each other here but when I was in the UK, and you went to the shop it was just a transaction and it’s done. Here you can chat with people, and you have a conversation. That’s human but it doesn’t drive business. So here if you spend 10 minutes serving a customer and, in the UK, they would sell three things in 10 minutes. (Buhle, 34, ABM, Compliance Manager, public organisation)
Indeed, Buhle observed the differences in the way business is conducted in SA vs. the UK; people are concerned with the growth of others (selflessness) and acknowledging each other, i.e., having a human connection. This is unlike his perception of the UK, which is purely based on business transactions and lacks the humanness of interaction, which seemingly drives economic success. Dalisa explained: ‘Leadership’ is more about influencing people’s lives to also just reach their full potential, you know. Changing peoples’ lives more than anything, you know, so ‘leadership’ is not about, so much the numbers, but it’s about the impact, you know. So even if it’s one person whose life you impact in a positive manner, for me that is leadership. (Dalisa, 36, African Black female (ABF), Collections Manager)
Thabiwe added: You need to understand their aspirations and how you can guide them to reach those aspirations. So, for me, leadership distance itself from the tasks but rather focuses on the individual, on what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are and how you as the leader can help them to achieve or work with their growth areas. (Thabiwe, 40, ABF, Corporate Governance Records Manager, public organisation)
Leadership, Africa and the South African context 265 The participants emphasised that the focus is the person and their growth, development, and the personal impact of the leader on the subordinate rather than business targets, thereby making the subordinate’s development the focus of leadership rather than tasks. Indeed, putting the person and their growth and potential at the centre of leadership implies respect and dignity for the subordinate, which is imperative to the values embedded in African leadership, as suggested by Mbigi (2000). Participants discussed having a deep and personal understanding of their subordinates’ circumstances and their family dynamics. Indeed, giving them respect, dignity, and care leads to trust and performance. Significantly, Molo compares this to White people who do not open up on a personal level easily. This may be an initial indication of the dichotomies inherent in Afrocentric vs. Eurocentric culture: I am very much interested in people. How I lead my team is that I get to know who they are and I understand what they are dealing with; I could literally have a conversation with their spouses after meeting them for the first time because my team has taught me about their spouses and their family dynamics. I literally understand their issues that are very close to their heart. And I think I understand how they are wired. Some of the White people that I have in my team don’t like opening up to me, maybe because they don’t think it’s good to open up to a Black leader. They’ve got a culture of hogging which they know I don’t like. I’ve learnt to understand that you lead people better when you understand them and they are also free, relaxed, and trusting to you and how you run things. So when they are not trusting it at times makes it very difficult. Generally, with Black team members, it is easier because they easily open up. (Molo, 40, ABM, Head of Coal Development, public organisation)
Nkona added how he also had personal knowledge of his subordinates born out of interest as their leader: I can tell you every single agent in the call centre about what their challenges are, what they want to achieve, their family status; I know their names and surnames and the children that they have. (Nkona, 37, ABM, Client Services Manager, private organisation)
Below, Rachel discusses how this extensive understanding of subordinates enables her to attend to the different needs of the individuals in her team and thereby accommodate differences whilst having to manage team dynamics due to these differences. Significantly, she says that she is willing to support subordinates in reaching their potential. She also recognises and emphasises the importance of emotional support rendered to subordinates and how in turn this support bolsters their commitment: Yes; as a leader you have to understand individuals. In my team I have different people and I treat them differently. I have this one guy who is a Muslim, and he gives me a tough time sometimes: he’s always late but he’s a good person. He is someone that we can work and shape and become better than he is. I understand that on Friday as he has to take his time off; that sometimes affect others, but we always can find a way because we have to give him that chance because people are all different. Some people come in the workplace, and they are just broken people. And you can be that leader that they can talk to if they do not have anyone to talk to; and they will know that they have someone who cares about them. As a leader you have to care for people. If you show people that you care, then they will show you how much they can go all out to get things done. (Rachel, 34, ABF, Regional Direct Sales Team Leader, private organisation)
Indeed, participants revealed leadership values that embody a deep understanding of subordinates and their family dynamics, the rendering of emotional care and support, and a focus on
266 Research handbook on inequalities and work the development of the person rather than tasks. Again, this indicates respect for the dignity of subordinates as emphasised by Mbigi (2000). This deep understanding and care should have positive implications for gender parity. Significantly, Maharaj (2022) found that the existence of patriarchy (in rural patriarchal African societies, male and female roles are clearly demarcated, whereby men are the heads of the household and women assume subordinate positions (Sathiparsad et al., 2008)) limits African Black females’ opportunities in the workplace, where they ultimately have to ‘fight’ by taking on male traits, thereby alienating them from their authentic leadership values. Further research on women’s leadership experiences under the Ubuntu worldview is recommended.
SELFLESSNESS OF LEADERSHIP, GROUP SOLIDARITY, TEAMWORK, AND SERVICE TO OTHERS Participants also discussed the collective nature of leadership (involving others in the leadership process), the selfless imperative of wanting subordinates to develop, and leadership being of service and paternalistic: I would like to be a leader that creates other leaders, especially with my subordinates. I would like them to have a sense that they can be leaders or that they are leaders and to lead collectively. There’s no isolation with leadership. We are brought into an organisation to achieve something qualitatively and leadership cannot be looked at in isolation. It has to be corroborative and collective. (Mpho, 57, ABM, Management Accountant, public organisation)
Palesa added: A leader would always want to see the followers be like them or even better. I want to grow people; out of my hands I want to see succession. (Palesa, 38, ABF, Monitoring Center Manager, private organisation)
Mpho and Palesa both emphasised the selflessness of leadership by developing subordinates into leaders and the collective nature of leadership (involving others) being inherent. Below, Thabiwe describes how this selflessness takes the form of enabling subordinates to grow by harnessing their skills and subsequently this results in them leaving her team. She significantly implies that some leaders follow leadership/management theory but innately that is what leadership is to her: I ask people what their dreams are and tell them that if they don’t have them, they need to have them. if you must leave because it’s your next level which means that you must have some path and I will help you and I will not hold you back because you have a skill that I need in the team; I will help you harness those skills, and I will get somebody else. That for me is what a leader is. Whether you call it a leader or a manager, but a lot of leaders still practice what theory says about managers and that is a reality. (Thabiwe, 40, ABF, Corporate Governance Records Manager, public organisation)
Phumi and Siya described leadership as nurturing and paternal, which implies that the environment created by the leader should be safe, loving, and protective in order to develop the subordinate. It is about being of service, being utilised to empower another:
Leadership, Africa and the South African context 267 It’s about guiding and nurturing people. For me, leadership is about giving guidance when it’s necessary and being on the forefront. It’s about serving people. (Phumi, 47, ABF, Executive Manager, public organisation)
Siya added: A leader is someone who will stand up for us; father figure comes to mind who understands that he has not just himself to look after but the whole family. He is a guide and I’ve got a picture of a wise man sitting there. (Siya, 46, ABM, Executive Manager, public organisation)
Indeed, South African Black leaders described leadership values in terms of the collective nature of leadership, selflessness, and leadership being paternalistic and of service, parallel to Mbigi’s (2000) group solidarity, teamwork, and service to others. Indeed, as noted below in Table 18.2, the above values collectively embody a spirit of harmony and interdependence (Mbigi, 2000). Table 18.2
Comparison of Mbigi’s (2000) five core values associated with African leaders with qualitative findings for African Black leaders in SA
African Leadership
Dominant Themes in Research
Respect for dignity of others
Focus on person rather than business imperatives/focus on the person and personal circumstances
Group solidarity
Leading collectively
Teamwork
Working together
Service to others
Selflessness, serving others, paternal figure
Spirit of harmony and interdependence
Combination of above
As discussed previously, empirical research on leadership in Africa is sparse (Lerutla & Steyn, 2017). Additionally, this chapter acknowledges the call for qualitative emic leadership research (Ayman and Korabik, 2010) rather than an ethnocentric validation of existing leadership theories. As an initial indication, the above qualitative findings affirm the five core values associated with African leaders (Table 18.2; Mbigi, 2000) concerning how leadership is perceived in the South African context, and echo the Afrocentric leadership approach, and verify the importance of Ubuntu in leadership, which puts people first (Khoza, 2012). The evidence thus far indicates that the Afrocentric leadership style based on the Ubuntu philosophy is inherent in parts of Africa (e.g., Lerutla & Steyn, 2021; Bolden & Kirk, 2009; Mbigi, 2000; Gumede, 2017; Van Rensburg, 2013) and the existence of a Eurocentric leadership style embodied by White South Africans (e.g., Booysen, 2001; Myres, 2013; April & Ephraim, 2006). Given the contradictory nature of these two leadership imperatives, compounded by the increasing need to develop African Black leaders in SA organisations due to legislative imperatives (discussed above), it is increasingly urgent that organisations acknowledge, develop, and integrate the Afrocentric leadership styles within their leadership development initiatives.
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CONCLUSION Western leadership ideologies do not reflect the cultural and contextual realities of Africa in general and SA specifically. Indeed, Western leadership concepts and theories taught at African business schools and imposed on African leaders disparage their identities and alienate them from natural cultural practices and inclinations. This results in African Black leaders in SA being unable to harness their natural leadership strengths and being side-lined in organisations. In line with other leadership researchers (Grobler & Singh, 2018; Grobler & Flotman, 2020; Msila, 2008), there is a need for more leadership research in the African context to understand what African leadership means. Indeed, it is urgent and essential – specifically the South African context – to include African leadership values, the Afrocentric leadership style, in the dominant Eurocentric culture in SA organisations to help them reach EE imperatives. These differing leadership styles may create dissonance in organisations and may result in the devaluation of African Black leaders. The development and integration of Afrocentric values in Eurocentric dominant cultures will allow both the validation of African Black leaders and the important development and integration of both leadership styles in SA organisations. The call is for the development of both styles of leadership and the incorporation of elements of Afrocentric and Eurocentric values for strategic business development in the African continent in an attempt to develop cutting-edge global leaders rooted in the African context. Indeed, this chapter represents a context-specific workplace inequality problem by calling for the conceptual development and integration of Afrocentric leadership values in SA organisations, which is an understudied context, in order to support not just numerical transformation in organisations but successful leadership development. It challenges the status quo of the assumptions of current leadership theories. It contributes to South African leadership theory by affirming the five core values of Ubuntu associated with African leaders (Mbigi, 2000) in the South African context. Recommendations for legislative imperatives (EE) in SA are noted by the call for the integration of Afrocentric values in SA organisations. Indeed, Afrocentric leadership values in the SA context are essential for the development and progression of African Black leaders. As stated by Nicolaides and Duho (2019: 1742), ‘We should not forget that Africa also has much to impart to the world in the sphere of right conduct’ as leadership is increasingly based on personal integrity.
NOTE 1.
Pseudonyms have been used throughout this chapter.
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Leadership, Africa and the South African context 271 Mbigi, L. (2000). In Search of the African Business Renaissance: An African Cultural Perspective. Randburg: Knowledge Resources. Mbigi, L. (2007). Rethinking leadership and wealth creation in Africa. In K. April & M. Shockley (eds), Diversity in Africa: The Coming of Age of a Continent (pp. 3–10). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McLeod, J. (1997). Narrative and Psychotherapy. London: Sage. Mparadzi, A., & Kalula, E. (2007). Black economic empowerment in South Africa: A critical appraisal. PhD dissertation. Cape Town: Institute of Development and Labour Law, University of Cape Town. Myeza, A., & April, K. (2021). Atypical black leader emergence: South African self-perceptions. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. Myres, H. (2013). Factors in South Africa inhibiting the progression of black executives in their careers and the role of coaching in their development. Doctoral dissertation. Johannesburg: Graduate School of Business Administration, University of the Witwatersrand. Nicolaides, A., & Duho, K. C. T. (2019). Effective leadership in organizations: African ethics and corruption. Modern Economy, 10(7), 1713–1743. Nkomo, S. M. (2011). A postcolonial and anti-colonial reading of ‘African’ leadership and management in organization studies: Tensions, contradictions and possibilities. Organization, 18, 365–386. Nkomo S. M. (2015). Challenges for management and business education in a ‘developmental’ state: The case of South Africa. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 14, 242–258. Nkomo, S. M., & Ngambi, H. (2009). African women in leadership: Current knowledge and a framework for future studies. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies, 4(1), 49–68. Saleem, S., & Larimo, J. (2017). Hofstede cultural framework and advertising research: An assessment of the literature. In G. Christodoulides, A. Stathopoulou, & M. Eisend (eds), Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. VII) (pp. 247–263). Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Sathiparsad, R., Taylor, M., & Dlamini, S. (2008). Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity. Family Politics, 76, 4–16. Shen, J. (2004). International performance appraisals: Policies, practices and determinants in the case of Chinese multinational companies. International Journal of Manpower, 25(6), 547–563. Shen, W., & Joseph, D. L. (2021). Gender and leadership: A criterion-focused review and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review, 31(2), 100765. Sivakumar, K., & Nkata, C. (2001). The stampede towards Hofstede’s framework. Journal of International Business Studies, 32(3), 555–574. Smith, A. (1991). The Wealth of Nations. New York: Prometheus Books. Tatli, A., & Özbilgin, M. F. (2012). An emic approach to intersectional study of diversity at work: A Bourdieuan framing. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14, 180–200. Theimann, N. M., April, K., & Blass, E. (2006). Context tension: Cultural influences on leadership and management practice. Reflections, 7, 38–51. Thomas, A., & Bendixen, M. (2000). The management implications of ethnicity in South Africa. Journal of International Business Studies, 31, 507–519. Van Rensburg, G. (2013). The Leadership Challenge in Africa. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., & Aryee, S. (2011). Leadership and management in Africa: A synthesis and suggestion for future research. Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, 84, 425–439. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.2011.02034.x. Western, S. (2013). Leadership: A Critical Text. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Willig, C. (2008). Introducing Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill. Yawson, R. (2017). Leadership development in South Africa. In A. Ardichvili & K. Dirani (eds), Leadership Development in Emerging Market Economies (pp. 93–109). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
19. Cracks in diversity: pink money, depoliticization, and conservatism in Brazil Luiz Alex Silva Saraiva and Camilla Quental
Beyond social representations that portray Brazil as a festive country inhabited by a diverse and friendly people – and as a context where stereotypical references to samba, mixed-race women, and carnaval are not lacking (Rezende, 2008) – we consider cracks in Brazilian diversity, which have led to harsh realities of inequality and segregation (Leiva & Santos, 2018; Salata, 2020). Our argument is based on over a decade’s worth of research that we have conducted on Brazilian gay people.1 We show that the desire for inclusion and belonging by middle-class gay men has led to a process of depoliticizing what it means to be gay socially, politically, and economically and notably alongside expanding conservatism in Brazil. We must revisit, if only briefly, the history of Brazil to show that the reproduction of inequality is a historical project existing among members of all social groups, even those who were originally oppressed. From the outset, groups will adopt every mechanism at their disposal to sustain a series of privileges for their members, which leads to a permanent scenario of inequality (Schwarcz, 2019). This perspective not only unveils the Brazil we capture in our research – a far more complex context than the one conveyed in stereotypes of the Brazilian samba and carnaval – but also reveals the impossibility of discussing organizational dynamics in isolation from the social, political, and economic contexts in which organizations live. By adopting this approach, our analysis transcends the traditionally strict limits placed on organizations, allowing us to present a revealing exploration of our phenomenon of study.
BRAZIL, A HISTORICALLY CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY Intellectuals, such as Ángel Rama (2015) argue that a significant share of the process of constructing inequality in Latin America was triggered by the creation of a literate elite that actively differentiated itself from the illiterate. This process required not only knowledge of the written language but also the creation and organization of environments attended to and enjoyed by the elite to the detriment of the rest of the population (Bértola & Williamson, 2017). In turn, this process led to the establishment of deeply unequal cities, with planned and organized cores set against disorganized peripheries (Ferranti et al., 2004). Inequalities have always been present in Brazil, from the occupation of specific environments to the manifestation of distinct levels of access to education, culture, and health care, as well as the controlled circulation of ‘different’ people in areas where they are not welcome. Women, Black people, indigenous people, and the poor were tolerated in wealthier areas of Latin American cities only to the extent that they served local dominant groups. As soon as their usefulness waned, these groups were returned to live out their secondary social positions in outlying quarters or city areas where they ‘belonged’ (Galeano, 2010). 272
Cracks in diversity 273 Inequality in Brazil dates from the arrival of Portuguese settlers more than five centuries ago. Brazil thus developed as an exploited land colonized by Portugal, which, on the one hand, did not have the resources to turn its newfound lands into colonial settlements and, on the other, had a clear interest in exploiting the other side of the Atlantic Ocean as much as possible. To ensure a certain degree of ‘civility’, some local organization was necessary, which, not by chance, coincided with the establishment of environments and social spaces attended by white people. As a result, schools, churches, and the ‘social’ component of households maintained European characteristics by excluding the uncivilized ‘others’. However, there was an exception: the process of catechizing indigenous people through instruction in the Portuguese language and the Christian faith, which was well-aligned with the colonization project (Villalta, 1997).2 Once catechized, indigenous people came to not only adhere to a larger – and Christian – project but also mediated colonial expansion within the scope of their contact with other indigenous people (Almeida, 2017). However, catechization did not mean full integration, which remained almost exclusively restricted to white people. The abolition of slavery in 1888 in Brazil – the most recent instance in Latin America – was problematic. Far from being a moment when the Brazilian Empire realized that it needed to align with the vanguards of the world at the time, the end of slavery was associated with pressure from England for a free market operated by free people, even though defining what the term ‘freedom’ meant was left to local rulers. For Black people living in quilombos (settlements) (Águas, 2012), abolition did not imply any form of compensation for the almost 400 years of slavery – quite the contrary. Authors such as Vellozo and Almeida (2019) argue that imperial society had a pact against enslaved people whereby these people were not allowed emancipation from their historical conditions of submission. The consequences of this history have persisted to the present day, with numerous indicators of inferior living conditions for Black people in Brazil (Instituto Brasileiro de Direito Urbanístico, 2017). We argue that there are four assumptions enshrined in the official history of Brazil: (1) Brazil is a harmonious and conflict-free country; (2) Brazilians are averse to any form of hierarchy; (3) there are no instances of racial, religious, or gender hate; and (4) Brazilian natural resources have a special character, as represented in the popular saying, ‘God is Brazilian’. Historically, these assumptions have been – and remain – objects of manipulation and appropriation, which soften a reality that is much more complex and diverse (Schwarcz, 2019). This short historical introduction reveals that, despite being a diverse country where interracial family relationships are commonplace, Brazil is not a context where equal people coexist. Throughout various periods of Brazilian history, dominant groups have always endeavored to distinguish themselves from others to maintain their positions of privilege. However, conditions that could have allowed the emergence of a collective movement questioning historical privileges have rather reproduced privilege among oppressed social groups. Our focal group of subjects – middle-class gay men – have reproduced and maintained the logic of inequality and privilege by overlooking oppression in the rest of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, transgender, and transsexual (LGBT) community, even though they too are part of this oppressed social category.
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SEXUALITY AS A MARKER OF DIFFERENCE Though historical records suggest that social asymmetries are a rural phenomenon in Brazil, this is a misconception. Inequality is not rural nor does it present in a ‘pure’ manner. Rather, various inequalities are typically intertwined, with socially disadvantaged individuals experiencing ‘structural and dynamic consequences of the interaction between two or more axes of subordination’ (Crenshaw, 2002, p. 177), Furthermore, with cities acting as population magnets, urbanization processes aggravate inequalities. Thus, being poor is usually accompanied by subaltern racial conditions and life in the periphery. In a complex society such as Brazil, intersectional issues have proven to be even more challenging, given the peculiarities such as the racial conditions of ‘subalternization’ (Ramos & Tomesani, 2019), the origins and mechanisms of the reproduction of poverty (Rocha, 2015), and the marginalization of professional possibilities (Golgher, 2010). We bring a specific oppressed social group – LGBT people – to the forefront of our analysis. Although issues of gender and sexuality permeate the existence of LGBT people, they do so in an asymmetric fashion. This reality thus merits a closer examination of the various groups represented by each of the letters of the acronym. We argue that within the LGBT community there is a spectrum of inequalities and distinctive conditions.3 Current research on difference is situated around the notion of ‘normality’. In the case of gay people, normality is translated into the heteronormative worldview, which can be defined as ‘a normative regime that privileges heterosexuality’ (Öztürk et al., 2020, p. 1256). The notion of order, or structuring life in collectivity, comes from sociology, more specifically from the ideas of Émile Durkheim (Bowring, 2016; Rawls, 2009). The argument for order is straightforward: order that limits natural individual impulses is necessary for life in society, and obedience to this order ensures social cohesion. To order a society and make collective life viable is to dispose of elements in a manner that creates standards to which everyone must individually adjust to a greater or lesser degree (Thorlindsson & Bernburg, 2004). Order implies the systematic valorization of certain characteristics – to the explicit or implicit detriment of others – for a given purpose. In society, order thus creates a dangerous standard of ‘normality’ as it differentiates and hierarchizes people according to how similar – or different – they are from what is expected. There is no such thing as ‘normal’ or ‘normality’: these terms point to elements of control and coercion within community life. The limits of order thus begin from the outset when ‘normalizing’ differences are subjected to a form of systematization. This in turn can give rise to classification, categorization, and hierarchization of ideas, places, and individuals, including racism, sexism, xenophobia, and LGBT-phobia. The ‘invention’ of normality thus manifests a set of dispositions – framing, classifying, and thus controlling – that are imposed on all members of a social group. Subjects are then forced to conform to a standard by which they are measured. Any variation may be subject to corrective action – at various levels and scales – that fully adjusts subjects to normality. When sexuality is framed, such as in the case of gay men, several aspects of these ‘different’ people will be affected. The male stereotype implies that men must be virile, strong, masculine, providers, aggressive, active, and attractive to women to fulfill their social function (Hentschell et al., 2019). A man who is affectionate towards and desiring of another man sexually thus harms this well-defined role. Even if this man occasionally displays the male stereotype of virility, he
Cracks in diversity 275 will not avoid being taken as ‘less of a man’ or even being symbolically denied his manhood if he identifies as gay (Fieber & Meyer, 1997). Various institutions such as family, education, and religion also actively work to produce standards of normality. A ‘normal’ family must consist of a father, a mother, and at least one child, all of whom must be cisgender (i.e., corresponding to their birth sex) heterosexuals. Attaining moral precepts associated with religion is normal and expected: marriage, with the hope of procreation, is the union of a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman (Kitzinger, 2005). A conventional family also functions as a domestic ideology (Weeks, 2012), dictating what all other families should be: a heterosexual, nuclear family. Any variation is regarded as a social threat, one that must be fought to the bitter end. Around the world, the conservative furor against non-conventional families, the adoption of children by lesbian or gay couples, and transgender people reflects a view that these arrangements hurt ‘nature’ or ‘the will of God’. Thus, a blind and unproblematized adherence to the notion of heteronormativity is conveyed and produced by the conventional family model. If we examine education, the same pattern is identified. Much of what we observe in schools is training for social order: students must be creative but only within the boundaries set by teachers, the unquestioned authorities. At the slightest sign of ‘discrepancies’, professionals are expected to alert their superiors, who, in turn, trigger power mechanisms until parents are contacted. Pedagogical meetings then orient parents on how to best proceed in educating their children ‘properly’ at home. Gay children suffer from an awareness – whether clear or diffuse – of their condition of difference, as well as the broad social repertoire – reproduced at school – of what defines ‘normal’ children. Therefore, what a boy should be is bound by aspects such as appearance, language, dedication to studies, sports, and relationships with other boys and girls, teachers, and parents. Subtly or violently, all boys are reminded at school of the ‘correct’ way of presenting themselves to achieve acceptance (Simon & Gagnon, 2007). As shown in many studies, most gay men view schools as hostile environments where they experienced a mix of insecurity and fear (Rofes, 2005). Although there are significant differences between the form of organizing in the West and the East, Western religion founded on Christianity is yet another institution subject to ‘normality’. With a standard of morality at stake supported by faith and a given interpretation of texts held sacred by members of a given religious community, the path to redemption is determined by the faithful. Adherence to faith, compliance with norms, adoption of exemplary behavior, and mechanisms reinforcing ‘good thoughts and actions’ lead to salvation. An individual engaging in affective and sexual relationships with a person of the same sex undermines the established order because it defies what is ‘naturally disposed by the Lord’ and, therefore, must be restrained by an even stricter framework to save individuals from sin (Greenberg & Bystryn, 1982). ‘Sinners’ are perceived as lost individuals who have deviated from the path to salvation and, therefore, need to be saved at all costs, even against their own will (Berliner, 1987). This perspective has given rise to many initiatives, such as the compulsory internment of young gay men in ‘gay conversion therapy clinics’ – a ‘cure’ that allows these individuals to lead a life according to God’s will. A broad institutionalized apparatus that makes normality as unquestionable as existence is the essential ingredient determining why violent resources are mobilized to maintain social order. Living a sexual or gender identity outside standards of normality has always implied exclusion: those who are ‘different’ fit into societies in an ‘invisibilized’ manner and always
276 Research handbook on inequalities and work at the margins. Regardless of background, personality, and schooling, individuals perceived as dissidents have always paid a price. Violence against the LGBT population in general – and gay men in particular – can thus be interpreted as an inability to deal with difference. Since there are other perspectives at play with other possibilities for social dynamics, instability is not regarded as something that improves society. On the contrary, difference must be eradicated to avoid ‘contamination’, with family, education, and religion working together to make the world more homogeneous. Even in the absence of intent by abusers, hegemony relies on invoking various forms of violence: gay men are denied the right to display affection in public (Geurtsen, 1994), ‘out of place’ mannerisms and speech are ‘straightened’ (Cox & Fay, 1994), non-conformity with social norms is met with jokes and mockery, and laughter and hedonism serve multiple purposes of entertaining and identifying and controlling perceived difference (Irigaray et al., 2010). There are far more explicit forms of violence, such as verbal assaults, psychological violence, workplace harassment, physical assaults, torture, and even the murder of LGBT people. Brazil has the highest levels of LGBT murders in the world, with gay people living in conditions of constant threat (Mendes & Silva, 2020). Due to inequality, this threat is not experienced uniformly in Brazil: a young, rich, white gay man living in a large urban center is less likely to be murdered than a young, poor, Black gay man living in the outskirts. Since it is not safe to be different in Brazil, gay people must resist both socially and politically a hegemony that – through ordering – intends to tame and even erase differences.
BEING GAY IN A HETERONORMATIVE SOCIETY: INVISIBILITY, PERSECUTION, GHETTOS, AND PINK MONEY An inattentive view of the world today could lead to hasty and ill-informed conclusions about how being LGBT is ‘easy’ in most countries in the Global North and more challenging in the Global South. This view not only grossly misinterprets multiple differences within the LBGT community but also disregards asymmetries within countries. It also depoliticizes achievements following a history of struggle that allowed gender and sexuality to be viewed as conditions of difference and, therefore, human dignity. In the historical development of heteronormative societies in the Americas, we call attention to the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village (Lower Manhattan, New York), which welcomed not only white gay men but also an ever-widening and diverse set of people living on the margins of society – lesbians, transvestites, transgender people, and drag queens, as well as Black and Latino gay men. The LGBT community was a place of welcome, where people could share, in addition to music and dance, the experience of living a life of difference (Stein, 2019). Police raids were frequent, and officers routinely threatened bar employees for selling illegal drinks and patrons for dressing inappropriately. It was a reality infused with disrespect and violence (Andriote, 2017) until the end of June 1969, when regular patrons led a two-day protest – the Stonewall Riots or Stonewall Uprising – and confronted the New York Police Department. The Stonewall Uprising was a milestone in LGBT history due to not only the violent, collective response to police abuse but also the rejection of subordinate conditions. The latent strength of the LGBT community was materialized in the response, an awakening of a fight against oppression and an opportunity to organize and influence political and social spheres. It
Cracks in diversity 277 was a response that revealed that ‘gay people fight back’.4 The following year, 10 000 people marched in honor of the Stonewall Uprising and to protest inequality. Later, the rally evolved into the New York Pride March, the model for similar demonstrations around the world. Stonewall was the catalyst for a sense of pride that would spread with varying effects in the United States. Gay people organized to elect representatives in the legislative branch of the government and pushed the executive branch to address the demands of the LGBT community. Although exclusion has remained in the most marginalized segments, there have also been significant advances, such as the integration of identity and gender issues in the fight for civil rights. The LGBT community, however, does not represent a homogeneous experience in the United States nor in other places around the word. In many nations, being gay is still a crime punishable by death. Though not without struggle, tolerance for LGBT people is emerging. No longer hiding in social shadows, these people have gradually broken professional and gender stereotypes, proving that inclusion does not depend on sexuality and that identifying with a given gender or sexual orientation does not determine character, occupation, or social trajectory. Such a perspective, in turn, leads to a process of gaining tolerance, less due to difference – a still troublesome issue in many countries – and more due to economic power. The purchasing power of LGBT people for goods and services has given rise to ‘pink money’, which has paved the way to tolerance. This pragmatic, capitalist perspective is associated with the consumption or boycott of goods and services by particular social groups. In the United States, LGBT people first organized to use pink money as a political mechanism to assert their position in society (Stolle & Micheletti, 2013). We argue that the political agenda of inclusion and equanimity drives the purchasing power of LGBT people, configuring a modality of barter with consumption in exchange for recognition and respect.
PINK MONEY, SOCIAL TOLERANCE, DEPOLITICIZATION, AND CONSERVATISM IN BRAZIL In Brazil, the historical trajectory of LGBT people has been nothing like the one in the United States. Sharp asymmetries between social groups have led to a chasm that has only widened over time: the ultra-neoliberal model in Brazil feeds upon a Darwinian logic of competition – all against all. Oppressed groups, such as the poor, women, Black people, and gay people, have ended up competing among themselves for more space and resources for their causes, However, these groups also criticize competition since this phenomenon weakens solidarity, as well as agendas aimed at a more egalitarian society. Since LGBT people have continuously borne the consequences of resisting heteronormativity, an understanding of subjective, symbolic, social, affective, and sexual particularities is essential. While these aspects have been addressed in gender and sexuality studies, objective aspects, such as economic inclusion and the means by which LGBT people use the economy to not only survive but gain an advantage, are scarce. Further, our research on Brazilian gay men has shown that the role of consumption has been underestimated in the literature. Following several years of research, our first set of studies,5 focused on masculinities, sexualities, coming out, and taboo, revealed that gay men claim to experience a continuous ‘stiffening’ of their masculinities sparked by not only being men but also relating affectively and sexually with other men. These men were constantly concerned with avoiding the expres-
278 Research handbook on inequalities and work sion of – or giving the impression of – femininity, which would affect their representations of masculinity. One taboo mentioned in our interviews was how sexuality was experienced and to what extent this implied limits to life or secrets in society, since being gay remained a ‘different thing’ (Caproni Neto et al., 2014; Caproni Neto et al., 2015). Various forms of prejudice, discrimination, and violence were the focus of our second set of studies6 (Caproni Neto et al., 2013; Caproni Neto & Saraiva, 2018; Eccel et al., 2015; Irigaray et al., 2010; Natt et al., 2015; Saraiva, 2016; Saraiva et al., 2020; Siqueira et al., 2009). Respondents constructed rigid representations of how men and masculinity should be represented revealing that the generalization of prejudice about differences can manifest even within the LGBT community, leading to discrimination and violence for those individuals who do not fit hegemonic gay stereotypes. Our third group of studies focused on themes of inclusion, work, and empowerment7 (Magalhães et al., 2017; Magalhães & Saraiva, 2018; Saraiva, 2011; Saraiva & Irigaray, 2009). Respondents revealed that even jobs imply a certain degree of inclusion, with many reporting the vexing situation of having to financially depend on their families. However, we again perceived the power of stereotypes in the professional sphere, with effeminate gay men typically not considered fit for leadership. Rather, their ‘natural habitat’ included aesthetic and beauty activities, relatively inferior positions in the job market. Some exceptions in respondent narratives, however, suggested the possibility of empowerment, but they were typically restricted to organizations with formalized diversity policies. Empowerment also requires strong commitment from gay people to gain advantage in a game whereby gay people are used to generate a profit and promote a positive business reputation. This third set of studies did address some objective aspects, such as the impact of having a well-paid job. Among those interviewed, it should be noted that it was rare for gays to achieve such prestigious positions, both in terms of leadership and commanding positions in business hierarchies. This is due, as studies suggest, to a predominantly ‘masculine’ pattern of leadership, with the associated stereotypes of ‘aggressive’, ‘intimidating’, etc., which is not always in accordance with the profile of gay men, who are not considered as ‘suitable’ to lead. In general, the few successful gay men have studied in good, expensive schools and prestigious universities, conditions that are already very selective since both the high-quality education and the opportunities and networks built in these environments favor professional insertion and advancement. The issue of social class is quite evident as an expressive marker of access and permanence in good jobs, suggesting effective limits in the horizontal mobility of the population, even though there are affirmative policies that guarantee 50% vacancies in Brazilian public universities. The racial issue also stands out in this sense, since there are practically no non-white gays in informal leadership positions or in the formal high hierarchies of companies. Unlike their heterosexual counterparts, these gay men systematically referred to discretion in the workplace when describing their affective/sexual life. They justified their behavior by stating that exposing oneself in a professional environment was unnecessary. As a result, these individuals ended up invisible, removing their sexuality from the professional sphere and basing their worth only on how much they contributed to business results. This was apparently a successful strategy because recognition and financial return soon followed. While inclusion may well have felt complete for these respondents, it was restricted to the economic sphere since their affections were removed from the workplace. In turn, they were not perceived as who they really were but rather as people who were a better fit for aspirational business models. Personal lives thus become entangled with professional ones. On the one
Cracks in diversity 279 hand, superior economic conditions imply a superior capacity to consume, fostering a logic of consumption and display – such as purchasing cars, watches, and designer clothes and going to the gym and traveling – that makes these gay men similar to their peers. Consumption thus operates as a leveler of experience. On the other hand, these gay men target luxury and premium goods and services, distinguishing themselves from other members of the LGBT community through a high level of purchasing power. Based on their capacity to consume, these gay men also began to reproduce heterosexual life patterns of those people who had historically rejected them. One example was having a monogamous family with children, which depends upon the ‘stable union’, legislated in Brazil in 1999, that safeguards the possibility of building family wealth and achieving economic legitimacy. In doing so, these gay men disregarded historical struggles of the LGBT movement to achieve the right to be different and to avoid naturalizing aspects such as starting a family, monogamy, and stable roles. As these subjects incorporated the standards of a middle class that solely tolerated them for what they consumed or purchased, they not only weakened personal ties with the group to which they belonged but also deceived themselves about the extent to which they were included in another social class. Finally, the mimetic process of successful gay men – whereby they behaved as if they had always belonged to the middle class – led to the reproduction of conservative social positions. Not only did these gay men adhere to right-wing political projects but they also reproduced stereotypes and forms of violence against the oppressed, a group that they held fully accountable for their failure in the capitalist system. The respondents harshly criticized these ‘other’ gay men for their lack of success. The respondents believed that being poor and underpaid was due to a failure to gain proper training and qualifications, which left these ‘other’ gay men bound to simple survival, unable to consume and have a comfortable, material life. We observed an inversion whereby ‘other’ gay men were blamed rather than the system, one that was based on a fallacious discourse of meritocracy and exploited inequality. The respondents also criticized the sexual practices of other gay men: if they spent less time looking for sexual partners, if they focused less on sex, and if they were monogamous, what could they have achieved? These highly conservative statements mimicked representations actively employed by the most conservative groups that sought to segregate gay people to peripheral social places. Segregation was justified by claims that gay people did not behave ‘as they should’ – refusing to succumb to a type of heteronormativity that violated and excluded those who did not comply with its logic. The respondents stated that if other gay men were ‘more normal’, they would have had enough time to build an existence ‘more’ valued by society. This statement revealed a degree of depoliticization regarding who the respondents were, as well as their peers, and it seemed to confuse economic inclusion with social tolerance. In sum, our inquiry into Brazilian gay men illustrated a fragmented struggle for individuals who had been subjected to varying forms of oppression, including capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism. While the resistance was fragmented, the forms of domination were, however, articulated and intrinsically linked (de Sousa Santos, 2018). In a recent article, Judith Butler (2021) called attention to not only why ‘gender’ provokes so much backlash worldwide but also why ‘solidarity’ is so important. After an angry mob of people had burned her effigy outside a venue where she was to give a lecture in 2018, Butler (2021) made the following appeal:
280 Research handbook on inequalities and work it makes no sense for ‘gender critical’ feminists to ally with reactionary powers in targeting trans, non-binary, and genderqueer people. Let’s all get truly critical now, for this is no time for any of the targets of this movement to be turning against one another. The time for anti-fascist solidarity is now.
CONCLUSION In this chapter, we argue that there are cracks – if not fractures – in the diversity of Brazil that prompt the current powerful grip of inequality and segregation among Brazilians. To this end, we mobilize data from our research – conducted on gay men for more than a decade – to reveal that a desire for inclusion and a feeling of belonging have led middle-class gay men to embark on a process of depoliticization of what it means to be gay – socially, politically, and economically and within a context of expanding conservatism. Prompted by our analysis of the many testimonies of these middle-class gay men, we were led to several uncomfortable questions alongside subsequent personal reflections. We first recognized that labels are not sufficient to define individuals: people can be many things at once. However, differences can configure expressive aspects of who we are: a ‘different’ existence will be lived when one identifies as gay, and this difference will pervade family, education, and religion, as well as other related spheres of social life. A ‘different’ existence also confers the possibility of situating oneself in the world based on the condition of being gay. However, being gay is not something that can be cast aside for the sake of making new friends, getting pay raises, or achieving professional goals: it is an integral part of who one is. Although this may sound like a call to essence, it is not. We rather call for necessary self-criticism for constituting oneself in society in relation to others. When missing, a critical view can appear as a desperate plea for acceptance under any set of conditions. Further, we contend that gay people are not to be tolerated: they are to be recognized as human beings who have the right to live their lives as they see fit. We thus follow Butler (1990) arguing that difference is a constitutive condition of being human and that notions of ‘normality’ are artificial and highly ideologized. We also recognize that differences – especially amidst the socially oppressed – imply political positions of resistance that do not depend on individual income levels. Money and the pursuit of capitalistic goals do not erase difference: they must be put into perspective to avoid mistaking tolerance for acceptance. Within infinite human difference, we must be attuned to the march of conservatism that erases difference, submitting minorities to the majority and artificial projects of social ‘normalization’. These are idealizations ill-fitted for contemporary society. Finally, we recognize that there are differences among gay men like the inescapable inequalities of Brazil. The poorest members of the LGBT community continue to live under inferior living and working conditions that reflect fundamentally subordinated existences. However, does it pay off for gay men who endeavor to avoid this scenario? For some, it is important to take advantage of a system that exploits people: if ‘the system’ can be used to secure power and money, all the better. Are there limits to this rationale? Not all people respect LGBT people for who they are. Many respect gay people only when they conform to heteronormativity and consume goods and services to balance relationships. If hegemonic norms are rejected and consumption limited, the degree of respectability can decrease. As a result,
Cracks in diversity 281 a fight for all, including for those who are ‘different’, remains a crucial goal in a society where having more is often more important than having humanity.
NOTES 1. In this regard, we do not assign the same connotation to the terms ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay’ in this chapter because we do not aim to reduce a man who is affectionate and sexually attracted to another man to his sexuality alone. The term ‘gay’ is a more recent one, encompassing lifestyle, affectivity, and a sense of political community more broadly. It is therefore more accurate. We also acknowledge that the term ‘homosexual’ is part of a disciplinary discourse that medicalizes gay sexualities. In this sense, the term ‘homosexual’ leads to essentialization. At times we also employ the term ‘LGBT’ (i.e., the acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, transgender, and transsexual), which is even more novel and has a broader meaning than ‘gay’ since it incorporates multiple sexualities and gender identities. However, to avoid the risk of anachronism, we respect the use of the term ‘homosexual’ as it is adopted in several articles we use as references. As a result, these terms will be used interchangeably. The term ‘LGBT’ is used when dealing with the community, even though we are aware that it has been coined more recently. 2. Villalta (1997, p. 332) mentions Pero M. Gandavo, one of the first chroniclers of the Portuguese colonization, who wrote that the Indians of the Brazilian coast ‘did not have the letters “F, nor L, nor K”’; that is, they did not have ‘Faith, nor Law, nor King’. This justified ‘teaching’ them to believe in the Christian faith, to abide by the law, and to submit to the rule of the king. 3. To avoid misinterpretation, we use the letter ‘G’ to refer to the group, taking a specific look at middle-class Brazilian gay men who have been the object of our attention for more than a decade (Caproni Neto et al., 2015; Caproni Neto & Saraiva, 2018; Caproni Neto et al., 2013; Caproni Neto et al., 2014; Eccel et al., 2015; Irigaray et al., 2010; Magalhães et al., 2017; Magalhães & Saraiva, 2018; Natt et al., 2015; Saraiva, 2011; Saraiva, 2016; Saraiva, 2020a; Saraiva, 2020b; Saraiva, 2020c; Saraiva & Irigaray, 2009; Saraiva & Rampazo, 2020; Saraiva et al., 2020; Siqueira et al., 2009). 4. From the original slogan ‘Gay people fight back!’, the title of one article drawn from the compilation entitled In the Spirit of Stonewall (Harris, 1979), which was originally published in Workers World Newspaper. 5. These investigations covered a period in which the focus was to examine contemporary configurations of masculinity in Brazilian cities. At this moment, the issue of sexuality, and in particular coming out, emerged strongly from the interviews, showing itself as a real taboo. We identified a tensioning of masculinities, which deep down was associated with questions of misogyny since the big issue was not to appear effeminate, ‘like a woman’, with a series of implications. More details can be obtained in Caproni Neto et al. (2015) and Caproni Neto et al. (2014). 6. This second group of studies, based on a qualitative approach and covering a longer period of time, presented results whose emphasis revolves around prejudice, discrimination, and violence. Masculinity continues to have a prominent place but only as it ‘distances’ itself from the feminine. It materializes in a rigid form that predisposes men to behave in a certain way under penalty of being objects of various forms of violence. The studies range from a discussion about the creation of specific bathrooms for LGBT people (Natt et al., 2015), prejudice about self-image (Eccel et al., 2015), and verbal aggressions because of heteronormativity in dating apps (Saraiva et al., 2020) through the reproduction of prejudice (Caproni Neto & Saraiva, 2018), symbolic violence in professional trajectories (Caproni Neto et al., 2013), and humor as a form of discrimination (Irigaray et al., 2010) to discussions about homophobia and moral violence (Siqueira et al., 2009) and the widespread violence against the LGBT population in Brazil (Saraiva, 2016). For more details, see Saraiva et al. (2020), Caproni Neto and Saraiva (2018), Saraiva (2016) Eccel et al. (2015), Natt et al. (2015), Caproni Neto et al. (2013), Irigaray et al. (2010), and Siqueira et al. (2009). 7. The third focus of research dealt specifically with the work context as a locus not only for the identification of the situation of LGBT people but also of possibilities of inclusion and empowerment based on their differences. In Saraiva and Irigaray (2009), the authors focused on the extent to
282 Research handbook on inequalities and work which discourses about diversity in a multinational company do have effects in everyday business practices. Saraiva (2011) argues that society, and the labour market as a result, not only discriminate by gender (such as the professions of teacher and nurse, typically female activities in Brazil) but also do so with sexual orientation, defining certain professions, such as hairdresser and make-up artist, for example, as places where gays are ‘naturally’ expected. In Magalhães et al. (2017), the authors examine the recruitment strategy of a multinational fast food company in Brazil, demonstrating, through semiotics that the company reproduces social practices of stigmatization even when it tries, in theory, to ‘include’. In the same vein, Magalhães and Saraiva (2018) examine a timid but significant process of empowerment of gays in the workplace since the cases analysed concerned people who did not hide their sexual orientation and, in fact, made it the basis of empowered positions in the professional context. For more details, see: Magalhães et al. (2017), Magalhães and Saraiva (2018), Saraiva (2011), Saraiva and Irigaray (2009).
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20. Disability and work inequalities Katherine J. C. Sang, María de los Angeles Zapata Rodriguez and Jennifer Remnant
INTRODUCTION Disabled people are one of the most vulnerable groups globally for economic inequality. The World Health Organization estimates there are approximately 1 billion disabled people globally (WHO, 2021), equating to approximately 15% of the population. Defining disability and therefore estimating the numbers of disabled people globally is contested, so in this chapter we begin by defining disability. Employment is a key site where disabled people experience exclusion and discrimination, with many disabled people reporting underemployment (working below their skills and qualifications levels) and exclusion from employment, subsequently facing poverty, which has worsened as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic (The World Bank, 2021). Although the United Nations (2007) argues that employment outcomes are comparatively better for disabled people in ‘developed’ economies, employment rates are still low. This chapter establishes the theoretical foundations of disability research and their usefulness for understanding and improving the employment experiences and outcomes of disabled people. We begin by setting out how disability is conceptualised and understood, drawing on models including the medical model, social model and social relational models. The chapter then moves on to synthesising the extant literature on disability and employment, drawing, where available, on the international literature to establish prevalent trends regarding the employment of disabled people and strategies for disability inclusion. We draw on examples that demonstrate the broad range of disability research and identifying intersections between disability and gender in relation to work inequalities. The chapter concludes by proposing a strategy for advancing disability inclusion in employment.
THEORISING DISABILITY There is a wide array of definitions and conceptualisations of disability, which range from medical approaches through to emancipatory perspectives that focus on social oppression (Table 20.1). Traditionally disability has been understood through a medicalised model, whereby disability is believed to reside within individuals due to a medical condition. Bunbury (2019) summarised the medical model of disability and its implications and identified that focusing on medical conditions has led disabled people to be seen as pitiful and lacking in autonomy. In the 1970s there was a shift towards politicising disability to move focus away from specific medical conditions and to focus instead on the social barriers faced by those living with impairments (UPIAS, 1976). This understanding of disability is called the social model of disability, whereby disability occurs when a person with an ‘impairment’ interacts 286
Disability and work inequalities 287 with a world which is not accessible to them, either physically or because of attitudinal barriers. The social model of disability led to dramatic changes for disabled people, such as an increase in accessible public transport (Oliver, 2013), and underpins most disability inclusion activism in the UK by disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and trade unions (TUC, 2019). However, the model has been subject to critique. One key criticism has been that the social model can ignore the material effects of impairment on the body; for example, pain and/or discomfort. Hughes and Paterson (1997) have argued that the social model of disability neglected the material reality of impaired bodies in its theorising and activism. Moving into the 21st century, Thomas (2004) has advocated for a move in disability theorising toward a social relational model of disability. Similar to the social model, the social relational model sees disability as a form of social oppression that arises from a person with an ‘impairment’ living in an inaccessible world. However, the social relational model also aims to address how disability is discursively constructed (how disability is constructed in opposition to able-bodiedness) and the role of impairment effects. The latter enables the lived experience of an ‘impairment’ to be theorised and taken into account in resulting disability activism and scholarship. The social relational model has been successfully used to understand disability in employment (Sang et al., 2021), and its relationship with gender (Sang et al., 2016). The authors of this chapter subscribe to the social and social relational models of disability; hence, we do not use person-first language (‘person with a disability’), rather we use terms such as ‘disabled person’ and ‘disabled employee’ to reflect the view that individuals with ‘impairments’ are disabled by ableist and inaccessible workplaces. We recognise that in many national contexts, person-first language is preferred and that the below models of disability are dominant in the Global North (Grech, 2015). It has been argued that the models do not adequately recognise imperialism and colonialism as root causes of human rights violations, famines, malnutrition and the ecological degradation of indigenous land, all of which contribute to the incidence of impairment in the Global South (Meekosha and Soldatic, 2011) Table 20.1
Three main models of disability
Model of disability
Key features
Medical model
Disability results from the medical condition. Focus Disempowers disabled people, neglects role of
Social model
Criticisms
on treatment/elimination of disability
discrimination
Disability is social oppression arising from living
Neglects the role of the body
with an impairment in an inaccessible world Empowers disabled people Social relational model
Disability is a discursively constructed social
(Thomas, 2004)
oppression arising from living with an impairment in
A relatively new theory, still in development
an inaccessible world Impairment effects will inform the lived experiences of disabled people Empowers disabled people
DEFINING DISABILITY IN LAW While there is strong history of disability activism in theorising disability, there are also legal definitions of disability that underpin the practices of managers, employers and trade unions
288 Research handbook on inequalities and work and their roles in workplace disability inclusion. While there are national differences in how disability is legally defined, Table 20.2 illustrates some shared themes in legislation; namely, that disability is legally understood to be a limitation on or negative related to aspects of daily life. In the United Kingdom and Europe, any condition can be considered a ‘disability’ if it meets the legal criteria, while cancer, multiple sclerosis and HIV automatically meet the definition and confer legal protection. However, it is also clear that most legal definitions do not address the oppression faced by disabled people and rather focus on loss of functioning, which is a medicalised approach to disability, though there are some exceptions. Table 20.2
Selected national legal and regional definitions of disability
Country (All signed/ratified the Convention of the Rights
Legal definition
of Persons with Disabilities (2014)) United Kingdom (not Northern Ireland)
You are disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical
Equality Act, 2010 (UK Government, no date)
or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities
United States
A person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA National Network, limits one or more major life activity 2021) France
Any limitation on the activity or restriction of participation in the life of a person in society because of a substantial or permanent impairment of one or more physical functions constitutes a disability
Malawi
‘A long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment,
Disability Act, 2012 (UNICEF, 2019)
which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder the full and effective participation in society of a person on equal basis with other
Japan
persons’ To be covered by the Promotion of Employment for Persons with
Law for Promotion of Employment for Persons with
Disabilities Act, a person must be ‘subject to considerable restriction
Disabilities, 1960 (amended 2013)
in vocational life, or have great difficulty in leading a vocational
Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities, 1970 (amended
life’. Therefore, those with a mild degree of disability and only minor
2011)
restriction on their work are not considered to be covered by the Act
Disabled Persons’ Fundamental Law, 1993
(i)‘Person with a disability’ refers to a person with a physical disability,
(Government of Japan, 1993)
a person with an intellectual disability, a person with a mental disability (including developmental disabilities), and other persons with disabilities affecting the functions of the body or mind (hereinafter referred to collectively as ‘disabilities’), and who are in a state of facing substantial limitations in their continuous daily life or social life because of a disability or a social barrier (ii)‘Social barriers’ refers to items, institutions, practices, ideas, and other things in society that stand as obstacles against persons with disabilities engaging in daily life or social life
Peru
People with disabilities are ‘those with permanent physical, sensorial,
Law for People with Disabilities, 2012
mental or intellectual impairments, who in interaction with attitudinal and environmental barriers are prevented to exercise their rights and their plenty and effective inclusion in society’ (Peruvian Congress, 2012: 2)
Malawi in southern Africa introduced a Disability Act in 2012 that draws explicitly on the social model of disability, putting into law the protection and rights of disabled people. However, despite policy work at the governmental level, Malawian trade unions, educators
Disability and work inequalities 289 and disability activists report ongoing wide-reaching disability discrimination at both infrastructural and individual levels enabled by a wide application of a medicalised/deficit model of disability. Peru in South America also introduced a law for disabled people in 2012, drawing on the social model of disability, by defining disabled people as those living with impairments that are negatively affected by environmental barriers. Furthermore, in 2018, the Civil Code was reformed and included the legal capacity of disabled people, especially those living with intellectual impairments. Both legal frameworks have helped to create more inclusive physical environments while also redefining the position of disabled people in Peruvian society by recognising similar rights as those for non-impaired individuals. The following table summarises selected legal frameworks used in some countries, showing which theoretical model has been referenced. It also provides a general understanding of political interests when they were issued. It is clear that disability is legally understood as resulting from an impairment that has a substantial effect on functioning. Therefore we can see that disability is legally conceptualised using individualised medicalised models of disability. While legal frameworks predominately rely on the medical model of disability, disability laws also place responsibilities on organisations, including the providers of public services and employers, to provide adjustments to accommodate disabled individuals. Within the UK these are referred to as ‘reasonable adjustments’, with the view that such adjustments should be reasonable to both parties. These adjustments can be varied but often include automatic doors, slopes/ramps rather than steps, sign language interpreters and flexible working. However, despite the high rates of disability among working-age populations, disability and employment is comparatively under-researched. A notable aspect of the legal frameworks outlined is that they do not assure workplaces’ compliance. This is important because organisational and individual understandings of workplace entitlements might have an impact on how disabled employees navigate employment and potentially whether or not they choose to disclose their conditions or symptoms. Even with the awareness of disability being a legally protected characteristic, in a country where people cannot rely on welfare states benefits, such as in low-income countries, this might not be that effective. Corby et al. (2019) compared the workplace experiences of disabled people in the UK and France, arguing that France’s unemployment rate for disabled people is lower than the UK’s due to more stringent legal enforcements of disability law and use of quotas for the number of disabled people a company should employ.
DISABILITY AND EMPLOYMENT Across the globe, disability is associated with greater levels of unemployment and underemployment. Emerson et al. (2021) identified that disabled people in the UK were more likely to report a reduction in working hours and increased financial stress, demonstrating that disabled people are particularly vulnerable to poor negative employment outcomes. The following section of this chapter investigates the extant research on disability and lived experiences of employment.
290 Research handbook on inequalities and work Disability, Unemployment and Underemployment Determining the proportion of disabled people who are in employment is challenging given shifting definitions of disability and economic participation, as well as the different ways countries record such data. Table 20.3 provides estimates of the rates of employment and unemployment for disabled people across a range of countries. Not all countries provide employment rates; rather, they may provide unemployment rates and these are used where necessary. Table 20.3
Employment and unemployment rates across a range of countries
Country
Rates of disability employment or
Notable trends
unemployment (where available) UK (UK Government, 2021)
Employment rate: 52%
Autistic people experience lowest rates of
France (Holland, 2021)
Unemployment rate: 18%
Legal quotas in place to improve employment
United States (Bureau of Labor
Employment rate: 17.9% overall, 29% for
Rates of employment are decreasing for
employment rates Statistics, 2021)
those between 16 and 64
disabled people
Peru (ILO, 2019)
Unemployment rate: 12.1%
Improving employment rates
Japan
48.6%
Legal quotas in place to increase employment rates of disabled people
In addition to unemployment, disabled people are more likely to experience underemployment, poor working conditions or low pay. For example, disabled people in Scotland are more likely than non-disabled people to experience in-work poverty (in employment but living below the poverty line), particularly disabled women. Interviews with individuals and couples in employment but below the poverty line revealed that while disabled people may have access to paid employment, it is often precarious and poorly paid (irrespective of the skills and qualifications of the worker) (Richards and Sang, 2019). Richards and Sang (2021) have conceptualised this disadvantage experienced by disabled people as a feature of socially irresponsible human resource management, arguing that in-work poverty arises from unfair employment practices that lack transparency, exclude worker voice and limit employees’ opportunities for progression and development. In other words, the in-work poverty predominately experienced by disabled people is the result of socially irresponsible human resource practices. Disability and Workplace Discrimination A consistent theme across the international literature is that disabled people report considerable disadvantage in employment. Disabled people experience various forms of employment-based discrimination at all career stages, including recruitment, promotion/progression and exiting the workplace (Kim et al., 2019). For instance, access to development opportunities is often limited, and disabled employees can struggle to secure necessary workplace accommodations from unknowing or unsympathetic managers or be subject to humiliation and mistreatment (Sang et al., 2015), including highly qualified office-based work environments. Research by Sang et al. (2021) drawing on Thomas’ (2004) social relational model of disability demonstrated that disabled people working in UK universities reported a range of patterns of discrimination and exclusion, some of which can be linked back to informal human
Disability and work inequalities 291 resource practices. Specifically, a key feature of UK universities is that academics are often line managed by colleagues who have little human resources training and often rotate every 3–5 years. In this study, none of the respondents had formalised their workplace adjustments through the university HR team as they reported concerns that this would affect their career progression. As a consequence, informal arrangements were made with line managers; for example, working from 10 AM to 6 PM to avoid peak hour traffic. These informal adjustments were not recorded and therefore did not transfer to a new line manager, and the process of disclosing disability had to be repeated. Unpublished results by Zapata, Sang and Richards (2021) confirm that who the leader is and how workers perceive them have an impact in their willingness to disclose an impairment. A key concept for understanding the marginalisation of disabled people in the workplace is ableism, which can be understood as the stereotypes, prejudices and social oppression that disabled people are subject to (Bogart and Dunn, 2019) or, more simply, an employer preference for able-bodied people. Ableism is inherently tied to concepts of the ideal worker, where a disabled person, by virtue of their ‘impairment’, cannot be the ideal worker (Jammaers and Zanoni, 2021). The ideal worker is unencumbered by a body that requires adjustments. Acker (2006) advanced understandings of the ideal worker, drawing attention to the implicit gendered norms of the structure of employment, which privilege those without domestic responsibilities. Jammaers and Zanoni’s (2021) work demonstrates the ideal worker is also able-bodied. As Sang et al. (2021) have revealed, this able-bodied ideal worker is normative in the workplace and can lead to disabled people internalising these norms and withdrawing themselves from promotion and job opportunities. The experiences of disabled employees are also influenced by the nature of their ‘impairment’. Cancer is an area which has received considerable attention in the literature. Mehnert (2011) revealed that cancer survivors were more likely to be unemployed than those without a cancer diagnosis. However, employment is a key factor in financial and general well-being for those with a cancer diagnosis (Blinder and Gany, 2020), suggesting that there is benefit for both individuals and society from supporting access to and retention of good work. Remnant (2019) demonstrated the complexity of efforts to support employment, arguing that understandings of deservingness (from both employee and employer) for support influenced the employment relationship. Importantly Remnant’s (2019) study draws our attention to the need to understand the employment relationship in the context of the broader social security systems in place to support those living with a condition such as cancer, as we mentioned earlier in the chapter. Beyond particular conditions, specific impairment effects also influence experiences of employment. Irwin et al. (2006) undertook an international comparison, revealing that urinary incontinence is associated with embarrassment and, at work, can result in shame associated with having to disrupt work (e.g. leaving meetings) and influence the hours and nature of work that individuals choose to undertake. White (2021) researched the experiences of workers managing irritable bowel syndrome, a condition associated with sudden and unpredictable defecation, pain and other physical symptoms. White (ibid.) revealed that workers who do not have ready access to bathrooms, for example, make strategic decisions to manage their conditions. Workers may plan their commute or work routes (for peripatetic workers) so that they can access bathrooms or even avoid food at work, revealing an additional layer of work that needs to be undertaken by those with hidden impairments. Interestingly, Woodhams et al.
292 Research handbook on inequalities and work (2015) suggest that men and women can experience different employment outcomes associated with disability.
DISABILITY, GENDER AND EMPLOYMENT While the available literature suggests that disabled people experience considerable negative employment experiences and outcomes, the intersection between disability and gender is not well-understood. There is an emerging body of literature that does aim to understand how the social oppressions of gender and disability intersect and that suggests disabled women are particularly vulnerable to poor employment experiences, although disabled men are more likely to be working in occupations numerically dominated by men (Woodhams et al., 2015). Research by Sang et al. (2016) revealed, through interviews and focus groups with neurodivergent transport white-collar workers in the UK, that disability and gender can both be understood from a social relational perspective. Drawing on Connell’s social relational model of gender (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005) and Thomas’ (2004) social relational model of disability, Sang et al. (2016) argue that disability cannot be understood without considering gender. Namely, disability, in the form of neurodivergence, destabilises men’s ability to engage in dominant forms of hegemonic masculinity. The junction roads of disability and gender can be understood by the discussion on how bodies are examined in workplaces and how some bodies are more ‘visible’ than others. We now turn to an area of growing interest both in terms of research and also employment policy – gynaecological health conditions and their relationship to employment. While gynaecological health conditions do not automatically confer protection under legislation such as the UK Equality Act, they can have substantial negative effects on an individual’s ability to undertake day to day tasks and therefore can be legally seen as ‘disability’. Gynaecological health conditions often present for many years before a formal diagnosis is achieved; for example, it is estimated that women with endometriosis wait on average 7.5 years for a diagnosis (Endometriosis UK, 2017). Survey research suggests that women with gynaecological health conditions are often less likely to be employed full-time. Endometriosis is one condition where there have been efforts to understand the relationship with employment. Missmer et al. (2021) conducted a systematic review of the endometriosis literature, showing that women with endometriosis, across the national contexts studied, were less likely to be employed (particularly full-time), had fewer promotions, earned less and were more likely to engage in presenteeism. Yöndem and Bilgin (2020) explored, via a survey of nurses working in hospitals in Turkey, how dysmenorrhea (heavy and painful menstruation) affected nurses’ perceived job-related well-being. Their data showed that moderate to severe dysmenorrhea was associated with poor job satisfaction and medical leave but that women did not consider their condition as a health problem. Their data could be interpreted to show that women may normalise problematic menstruation, even when it negatively affects employment. Such survey-based studies highlight useful trends in data; however, they do not tell us about the lived experience of women (and trans/non-binary people) who are managing problematic gynaecological health conditions while attempting to undertake full-time paid employment. Recently, there has been an increase in qualitative research projects that aim to understand the relationship between women’s health and employment. Hardy and Hardie (2017) undertook interviews in the UK with women who experience pre-menstrual dysphoria disorder,
Disability and work inequalities 293 a condition associated with considerable psychological distress. Their data revealed that some women experience symptoms severe enough to affect their work performance, but they engage in presenteeism rather than taking medical leave. Although symptoms disappear at the start of menstruation, interviewees reported that women felt considerable guilt and as such engaged in overcompensation; for example, engaging in overwork, resulting in poor work-life balance. Sang et al. (2021) undertook a qualitative survey of women and trans/non-binary higher-education workers in the UK, revealing that participants responded to their symptoms by undertaking an extra layer of labour to manage their menstrual blood at work to conceal the sight and perceived smell of blood. For trans and non-binary employees, managing menstrual blood exacerbated their gender dysphoria. Drawing on Wolkowitz’s (2002) conceptualisation of ‘body work’, Sang et al. (2021) conceptualised this additional labour as ‘blood work’. Though natural phases of life such as menopause should not automatically be seen as disability, there is growing evidence that some symptoms may meet the threshold for disability in the UK. A recent employment tribunal in the UK was found to have falsely ruled that menopausal symptoms do not constitute disability (Box 20.1).1
BOX 20.1 CASE STUDY: MENOPAUSE AND DISABILITY IN THE UK Several employment tribunals have now found that refusal to provide reasonable adjustments for women experiencing menopause may constitute a breach of the Equality Act 2010 on the grounds of sex and disability discrimination, citing the case of Ms Davies, a Court Official in Scotland who was dismissed for gross misconduct regarding the consumption of water in court. In Merchant v BT (2012), an employment tribunal found that Ms Merchant’s line manager had discriminated against her by refusing to allow the implementation of reasonable adjustments to manage the symptoms of menopause. Not supporting a menopausal woman at work can have a significant reputational and financial cost for the organisation. Source: Menopause in the Workplace, 2020.
While the available evidence demonstrates that disabled people, and particularly disabled women, experience a range of poor employment experiences and outcomes, there is an emerging body of literature that suggests trade unions may be important facilitators for disability inclusion at work. Disability and Trade Unions The literature is consistent in identifying disability discrimination in employment, but there is also evidence that trade unions can act as facilitators for improving the lived experiences of disabled people. Lejeune (2021) investigated the roles trade unions can have in improving disabled people’s access to supported employment in Belgium. Through interviews with trade union activists, it was clear that the employment experiences of disabled people are informed by their country’s social welfare arrangement, as well as employer attitudes. Lejeune’s findings are somewhat contradictory as, although trade union diversity activists subscribe, to an extent, to the need for disabled people to have equality, they also report reluctance to fight for disabled members for fear that it will negatively impact collective bargaining. More
294 Research handbook on inequalities and work worryingly, Lejeune’s data suggest that some trade union branches will work with employers to dismiss disabled workers. Research by Richards and Sang (2016) revealed that trade unions were a key site for improving the employment experiences of neurodivergent workers (for example autistic workers). In a case study with the UK travel trade union, the Transport and Salaried Staff Association, the data revealed that trade unions, through the recruitment of specialist neurodiversity or equality representatives, are able to more effectively represent neurodivergent members both in individual case work (e.g. disciplinary hearings) and collectively through working with employers to create more inclusive workplace policies. Bacon and Hoque (2015) also researched the role trade union disability champions can have in disabled people’s employment experiences in the UK. Their data suggest that disability champions have a positive impact on disabled employees through changes at the employer level; for example, increasing an employer’s willingness to conduct organisation-wide disability audits that assess workplaces for disability inclusion. The available evidence does therefore point to a largely positive impact from trade unions for disabled people, but a note of caution should be maintained reflecting some trade union activists’ perceived preference for preserving collective bargaining for non-disabled workers over support for disabled workers. However, as Lejeune (2021) argues there remains a lack of research on the role trade unions can have in the employment experiences of disabled people and it remains an area in need of further investigation.
DISABILITY AND COVID-19 The effect of Covid-19 and public health measures on disabled workers will require extensive research to fully understand. As Emerson et al. (2021) and the World Bank (2021) have drawn our attention to, disabled people have been more likely to report increases in financial insecurity and job losses globally as a result of Covid-19. Jesus et al. (2020) argue that Covid-19 offers possibilities for disabled people through the facilitation of teleworking as the norm in order to increase participation in paid employment, although caution must be taken not to create hybrid workplaces that prioritise those who are ‘in the room’; i.e. the office. However, disabled people are often not working in the kind of white-collar jobs that can be undertaken remotely via teleworking (Holland, 2021) and as such may struggle to access the flexibility offered by teleworking. There remains an evidence gap regarding the potential for teleworking, as a form of remote working, to facilitate the inclusion of disabled workers. A pressing issue is that of Long Covid, and whether those with the condition are able to access disability support. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, 2021) states that Long Covid is not a disability unless it has significant effects on daily functioning. A similar situation is faced in many countries whereby workers with Long Covid are not able to access adjustments as they do not meet the 12-month threshold for ‘disability’ support. What is clear is that the public health measures of Covid-19 and its effect on disabled people, as well its disabling consequences for survivors of the condition, remain an area in urgent need of investigation.
Disability and work inequalities 295
CONCLUSIONS In this chapter we have set out the limited extant research on disability in the workplace, demonstrating that disabled people in a range of countries experience considerable disadvantage at work, including stigma and refusal of access to adjustments. Despite international laws differing in how disability is defined, there is a general reliance on medicalised models of disability rather than drawing on frameworks of disability that are developed by disabled people themselves; for example, the social model of disability. This means that disability is managed in an ad hoc reactive way by employers rather than through efforts to identify the systematic and structural oppressions faced by disabled people. It is important to note the limitations both of our chapter and also the disability literature – particularly in the context of employment. We have drawn, where possible, on data relating to countries outside of the Global North, although there is a lack of studies on disability at work, particularly in the Global South. In part we believe this to be the result of inconsistency in defining disability, as well as the exclusion of disabled people from the formal economy, and as such it is hard to determine levels of employment and unemployment. The lived experience of disabled people is therefore also hard to capture. If we are to develop a greater understanding of the lives of disabled people in work in the Global South, there is a need to enable research led by disabled people in order to avoid or disrupt the power differences that often exist when scholars from the Global North research the lives of people in the Global South. Doing so will allow for the decolonisation of disability research and help us move towards models of disability that do not replicate Western models of disability. While there is a growing body of research on disability at work, the role of gender in informing these lived experiences remains poorly understood. What is clear across the literature is that there is an urgent need to conduct more research to understand the lived experiences of disabled workers and how ableist and gendered workplaces can change, make visible and challenge their working norms in order to create accessibility, rather than individualised adjustments that preserve inaccessible workplaces. Interestingly, considering the international aspect, 80% of disabled people live in low- and middle-income countries (Saran et al., 2020), where disability remains under-researched. As such, this chapter ends with an urgent call for more research that centres the lived experiences of disabled people as active agents at work (rather than research on disabled people by able-bodied people) in order to develop interventions that enable disabled people to thrive in good jobs globally.
NOTE 1.
Rooney v Leicester City Council (Practice and Procedure) [2021] UKEAT 2021-000256 (07 October 2021). https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2021/2021-000256.html.
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21. Black women and inequality in the workplace Victoria Showunmi
Living life as black women requires wisdom because knowledge about the dynamics of intersecting oppressions has been essential to black women’s survival… Black women cannot afford to be fools of any type for Other objectification as the Other denies us protections that white skin maleness and wealth confer. (Collins 1999)
INTRODUCTION This chapter explores race and gender in the context of the workplace, analysing the inequality experienced by Black women to create a better understanding of what it is to be Black and a woman in contemporary UK society. The main themes of this book are elaborated on through the lens of critical Black feminism. The chapter confirms the contention highlighted in this book: inequalities have been reconstituted in new forms. The conditionality of equality gains achieved so far is revealed. Examples of gains claimed in reports (Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities 2021) are deconstructed, highlighting the uncertainty of fictitious attainments. There may be legislation, but equality has not yet been achieved, especially for Black women. Black women are experiencing completely unacceptable racism at work, which has become normalised (Fawcett Society 2022). This chapter focuses primarily on concerns relating to workplace inequalities and is largely based on empirical research. The methods used have been effective in exposing inequality and the roots of inequality. These are outlined so they can be more widely used. In this chapter the damaging impact of everyday and sophisticated racism combined with sexism is detailed and a fresh cause of inequality is foregrounded: White Women Syndrome (Showunmi & Tomlin 2022). The ‘pet to threat’ (Thomas et al. 2013) phenomenon whereby support is initially provided then withdrawn when Black women progress in their careers is explained. The evolution of the term ‘Black’ and its significance in everyday usage in the workplace is also considered. The dominance of White women and their role in discrimination against Black women is discussed (Showunmi & Tomlin 2022). The persistence of racism despite notions of a post-racist society is elucidated through the theory of sophisticated racism (Showunmi & Tomlin 2022).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CRITICAL BLACK FEMINISM Black feminism is defined as a way in which women who are Black collectively think and become as one. It is a philosophy that centres on the idea that Black women are inherently valuable, not as adjuncts to somebody else but as human beings in their own right. Black women’s liberation is a necessity. Historically, Black feminism centred on the expe-
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300 Research handbook on inequalities and work riences of Black women, understanding their position in relation to racism, sexism, and classism, as well as other social and political identities. Black women have been excluded from mainstream feminism because of their race while simultaneously being excluded from black liberation movements because of their gender. (Collins 2000a)
Black feminism highlights and engages with the many aspects of identity that women have, which is significant because it gives them the opportunity to talk about being Black parallel to gender inequality. Despite the prejudice and discrimination they face, Black women were and continue to be critical to the Black liberation and gender equality movements. Black feminism advocates women’s emancipation and empowerment, Marxist social thought aims for a more equitable society, while queer theory opposes heterosexism. Women who identify as migrants find it difficult to identify with mainstream feminism and find their way to Black feminist movements. Black feminists are automatically connected to radical feminism. Collins (2000a) suggests that Black women such as Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, and Claudia Jones were seen as Black radical feminist intellectuals and activists. Before this were Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. Some of these pioneers were vocal, others also used action and silence as a weapon for change. The labelling of Black women as radical feminists projects a particular challenge as it is fuelled and driven by the political stance of wanting to belong and be included on their own terms. Much of the feminist movement has been formed on the back of institutional reforms that aim to reduce gender discrimination and give access to male-dominated spaces, promoting gender equality. Black women have produced social thought designed to oppose oppression. Interestingly, this form of thought does not just rely on traditional academic writing, as it opens a creative space in which to explore poetry, music, dance, and art as ways of expressing Black feminism. Black feminism is an expression that has enabled women to find ways to survive in or oppose prevailing social and economic injustice. It becomes a way of life that is difficult to explain to people who are not Black. Something that Black women feminists grapple with every day is that their writing is celebrated and included in the classroom and/or board room, yet Black women themselves are excluded. White women are allowed to speak on behalf of Black women, which creates a wall of silence as Black women’s development and progression is left behind.
BLACK WOMEN AND FEMINISM Black women find it challenging to accept the term ‘feminism’ because it is inextricably linked to White feminism (Syed & Ali 2011). Some Black women therefore prefer the term ‘womanist’, coined by Alice Walker (1983). In relation to Black women, it is argued by scholars such as Collins (1999) that one of the unwitting consequences of the increased accessibility of knowledge about the lives of Black women is that they are objectified rather than being subjects of investigation. Collins (1999) suggests that a process of ‘knowing without knowing’ occurs, whereby dominant groups in society who have a particular interest in understanding the lives of Black women can observe them from a distance, without having to personally interact or critically engage with them. Such investigators do not have to critically analyse their own lives. In contrast, the racial and gender status of Black women means that they are not afforded the opportunity to view other social groups objectively because any understand-
Black women and inequality in the workplace 301 ing of their own lives is interpersonal and based on their status as the racialised and gendered ‘other’ (Reynolds 2002).
BLACKNESS IN CONTEXT In the early 1960s, being Black was a taboo subject. Blackness and Black identities were not discussed. In the UK, Black people were regarded as temporary visitors, immigrants who would return ‘home’, not as permanent members of society. Blackness was downplayed from the White perspective, in the sense that what you do not name can be more easily ignored. Black people were to be ‘seen and not heard’. This led the Black population to feel invisible. Humility and eternal gratefulness for the right to migrate to the UK were expected. This feeling of gratitude became ingrained in the Black psyche and underpinned the mindset of many Black communities (Pheterson 1986). Any Black individuals who adopted a different mindset were regarded as alien. The resultant silence of Black women was highlighted by Bryan et al. (1985, 2018), who were the first writers to give a voice to Black women in the UK, correcting misleading versions of British history that excluded them. Black women who described their experience of marginalisation and discrimination did not fit the passive mould that had been shaped for Black people. This was particularly relevant in the workplace, as it was regarded as a privilege to be ‘invited’ to join the majority-White workforce.
TERMINOLOGY I now examine how the word ‘Black’ has emerged both in the workplace and more widely. The term ‘Black’ came into use after the Civil Rights Movement in the United States during which people who were not white united as one. The epithet ‘Black’ also encompassed other characteristics associated with Blackness beyond skin tone. Hair, dress and even ways of speaking were identified as an integral and distinctive part of the Black identity. It is important to note that there is a lot of discussion about the use of terms across the globe, including the ‘correct’ way to refer to people who are not White. The discussion that follows aims to reveal the complexity of these issues. The identification of the acceptance of specific terms will add to the literature in this area. People who are racialised as non-White have been forced to grapple with a range of terms to describe who they are, terms which have often been developed by people who are white. To complicate the situation further, the terms used depend on the country where the person who is racialised as non-White lives. The terms include Black and minority ethnic (BME); Black and/or brown people; non-White; Black, indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC); ethnic minorities; Africans; African Americans; African–Caribbean; Black Europeans; Negro; and migrant. Historical context is necessary for clarification. On the surface, these terms may appear to have emerged from the people who are racialised as non-White themselves. This is not the case. In the main, many of the terms included in this list have been used as labels to identify people who are racialised as non-White without consultation. So why does this matter? Well, if you are White then you are just White no matter where you are in the world. There is simply acceptance and no further discussion takes place.
302 Research handbook on inequalities and work However, when, for example, a person migrates from South America to the United Kingdom, they may automatically assume that they are White, but this is where the complexity begins to manifest itself. There are many layers that complicate how people who are racialised as non-White are seen in society. The consideration of how people are identified when leaving their country of origin depends on layer upon layer of factors akin to the layers of an onion. These layers would include their socio-economic status, cultural capital and individual attributes, class, language, and skin tone. All but one of these fits into Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1993), which refers to the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviours of a particular social group (or social class). Skin tone is not included but has always been the elephant in the room. It is too uncomfortable to acknowledge that employers and colleagues associate darker Black skin tones with inferiority and therefore poorer performance at work. According to The Bell Curve debate, for example (Murray and Herrnstein 1994), darker skin correlates with lower intelligence. It is not until the South American arrives in the UK that they are repeatedly asked, ‘where are you from?’ (Showunmi 2022a). The question could of course be prompted by a non-British accent. In actual fact, the South American is more likely to be experiencing a skin-tone challenge. The question stems from a darker skin tone and/or attributes that are not associated with whiteness, particularly ‘Englishness’. The skin-tone challenge would create a ripple effect of successive waves of unease by underlining the immigrant’s sense of ‘Otherness’ in their new environment. They may have been privileged in their country of origin, but migration has deprived them of their identity (Hunter 2013). The ranking of colour in relation to privilege gained momentum when Black people were enslaved across the globe. In the hierarchy of the shades of skin colour that emerged, enslavers did not officially recognise their mixed-parentage children (European and African descent, for example), but they nevertheless accorded them privileges that dark-skinned enslaved people did not enjoy. Consequently, light skin came to be regarded as an asset in the community of enslaved people (Tomlin et al. 2013). A pyramid of white privilege emerged. White was at the top, Asian was in the middle and Black African was at the base. The more you resembled a white European, the more benefits you accrued. The pyramid illustrates the notion of colourism. Reece (2016) and Feliciano (2016) argue that colourism is a system of practices and ideologies that privilege lighter-skinned Black people with facial features typically associated with Europeans over their darker-skinned counterparts with facial features that are generally seen to be characteristic of Africans. Such entrenched practices are believed to have disappeared, but they persist in the form of what I have called ‘sophisticated racism’. Sophisticated racism is a smokescreen that hides racist epistemologies using complex ideals couched in liberal ideology. I have defined sophisticated racism as follows: Sophisticated racism is based on systemic structures designed to promote racism while disingenuously promoting anti-racist or equitable policies. The perpetrators would not want to be accused of racist behaviours and they pay lip service to condemning racism. Sometimes this form of racism is unconscious and subconscious. (Showunmi 2022a)
There is evidence that colourism affects the amount you earn, lowers marriage rates, and leads to longer prison terms and fewer job prospects for darker-skinned people who live in countries where the population includes people of European descent (Tomlin 1999; Maylor 2014). Colourism is not only persistent but one of the most pervasive expressions of racism. As it
Black women and inequality in the workplace 303 results in poorer life chances for specific groups of people, it leads to discrimination, which should be fought as a matter of urgency.
THE RELEVANCE OF COLOURISM IN THE WORKPLACE Colourism is relevant because it is fundamental to how Black women are perceived in the workplace (Abass 2008; Gabrielle 2008). Notions of colourism may appear to run counter to what is perceived as contemporary UK society where racism is supposedly a thing of the past. The belief that we live in a post-racial society now that there has been a Black President in the White House is widespread (see for example the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (2021)). However, the true situation is that in many respects we are living in a ‘new Jim Crow’ era (Pilgrim 2000). Pilgrim details the profound underpinning of the US ‘racial caste system between 1877 and the mid-1960s’, describing it as ‘a way of life’ whereby African Americans were second-class citizens and anti-Black racism was legitimised, including by academics and Christian theologians. Blacks were regarded as ‘innately intellectually and culturally inferior to whites’. Black people were frequently subjected to violence, including lynching, if they attempted to question their inferior status. It is more comfortable for Black communities to support the new, supposedly post-racial neoliberal order than to speak out and acknowledge the dangers of meeting racism with a wall of silence. It is alarming that even in the face of widespread evidence of deeply embedded institutional and individual racism, the recognition of racial division has become marginalised in economic policies and civil society (for recent examples of racism, see Ungoed-Thomas (2021) and HC Debate (2021)). It must be pointed out that the examples here relate solely to the experience of men. Women are seldom invited to provide their evidence as Azeem Rafiq was. The everyday struggles faced by Black women as a result of subtle and sophisticated racism are ignored. It is almost as if women who belong to Black minorities are so marginalised that they are forgotten. It is as though they do not exist.
BLACK WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE Despite the many changes in the workforce, the residual sense of peripheral participation in economic activity remains in the Black population. This is particularly true for women. Today, organisations in Western countries recognise that women make a significant contribution to their operations (Stockemer & Byrne 2012). Women’s participation in the workforce has increased considerably since the mid-1970s (Connolly & Gregory 2007). In the UK, the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 established good practice by making it a ‘general duty’ for all public employers to promote race equality, consulting minority ethnic communities on policy and monitoring impact through race equality impact assessments from 2006. Employers now have clearly defined responsibilities towards their employees, including their Black employees, under equality acts, most recently the Equality Act 2010. The Act provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and to advance equality of opportunity for all.
304 Research handbook on inequalities and work These initiatives were designed to lessen the adverse impacts of racism in the workplace. However, there is a risk that any positive influence they have had could be weakened by notions that we now live in a post-racist society. The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities wrote a report (2021) that ignores the impact of institutional racism in the lives of young people. The Commission reached the controversial conclusion that institutional racism does not exist in the UK. Many spoke out angrily, suggesting that the purpose of the report was to whitewash the problems of racism in Britain. The report seeks to divide and rule, suggesting that some minorities do well whilst others fare far less well. The only minorities recognised are ‘model minorities’, which refers to a minority group or a member of such a group stereotypically viewed as being more successful than other such groups or individuals. The term ‘model minority’ was introduced by sociologist William Peterson in his 1966 article in the New York Times Magazine about the success story of Japanese Americans in the US (Peterson 1966). In the article, Peterson makes reference to the fact that Japanese Americans, despite facing intense racism and discrimination, were still able to achieve success – in the way that other minority groups had not. Both the term and concept continue to contribute to what is being called the model minority myth, which is the false yet pervasive idea that all Asian Americans are equally economically and socially successful. When the long-awaited response to the Commission Report emerged in March 2022, the Minister of State for Equalities did her best to provide a response that was intended to come from the heart as she was a Black woman. However, the response added fuel to an ongoing fire. The Commission failed to deliver on nine of its ten key objectives. It does, however, essentially portray Black people as the authors of their own misfortune. The reason for continued racism is Black people’s supposed cultural dysfunctionality, lack of knowledge and understanding, unwillingness to integrate and adopt British values, or any combination of the above. The report recommends, for example, that school children be taught how enslaved Africans in the Caribbean culturally transformed themselves, suggesting that they had previously existed in a cultural vacuum. The response aims to provide a more positive impression of the experiences of enslavement and colonialism, downplaying the suffering endured by slaves and failing to acknowledge the profits made at their expense. Enslavement and colonialism are, not for the first time, to be presented as a mission civilisatrice. Given the content of the report, it is not surprising that such a denial of racism continues to have an impact on everyday life including the workplace.
THE WORKPLACE I define the workplace as a place of either part-time or full-time employment. The focus here is on organisations that employ a diverse workforce to deliver a product and/or service. What is of interest is what it means to have a diverse workplace. There are reams of policies and procedures designed to address the hostile environment that many Black women encounter in the workplace. These are meant to make the workplace equitable, creating opportunities for Black women and becoming richer and more inclusive than a space where only White people can feel welcome and enjoy career progression. However, those who benefit are White women, not Black women (The Guardian 2016, 2020). It is White women who have become
Black women and inequality in the workplace 305 the face of diversity. The success of White women at the expense of Black women is described by Showunmi (2022a) in relation to ‘White Women Syndrome’ (WWS). WWS is the unnamed feeling many Black women experience in relation to White women if they, as Black women, are getting too close to the ‘pot of gold’, recognition and reward for success. Only limited resources are available, and these have been earmarked for White women only. Recognising this helps to position the way everyday racism can be overlooked. Unexplained insidious behaviour often originates from this and elements of unwelcome behaviour come together here to generate a strong force field which results in sophisticated racism.
There is a related area of research that reinforces the authenticity of this phenomenon known as the ‘Queen Bee Syndrome’. ‘Queen Bees’ are senior women in masculine organizational cultures who have fulfilled their career aspirations by dissociating themselves from their gender while simultaneously contributing to the gender stereotyping of other women. (Derks et al. 2011)
In the case of White ‘Queen Bees’ and Black women whose success threatens to depose them from their place on the throne, racial stereotyping adds an additional layer of tension. This is explored by Showunmi (2022b). A well-functioning workplace team has the potential to create a platform for equal opportunities for all employees. Leaders want the workforce to accept the premise of embracing diversity. However, there are times when a team leader’s theoretical wish for an effective diverse team cannot be realised. Team members find themselves unable to contribute to the smooth operation of their diverse team. The reason for this is that fundamentally that would mean making sacrifices and some individuals in the team may not be ready to give anything up for the benefit of those who do not look like them. Workplaces can engender the formation of distinctive groups of employees. These have been set up to harness difference to enhance inclusiveness, but paradoxically they can become divisive. Some employees with certain characteristics (LGBTQI, gender, race, disability, etc.) are eligible to join. Such groupings enable certain individuals to belong while others are left out in the cold because they may not fit into such neatly delimited categories. These groupings may actually add to the complexity of belonging.
THE LITERATURE ON BLACK WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE White women academics have written extensively on women’s position in the labour market with a focus on gender and the division of labour. They have emphasised the disadvantage to women caused by patriarchal power (Cockburn 1981; Walby 2000; Saguy & Rees 2021). Ethnic minority women are rarely included in these analyses and when they are the analysis tends to focus on the ‘double disadvantage’ of sexism and racism. White women (researchers or organisational leaders) have seldom reflected on their own ethnic privilege, including how this has impacted on their work, Mcintosh (1989) being a notable exception. Research carried out by Thomas (2021, cited in Hampton 2021) noted that there was an upsetting theme that appeared in the interviews she conducted on the leadership journeys of Black women in academia. The interviewees all mentioned that at the beginning of their careers they believed they were very well liked and almost overprotected by colleagues. They
306 Research handbook on inequalities and work were aware that these positive attitudes emanated partly from the recognition that they were a token Black woman who was employed to prove that the organisation was inclusive and complying with equality legislation. However, as they started to push forward in the organisation and seek opportunities to develop further, the ‘benevolent tolerance they enjoyed transformed into pushback, if not outright hostility’. Thomas named this as the ‘pet to threat’ phenomenon. The hostility appeared to manifest itself when the Black women were in line for promotion or leadership roles. These experiences result in justified paranoia and hypervigilance, which adds to the burden of the ‘double consciousness’ described by Du Bois (1999). This is an added challenge that Black women in the workplace endure on a regular basis. Cultural difference is an area that is difficult to pin down, as discussed by Showunmi et al. (2016) in their research on leadership and identity. Unspoken cultural norms can create the sense that colleagues come from a different planet. The hypervisibility that comes with being ‘the only one’ can lead to White employees constantly second-guessing Black women’s instincts. This questioning attitude can lead to Black women suffering in silence and can exert a negative impact on their well-being (Showunmi & Maylor 2013). Within predominantly White and male-dominated organisations, the traditional characteristics associated with leadership often conflict with the stereotypical expectations of Black women (Parker 2004; Rosette et al. 2016). For example, Black women’s communication style is often stereotyped as blunt, which is consistent with a Eurocentric view of masculine communication as direct and controlling (Olasunkanmi-Alimi et al. 2022). Often the only way for women to distinguish themselves in the workplace is based not so much on what they say but what they wear and most importantly how they look. This is what Naomi Wolf (2002) refers to as the Professional Beauty Qualification (PBQ). This PBQ is based on the premise that ‘all the professions into which women are making strides are being rapidly reclassified – so far as the women are concerned – as display professions’. Wolf (2002) suggests that prior to women entering the workplace, there was a clearly defined class of women explicitly employed for their ‘beauty’. Such jobs included fashion mannequins, dancers, and higher-paid sex workers such as escorts; it has now been extended to include flight attendants, actresses, and secretaries. The PBQ is being widely institutionalised as a condition for women’s hiring and promotion. The PBQ can lead to ongoing harassment and even women losing their jobs once they no longer look the part. Abass (2008) continues with the argument that it is a reality that beauty has become a ‘legitimate’ and necessary qualification for a woman’s rise in power. Abass (2008: 40) suggests that ‘there is no such standard for men. Although men are expected to conform to a standard that is well groomed and often uniformly clothed, women are to dress in a way that is not only professional but also conforms to an institutionalised standard of beauty’. Whilst there have been improvements and increased opportunities for women across sectors in the workplace, it remains clear that access to the top table is not available to them. The stress and racial burnout experienced by many Black women in the workplace emerge in much of the literature. Burgis’ (2009) study examined the experiences and perceptions of Black women in the workplace. It reflected on how the work experiences of Black women are affected by the factors of age, race, and gender. The assumptions within feminist theories and Black feminist theories that are sensitive to the realities and contextualised lives of this population were discussed. The findings of this research suggest that while Black women
Black women and inequality in the workplace 307 perceive that they are fulfilled and successful at work, they still struggle with racial and gender stereotyping, workplace discrimination, and inter-racial resentments. Hall et al. (2012) explored work-related stressors that affect the lives of Black women and how they cope with them. Using an exploratory design with grounded-theory methods, five basic themes emerged that identify when racism and sexism are experienced as stressors for African American women in the workplace. The themes are: (1) being hired or promoted in the workplace, (2) defending one’s race and lack of mentorship, (3) shifting or code switching to overcome barriers to employment, (4) coping with racism and discrimination, and (5) being isolated and/ or excluded. The results from this study indicate African American women use emotion- and problem-focused coping responses to manage stress (e.g., racism and sexism) in the workplace. Holder et al. (2015) studied experiences of racial microaggressions in the workplace and the coping strategies of Black women managers in corporate American positions, recounting the struggles that Black women face. Black women feel compelled to shift their identities to mitigate the negative outcomes associated with discrimination. Writing on ‘race’, particularly in relation to the education of Black men (not women) in the British literature, tends to be undertaken by White male academics (for example, Ghaill 1988, 1994; Gillborn 1990, 2008). More recently, White women (Archer & Francis 2006; Archer 2011) have also started writing about issues of ‘race’. It is unlikely that Archer and Francis have personally experienced racialised encounters, which Black women often face on a daily basis. Despite the insightful work carried out by some White writers, in some ways they have colonised and capitalised on race and diversity issues, so much so that Ahmed (2012) considers that the production of these works has become an industry. Discourses and scholarship on gender and race continue to be dominated by Western frames.
BLACK WOMEN AND UNEMPLOYMENT Statistics have shown that Black women in the UK suffer from higher rates of unemployment than White women. The ‘unemployment rate measures the ratio of people looking for work as a proportion of all those able to work, otherwise known as economically active. People who are unemployed are those who say they want to work and are available to work and have looked for work’ (Shire 2022). The Office for National Statistics (2019) writes: ‘White women (3%) were less likely to be unemployed than women from all other ethnic groups combined (7%)’. Furthermore, On the above definition, the average unemployment rate for Black people in the UK has remained at about twice that for whites for both sexes from as far back as when the statistics on race were first published in the 1991 census. Although rates of unemployment for women have tended to be marginally lower than those for men, the data disguises the fact that women are more likely to seek part time work or are discouraged from looking because of a lack of suitable employment where say childcare is an issue. Nevertheless, Black women unemployment rates are at about 8% compared with about 4% for White women. The gap in unemployment between the ethnic groups seldom changes; tending to rise and fall in parallel. The gap in employment rates tends to be greatest among under-25 age groups. The latest unemployment for the year to June 2021 for London shows that whilst the rate for Whites aged 16 to 24 is 18.2%; that for Black people in the same age group is 37.4%. (Shire 2022)
Research has revealed a range of issues that may be preventing Black women from achieving their full potential. However, there is almost no research that explores and analyses the experi-
308 Research handbook on inequalities and work ences of unemployed Black women (Showunmi 2009) and any barriers that may be preventing them from succeeding in gaining employment. In general, much of the data on the situation of Black women stems from qualitative rather than quantitative methods. Some quantitative researchers may reject the evidence generated by small-scale qualitative studies. Showunmi’s (2009) study examined some of these issues to enhance understanding of the obstacles encountered by unemployed Black women attempting to access education, training, and employment. A qualitative ethnographic approach was adopted. Data were gathered through interviews and interactive groups with participants who were unemployed Black women aged between 17 and 45 in southeast England. The research revealed the complexity of race, gender, and identity in this context. The findings identified key issues that appear to be hindering the success of Black women in education and employment. These issues revolve around direct and indirect racial discrimination, culture, identity, and a lack of racial and cultural sensitivity among educators and employers. The study showed that an important reason why some unemployed Black women do not engage in education or employment is related to their sense of who they are. They constantly have to grapple with adapting to the contemporary, white-dominated workplace, whilst their authentic self is rooted in a culture that emanates from a distant family heritage. Perhaps if they knew and understood their own identity, they would feel more confident to reach out to take advantage of the opportunities on offer. The following quote highlights this: I have lived here all of my life and I am concerned that I have to define my own background… when I constantly keep being asked who I am and where do I belong? (Interview participant 6, Showunmi 2012)
Answering persistent questions about your origin adds to the emotional and racial burden that is carried into the workplace. It creates an ongoing narrative, suggesting it is acceptable to keep asking questions regarding who you are when it is obvious you are the third generation in the country.
IDENTITY: INTERSECTIONALITY, STEREOTYPING, AND NEOLIBERALISM It is helpful to consider the complexity of identity and categorisation by considering the meaning of the term ‘intersectionality’, which has been examined by Showunmi (2020). The term is frequently identified with critical race theory scholar Kimberley Crenshaw (1989) who, along with other scholars, contributed to and advocated thinking critically about the multidimensional aspect of women’s oppression along race, class, and gender lines. According to Delgado Bernal (2002: 116), focusing on the intersection of oppression is vital because ‘one’s identity is not based on the social construction of race but rather is multidimensional and intersects with various experiences’. Many argue that scholars using the ‘intersectional approach’ will socially locate individuals in the context of their ‘real lives’ (Weber & Fore 2007: 123). Intersectional discussions examine how both formal and informal systems of power are deployed, maintained, and reinforced through notions of race, class, and gender (Collins 1998; Weber & Fore 2007).
Black women and inequality in the workplace 309 There has been some attention given to Black women’s experiences in the workplace (e.g., Forson 2013; Healy et al. 2011). However, more needs to be done. Researchers still argue that sample numbers are too small; hence, the focus in statistical data is on men and women without using an intersectional lens. This creates an ongoing problem as the experiences of Black women are silenced and made invisible. Women not in the diaspora (in Black-majority societies such as Nigeria and Ghana) have made great progress in the professions (Healy et al. 2004; Rodriguez & Scurry 2019). Instead, there has been a genuine misunderstanding that these women are doing well and require no additional support or assistance. One could argue that such a belief stems from the work of feminist writers such as Mirza (1992, 2000, 2013), who maintains that Black women’s resilience and strength have enabled them to persevere. Black women’s difficulties start during their schooling (Weekes 2002; Bhopal & Maylor 2013; Johnson & Ginsberg 2015). Black girls face many challenges throughout their education. Research into their well-being (Showunmi 2009) reveals disturbing experiences, such as constant profiling as they progress through the school system, including interventions that prescribe how they should behave if they are to prosper in society. There is much evidence to suggest that the hidden curriculum alongside societal norms have made Black girls ‘dumb down’ and appear less intelligent than they are (Gatto 2002; Leathwood 2013). The stereotypical expectation is that Black girls are loud and disruptive (Fordham 1993; Koonce 2012). To counter the potential for disorder, they are forced into a straitjacket of limitations that silences them. This drains them of their energy, drive, and passion. Black girls may also develop low self-esteem and self-hate because of repeated efforts to restrain them. Similar patterns of belief and behaviour towards Black women play out in the workplace. Austerity has contributed to the deterioration of the economic security of women of colour. The frame of austerity actually distorts the experiences of poverty and economic inequality suffered by women of colour. Well before the 2008 crisis, women of colour were already living in a state of austerity; minority unemployment has consistently remained higher than for White people since records began. The labour market experiences of Black women in Britain are particularly damaging. Where women of colour are employed, they are more likely to be employed in low-skilled, low-paid, and temporary work. A 2021 Trades Union Congress report stated that ‘women of colour are almost twice as likely than white men to be on zero-hours contracts… [trapping] women in low pay and insecure work, unable to plan their lives and futures’ (Institute of Race Relations 2020). This translates into high levels of household poverty. The 2007 poverty rates for minority groups were 40%, double the rate of white households. These shockingly high levels of poverty and unemployment pre-date the 2008 economic crisis and persist to this day yet seldom feature in the media or policy discussions. Being Black and a woman in employment means fighting for recognition. It is not enough to have been chosen for gainful employment, Black women also need to prove themselves. This constitutes an emotional burden that many are not prepared for. This burden is invisible and is only seen by those who understand what it is and what it means to be Black and a woman in the workplace (Curtis & Showunmi 2019). Neoliberal policy and procedures protect the leaders of the establishment. Ahmed (2012) argues that a commitment to diversity is frequently substituted for a commitment to actual change. Ahmed traces the impact of the concept of diversity by examining how the term is used and how it makes questions about racism seem impertinent. Her research focuses on
310 Research handbook on inequalities and work universities in the UK, Asia, and Australia, but her conclusions are relevant across the globe and in different settings. Equal opportunities policies are purportedly designed to provide equity for diverse groups. There is however much evidence (Dardanoni et al. 2006) that they have not been successful in achieving their purpose. There is a basic hierarchical structure at play in the typical workplace. There is a central leader and an inner circle that filters the decisions of the leader before they impact on the people who deliver the work. What is it like to become a member of that inner circle if you are not White (Atewologun & Singh 2010; Bhopal 2010; Rodriguez & Scurry 2019)? As you sit round the top table of the inner circle, you are unlikely to question the decisions of your colleagues, especially the central leader. If you should dare to challenge the status quo, you will be faced with a deadly silence at best. As a Black woman, you are expected to be grateful to the liberals who fought for you and to show gratitude. Any hint of assertiveness or constructive criticism is interpreted as hostility and is regarded as unacceptable and impolite in the extreme (Showunmi 2022a). It is exceedingly difficult for Black women to gain a seat at the top table of the inner circle. It is also difficult for White women to rise to senior positions (Preston 2019). There really is a glass ceiling even for White women. However, that ceiling is concrete if you are Black. What does the glass or concrete ceiling represent? It is the obstacle you have to smash in order to progress to top management (Holder et al. 2015). White women can see through the glass to the next step and it is comparatively easy if dangerous to smash glass. However, you cannot even see through concrete. You cannot see the way forward and concrete is much harder and more impenetrable than glass. As a Black woman, you are hindered by more barriers and obstacles than your White counterparts. It is only when you become sufficiently emboldened to push your head up and try to approach the ceiling that you realise that you are getting a lot of bumps and bruises. You begin to appreciate that there is a huge mass in your way, preventing you from progressing (Showunmi 2022). As your White colleagues manage to smash the glass ceiling, you find yourself banging your head against the concrete time and time again. This saps your confidence and self-esteem. Discrimination is insidious. Irrespective of your ability and qualifications, it diverts you from your career path. You may be lucky enough to be offered a helping hand that guides you and supports your progression, but such backing will not be unconditional. You may be expected to remain unfailingly loyal to your champion through thick and thin, whatever the circumstances. As a Black woman, you will need backing because it is a myth that Black women and White women are subjected to the same degree of discrimination. It must be recognised that Black women face double discrimination on grounds of race as well as gender. Eradicating double discrimination is not an easy task because of the strength of prejudice and tradition. Consider a Black woman who has been recently employed and wants to progress using the same approach as a White woman. The approach is to use established White networks and well-known resources to get into the big house. Instead of viewing this as a strength, the Black women is questioned and rebuked for using their creativity. This is where problems arise. As mentioned, Black women in England face an impenetrable concrete ceiling according to research undertaken by the University of Manchester (2021). There are more than 1.2 million Black women and mixed-race women of Black heritage in the UK, many of whom work in diverse organisations in various roles. However, despite the
Black women and inequality in the workplace 311 many years of significant contributions made by Black women in the workplace, barriers to progression to a leadership position persist. This is not only the case in the UK. A recently published international report states (McKinsey 2021): ‘At every step up the corporate ladder, women of color [sic] lose ground to White women and men of color’. At the entry level, women of colour represent 17% of the workforce but at the chief executive (C-suite) level, the figure is 4% for women of colour but 20% for White women. The intersection of sexism and racism constitutes an almost insurmountable obstacle (Lumby & Coleman 2007; Showunmi 2016; Fuller 2017; Moorosi 2021) that in itself perpetuates inequalities and prevents career advancement.
LEADERSHIP Reviews at the intersection of leadership and diversity, such as Powell’s (2012), often assume that groups of women are homogenous. Devine (1989) suggests that many Black stereotypes are transferred into perceptions of leadership. Understanding this enables us to make sense of the various studies that explore leadership. Whereas White leaders would be described as ‘working well under pressure… Black leaders are perceived as more incompetent than white leaders’ (Rudman & Glick 2001: 751). Rudman and Glick’s study of the experiences of Black professionals found that the challenges Black women face in the workplace are ‘real’ and pervasive and that they result from complex layers of discrimination and inequality. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that Black leaders are always working against the negative images and stereotypes presented in the media (Collins 2000b; Gewertz 2006; Osler & Webb, 2014). Black leaders are subjected to double minority discrimination along with microaggressions, which ‘are the subtle verbal and nonverbal slights, insults, and disparaging messages directed towards an individual due to their gender, age, disability, and racial group membership often automatically and subconsciously’ (Prieto et al. 2016: 36). Microaggression is rooted in the conscious and subconscious reality of colonial racism that perpetuates the marginalisation of unvalued others. It is one form of discrimination steeped in White supremacy that Black leaders experience in personal and professional situations. More recently, research suggests that the social identity group to which a leader belongs is considered a significant factor in leader effectiveness and the extent to which a leader may feel able to enact that identity (Van Knippenberg 2011). From a sociological perspective, this is explained by the extent to which the leader and the group see themselves as part of a collective or share the same social identity. Showunmi’s (2022) autobiographical account explored and examined a critical incident experienced as a newly appointed leader in a higher education establishment. The account probed the various challenges faced in a predominantly White institution. It revealed instances of invisibility being underpinned by low expectations, presumptions of not being academically able, and (White) surprise at a Black academic applying academic rigour in all aspects of their work. It further sheds light on the reasons for valuing the diverse theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and feminism as a way to open up opportunities for further debate and wider contributions to knowledge. Using the self as the starting point in the research was fundamental as the idea started with the lived experience of the researcher.
312 Research handbook on inequalities and work Being able to critically engage with the lived experience of the research and then the participants provided an emerging hypothesis that was used as the next step in the research design process. The following case study intends to offer an insight into an academic leader’s journey after acceptance of a post. The case study needs to be understood through a race and or intersectional lens to completely grasp the complexity of the issues being outlined. In addition, it is also necessary to acknowledge the Black female leader’s disassociation from the pain and trauma caused by their experience of racial discrimination from dysfunctional White team members. Survival in a highly mono-cultural White environment would undoubtedly cause racial stress due to the reduced capacity of many Black academics to tolerate race-based stress or distress (lack of racial stamina). Defensive moves could include physically removing oneself from the stress-inducing situation through, for example, internalisation. This would result in denying or minimising the continuing significance of race or of White privilege and sometimes becoming threatening and aggressive. When reading the case study, consider the following questions: (1) Why did the university hire Black leaders? (2) Was there any evidence that it was a positive action hire?
BOX 21.1 CRITICAL RACIAL AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CASE STUDY During 2008 I started work at an elite UK university as a senior manager. I was recruited to a department renowned for leadership development. However, the majority of the leaders were White staff and faculty and all of the Black staff and faculty except two held positions of low responsibility. (I was about to experience everyday racism) My role was to head up a section of five White members of staff and 20 associate staff members who were out in the field delivering executive education programmes. Most of the team consisted of retired principals, deputy principals, and senior school administrators. When I received the notification that I had been appointed, I was ecstatic that I had been chosen to take on this enormous task. I can recall the very first day I asked the question, ‘Will there be an induction?’. The response was: ‘You’d be lucky; ask the team members, they will induct you’, and then there was a laugh: ‘You are a senior member of staff after all’. I would set up meetings to understand and establish the purpose of the work that my team was delivering. Prior to these meetings I had been aware that my new team was deemed ‘dysfunctional’ and my appointment was to ensure that the individuals would start to work together as a team. My role was to make change happen. However, I had not been prepared for the rejection that lay ahead (self-blame and overt institutional racism). The team was not only resentful but had not had a chance to prepare itself for a leader of my background. They clearly had in-built prejudices about the ability of a Black person to be a leader to them (White ignorance and microaggressions). Much of the resentfulness, in my opinion, could only be attributed to ‘race’. They made numerous criticisms about my ability to do the job that could not be substantiated. Working there was a miserable experience (micro-
Black women and inequality in the workplace 313 aggressions). Some of the White staff members isolated me, criticised me behind my back, refused to offer me any assistance, did not socialise with me, and attributed this to me being unsociable. They took no account of the fact that I was completely new to the role and made no attempt to accommodate me. They told me nothing about the work and then criticised me for not knowing (institutionalised racism with violent behaviour). I questioned and reflected again and again on whether I was to blame and frequently changed my approach – but nothing changed. Eventually, after a difficult meeting with my team and senior management, I was given the option of moving to another department, which I accepted (White avoidance). Racism had won the day. I was told by several managers both Black and White that I had handled the situation with dignity (gaslighting and/or White avoidance). I was left with unanswered questions though – what did that experience mean? I believe the experience was extremely insightful in terms of how institutional racism is enacted. It is these subtle and often unconscious processes that are operationalised that often cause some Black academics to leave the academy. Given the information included in the critical racial autobiographical case study, we need to consider the points raised and the way in which racial avoidance played out in the everyday experience of the appointed leader. The lack of recognition given to racial avoidance contributed to the hostile environment the leader struggled to navigate to achieve the intended goals of the newly appointed post. The recurring question that needs to be addressed is: what triggered the microaggressions towards the Black female leader?
CONCLUSION This chapter focuses on Black women’s inequality in the UK workplace, adding to the literature. The chapter starts with a brief analysis of what it means to be Black, explaining how terminology and evolving conceptions of ‘race’ have contributed to the complex range of challenges faced by Black women in education and the workforce. Contemporary inequality is explored and everyday ‘sophisticated racism’ (Showunmi 2022b) is outlined. The work is timely as it adopts a critical perspective on the many struggles of Black women, first to enter the workplace, then to prove their worth. Now they are getting through the door and sitting at the table, the challenge for organisations is how they can be valued and recognised for their brilliance. Their passion, energy, drive, and foresight are things that need to be nurtured, not rejected, as organisations benefit from their engagement. This chapter also studies the ways in which the many challenges faced by Black women and girls have been exacerbated by White women’s insecurity (‘White Women Syndrome’ (Showunmi 2022b)) and their reluctance to share the ‘equality’ space. This conceptual piece illuminates and enriches what we already know and will stimulate critical and fruitful conversations on gender and race in the context of work. The significance of the dominance of White academics as authors of the literature on racism is highlighted. In the 1960s and 1970s, recognition and study of discrimination were emerging; it was inevitably White, mostly male writers who raised these issues. However, there has been a surge in the numbers of Black women researching the experiences of Black women and girls. The time has now come for White researchers to enable Black colleagues to shine, lending a helping hand where appropriate. Black women and girls need to be seen and heard instead of fading
314 Research handbook on inequalities and work into the background. More must be done to ensure that the inequality they are subjected to is thoroughly investigated. Mental health, burnout, racial stress, and trauma are rife in the workplace. When Black women and girls seem to be coping, they may actually be suffering in silence. It is important to recognise that Black women and girls may also identify with a disability, belong to another group (such as LGBTQI), or be affected by their age, class, or religious belief. Few Black women and girls are aware that it is the challenges of multiple layers of discrimination that lead to the deterioration of their overall well-being. They are unable to recognise and articulate the experiences that underlie their unhappiness. The conversation on racial trauma and its impact is just beginning to be understood. Senior leaders and board members alongside human resources and equality and diversity departments need to understand how this affects the overall performance of Black women in the workplace and take action to support them. Further research that engages with Black women and girls is needed as much remains to be explored to promote our understanding of inequality. A closer examination of the workplace will shed light on the reasons for the failure of equality initiatives.
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22. The political case for diversity: managing difference in Jewish diaspora organisations Edith Pick1
‘UNITED WE STAND’ was the front page headline shared by the three main UK Jewish newspapers—the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News, and Jewish Telegraph—on July 25, 2018. It was in the midst of the campaign of major Jewish organisations against what they saw as institutional antisemitism in the Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Their claims were based, in part, on Corbyn’s refusal to adopt the full IHRA working definition of antisemitism, a definition which he claimed restricts criticism of Israel. Community leaders accused Corbyn of ‘default blindness to the Jewish community’s fears’ (Editorial, 2018) and warned that a Corbyn-led government would pose an existential threat to Jews in Britain. The unusual decision to publish a joint editorial was meant to convey a message of unity, of a shared commitment to a fight that transcended internal differences and divides within British Jewish society. However, this picture of consensus could be misleading. For example, in February 2007, over a decade earlier, the following declaration was made by a group of 150 British Jewish intellectuals and artists when they launched the organisation Independent Jewish Voices: The initiative was born out of a frustration with the widespread misconception that the Jews of this country speak with one voice—and that this voice supports the Israeli government’s policies… our project was to create a climate and a space in which Jews of different affiliations and persuasions can express their opinions about the actions of the Israeli government without being accused of disloyalty or being dismissed as self-hating. (IJV, 2007)
These two examples offer a glimpse into the construction of diversity and unity, difference and sameness, in diaspora organisations. The relationship with ‘homeland’ is fundamental to the political landscape in which Jewish diaspora organisations operate. In the first example, Zionism and the connection to Israel are constructed as inherent dimensions of Jewish identity (hence of the Jewish space), that are beyond political divide; in the second example, Zionism and Israel advocacy are ideological positions and political actions that can be detached from Jewish identity, and must be under debate within Jewish spaces. Those debates shape Jewish organisations’ boundaries, diversity management, and the environment in which they operate. This chapter delves into UK Jewish organisational statements to examine the complex relations between diversity and politics in organisational settings. The construction of difference and sameness in organisations, and in society at large, is deeply political. It echoes disputes over identity and voice, beliefs regarding justice and injustice, and different approaches as to how to address these. Diaspora organisations are unique spaces for investigating such discursive struggles. The concept of ‘diaspora’ relates to the dispersion of a population in space, outside its putative homeland (Brubaker, 2005). In this process, hybrid cultural identities emerge that transcend clear and stable ideas of time and place, and move between vectors of similarity and difference, continuity and rupture (Hall, 319
320 Research handbook on inequalities and work 1993). A ‘diaspora organisation’, then, can be seen as a place where diaspora relations are shaped: where minorities connect to, celebrate, long for, debate, or reject ideas around a real or an imagined homeland; where questions of belonging and loyalty are explored; where material, social, and emotional relationships with ‘home’ are formed; and where nationalist narratives are reproduced, echoed, or challenged. In this transnational setting, diaspora organisations play a role not only in the construction of ethnic, religious and national identities, but also in mobilising and transforming imagined communities into tangible collective action and practice (Ghorashi, 2004; Van Gorp & Smets, 2015). Diaspora organisations are therefore political spaces, in the sense that they reflect historical structures of domination and subordination and echo negotiation over the oppressive nature of the status quo (Gerring, 1997; Ophir, 2009; Sartori, 1969). This makes them important arenas for diversity research: in contemporary organisations, diversity management often becomes a depoliticised, ahistoric adaptation of the equal opportunity paradigm by removing power from organisational analysis; emphasising individual differences over structural causes of disadvantage; and replacing moral concerns with bottom-line motivations (Bradley & Healy, 2008; Tatli, 2011). Diaspora organisations can also illustrate the movement of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) discourse across borders, as they echo and negotiate inequalities in the ‘home’ society. On this basis, this chapter explores the construction of diversity in UK Jewish organisations, as a means to examining what diversity discourse looks like in diaspora organisations and understanding the political landscape of EDI. The chapter opens with four theoretical perspectives on diversity and politics, and positions the British Jewish context within each of those debates. Then, based on the analysis of official statements of 36 UK Jewish nonprofits, it investigates four EDI issues: the ‘relevant differences’ in the Jewish diversity discourse; who is marginalised by this discourse; who benefits from reproducing it; and the role of inclusion and equality concepts. The conclusion explores how reflections of ‘home’ in diaspora organisations and workplaces shape (or can shape) ideas and realities of inequality.
DIVERSITY AND POLITICS: FOUR PERSPECTIVES Building on Lombardo’s discursive politics approach, this chapter continues other attempts (such as Tatli et al., 2012) to explore how the concept of diversity travels across national, ideological, and organisational contexts and gains meaning through political contestation (Lombardo et al., 2010). When organisations arrange categories of difference they reproduce (or challenge) social structures and inequalities (Ahonen et al., 2014). This may include shrinking, stretching, or bending the meaning and scope of ‘diversity’ (and its categories), possibly to advance policy goals and priorities other than the equality project (Lombardo et al., 2009). These processes are embedded in hegemonic discourses that set horizons of meanings, push actors to adopt certain interpretations, set boundaries for imagining alternative meanings, and create silences and taboos that reflect specific historical contexts (Lombardo et al., 2010; Tatli et al., 2012). Against this background, four types of relations between diversity and politics are suggested: (1) the politics of diversity; (2) the political case for diversity; (3) managing political diversity; and (4) diversity across political boundaries. Exploring the UK Jewish context using
The political case for diversity 321 each of these lenses—which are connected and overlap—enable us to gain a deeper understanding of the diversity-politics link. The Politics of Diversity ‘Diversity’ is a political construct and does not carry a universal fixed meaning. The meaning of diversity in organisations and society, and the demographic characteristics that it includes, is socially constructed, and rooted in historical, social, organisational, and ideological contexts. The use of the term is also political: ‘diversity’ can be utilised for resistance and promoting liberatory ideals, or for managerial instrumentalism. It can be used for descriptive, defensive, or self-congratulatory purposes. Managerial discourses of diversity can be empowering but also operate as control mechanisms (Healy, 2015; Janssens & Zanoni, 2005). ‘Diversity’ travels across time and space, national borders, and institutional and non-institutional policy actors. Through discursive politics, multiple stakeholders engage in intentional and unintentional conceptual disputes, advancing different agendas and interpretations of the concept (Lombardo et al., 2009; Özbilgin & Tatli, 2011). Conceptual clarity is not possible, and perhaps not needed, in order to advance research in the field (Kirton, 2009). However, mapping the discursive struggle over diversity is required in order to understand its contextual, contested, and temporal nature (Tatli et al., 2012). The engagement of British Jewry and its institutions with ‘diversity’ echoes wider debates in the community around the concerns and gaps that are considered important, and should be prioritised, for the safety and thriving of Jewish life in Britain, or for social justice more broadly. As new immigrants from Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century, many of London’s East End Jews became part of working-class movements. In the 1930s, Jewish groups allied with Irish and other minorities to fight fascism (Gidley, 2003). Since then, Jews have experienced dramatic shifts in their economic, cultural, and political position within the UK; and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was a formative moment in shaping the political-ideological orientation of diaspora Jews more broadly. Today, British Jews are considered largely Conservative, tending to favour leaders who prioritise the interests and security of Jews in the UK and in Israel (Barclay, 2020). However, security concerns reveal only one dimension of British-Jewish agendas. During the second half of the 20th century, and especially around the 1990s, the historical focus on security increasingly gave way to concerns of assimilation as the main threat to Jewish continuity (Sacks, 1993). The assimilation debate was linked to the rise of multiculturalism and progressive Jewish movements that claimed there are many ways to be Jewish, and were more open to intermarriage. The dispute between Orthodox and progressive streams emphasised religious differences within Jewish society and its institutions. Divides between religious denominations were portrayed as a threat to the idea of ‘one people’ as a theological and social value (Kahn-Harris & Gidley, 2010). The assimilation debate stimulated a dramatic rise in the Jewish school sector, a key mechanism for socialisation into Jewish communal life. The task of re-uniting the Jewish fragments also produced new organisational models. While synagogue affiliation was in decline among young people, cross-communal and non- (or post-) denominational spaces offered new models of engagement with Jewish life (Cohen, 2005). These were considered less uniform and more inclusive and egalitarian in terms of sexuality and gender equality (Boyd-Gelfand, 2011). However, despite the promise of cross-communalism to work ‘across the community without
322 Research handbook on inequalities and work judging any single group’ (Graham, 2011, p. 154), early initiatives were largely unsuccessful, and did not manage to build trust between religious streams. They were criticised for reproducing Orthodox-normative culture, and constructing non-orthodoxy as the deviant. Interestingly, the first success in rising above religious divides happened at the United Jewish Israel Appeal, an Israel fundraising body. During turbulent times, Israel ‘provided a smokescreen’ (Graham, 2011, p. 170) and emerged as the main unifier and source of consensus within the community (Kahn-Harris, 2014). In recent decades, new antisemitism is increasingly portrayed as the main threat to diaspora Jewry. This form of antisemitism is said to reveal a new type of anti-Jewish hatred: hostility towards Israel and towards Jewish nationality (Klug, 2003). The Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000 led Jewish leadership to urge Jews to unite in solidarity with Israel and to marginalise dissent. In Jewish organisations, this dynamic brought political difference centre stage, explicitly and implicitly. As this chapter explores, as much as political diversity was celebrated within the Zionist boundaries of the mainstream, political disagreement was supressed along those boundaries. Political divisions were portrayed as a danger to communal strength (Kahn-Harris, 2010). The idea was that while Jews may be (more or less) culturally, ethnically, and religiously diverse and may hold a (certain) range of opinions regarding Israel, they should remain unequivocally united in their loyalty to Zionism. This agenda reinforced Zionism as the hegemonic discourse within Jewish organisational life. Against this particularistic model, which saw ethno-centrism as the answer to the perceived threats to Jewish life, there emerged independent Jewish groups that were largely positioned outside the Jewish mainstream, which became known as ‘the Jewish community’. These groups organised around ideas of universal justice and equality. They gave political difference new meaning: debates around difference and diversity within Jewish Zionist institutions gave way to mobilising and organising Jews to promote a wider social agenda. The Jewish left positioned antisemitism as part of a broader problem of racialisation that has to be addressed in alliance and solidarity with other minority groups. Resistance against oppression in Israel-Palestine was not only accepted as a legitimate discourse but was seen as a moral Jewish duty. Those debates demonstrate the complex role of Israel in Jewish communities, being both a unifier and a divider: an engine driving interconnectedness, and a key source of division (Greene & Shain, 2016; Kahn-Harris, 2014). These tensions reveal key characteristics of the politics of diversity and difference in the diaspora Jewish context: the role of religious denomination and political belief as categories of difference that shape Jewish identity and communal dynamics; and the role of social cohesion and national unity as important considerations in setting the communal agenda. While the diversity management paradigm evolved from struggles over social equality and is still linked to the fight against discrimination (Oswick & Noon, 2014), diversity entered Jewish communal life resting on different building blocks, particularly as an attempt to preserve the Jewish collective. The Political Case for Diversity Since its inception, diversity scholars have assumed that there are two main motivations for diversity management: economic benefit and moral-legal rationale. The Workforce 2000 report (Johnston & Packer, 1987), which analysed sociodemographic changes in the US workforce, was the first to claim that minority employees can become strategic assets. It suggested that if well-managed, diversity could give organisations a competitive advantage (Johnston &
The political case for diversity 323 Packer, 1987). Critical diversity research, guided by emancipatory principles, argued that the concept of diversity has been appropriated by a managerialist and utilitarian logic and that the language of diversity and multiculturalism has been commodified, while policies that actually advance equality were side-lined (Kirton, 2009; Noon, 2007; Prasad & Mills, 1997). Yet while mainstream and critical research hold different theoretical and ideological standpoints regarding difference in organisations (Özbilgin & Tatli, 2011), they still assume the existence of two possible rationales: the business case and the social-justice case for diversity. The nonprofit sector was suggested as a space where the two approaches overlap and potentially complement, since for nonprofit organisations, their business is social justice (Tomlinson & Schwabenland, 2010). Diaspora contexts, such as that of British Jewry, make it possible to take this problematisation a step further and explore a third pillar: the political case for diversity. While the business approach advances managerial needs and is rooted in neoliberal ideology, and the social justice case is guided by liberatory ideals and emphasises moral considerations, the political case for diversity can reveal political motivations, and show how diversity can reproduce the language and logic of nationalism. Managing Political Diversity The categories of diversity are historical and contextual constructs. Certain employee differences are emphasised when they are perceived as either useful from a managerial point of view or important from an emancipatory moral approach (Healy, 2015; Janssens & Zanoni, 2005). These differences are then framed by employers as ‘diverse’ and become actively managed. The field of diversity management is inclined towards certain identity strands: social movements and regulatory trends in the US led early initiatives to focus on gender and race at work, and the overall focus of the field remained even when ‘new’ demographic categories entered the discourse, such as disability, sexual orientation, religion, and age. The status and treatment of political belief in the workplace are unclear: de jure, political belief is not protected by the UK Equality Act (2010), although it can overlap with protected characteristics such as religion and belief or nationality. De facto, it plays an important role in how employers and employees think and talk about difference. This role was intensified by recent socio-political trends and polarisation, particularly around rising populist movements in Europe and the US. Political events such as Brexit mainly affected the lives of migrants and ethnic minority workers but also exerted a strong impact on workers’ emotions and identities and influenced workplace dynamics more broadly (Kerr & Śliwa, 2020; Markham, 2020). The links between political difference and inequality are yet unclear. The contested and contextual nature of political categories makes it hard to determine how political beliefs may place people in positions of privilege or disadvantage at work and when political belief turns from an individual into a collective difference that shapes inequality. In UK Jewish society, Zionist hegemonic discourse has an influence on shaping positions of hegemony and marginality in ways that echo power relations within Israeli society. The ‘Zionist difference’ draws the boundaries of the Jewish mainstream (‘the Jewish community’) and shapes issues of legitimacy, participation, and status accordingly (Kahn-Harris & Gidley, 2010). As diaspora organisations, Jewish organisations reproduce, negotiate, and challenge nationalistic discourses and narratives (Van Gorp & Smets, 2015; Yabanci, 2021). Accepting or rejecting those narratives can potentially impact the working lives of employees, determine
324 Research handbook on inequalities and work employment opportunities, and influence their sense of belonging, voice, and agency. It has been argued that fierce critics of Israeli state policies are constructed as marginal and delusional and that anti-Zionists are called disloyal and self-hating Jews. As such, they are largely excluded from communal public debates and mainstream media and denied access to Jewish representative bodies and key communal institutions such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Chief Rabbinate (Finlay, 2015; Lerman, 2012). Diversity Across Political Boundaries The critical diversity literature is interested not only in questions of inequality in the workplace but also in the equality implications of organisational practices, structures, and discourses on society more broadly. While scholars focus on the national contexts in which organisations operate, there is yet a need to investigate how diversity discourse travels across national borders (Tatli et al., 2012). British Jewish society echoes inequalities and EDI debates present in the UK, in the Jewish world, and in the Middle East—and also contributes to shaping them. For example, disputes over the definition of antisemitism revolve not only around what antisemitism means for Jews in Britain but also around the impact of different definitions on injustice in Israel-Palestine (Klug, 2003). In general, British Jews maintain strong emotional, ideological, and material connections to Israel (despite some decline among young people), many of which directly or indirectly contribute to shaping realities in Israel-Palestine through the Jewish nonprofit sector (Greene & Shain, 2016; Shindler, 2007). Yet rejection is also a form of relation: critical Jewish voices are also deeply engaged with Israel-Palestine, from a different political position. Arguably, even disinterested diaspora Jews are dragged into Israeli-Palestinian politics by enjoying the privilege of potentially becoming Israeli citizens at any moment and enjoying the benefits of this status. Thus, the Jewish diaspora organisation can offer insight into the relations between EDI debates and realities of inequality across borders that are geographically remote yet politically closely connected. Moreover, although the Jewish context is considered paradigmatic in the study of diaspora (Boyarin & Boyarin, 1993; Brubaker, 2005), it offers an unusual perspective for equality studies. While ideas of ‘diaspora’ are often associated with contexts of migration and displacement, the Jewish exile from the Land of Israel—a formative narrative of Jewish collective identity—is far from a lived experience. The manifestations and implications of those transnational tensions in relation to issues of EDI within Jewish diaspora organisations are explored in the empirical discussion below.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONAL STATEMENTS This chapter is based on an analysis of 87 publicly available online statements by 36 UK Jewish organisations for messages about diversity, equality, and inclusion. The data was collected in 2021. In most cases, organisations did not have separate diversity statements but rather referred to EDI in their mission, vision, and value statements. Official statements can offer a glimpse into organisational priorities, beliefs, attitudes and standpoints, including with regard to diversity and social difference (Katz & Liss, 2021; Wilson et al., 2012).
The political case for diversity 325 The inclusion criteria centred on UK Jewish organisations that seek to promote social change and engage with questions around the future of the Jewish community and/or society at large (for example, through advocacy, representation, social action, or education). The organisations included have diverse ideologies and political orientations, including traditional and progressive, liberal and radical, non-denominational and cross-communal. They also cover a wide range of standpoints around Israel-Palestine: from home-state-oriented diaspora organisations (Yabanci, 2021) to no Israel agenda at all. The research excluded organisations that provide social and religious services. Following Kirby and Harter’s methodology (2002), four main questions were examined in the analysis of organisational statements: (1) What are the ‘relevant differences’ in Jewish organisations? (2) Who is being marginalised by the UK Jewish diversity discourse? (3) Who benefits from this diversity discourse? (4) How do concepts of equality and inclusion present alternative positions vis-à-vis diversity? The ‘Relevant Differences’ in UK Jewish Organisations The analysis of official statements reveals how Jewish organisations embrace the rhetoric of diversity management while bending and stretching the meaning of diversity and its categories. These discursive processes echo the politics of diversity in British Jewish society as it evolved in recent decades. Within many ‘mainstream’ Jewish organisations diversity is often coupled with the term ‘cross-communalism’. Organisations that identify as cross-communal claim that they work across Jewish society. Thus, the term can be conceptualised as a managerial diversity metaphor (Kirby & Harter, 2002). We value the rich diversity among Jews, and so we seek to create cross-communal and intergenerational experiences. (Organisation A)
However, despite its strong resonance with the language of diversity management, cross-communalism sidelines traditional diversity categories such as gender and ethnicity, and instead emphasises categories that are seen as important in the British-Jewish context, particularly religious denomination and political belief. Thus, cross-communal organisations work across religious and political differences within British-Jewish society, and emphasise the management of religious and political diversity. [Organisation B] works across the Jewish community… We acknowledge the rich diversity of the British Jewish community and seek to work with individuals and groups from the whole spectrum… transcend[ing] any denominational or ideological division. (Organisation B)
Following the celebratory tradition of diversity rhetoric, cross-communalism is portrayed as a festivity of Jewish difference. The language of valuing the richness of Jewish life implies a moral incentive over utilitarian motivation. However, intriguingly, these statements are not necessarily an invitation for marginalised groups to join the space. In fact, it is not acknowledged whether and how religious and political differences are associated with power structures in Jewish society. In the statements, Jewish society emerges as religiously and politically fragmented, rather than stratified. Cross-communalism calls Jewish groups to transcend social divisions and reunite across religious and political rifts. Hence, within the framework of the
326 Research handbook on inequalities and work social justice case, cross-communalism is linked to community cohesion more than to the equality project. Does cross-communalism also serve managerial purposes? Diversifying the communities that organisations work with enables them to expand their reach to new audiences, build their reputation as inclusive institutions, and establish their legitimacy as authentic and representative: [Organisation C] is the voice of the British Jewish community… [C] is the only democratically elected, cross-communal, representative body in the Jewish community. (Organisation C) We are the voice of… Jewish students… We are traditional, progressive, cultural and spiritual; we come from the left, centre and right and can be found across religious and political spectrums. (Organisation D)
Religious and political diversity becomes an organisational asset, as it positions Jewish organisations as more credible and legitimate. Yet, bringing authentic and diverse voices from across the community is also a moral imperative for identity-based organisations, whose raison d’être is advocating for the identity group and representing its concerns. In other words, business and moral cases for diversity complement each other (Tomlinson & Schwabenland, 2010). These opening statements also demonstrate a key finding which will dominate other statements: diversity is mainly used in relation to the organisations’ members and beneficiaries, rather than the workforce. This shift might echo wider trends in the nonprofit world (particularly among small and micro-sized employers). Nonetheless, the centrality of diversity terms within official statements and how those terms are constructed offer insight into the beliefs and worldviews that underline those organisations as employers. Nonprofit employers are increasingly expected to ‘practice what they preach’ and treat the people they employ like those they serve. The consistency between words and actions, or between their founding values and their employment practices, forms a main source of their organisational legitimacy (Schwabenland, 2016). Marginalisation by Diversity Discourse The idea of working ‘across’ the Jewish community assumes that there is a Jewish community, one whose margins can be traced, to ensure that all its members are included. The ‘Jewish community’ is a social construct that, particularly as a diaspora group, is derived from the idea of a people, a nation (Anderson, 2006; Bauman, 2013). Cross-communalism makes it possible to define and preserve the boundaries of this community. Therefore, while attempting to include, cross-communalism also reveals who is excluded from ‘the community’, and what the imagined borders of the Jewish collective are. In analysing organisational statements, it is essential to identify these areas of silence, omission, and taboo. First, the seemingly obvious has to be said: the diverse Jewish organisation excludes non-Jews. The idea that the Jewish workplace should be all-Jewish has already been challenged in reality: the majority of workers in Jewish social care organisations are not Jewish, a heterogeneity that has raised concerns regarding the ‘Jewishness’ of Jewish organisations (Harris, 1997). However, this workforce composition is seen as a compromise due to the need to find workers for physical and poorly rewarded jobs rather than as a result of EDI efforts.
The political case for diversity 327 Second, the cross-communal space does not include the full range of religious and political differences present in British Jewish society. Two groups in particular are left outside of the cross-communal space: ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews, largely due to religious difference; and anti-Zionist Jews, due to political difference. This exclusion is implicit, manifesting itself through absence and omission from official statements, and is concealed by the celebratory rhetoric of diversity. The life of ultra-Orthodox Jews—the fastest-growing Jewish community worldwide—has been a source of academic and cultural interest due to their strict theological interpretation of ways of life, their traditional appearance, and their insular nature. While Jewish institutions respect the Haredi preference to remain secluded, they also avoid admitting that the cross-communal space fails to (and perhaps cannot possibly) fulfil its promise to include all religious streams. Ultra-orthodox communities are where the main pockets of poverty in British Jewish society lie. Their exclusion from cross-communalism, as a key building block of the Jewish EDI framework, is a failure to address socioeconomic disparities within Jewish society. It is also a missed opportunity to bring issues of inequality into the diversity conversation: to shift back the focus from cultural change to economic restructuring, from a politics of recognition to a politics of redistribution (Fraser, 1995). While Jewish institutions seem to accept Haredi reluctance to join the ‘religiously diverse’ space, anti-Zionist groups are generally unwelcome in the ‘politically diverse’ space regardless of whether they wish to join it or not (Finlay, 2015; Lerman, 2012). The following statement, made by one of those marginalised groups, reveals the discriminatory nature of cross-communal diversity claims, particularly the ‘political diversity’ claim: We are a group of Jews in Britain from diverse backgrounds, occupations and affiliations who have in common a strong commitment to social justice and universal human rights. We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community… individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to express their views… without incurring accusations of disloyalty. (Organisation E)
Organisation E’s critique reveals the fallacy of idea of ‘political diversity’. While ‘political diversity’ provides a source of legitimacy for Jewish representative bodies, in practice the broad spectrum of Jewish opinions is not fully included. This critique implies that ‘political diversity’ claims serve as a mechanism to marginalise dissent around Israel-Palestine, and reinforce the idea that ‘one Jewish voice’ exists (Lerman, 2012). Therefore, paradoxically, the same organisations that celebrate political diversity (implying that they are politically neutral) are the ones to exclude dissenting voices around Israel. However, a contextualised interpretation, which approaches Zionism as a hegemonic discourse within British Jewry, can offer a key to the paradox. In this context, Zionism is understood as an inherent dimension of Jewish identity, rather than one political-ideological stance among others. In this political landscape, anti-Zionism is positioned beyond the imaginable political spectrum. This naturalisation of Zionism enables Jewish organisations to embrace the idea of political diversity, while also limiting and bounding this diversity by Zionism. The fallacy of political diversity is perhaps this: unlike gender, race, and other identity strands that are recognised as protected characteristics, not all political beliefs are of the same ‘value’, nor should they be equally treated in the workplace and in organisations. In some cases, political discrimination is not only legitimate but even necessary. What is perhaps jarring is not the political boundaries of organisations, but their ‘political diversity’ statements.
328 Research handbook on inequalities and work Organisation E is not politically diverse either, but it does not claim to be (although it does seek diversity of backgrounds, occupations, and affiliations). In fact, its members are committed to a particular political-moral project of universal human rights. Hence, transparency around organisations’ political-moral standing and boundaries emerge as central to forming an equal and inclusive space. The third limitation of cross-communalism is that by focusing on religious and political diversities it overlooks real inequalities present in British Jewish society: from traditional diversity dimensions of gender and race (Öztürk & Tatli, 2016) to marginalised identities that are unique to British Jewry. It is only when we leave the cross-communal space and turn to organisations located on the political left that marginalised Jewish groups are noticed: We celebrate diversity and welcome Jews of all observances, denominations and backgrounds, including Jews of colour, Jews by choice and Jews from secular or interfaith families. (Organisation F)
Organisation F reiterates the celebratory language of diversity. However, while cross-communal statements seek diversity without equality, here diversity is tailored to address inequalities in Jewish society: the exclusion of Jews of colour, an issue which entered Jewish community discourse following the Black Lives Matter movement (Bush, 2021; Pick, 2023); as well as Jews by choice, interfaith families, and secular Jews. While the diversity of religious observances is emphasised in this statement, Organisation F makes no claims regarding political diversity, perhaps due its declared political mission regarding justice in Israel-Palestine. Unlike political belief and religious denomination, other traditionally protected characteristics such as gender, race, and sexual orientation were hardly mentioned in the publicly-available statements that were investigated. When those identity strands were mentioned, it was usually in relation to the organisation’s broader mission (mainly in wider British society or in Israel) rather than to British Jewish society. we provide a Jewish voice on race and asylum. (Organisation G) our mission [is to] [a]chieve equality for all the citizens of the state [of Israel] regardless of religion, national origin, race, gender or sexual orientation. (Organisation H)
The focus on religious and political diversity seems to leave little room to recognise other forms of difference and to address inequality within Jewish workplaces. Beneficiaries of the Diversity Discourse A key theme in the analysed statements on diversity is that of ‘unity’. The concepts of diversity and unity are somewhat in conflict. At times, oppressed groups temporarily suspend their internal differences and present a façade of unity in their pursuit of equal rights (Chakravorty-Spivak, 1999). The Jewish case reveals a different model, in which diversity is not ignored but instead emphasised and utilised to promote communal unity around certain political messages. This effort serves representation purposes, but also emerges as a value in its own right. Not all of the investigated organisations talk about unity, and a few use it in ways unrelated to diversity. However, the persistent use of the term ‘unity’ in diversity contexts offers an opportunity to explore one route along which the political case for diversity operates.
The political case for diversity 329 [Our vision is of] a vibrant, diverse, unified British-Jewish community. (Organisation I) [Organisation J] embraces a framework of religious and political pluralism which not only respects but actively celebrates diversity as an integral part of the rich tapestry of Jewish Peoplehood… [We value] the unity of the Jewish people, its bond to its historic homeland Eretz Yisrael [Land of Israel], and the centrality of the State of Israel and Jerusalem, its capital, in the life of the nation. (Organisation J)
What is apparent in several organisational statements is the nationalist context of the Jewish diversity discourse. The ‘rich tapestry’ metaphor is a common discursive device in diversity statements (Kirton, 2009). Yet celebrating the richness of Jewish identity is portrayed here as means for promoting another agenda, beyond EDI. Organisation J’s members may hold different political beliefs, but they remain united by their commitment to Zionism. The term ‘Jewish Peoplehood’ is not used to describe the existence of Jews as a people, but to reinforce the commitment of diaspora Jews to Jewish nationalism. Interestingly, Jewish organisations insist on using the depoliticised diversity language within highly politicised organisational environments. Moreover, Jewish unity is used to confine political debate in the workplace within Zionist boundaries. Here, a distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ political debate hints at the boundaries of political inclusion within Jewish organisations: We do not participate in legitimising or de-legitimising any religious or political position found in the worldwide Jewish community… we will seek to avoid religious or political conflict. (Organisation A)
Nonconfrontation, as a strategy for dealing with conflicts, can be usefully employed in diversity management. However, the above statement does more than that: it restricts political speech that might destabilise the status quo in Jewish society. The language of ‘legitimising’ and ‘de-legitimising’ indeed hints at a particular Israeli-Palestinian context: the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement’s attempt to ‘de-legitimise’ Israel. In a Jewish workplace, this can mean that employees and candidates who are seen as disrupting ‘Jewish unity’ may be silenced or discriminated against. When we turn to organisations that are officially focused on Israel advocacy, it becomes more evident that diversity becomes an asset in a political project. The Israel advocacy project itself emerges as the key beneficiary of organisational diversity: [Organisation K] seeks to provide a united front that brings together all the existing supporters of Israel in the UK, across the political spectrum… diversity of opinion amongst British supporters of Israel should be a source of strength. (Organisation K) [Organisation L] celebrates Israel and challenges our enemies… it promotes the real face of Israel… [Our members hold] a range of political opinions and affiliations. [L] is an organisation where all of these views can come together… [L] values debate but believes that it is our commonality that unites us rather than our differences that divide us. (Organisation L)
Whether political differences become a source of organisational (and national) strength or cause for division depends on the scope of legitimate differences. Jews and non-Jews from across the political spectrum are welcomed as long as they are united in their support for Israel. In those diversity statements, moral, managerial, and political motivations overlap: political debate is ‘valued’ but is also instrumental; expanding and diversifying the support base is both
330 Research handbook on inequalities and work a managerial mission and a national interest. The political case for diversity emerges as an important complementary approach to diversity management. Such a context, in which organisational belonging is strongly enmeshed with belonging to a national collective or subscribing to a certain national project, brings novel dynamics in terms of how diversity is constructed and then used as a discursive device, and how it interacts with inclusion and exclusion at work. ‘Equality’ and ‘Inclusion’ as Alternative Concepts to ‘Diversity’ Within the Jewish nonprofit sector, diversity discourse seems to exceed the language of equality and inclusion. However, traces of ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion’ in official statements make it possible to explore whether Jewish organisations use these concepts to engage with core EDI issues and to create more equal, fair, accessible, and welcoming institutions and workplaces. Broadly speaking, the analysis findings reveal that statements that use the language of equality and inclusion amplify issues of racial and social justice more than diversity statements do. Yet interestingly, statements on equality and inclusion distance the discussion even further away from the workforce level. While previous sections showed how diversity statements tend to focus on the organisation’s members, ‘equality’ is used almost exclusively in relation to the organisation’s desired social impact in wider society rather than to its own members or workers. [we] share a commitment to… giving equal priority to Palestinians and Israelis in their quest for a peaceful and secure future. (Organisation M) we work to engage the Jewish Community in social action in the wider society, focusing on race equality and justice for refugees and asylum seekers. (Organisation N)
Absent from organisational statements is the value, mission, or vision of promoting equality within UK Jewish society itself. This links to previous findings: according to the statements, within Jewish society, EDI efforts serve the need to bridge communal divisions rather than to address socioeconomic inequality or cultural marginalisation. When equality statements appear in relation to British Jews, they refer to discrimination and injustice towards Jews as a group (antisemitism) rather than to inequality within British Jewish society. [we organise] our community in support of justice and equality for all… We will only defeat antisemitism when we work hand-in-hand to defeat Islamophobia, xenophobia and all other racism at the same time. (Organisation O) [we] support the rights of Jews everywhere to lead full lives as equal citizens… [we] fight antisemitism, racism and all forms of discrimination and racial hatred. (Organisation P)
Two statements used equality and inclusion terms to refer to marginalisation within Jewish society itself. They both preferred the positive and depoliticised EDI language: [our] mission is to ensure that Jewish LGBT+ people and their families are included throughout Jewish life in the UK. (Organisation Q) a commitment to creating a vibrant learning and teaching environment, which is imbued with a clear sense of equality, openness to critical thinking. (Organisation R)
The political case for diversity 331 Only one organisation used the language of equality and inclusion while explicitly engaging with questions of power: [We] foster an equal and inclusive [Jewish] community… In our pursuit of liberation from prejudice and discrimination, we strive to recognise the experiences of all people and breakdown all forms of oppression… feminism is fundamental to our ideology and it is our responsibility to avoid replicating the damaging and discriminatory norms of society. (Organisation T)
Organisation T acknowledges that Jewish workplaces are not immune to the gendered and racialised nature of social institutions in general. This can explain why diversity is omitted here: Organisation T calls for recognition of multiple experiences not in order to ‘celebrate diversity’ but because recognition can be a political action that challenges unequal social structures. This type of voice, with its strong social justice language, has become prevalent within the wider UK nonprofit sector, particularly among racialised communities. However, politicised voices that are willing to destabilise the status quo are rare among Jewish organisations and advocacy groups.
REFLECTIONS OF ‘HOME’ IN DIASPORA ORGANISATIONS AND THE EQUALITY PROJECT Debates around ‘homeland’ are central to the political landscape in which EDI takes place in diaspora organisations. In British Jewish society, Israel (or representations of it) contributes to delineating positions of centre and margin, and shaping issues of voice, legitimacy, and participation within community institutions and workplaces. The Jewish diversity discourse transcends the UK national borders, as it echoes, reproduces, and sometimes challenges ideological beliefs, national sentiments, and political visions present in the wider Jewish diaspora, and in Israel-Palestine. While Israel is not the only epicentre of Jewish life in the UK, it plays a key role in shaping the building blocks of its diversity framework. Two of those foundations are: the social differences that are being emphasised and managed; and the motivation to manage diversity. In terms of what is being managed, diversity discourse seem to have shifted the spotlight away from traditional EDI dimensions such as gender and ethnicity (Janssens & Zanoni, 2005) towards other categories, particularly political difference. Paradoxically, the cross-communal Jewish space, which celebrates political and religious diversity does not include (nor pretends to include) the full range of political beliefs (and religious denominations) present in Jewish society. This exclusion is particularly strong towards groups that are critical of Israel. While political discrimination at work is not illegal in the UK, the findings reveal the problems of placing political differences within EDI frameworks, and the pitfalls of political diversity claims. Centring organisational mindsets around political diversity sidelines gender, racial, and other inequalities within and outside Jewish society, as well as the marginalisation of Jews of colour, Jews by choice, interfaith families, and other groups. As for why diversity is being managed, official statements reveal how the meaning of diversity is bent and redefined to advance policy goals beyond the equality project (Lombardo et al., 2009). In most cases, diversity rhetoric did not use traditional social justice or business arguments. Statements were not particularly interested in tackling discrimination in Jewish workplaces, reducing cultural marginalisation within Jewish society, or making Jewish spaces
332 Research handbook on inequalities and work more accessible. Neither were they directed at increasing economic profit. Moral and utilitarian arguments seem insufficient for interpreting the enthusiasm for diversity in these spaces. Instead, the language around the management of difference in Jewish organisations reveals a strong political case for diversity: a desire to re-connect religious and political fragments of Jewish society, bridge social divisions, and advance community cohesion and national unity, particularly around Israel. These interpretations and utilisations of diversity discourse are unusual, and are rooted in the diasporic community context. They demonstrate how diversity management can be adapted and tailored to community needs and concerns. This flexibility can benefit historically marginalised groups, such as Jews in Britain. A context-oriented analysis may help address the following paradox that emerged from the data: How can organisations celebrate political diversity and draw their political boundaries at the same time? How can politically diverse Jewish organisations exclude anti-Zionist Jews? A context-sensitive reading of the terms ‘Zionism’ and ‘supporting Israel’ will see them as fundamental, inseparable, inherent, dimensions of Jewish life, rather than political agendas that Jews may or may not support. From this perspective, Jewish national unity is necessary for the security of Jews, and is therefore an issue of social justice. But from a critical diversity lens, where Zionism is a political ideology and Israel advocacy is a political action, the research findings demonstrate how the EDI frameworks can be utilised to silence political dissent. Moreover, in the transnational context of UK Jewish organisations, this mechanism not only marginalises political groups within British-Jewish society, but can also contribute to reproducing inequality in Israel-Palestine. For policy makers and practitioners, the findings help with understanding the slippery nature of political belief in the workplace. This dimension of employee difference has become central to diversity discourse, although it is not protected by UK law. One problem with inserting ‘politics’ into an EDI frame is the elusive link between politics and inequality—for example, which political belief puts people in a position of disadvantage at work? Political belief is different from gender, race, and other diversity dimensions. While employers may justly aspire to be gender- and race-neutral, political neutrality should be treated with more caution and sincerity. Indeed, feminism, anti-racism, and other legal/moral commitments are political positions. The social-justice-oriented diversity approach may benefit from a degree of scepticism around the idea of political neutrality, and engage cautiously and transparently with ideas of political diversity, which can be harmful for the equality project. Future research directions can further explore the relations between loyalty to the workplace and loyalty to the nation. Other diaspora groups in the UK that experience national conflict at ‘home’ can offer new insight into the diversity-politics link; for example, around the consequences of challenging established nationalist narratives in the workplace. Jewish organisations in other diaspora communities—such as the United States, Germany, or France—can offer new insight into the role of Israel-Palestine in shaping the meaning of EDI and the lives of workers accordingly.
NOTE 1.
The author would like to thank Ahu Tatli for her insightful remarks on earlier drafts of this chapter.
The political case for diversity 333
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23. Financial wellbeing and ethnicity Chidozie Umeh and Nelarine Cornelius
INTRODUCTION There is growing ethnic diversity in the UK. Adults from ethnic minority groups make up one in eight UK adults. Over half (53%) are Asian, a quarter (25%) are Black or Black British, 16% are Mixed Race, and 6% are either Arab or another ethnic group (Lievesley, 2010). By 2030, ethnic minority groups are estimated to account for 20% of the total UK population and over 30% by 20511 (Parker, 2016). Historically, the indicators for social, health, economic, and financial outcomes (Office for National Statistics, 2017, 2018, 2019a) show that ethnic minorities are at a continued disadvantage compared to White British groups.2 Specifically, inequalities in financial wellbeing vary between ethnic groups, especially Black, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian groups (Runnymede Report, 2020). White Britons also tend to fare best in terms of household wealth, higher employment rates, and income, all of which contribute to financial wellbeing. ‘Financial wellbeing is about feeling secure and in control. It is knowing that you can pay the bills today, can deal with the unexpected, and are on track for a healthy financial future. In short: confident and empowered’ (Money and Pensions Service, 2019). As awareness of multi-culturalism in the UK has increased over the past decade, there have been more initiatives to improve the financial wellbeing of ethnic minority groups through financial inclusion. Four of the five priority measures in the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing focus on encouraging people to save regularly (build a savings habit, build cash reserves to help with short-term emergencies, and have a clearer future focus in their financial lives), manage credit (access affordable credit and make informed choices about borrowing), access debt advice (access and receive high-quality debt advice when they need it because of stronger and earlier engagement and because funding, supply, and services more closely match need), and make good decisions about their future wellbeing (Money and Pensions Service, 2020). Still, extensive evidence suggests that some disadvantage still exists, such as fewer job opportunities, interrupted job histories, more self-employment and unemployment, and problems with mental health and wellbeing (Vlachantoni et al., 2017). Having limited financial resources and different cultural values and norms all contribute to ethnic minority groups’ long-term inequalities, disadvantage, and the negative attitudes towards mainstream financial products and services (Feldmann, 2013; Kandil, 2015). Such inequalities in financial wellbeing are exacerbated during times of local or global crisis, such as the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic (Office for National Statistics, 2020a). This has highlighted how important it is to examine these group inequalities in more depth. In this chapter, we examine: ● How the different ethnic groups compare across demographic, socio-economic, and other factors related to savings, credit use, and debt advice; ● Factors that contribute to experiences of financial exclusion, specifically in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; 335
336 Research handbook on inequalities and work ● The root causes of differences in group behaviour towards savings, credit, and debt advice.
THE BIGGER PICTURE: HOW ETHNIC GROUPS COMPARE WITH EACH OTHER While fundamental, socio-economic factors alone cannot account for historical inequalities across groups. Other socio-demographic indicators also have implications for inequalities in financial wellbeing. Financial Wellbeing and Socio-Demographic Factors Financial wellbeing is affected by many factors, such as income, ethnicity, age, disability, gender, and class/status, but also job type and location (Public Health England, 2020). Certain groups are more likely than others to have lower or higher employment rates and wages and career progression. More Bangladeshi (18%), Pakistani (11%), Black African, and Indian (5%) workers are paid below the national minimum wage in the UK compared to White workers (3%) (Office for National Statistics, 2020b). This might be related to age, as workers under 25 are paid a lower minimum wage, and the type of occupation. Many of these low-paid groups also work in the ‘grey’ economy,3 where employers illegally pay below the minimum wage (Office for National Statistics, 2017; Runnymede Report, 2020). Unemployment plays a big role in financial wellbeing, with the Black group having the highest unemployment rate of all groups (Runnymede Report, 2020). After Bangladeshi households, the Black group is more likely than all other groups to claim income-related benefits. Only a small number (8%) of Black pensioner families draw any income from a personal pension. Within this context, gender remains a significant factor. Ethnic minority women have very high unemployment rates, especially those from the Bangladeshi group, with unemployment rates of 19% (McKinsey & Company, 2020). Specifically, unemployment is highest for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women (12.0%) and Black women (11.5%) compared to an overall female unemployment rate of 4.5% (Francis-Devine, 2022). The 2012 parliamentary report on ethnic minority female unemployment found that discrimination and stereotypes were key reasons for this higher unemployment rate (All-Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community, 2012). Black men experience much higher unemployment rates than White men with long-term and lasting damage over their lifetime (Economic and Social Research Council, 2019). These socio-economic and demographic factors can influence saving habits, managing credit, mortgages, pensions, and accessing debt advice. While long-term employment seems positively linked to financial wellbeing, a longer working life does not necessarily mean more savings and financial security. For instance, although a higher proportion of ethnic minority men work after the age of 55, more White men are more likely to have access to private saving schemes throughout their working life. Black African and Bangladeshi households have only GBP 0.10 of savings and assets for every GBP 1 of White British household savings (Runnymede Report, 2020). Another problem is that 52% of the Pakistani and the Bangladeshi groups do not own a current account. So both groups are more likely to be excluded from mainstream financial services (Blanco et al., 2019; Hirschler, 2009). All this can contribute to poor financial wellbeing and further exclusion from financial products and services.
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 337 Savings There are significant differences between groups regarding the extent and circumstances under which low-income ethnic minority households save. This includes why they save, what they save, and how they save. Specifically, the use of formal savings and investment products is far lower among ethnic minorities than in the White population, and over 60% of Asian and Black groups have no savings Instead, a great deal of money saved by ethnic minority groups is channelled into informal community and group-based mutual savings and insurance associations, which have no White British equivalent. Investment in property and businesses is also more widespread among ethnic groups than the wider UK population (Kempson, 1998). Large sums of money are sent overseas as well, mainly for family upkeep and support but also for savings and investment. These payments are significant but mostly unaccounted. For instance, in 2010, Africans worldwide remitted UDS 51.8 billion (GBP 32 billion), while aid donations to Africa totalled USD 43 billion (GBP 28 billion) (BBC, 2013). These figures have been confirmed in more recent studies (Barne & Pirlea, 2019). During 2010–2018, cash remittances sent abroad from the UK were more than transfers received into the UK (The Migration Observatory, 2020). Remittance inflows from the UK to developing countries like Nigeria remain impressive, but informality dominates. Funds are increasingly remitted informally by diasporans who stay closely tied to home, family, friends, and social networks based on collectivist cultural values (Cooper & Esser, 2018). The advantage of these payments is that they usually flow directly into the receiving households, increasing household income and reducing the likelihood of households falling into poverty. Furthermore, savings behaviour seems to differ between ethnic groups based on employment, education, gender, and migration status. Some research suggests that second-generation migrants are more likely to save for shorter-term luxuries and are more integrated into British financial services compared with their parents (Kempson, 1998; Atkinson et al., 2007). Higher education levels also seem to have a more significant impact on saving rates amongst ethnic minority groups than White groups (Adami et al., 2018). Specifically, the more educated Pakistani men and Bangladeshi women were, the more likely they were to save. The effect of full-time employment and gender also has an impact on the likelihood to save. Full-time-employed Indian men were less likely to save than men in the White group. Interestingly, although Bangladeshi men are less likely to be in full-time work than other ethnic groups, they are more likely to save than the White group (Adami et al., 2018). Women in full-time employment across all groups also show a higher tendency to save than those in part-time employment. This is particularly true for women from White, Indian, and Bangladeshi groups. However, Indian women tend to save regularly until they reach the age of 45, but then save less and stop after the age of 55, which might be related to the fall in employment later in life (Runnymede Report, 2020). For Bangladeshi women, their savings decline slowly but steadily over the course of their life, while Pakistani women tend to save regularly throughout their working lives and beyond. Overall, women from ethnic minorities tend to participate less in savings than women from White groups.
338 Research handbook on inequalities and work Pensions Ethnic minorities are twice as likely to live in poverty as the White group across Britain (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016). This creates an ethnicity pensions gap – the difference in pension income for those from the ethnic minority groups compared to those from the White group. According to the Peoples Pension Report, the UK’s overall ethnicity pension gap was 24.4% in 2017–2018 or GBP 3,350 a year, with 67% of ethnic minorities not being members of any pension scheme (The People’s Pension, 2020). While knowledge of and opportunity to join pension schemes were lower among some ethnic minority groups, age and gender seem to remain mediating factors. Moreover, a report on UK household wealth by ethnicity (Office for National Statistics, 2020b) suggests that the annual pension income gap between a female pensioner from an ethnic minority and a White male pensioner is 51.4%. The difference in wealth between the ethnic minorities and the White group narrows considerably from age 35–44 but widens substantially after the age of 45. The Bangladeshi group is also the least likely to save in a pension scheme but more likely to invest in property than other groups. Although the Black group is more likely to invest in pension savings than the Pakistani group, for instance, and more unlikely to invest in property, only a small number (8%) of Black pensioner families draw any income from a personal pension (Berthoud, 2000; Cabinet Office, 2017). Credit Before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 4% of households in the UK were identified as having ‘problem debt’. This means debt as a proportion of disposable income, including arrears on household bills or credit commitments (Office for National Statistics, 2019b). Lack of access to appropriate credit may lead to difficulties in household budgeting and paying bills, as well as over-indebtedness and financial and social exclusion (Anderloni et al., 2008). However, a lack of access frequently assumes ethnic dimensions that remain unfavourable to individuals and businesses. Ethnic Minority Businesses (EMBs) are often detached from mainstream business support and struggle disproportionately when accessing finance (Roberts et al., 2020). This makes the most vulnerable prey to ‘loan sharks’ who offer instant loans at extremely high interest rates, leading to greater and chronic indebtedness. In 2019, the Office for National Statistics reported that in the preceding 12 months more women than men (36% vs. 24%) had used retail finance (store cards, catalogue credit and shopping accounts, rent-to-own, and other hire purchase or instalment credit) (Office for National Statistics, 2019b). Also, more women (13%) than men (8%) had used any high-cost loan. Similarly, more than twice as many women (9%) as men (4%) had used catalogue credit and not paid off the balance every month. More women (19% vs. 12% of men) had bought goods on a ‘buy now pay later’ basis. Ethnic minority adults are likely to have lower average personal incomes and no savings, private pensions, insurance, or credit cards than the White group. Specifically, 58% of ethnic minority adults and 57% of White adults have some credit or loan products. Equal proportions of adults in these groups were overdrawn (26%) and reported high-cost loans in the previous 12 months (11%).
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 339 Debt advice Generally, the majority of consumers with problem debt do not tend to seek advice. Only when individuals reach the most severe levels of problem debt are they more likely to seek advice. Socio-economic and demographic factors play a prominent role in determining whether an individual with problem debt chooses to seek advice. For instance, men, married couples, those with children, and individuals from an ethnic minority background are all less likely to seek debt advice for a given debt problem (Hirschler, 2009).
THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE FINANCIAL WELLBEING OF ETHNIC MINORITY COMMUNITIES According to several early reports, ethnic minorities are more vulnerable to the current COVID-19 crisis than the White ethnic group, with some reports suggesting that ethnic minorities fare worse in terms of overall health, including mental health and wellbeing, compared to the White group (Public Health England, 2020). Specifically, males of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian ethnic backgrounds had a significantly higher risk of death involving COVID-19 than White males. For females in Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian groups, the risk of death involving COVID-19 was equivalent to White females, and the raised risk of death involving COVID-19 for Black ethnic backgrounds of all ages together was 2.0 times greater for males and 1.4 times greater for females than those of a White ethnic background. These reports are of great concern for ethnic minority groups in the wake of the ongoing global pandemic4 (Office for National Statistics, 2018; Office for National Statistics, 2020a). COVID-19 also seems to exacerbate and further compound long-standing socio-economic inequalities and the financial wellbeing of ethnic minorities (Public Health England, 2020).
INCOME, EMPLOYMENT, AND DEBT In 2020, the OECD reported that, compared with the UK-born White British group, all ethnic minority migrant groups were more likely to experience household income loss during the pandemic (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2020). This income loss was estimated to be 1.3 times more for White migrants (51%), ethnic minority natives (49%), and ethnic minority migrants (48%), respectively. According to the ONS (Office for National Statistics, 2020b), ethnic minority groups were 2.2 times (14.4%) more likely to report being behind their bills than their White non-migrant counterparts during the COVID-19 lockdown. This is because people from ethnic minority groups are more likely to be in insecure employment or become unemployed and less able to benefit from the government’s coronavirus support measures, which focus on full-time employees (e.g., furlough payments). Bangladeshi men are four times as likely as White British men to have jobs in shut-down industries and Pakistani men are nearly three times as likely. Similarly, men from the Black group are twice as likely as White British men to work in shut-down sectors (Platt & Warwick, 2020). Compared with the UK-born White British group, ethnic minority migrants were 3.1 times more likely to lose their jobs during the COVID-19 lockdown. While White non-migrant
340 Research handbook on inequalities and work British were more likely than other groups to experience furlough than job loss, ethnic minority groups were more likely to be self-employed than the White group, which made them ineligible to receive furlough payment (Public Health England, 2020). Self-employment also increased the susceptibility of individuals to financial and economic difficulties related to COVID-19. Ethnic minority adults are more likely to be self-employed than other groups. This is especially true of the Pakistani group as Pakistani men are over 70% more likely to be self-employed than men in the White British group (Office for National Statistics, 2020b). The inequalities in health outcomes emphasised by COVID-19 must be situated and addressed within a broader context of structural inequalities and discrimination in the labour market, which impacts earnings. A recent pay audit found that London’s Black and minority ethnic public employees were paid up to 37% less on average than their White counterparts (Walker, 2018). This pay gap reduces financial wellbeing (Office for National Statistics, 2017) and may be partly linked to discrimination against those with mental health issues (Mind, 2018). Whether implicit or explicit, discrimination has a far-reaching multidimensional effect on the wellbeing of ethnic minorities (Beech et al., 2017; Mind, 2020). Savings In June 2020, around 5% of the UK working population employed in January/February was no longer working (IPPR and Runnymede Trust, 2020). The equivalent figure for ethnic minority groups was 13%. As such, they were nearly three times as likely to have moved from employment to not working and so more likely to experience household income loss during the pandemic than the White group. In addition, ethnic minority groups are more likely to be in insecure employment or become unemployed and less able to benefit from the government’s COVID-19 support measures, which focus on full-time employees (Allas et al., 2020). These factors affect the capacity to save. In particular, Bangladeshis and Black Africans have the lowest amounts of savings to provide a financial buffer if laid off. Only around 30% have enough savings to cover one month of income compared to nearly 60% among the rest of the population. This savings buffer is much lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women and negatively impacts financial wellbeing in times of economic crisis (Platt & Warwick, 2020). Pensions As already mentioned, the disparity in household wealth, such as private pension wealth, between households based on ethnicity is stark. Household wealth is important to understand the socio-economic circumstances of the population. However, focusing on ‘heads of households’5,6 is also valuable for measuring inequality in wealth distribution and understanding its causes (Woldoff, 2008). There are differences between the heads of White British and Bangladeshi or Black African households and within the minority groups themselves. Bangladeshi- and Black African-headed households participate the least in pension schemes compared to Indian- and White British-headed households (Cabinet Office, 2017). Demographics may partly explain this, as some groups are younger on average than others and so might not have considered pensions. Overall though, more members of ethnic minority
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 341 groups are less likely to have private pension wealth than members of the White group before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Use of Credit and Debt Advice: Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic People from Black, Asian, and other minority ethnic communities were more likely to face financial difficulties before the crisis, with 12–18% struggling compared to 7% across the population (Jones, 2020). Borrowers from Black communities also had significantly high relative debt levels compared with their income, on average equivalent to 18% of their annual gross income compared with 12% across all groups (Noel et al., 2019). The demand for advice to help people with housing, benefits, and finances was higher among ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minorities were more likely than those who identified as White to need advice about money, benefits, and housing to help manage their mental health (Public Health England, 2020). This is unsurprising since Black and minority groups are more likely to be amongst the least well paid (Office for National Statistics, 2019a). People from minority ethnic communities are also more likely to be renters than for the population in general (Walker, 2018). Therefore, they do not benefit from mortgage payment holidays. They were also more likely to report being behind on their bills during the COVID-19 lockdown. This means that they were more likely to have built up rent arrears during the COVID-19 crisis. This makes them particularly vulnerable to financial security and indebtedness (Syal, 2020).
ROOT CAUSES OF FINANCIAL EXCLUSION AMONG ETHNIC MINORITY GROUPS Overall, financial wellbeing of ethnic groups is affected by attitude towards financial services and products, including digital exclusion, which differs according to gender and ethnicity (Office for National Statistics, 2019c). Digital exclusion is linked to unwillingness or inability to access information about financial products (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018). More women (64%) have never used the Internet (vs. 36% men) (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018) and more ethnic minorities (12%) are digitally excluded because of poor or non-existent digital skills compared to the White group (9%) (Office for National Statistics, 2019c). Globally, the proportion of women using the Internet (48%) compared to men (58%) presents a global gender Internet user gap of 17% (International Telecommunication Union, 2019). This has been narrowing however, as in 2021 62% of men were using the Internet compared with 57% of women (International Telecommunication Union, 2021) In the United Kingdom, more ethnic minorities (12%) are digitally excluded because of poor or non-existent digital skills compared to the White group (9%) (Office for National Statistics, 2019c). Similarly, women are less likely to have confidence (39%) in the UK financial services industry (vs. 46% men) and tend not to shop around for financial products like current accounts or individual savings accounts (Financial Brand, 2020a, 2020b). More women also believe they have less financial knowledge and confidence in managing money than men (Office for National Statistics, 2019a). The Office for National Statistics reports that ethnic minority adults are more likely to exhibit low confidence in managing money compared to
342 Research handbook on inequalities and work White adults. (Office for National Statistics, 2018). Digital exclusion may partly explain the attitude and behaviour of ethnic minorities toward financial products (Office for National Statistics, 2019c). Their lack of engagement could be a result of their inability to easily access digital information. Financial resilience, which is the ability to cope financially when faced with a sudden fall in income or an unavoidable rise in expenditure (Financial Resilience Taskforce, 2019), can also impact financial wellbeing. More ethnic minority adults (27%) have low financial resilience compared to White adults (20%). Factors contributing to this include level of pay, over-indebtedness through formal and informal sources, and living in a household unable to cover living expenses for longer than a week if the primary source of household income is lost. Savings Many of the UK’s more long-standing migrants now regularly use financial products and so have become integrated into the mainstream financial system, especially second or subsequent generations (Greenwood et al., 2015). However, financial exclusion levels remain high for more recent migrants, especially those who have arrived as refugees and asylum seekers. High levels of unemployment, overcrowded housing, and poor education levels make migrants and ethnic groups in the UK particularly vulnerable to financial exclusion (Money and Pensions Service, 2019). The relationship between income and accumulation of savings may be linked to employment status and continuity of employment. The status of ethnic minorities in the labour market is influenced by migration, stereotyping and expectation, alienation, family formation, economic structure, and discrimination (Berthoud, 2000). For instance, ethnic minorities are more likely to be self-employed because they cannot join the labour market due to obstacles such as discrimination and create their own employment or businesses,7 known as a ‘push factor’ for self-employment. Alternatively, this may be due to the ‘pull factor’, where living in an ethnic enclave provides a suitable environment to flourish as an entrepreneur in the local self-sufficient economy, with informal sources of finance, shared cultures, norms, and religion8 (Adami et al., 2014). In 2019, 23.2% of workers in the combined Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups were self-employed, the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups; 11.2% of Black workers were self-employed, the lowest percentage (Office for National Statistics, 2020b).9 Within the ethnic minority groups, there are also different levels of financial literacy and capabilities, which significantly influence retirement planning and savings (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007). Cultural barriers, such as traditional values and beliefs, religion,10 and language, among ethnic minority groups may also limit their access to formal saving vehicles (Office for National Statistics, 2019a). Interestingly, Pakistani men have the highest tendency to save compared to any other ethnic minority group (Adami et al., 2018). This could be related to their high rates of self-employment, large families, and use of alternative saving vehicles. Indian men tend to save regularly between the ages of 35 and 50. They also tend to increase their pension savings later in life, based in part on the realisation that they need to make provisions for an extended old age. Pakistani and Bangladeshi men display a higher propensity to save regularly up to the age of 35. After this age, their pension savings decline and, by the age of 65, they are the lowest pension savers compared to other ethnic groups. This may be explained by their higher
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 343 propensity to invest in a family business, property, or their children’s education (Nesbitt & Neary, 2001). Some studies focusing on ethnic minority savers and non-savers have highlighted several interesting results (Adami et al., 2018; Cabinet Office, 2017). In particular, Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi women seemed to save more than White women on similar income levels, although for women in these groups, income was an even more significant predictor of savings (Bradley et al., 2007). Language barriers (inability to speak English), age, and religion also impacted the tendency to save. Language barriers were more noticeable amongst migrant workers and older immigrants. However, religion11 was also a barrier because of the lack of suitable products relevant to religious obligations from high street providers (Runnymede Report, 2020; Muslim Council of Britain, 2015; Khan, 2010). With Islamic banking products offering alternatives, these barriers increased the tendency to seek alternative sources, including religious, community, and informal sources. In particular, the attitude of Muslims from Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian groups towards financial products and services are likely to be influenced by cultural and religious beliefs (Kempson, 1998; Adami et al., 2018; O’Brien et al., 2014). Pensions The ethnicity pension gap results from labour market factors, including lower average earnings, variable employment rates, and the greater likelihood of ethnic minority workers being self-employed (Adami et al., 2018). Many Bangladeshi and Pakistani men have little understanding of how different types of occupational and personal pension provisions operate. Coupled with low wages, financial responsibilities for family and community, and the likelihood of being in self-employment, some do not make pensions a priority (Kempson, 1998). This is largely driven by an alternative and elaborate informal welfare system maintained within their communities rooted in traditional values, Islam, and collectivism. However, some studies find that the effects of religion on behaviour towards financial services are inconclusive12,13 (Money and Pensions Service, 2019, 2020). Age was also a factor in attitudes and behaviour towards pension savings. For instance, Pakistani men who came to Britain as adults and their younger counterparts born in Britain expect their grown-up children to provide financial support and social care in their old age (Chattoo et al., 2004). They thus see no need for occupational and personal pensions, which they regard as primarily for the White group. Instead, they invest in their children, who will ultimately be the source of their retirement provision (Nesbitt & Neary, 2001). Thus, the cultural reliance on large families and elaborate social networks is perceived as an obstacle to making adequate retirement savings through financial intermediaries for the Pakistani group. Some research shows that Bangladeshi and Pakistani respondents had little understanding of how different types of pensions operated, while the White group seemed better informed overall (Blanco et al., 2019). This lack of in-depth knowledge influences the capacity to make appropriate decisions regarding pensions. In some cases, many older Bangladeshi and Pakistani men had little or no idea whether they had contributed to occupational pension schemes during their employment years. As a result, they did not know whether they had any accrued pension rights remaining with previous employers (Adami et al., 2018; Chattoo et al., 2004).
344 Research handbook on inequalities and work Across all groups, employment status was a powerful determinant of pension knowledge. Those with permanent secure employment, mostly the White group, were much better informed than those with broken work histories, primarily ethnic minorities. Low wages, financial responsibilities for family and community, and continued support for the informal inter-generational contract all influence engagement with pensions by ethnic minorities (Adami et al., 2018). Use of Credit Many studies suggest that ethnic minority groups rely on a range of products to finance major purchases to help them through emergencies (Herbert & Kempson, 1996). These include traditional methods such as mail order and hire purchase but also informal loans from friends and relatives, credit from ‘friendly’ shopkeepers, and cash advances from local credit associations. The attractiveness of informal financial instruments may be linked to how this group perceives credit from mainstream companies and how they are perceived by financial companies (Atkinson et al., 2007). Financial companies make the final decision about who to give credit to, according to industry regulations. So, lenders try to manage their risk by blocking risky borrowers from particular credit instruments or offering them at much higher interest rates and fees (Dwyer, 2018). Financial companies rank borrowers according to the type of credit they can access. Social inequalities related to ethnicity and gender can affect how lenders assess credit risk, which can be based on prejudice and discrimination (Fourcade & Healy, 2013). Companies may set disproportionately discriminatory policies, and individuals assessing credit applications can also use their own assumptions about creditworthiness, despite equality policies being in place (Cohen-Cole, 2011). Some reports suggest that organisations use location/postcodes to determine who is creditworthy (Moorhead, 2016; Murray, 2016; Gunn, 2016). Therefore, frequently, access to credit cards and insurance costs differ by neighbourhood. This ultimately blocks those who are socio-economically disadvantaged from accessing short-term credit because of where they live. There have been many successful efforts to expand access to credit in ethnic minority communities. Credit offerings have become increasingly available even to high-risk borrowers, but the credit terms have become much more unequal and differentiated. Thus, the availability and terms of credit are shaped by class situations and life chances. This, in turn, creates differentiated life chances based on access to distinct types of credit and patterns of debt-holding among ethnic minorities and White groups (Warsame, 2009). The difficulties in accessing different types of credit are so entrenched in existing socio-economic inequalities that they continue to produce and reproduce the deep and growing ethnicity wealth gap in the UK (Shapiro & Piccolo, 2017). Debt Advice Research suggests that people from ethnic minorities are more likely not to understand the next steps they should take regarding their debt (12% vs. 6% for White British clients) and so feel their debt issues have not been resolved (21% vs. 14%) (O’Brien et al., 2014). The significant drivers for seeking debt advice are age, ethnicity, and family status.
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 345 Some studies suggest that ethnic minorities struggle with debt because they obtained loans from alternative lenders (Atkinson et al., 2007). This means they may have to pay exceptionally high interest rates and be subject to under-regulated and ethically questionable terms and conditions compared to the market average. Ethnic minorities are also more likely to be inappropriately served by mainstream lenders who offer inappropriate credit terms, resulting in long-term debt. Research also suggests that the degree to which ethnic minorities accrue, report, or seek debt advice is influenced by their religious views (Runnymede Report, 2020; Muslim Council of Britain, 2015; Khan, 2010). As interest is not permitted in Islam, Islamic banks offer interest-free loans14 (Vlachantoni et al., 2017). However, it is not clear how this belief impacts the likelihood that these groups will engage with Islamic banking or mainstream products. What is clear is that the attitude of these groups to debt and debt advice may be influenced by the motto, ‘Never spend your money before you have it’ rather than ‘Buy now, pay later’ as advocated by high street organisations (Farooq, 2015: 1170).
CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS AND WAYS FORWARD We conclude that while groups differ based on socio-demographic and socio-economic considerations (Lievesley, 2010; Office for National Statistics, 2019a; Runnymede Report, 2020; Money and Pensions Service, 2020), focusing on only these factors in the design of financial products may not be sufficient to address inequalities in financial wellbeing (Atkinson et al., 2007; Adami et al., 2018; Cabinet Office, 2017; Syal, 2020). It is critical to also consider other relational, cultural, familial, and communal factors. So, there is a need to move beyond a specific identity, such as ethnicity, to include other social identities and mediating factors when examining how financial products and services can address inequalities in the financial wellbeing of ethnic minorities. While this review is mainly focused on the UK, some aspects of the study resonate with the situation of minority groups elsewhere, suggesting that the study does have broader implications and relevance. Much of what we know about the implications of financial exclusion and the problems associated with financial exclusion comes from the USA. As in the UK, the neo-liberal re-regulation of retail financial markets in the USA had the effect of introducing more competition between financial-services firms, but the competition was far more intense in the US due to a greater number of financial institutions per capita than Britain (Leyshon & Thrift, 1995). The focus of financial products was more likely to be high-income earners and ‘credit-worthy’ groups, who were unlikely to be racial minorities. For instance, in a 2019 survey in the US, White families had the highest levels of both median and mean family wealth, Black and Hispanic families had considerably less wealth than White families and Black families’ median and mean wealth were less than 15% of White families (Bhutta et al., 2020). Therefore, minority groups experienced significant economic disadvantages, including less wealth and financial security, underrepresentation in the market for financial products and services, and an inability to fully participate in the financial system or economy. A core relevant point of the findings in this review is that a lack of access to financial services is not just a symptom of the ethnic wealth gap but also a cause. Without the ability to affordably save, invest, and insure against risks, ethnic minorities will continue to struggle to translate the income they earn into wealth. This suggests that ‘financial inclusion is
346 Research handbook on inequalities and work the bridge between economic opportunity and outcomes’ (Furusawa, 2016) and how financial products are designed and offered and who is targeted matters. To start with, ‘one-size-fits-all’ savings, credit use, and debt advice can exacerbate, rather than reduce inequalities in financial wellbeing (Kempson, 1998; Atkinson et al., 2007; Adami et al., 2018). The people who administer and design financial products and services must consider differences in income, pay, gender, location, age, and ethnicity to address existing inequalities and improve financial wellbeing. Even when financial products are designed to meet the current needs of ethnic minority groups, there is no guarantee that such needs will not change; that is, ‘one-point-in-time’ financial product fixes cannot address inequalities in financial wellbeing (Office for National Statistics, 2020b; Public Health England, 2020; Platt & Warwick, 2020; Allas et al., 2020; Noel et al., 2019). Financial products must be adaptive and responsive to the evolving needs of the communities and environmental conditions. This has been amplified by the current COVID-19 crisis, where ethnic minority groups have fared badly, so providers must adapt accordingly (Public Health England, 2020; Office for National Statistics, 2020a; Platt & Warwick, 2020). Moreover, differences between and within ethnic groups and communities matter. Age, gender, education, employment type, and marital status remain clear distinguishing factors between and within ethnic minorities in terms of how they save, use credit, and seek debt advice. This review shows that financial exclusion of ethnic minorities can be multi-dimensional and, for instance, likely to revive gender-specific discrimination, although in this case financial exclusion will mean discrimination between certain types of women rather than against women in general. Consequently, financial products and services must respond to the needs of different groups and communities in a situational and nuanced way through policies and processes that consider these differences in needs and behaviours (Berthoud, 2000; Cabinet Office; 2017; Anderloni et al., 2008). Indeed, some groups might be more favourably disposed towards certain financial products and services but unable or unwilling to access them due to additional barriers, such as language, culture, religion, and lack of digital skills (Office for National Statistics, 2019c; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018). Yet conventional products do not always account for these differences in behaviour across groups, and many individuals seek informal alternatives. Members of ethnic minorities tend to save with and borrow and utilise credit from informal organisations and networks (Kempson, 1998; Atkinson et al., 2007; Adami et al., 2018). This means that many of these savings may not be adequately accounted for, and the total debts may be more significant than those captured in surveys. Still, reliance on aggregated statistics through surveys does not tell the ‘whole story’ of inequalities as they do not always capture the detailed experiences of financial wellbeing or the behaviour of ethnic minorities, which continues to be related to exclusion. Such exclusion, which is not always explicit, is revealed or exacerbated in specific times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (IPPR and Runnymede Trust, 2020; Allas et al., 2020; Noel et al., 2019). If financial organisations want ethnic minority groups as customers, then they must incorporate a ‘qualitative’ understanding into ‘quantitative’ metrics to design more appropriate financial products and services. This will help address the need for culturally relevant and behaviourally sensitive products by considering the behavioural dynamics of ethnic minorities, driven by factors such as cultural and religious beliefs. Financial products must project a core identity while meeting mainstream financial needs. Taking Islamic banking as an
Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 347 example, more work needs to be done to design and provide culturally relevant and behaviourally sensitive products and services as part of mainstream financial provision (Muslim Council of Britain, 2015; Khan, 2010; O’Brien et al., 2014). By reinforcing the identity of ethnic minority groups through targeting their traditional religious and cultural identity, such products and services can meet both their emotional and financial needs. There are also implications for work as finances are a major stressor and can be a huge source of anxiety for employees. Money worries have been reported as the greatest cause of stress for employees in the UK. Specifically, 4.2 million worker days each year are lost in employee absences linked to a lack of financial wellbeing (or GBP 626 million in lost output) (Centre for Economics and Business Research, 2021). Indeed, about seven in ten UK employers are of the view that financial pressure negatively affects staff performance and there is good reason for this (Neyber, 2018). A 2021 report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that absenteeism owing to financial hardship costs UK employers up to GBP 2.5 billion per year, while the cost of presenteeism linked to financial concerns stands at GBP 3.7 billion (Centre for Economics and Business Research, 2021). This situation specifically makes the case for the financial wellbeing of ethnic minorities at work even more compelling, as financial inclusion when driven through financial products and solutions is likely to boost their overall wellbeing, thereby increasing their productivity and engagement in the workplace. However, financial solutions must also be integrated within initiatives targeted at broader social issues – the government and policymakers have a role to play. For instance, digital exclusion has been linked to gender (more women than men) and ethnicity (Office for National Statistics, 2019c; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018; Farooq, 2015). Still, it also limits access to financial services, reduces financial literacy and wellbeing, and erodes confidence in managing money. To address inequalities in financial wellbeing, other society-wide initiatives, such as improving digital skills and financial literacy, also need to be initiated Finally, research and reports that simply suggest inequalities in the overall financial wellbeing of ethnic minority groups are insufficient to address these disparities in real terms, including workplace inequalities. It is not practical for a few organisations in one sector, specifically the financial industry, to address historic and systemic inequalities alone, no matter how laudable their initiatives are. To have a real and lasting impact, a more integrated approach in which the financial sector joins the government to create appropriate programmes that address deeply embedded and long-standing inequalities is recommended. There is also a need to involve and liaise with other institutions, ethnic minority communities, public and private sector organisations, policymakers, and faith-based organisations to exchange ideas and seek more equitable outcomes. Such a multi-stakeholder approach is required to meet the needs of ethnic minority groups by addressing financial wellbeing and dealing with financial exclusion.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), UK, for providing the grant for and commissioning the original rapid literature review of which this chapter is a supplement.
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NOTES 1. Although there is some contention regarding a definition, ethnic minority groups, sometimes referred to as ethnic minorities; minority ethnic groups; Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups; or BAME communities, refer to Asian, African, African Caribbean, and other minority ethnic diaspora groups, such as White minority; Central/Eastern European; Gypsy, Roma and Traveller; and Irish groups. 2. White British, excluding Traveller categories, in Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (Office for National Statistics, 2011). 3. The production of and trade in legal goods and services deliberately concealed from public authorities (Runnymede Report, 2020). 4. As of May 2020, after taking into account the size and age structure of the UK population, the mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19 was highest among males of the Black ethnic background and lowest among males of the White ethnic background (Office for National Statistics, 2020a). 5. A focus on ‘heads of households’ is fundamental for evaluating the extent to which families have savings to draw on in the event of unemployment or illness, preparedness to finance consumption during retirement, and the ability to service debts, including potential vulnerability to default or bankruptcy (Woldoff, 2008). 6. In some cases, the ‘head’ and ‘spouse’ are used differently, where the head may not be the same person as the respondent. In some cases, the ‘heads’ are the male and female, or both the older and younger individuals in a same-sex couple. In others, the respondent is the head (e.g., a single parent). In all cases, however, the term ‘head’ is merely a convention related to how the data are organised and implies no judgment about the structure of families. 7. Ethnic minority businesses are defined as ‘ethnic minority-led’ or ‘ethnic minority employer-led’ if 50% or more of their management team are from ethnic minorities or if a person from an ethnic minority is in sole control of the business. A business is non-employer-led if a person is self-employed or if they run their business for themselves, either as a sole trader or as director of their own company (Office for National Statistics, 2020b). 8. Ethnic minority businesses are significant contributors to the UK economy, estimated to generate between GBP 25 and 74 billion in gross value added (GVA) each year. They employ more than 3 million people and pay almost GBP 5 billion a year in corporation taxes to the Exchequer. In 2011, just under 14% of the UK’s working-age population were self-employed, but this grew to just over 15% in 2018 (Hyde, 2021). 9. While 20% of those of working age from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds were self-employed in 2018, this was alongside an overall decline of around 5% in self-employment among those of working age. In contrast, among the Black working-age population, there was an increase in the self-employed proportion (over 25%) between 2011 and 2018. For the Indian group, there was a 13% increase over the same period (Office for National Statistics, 2020). 10. According to the UK Census of 2011, there were 2,786,635 Muslims living in the nation (47% of whom were UK-born), equivalent to 4.4% of the entire population and 31.6% of the total minority ethnic group population (Office for National Statistics, 2011). 11. Based on the 2011 census figures and a report by the Muslim Council of Britain in 2015, 46% of UK Muslims live in the 10% of areas with the highest deprivation levels, 7.2% are unemployed (vs. 4% in the population as a whole), and 5.1% reside in hostels or temporary accommodation vs. a UK-wide figure of 2.2%. 12. There is some evidence that British Muslims are not satisfied with conventional banking services, but the degree to which this discontentment has generated any major demand for Shariah-compliant products is undetermined (Warsame, 2009). 13. It is suggested that in practice institutions may ‘convince their customers that they are partaking in something exclusively Islamic, something that reinforces the borrower’s “Islamic identity”, rather than ensuring that the financial products on offer are truly different’ from conventional products (Khan, 2010:817). 14. ‘Islam considers debt permissible but is categorical in motivating the faithful to value a debt-free life and be debt-averse. While categorically prohibiting riba (generally blanketly equated with interest), freedom from debt’ is seen as a more desirable state of being (Farooq, 2015:1179).
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Financial wellbeing and ethnicity 353 Woldoff, R. A. (2008). Wealth, human capital and family across racial/ethnic groups: Integrating models of wealth and locational attainment. Urban Studies, 45(3), 527–551. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ abs/10.1177/0042098007087334.
PART IV CONTEXT, OCCUPATIONS, CAREERS AND INEQUALITIES AT WORK
24. Winners and losers of digitalisation of work Mark Bergfeld
INTRODUCTION This chapter will spotlight how digital technologies are posited as the solution to ‘the crisis of work’ and productivity and outline the implications for the workforce. Accordingly, the crisis of work is marked by the coming together of ‘technologically-enabled employment inequality’, loss of job quality and increased precarity (Hester, 2018). Secondly, this chapter displays how Silicon Valley’s ‘contradictory mix of technological determinism and libertarian individualism’ (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996, p. 4) has facilitated the rise of algorithms and online platforms in the world of work. While these platforms and ways of managing work do not amount to the dominant form of employment, spotlighting these enables one to understand how digitalisation facilitates new racialised and gendered divisions of labour. The rightward political drift of Silicon Valley has been a decisive factor in technologies being primarily instrumentalised to further employer power through monitoring and surveillance (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996; Pein, 2018). In doing so, this chapter underlines that the technologies and their underlying ideologies treat women and racialised and migrant workers in the low-wage services sectors as simply another input. This has profound consequences for all workers but especially gendered and racialised workers, as well as those previously excluded from the labour market (Bonacich et al., 2008; Öztürk and Berber, 2022). The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and the concurrent rise of working from home have accelerated the digitalisation of the world of work, facilitated the rise of new divisions of labour and re-entrenched existing gendered roles. For many white-collar employees, business travel, commuting, in-person meetings and even the occasional tea break were replaced by Zoom meetings, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams calls. Lunch breaks were reduced to ordering food via one of many online platforms that connect the customer to a restaurant through an army of self-employed drivers directed by an algorithm. Burdened with school closures and with care services in peril, women turned to Facebook or other platforms to find a worker to help with a child’s homework or the care of an elderly loved one. Meanwhile, those women who could not afford such options were faced the classical double-burden of paid work and unpaid labour. Those excluded from furlough schemes or out of a job could sign up to a platform and start working as a driver, carer or homework instructor within a matter of minutes. Warehouse and e-commerce jobs also saw a veritable spike as many retail shops were forced to close for hygiene reasons and customers ordered goods online. In many cases, warehouse workers’ temperature was checked upon entering the vicinity. At work itself, handheld devices display the routes to move through the labyrinth of consumer goods most efficiently. Wearables (i.e. Fitbits, etc.) check workers’ heart rate and count their steps, enabling management at one and the same time to monitor workers’ health and safety as well as measure productivity. In doing so, digitalisation has been reinforcing Taylorist principles afresh, resulting in increased alienation, disempowerment, and precarity for workers in 355
356 Research handbook on inequalities and work general, with particularly pronounced consequences for gendered and racialised workers (Liu, 2022; Gautié et al., 2020). The Covid-19 crisis might have accelerated the digitalisation of the world of work. Yet the so-called ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (Schwab, 2017), with its online platforms, algorithms, artificial intelligence and robots, has its roots in several socio-economic factors, many of which exacerbate gendered and racialised inequalities. These include the sluggish economic growth following the financial crisis of 2008; labour shortages due to an ageing society in the Global North; and the financialisation of the economy and deepening inequality. One factor that is often omitted is the dominant position of Silicon Valley companies in the global economy and the stock markets and their ability to market technologies as the solution to all the world’s problems. The last 30 years have seen a divergence between productivity and real wages, as well as capital gains outpacing wage gains, leading to what has been labelled the ‘asset economy’ (Adkins et al., 2020). Arguably, this reflects the wider trend of the financialisation of the economy in which management’s primary goal has been to realise higher shareholder value. Despite the ‘dotcom bubble’ bursting in 2000, traditional manufacturing and services companies have been driven to present themselves as ‘technology companies’ to achieve higher valuation and introduce platforms to manage their workforce. Thus, companies have included Blockchain in their name or announced a focus on Blockchain technology simply to rally share prices. Backed by venture capital and so-called ‘angel investors’, services companies with a digital interface have emerged to ‘disrupt’ traditional consumer markets. Reflecting the wider trend of companies reducing their headcounts through outsourcing and subcontracting, some companies have promised investors higher returns on investment and workers an increase in occupational autonomy and a new way of working through solely working with independent contractors. Despite many never having turned a profit, they ‘command higher market valuations than those with lots of labor on the books’ (Irani, 2015). This trend has increased the precarity of women, migrant workers and people of colour as they seek employment opportunities in these companies yet do not enjoy social protection associated with being a worker. At the same time, socio-demographic trends such as an ageing society in the Global North and reluctance to provide extensive legal pathways to migration for citizens of the Global South resulted in labour shortages in key economic sectors even before the Covid-19 crisis. With the option of increasing the talent pool or workforce through migration ruled out and the policy of wage repression remaining dominant, investment into labour-saving technologies or digital assistance systems has been elevated to the preferred option for business to gain competitive advantage (Bogue, 2021; Coyle and Manley, 2021). The reduction of headcount through technological innovation has a contradictory effect on workers. On the one hand, it diminishes the cooperative aspect of work, while on the other hand, it endows an individual worker with ‘structural power’ in the labour process and labour market, potentially even strengthening labour’s bargaining position and leading to higher remuneration (Wright, 2000). This ‘structural power’ is being aggravated through the labour shortages plaguing the economies of the Global North. On the hand, it could be argued that the twin processes of digitalisation and financialisation have endowed employers with ever greater power, with Silicon Valley companies being one of the main benefactors. This exposes the ‘underlying problems with the rules of our economy and the distributional consequences of increased automation under current institutional arrangements’ (Paul, 2018). Even the OECD has raised the question
Winners and losers of digitalisation of work 357 in its flagship report whether ‘the balance of power between bosses and workers [has] tipped too far?’ (OECD, 2019). The unprecedented economic and ideological power of employers becomes evident when investigating Silicon Valley-based multinational technology companies and entrepreneurs. Not only are they at the forefront of promoting digital fixes to the so-called crisis of work but they are also the chief architects of the discourse on ‘the future of work’. This powerful position in the socio-economic configuration means that these companies can deploy digital fixes and their vision to reconfigure humans’ relationship to work, themselves, other humans and nature. This chapter critically investigates the existing literature on digitalisation and automation and thus spotlights the economic and ideological roots of the current wave of digitalisation of work, its manifestations and its effects on low-wage workers and women workers. Based on the readings, the main argument advanced here is that digitalisation has not led to the destruction of jobs in the way that some have predicted. By drawing on evidence from different sectors, it is evidenced that low-wage workers, in particular women, migrants and people of colour, are displaced into different occupations rather than replaced wholesale. In other words, capital and management have sought to radically transform these existing forms of work – often to increase productivity. Through illustrative case-by-case examples it is shown how digital tools are being used to increase control over and output from workers. The result is the creation of new kinds of work and new ways of managing work through intermediary platforms or company-internal platforms, which could be labelled ‘Neo-Taylorism’ (Gautié et al., 2020). This creates new divisions of labour, chief among them the rise of remote working with its gendered consequences. Silicon Valley companies and their leaders’ increasingly rightward-leaning ideology overdetermine some of these outcomes. By including this in the presented critical literature review, it is revealed how the sharpest end of Silicon Valley ideology is being tested.
ADDRESSING THE CRISIS OF WORK AND PRODUCTIVITY This section illustrates how the crisis of work and productivity has facilitated new forms of workforce management rather than the widespread introduction of robots and automation. At the same time, new work models, such as ‘working from home’ and the ‘gamification of work’, have sought to overcome the crisis of work and productivity. While some of these developments have translated into increased autonomy and flexibility for workers and employees, it needs to be recognised that they positively contribute to companies’ cost optimisation policies and externalisation of labour costs, often having a disproportionate effect on women. Labour researcher Kim Moody’s article ‘High Tech, Low Growth: Robots and the Future of Work’ (2018) evidences that predictions of robots replacing human labour power have been overestimated. This is echoed by Aaron Benavav in his book Automation and the Future of Work (2020). Robotisation might be technologically possible, yet it has been a far slower process than previously assumed. Evidence of this is Foxconn’s 2011 announcement that it would install one million robots (Hill, 2012). Ten years later, however, the company manages far less robots than promised. Moody argues that stalling automation is rooted in low levels of investment as well as low returns thereupon. China’s largest home appliances manufacturer Midea, for example, has had problems refinancing its acquisition of the German
358 Research handbook on inequalities and work robotics company Kuka (Woolsley, 2017). Another reason why the robotisation of work has been a sluggish process is that the current deployment of robots has not boosted productivity. Thus, it remains rather unlikely that ‘the bounty of technological innovation which defines our current era can be leveraged to unleash human potential’ (World Economic Forum, 2020, p. 3). In this context, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, scientists and venture capitalists have increasingly turned to investing and developing technologies that boost human productivity and performance, with the goal of ultimately transcending humanity’s biological limits. In other words, humans should strive to work like machines if they do not want to be replaced by machines. This scenario has been artfully depicted in Oakland-based filmmaker Boots Riley’s dystopian sci-fi comedy film Sorry to Bother You, in which the threat to mostly Black call centre workers is not so much being replaced by robots but being bred as ‘super-humans’ who are forced to work endlessly. While Boots Riley’s sci-fi film remains fiction, the question of human performance is gaining widespread interest in policy circles. Obama’s White House, for example, investigated how different nano-technologies, biotechnologies and information technologies will improve human performance in the future (Roco and Bainbridge, 2002; Thomas, 2021). Silicon Valley’s development of technologies aiming at improving human performance and productivity has also been of concern to environmental writer Bill McKibben. In his book, McKibben (2019) delves into how the advent of Crispr technology and germline engineering has rendered genetic engineering cost-effective and made it as easy as using a word processor. While these technologies can cure genetic diseases, they could potentially be used to endow humans with genetic predispositions valuable to performing certain forms of work. While the above performance- and productivity-enhancing technologies are not yet being used to create the genetically perfect employee, companies have turned to other technological innovations to unleash a productivity revolution. Chief among these are the ‘gamification’ of the labour process, which aims at turning work into play and fun by providing workers with opportunities for cooperation and competitions with rewards and ultimately permits employers to quantify workers’ behaviours, ‘punishing certain behaviours and rewarding others’ (Schobin and Cárdenas, 2020, p. 9). This ‘gamification from above’ (Woodcock and Johnson, 2017) draws inspiration from the plantation economies of the US South insofar as slaveholders developed work systems and benchmarks for workers that were continuously moved to extract more value (Nguyen, 2021, p. 7). This underlines the way in which technological advances and management practices frequently are racialised practices in themselves. A prescient example of the use of such management methods is Amazon.com’s ‘productivity firings’, in which nearly 10 per cent of its workers who did not meet the targets were fired (Lecher, 2019). Nevertheless, it should not be dismissed that gamification can yield some benefits for workers by turning routine tasks into fun. Other uses, such as new staff being onboarded through computer games and quizzes being generated to induct workers in health and safety, can also contribute to employee wellbeing if not wholly replaced by in-person learning and meetings. Moreover, workers themselves can engage in subversive forms of ‘gamification from below’ (Woodcock and Johnson, 2017), in which employees and workers play management’s work system in such a way that it undermines the quest for ever-greater productivity. According to Moody (2018), productivity gains associated with automation have primarily been achieved through shortening workers’ break times and increasing the seconds per minute worked rather than the introduction of robots. Arguably, this is a by-product of what has been labelled ‘Digital Taylorism’, ‘Neo-Taylorism’ or ‘Digital Neo-Taylorism’ (Gautié et al., 2020;
Winners and losers of digitalisation of work 359 Chesta, 2021; Cole et al., 2021), in which new technologies, such as teamworking apps like Slack, handheld devices or wearables, have enabled management to break down work activities into their smaller parts and intensify performance control. Evidence suggests that this also applies to white-collar workers (Crowley et al., 2010). However, the use of the latest technologies has not necessarily resulted in increased specialisation among office workers but rather led them to have to engage in multifarious tasks including administration, budgeting, creating PowerPoint presentations, writing press releases and developing strategies. According to the Financial Times’ Tim Harford (2021), this results in employees ‘noodling’ around and wasting time with tasks and activities that they do not have any expertise in. Another way in which employers have sought to enhance workers’ productivity is by fostering a ‘deeper work-life integration’ (Miroslavov, 2020) through ‘agile working’ in which fixed working hours or steady offices are dismissed for reinforcing presenteeism and hampering creativity. Deloitte and other management consultancies believe that solely measuring results and outcomes will solve the riddle of productivity and employee motivation (Silicon Republic, 2019). Such agile working has been technologically enabled through cloud computing and software programmes such as Microsoft Office, which uses algorithms to schedule when a person should respond to e-mails, schedules ‘focus time’ and nudges one to engage in teamwork. This goes hand in hand with the trend of a hybrid workplace that simultaneously accommodates employees’ desire for more autonomy and at the same time meets companies’ need for increased flexibility (Wharton Business Daily, 2021). Arguably, these ways of working could create new inequalities between those who have access to workplace resources and those who do not, as well as between those who are visible to management and those who are not. As women remain the prime caregivers in many cases, offices could become even more male-dominated than prior to the pandemic. Thus, it is questionable whether employees’ increased ability to work from home can challenge gendered roles in family households. Working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic will have given many women some relief from daily appearances in gendered workplaces, in which sexual harassment, cat-calling and pay discrimination remain a reality. Yet for many women workers, tele-work’s promise of improved work–life balance turned into the full work–life integration. On the one hand, women are having to balance work commitments with having to care for children due to school closures or elderly loved ones due lack of care provision, and the continued unequal distribution of household chores contributes to a poor work–life (Reverberi et al., 2021). On the other hand, laundry, cooking and daily chores can be undertaken throughout the day rather than squeezed into the evening and morning before and after work, enabling greater quality of life in one’s free time. Statistical estimates suggest that nearly one third of employees across the European Union exclusively worked from home (Eurofound, 2020b). Thus, this new way of working affected both genders as employees could not go to a café to experience a change of scenery or move between different locations. Against this background, it is unsurprising that statistical evidence suggests that employees have not fully embraced working from home. According to a CNBC/ Change Research survey, 24 per cent of US Americans say that they do not want to return to working in an office (Burke, 2020). Another survey meanwhile suggests that more than 71 per cent of employees in the US are finding it difficult to adjust to remote working (SHRM, 2020). Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic it was regularly suggested that working from home increased productivity because employees worked longer hours, took shorter breaks and felt more at ease than in an office environment. However, during the pandemic of 2020, survey
360 Research handbook on inequalities and work data suggest that 65 per cent of employees faced difficulties maintaining morale (SHRM, 2020). While data indicate that work-related stress was down, the meaning employees derived from work activities decreased and employees’ health issues increased (George et al., 2021). Another industry study, on the other hand, contends that 81 per cent of respondents were satisfied with their own productivity during remote working, and remote workers experienced increased employee morale and increased efficiency (GitLab, 2021, p. 5). As Silicon Valley’s multinational technology companies, different sectors and even different governments are split on whether they fully embrace working from home, industry studies will seek to confirm either the productivity gain or loss narrative depending on managements’ or governments’ predispositions. A more nuanced study (Emanuel and Harrington, 2021) convincingly argues that if there are two groups in a workplace, those working from home are less productive, yet when everyone works from home, productivity increases overall. An important dimension to further consider in this debate is that those working from home have been subject to new psycho-social risk factors, potentially undermining any productivity gains made in the short term. As people are working longer hours, more e-mails are being written and workers do not have an escape from their job; 45 per cent of US Americans working from home said that they were burnt out (Eagle Hill Consulting, 2020). Cyberpsychologist Linda Kaye adds that remote workers are experiencing ‘Zoom fatigue’ as their camera is always on and they are not able to rely on social cues and non-verbal communication (Kaye, 2020). This creates a heightened sense of self-awareness, exacerbated through Zoom’s option of ‘attention tracking’, which was binned due to widespread criticisms (Zoom, 2021). At the same time, ‘over-scheduling’ and the lack of ‘slack time’ in between meetings has resulted in health issues such as ‘E-mail apnea’ (Pollak, 2014). Rather than devise occupational health and safety strategies with worker representatives, many companies and employers believe that the latest applications and technologies coming from Silicon Valley can fix the issues of work stress, health and safety and mental wellbeing. Drawing on or appropriating practical New Age philosophies, Buddhism and Stoicism (Healey, 2015; Goldhill, 2016; Purser, 2019), products and services seek to provide individuals with a greater sense of control over their work and life. Inadvertently, these technologies externalise the responsibility of productivity from the company onto the employee, ultimately altering one’s relationship to oneself and work. Rather than accomplishing greater control of one’s work and life, these technologies aim at ‘dominance’ as Barbrook and Cameron have suggested (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996, p. 13). Arguably, productivity losses are offset by declining rent costs, leading companies and public institutions to use the Covid-19 crisis to reduce their office space. Eventually, this will lead to a decline in ancillary occupations such as office cleaning, security, hospitality and catering. Concurrently, the same number of white-collar workers will need to share fewer desks, leading many employers to introduce hot desking. Investment bank JP Morgan has announced that it will only provide 60 desks for every 100 employees. Meanwhile, United Airlines has announced that it will be giving up 17 per cent of its office space in Chicago. Companies that will fully move online for the foreseeable future include Facebook and the British building society Nationwide. It is estimated that such remote working will increase fourfold in the US after the pandemic, amounting to a total of 22 per cent of an employee’s working time without having to decrease productivity (McKinsey Global Institute, 2021). However, there are limits to this growth of working from home, as only 37 per cent of jobs currently being performed in the EU are ‘teleworkable’ (Sostero et al., 2020, p. 45).
Winners and losers of digitalisation of work 361 This section has displayed that neither working from home nor the current use of technologies will solve the crisis of productivity and work in an equitable and sustainable fashion. On the one hand, this is due to robot technologies being under-utilised. On the other hand, ‘working from home’ and new technologies are reproducing gendered inequalities rather than reducing them. New ways of working, such as ‘agile work’ or ‘tele-work’, and new technologies amount to new wine in old bottles as they primarily are geared to expanding management control of the workforce. The following section will provide more detail on how the labour process is shaped by this logic.
MANAGING, MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE IN PLATFORM AND ALGORITHMIC WORK REGIMES As previously stated, Silicon Valley companies seek to address the crisis of work through their products and services. In terms of developing the future of work, they are inspired by science fiction and cyberculture and posit that resource allocation, workforce management and customer interaction are rendered more efficiently through algorithms and platforms (Giuliari et al., 2021; Thomas, 2021). It must be acknowledged that the platform economy only represents a small fraction of employment in the labour markets. Yet its effects are widespread. According to the Eurofound report (2020a), the introduction of these new technologies has increased discriminatory patterns and entrenched existing hierarchies in the world of work. It is demonstrated that low-wage workers are more likely to be subject to algorithmic work regimes as productivity gains are difficult to achieve unless slack time is cut and the number of productive hours only is paid. It is in this context that Facebook’s platform ‘Workplace’ seeks to fix ‘the disconnect between managers and deskless workers’1 by allowing deskless workers (logistics drivers, warehouse staff, cleaners, security staff) to share ideas about the work process, issues and clients they serve. It is questionable whether this techno-fix will democratise work, let alone create a ‘human-centred approach to the future of work’ (Global Commission on the Future of Work, 2019). Drawing on cultural theorist Richard Barbrook’s work, it is rather akin to a ‘Jeffersonian democracy’ in which ‘all individuals will be able to express themselves freely within cyberspace’ yet which is grounded in ‘freedom for white folks’ and ‘slavery for black people’, amounting to a ‘hi-tech version of the plantation economy of the Old South’ (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996, pp. 2, 11 and 14). At first reading, Barbrook’s words appear stark and over the top. However, the employment conditions of those working on digital platforms or for digital platforms match his description, as well as exposing the limits to the discourse of full automation and a post-human future. Mary L. Gray and Siddarth Suri’s book Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass (2019) reveals how Big Tech’s promise of eliminating human labour inadvertently generates and creates new tasks for humans. Tech companies depend on ‘invisible’ subcontractors and piecework in the Global South and a legion of data workers who click through images and moderate content to ensure that machine learning can take place (Irani, 2015; Posada, 2019). It is not only Black and Brown workers in the Global South who have accessed employment in this process of ‘human-fuelled automation’. According to some estimates, 12 out of 100 US Americans of working age have engaged in some kind of ‘ghost work’. As the arte.tv documentary Les invisibles has shown, gig workers with migrant
362 Research handbook on inequalities and work backgrounds, such as courier drivers, are chief among them, as they also engage in such ‘ghost work’ as their rides feed into perfecting the algorithms and laying the foundation for autonomous driving. To understand why Silicon Valley tech developers and entrepreneurs would think of using algorithms and artificial intelligence to allocate work in the first place, it is worth understanding the role of ‘digital artisans [who] not only tend to be well-paid, but also have considerable autonomy over their pace of work and place of employment’ (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996). Digital artisans engage in ‘hacking, coding, designing and mixing’ and ‘express the emancipatory potential of the information age’ (Barbrook, 1997). Due to their position in the labour market, they can suggest work as the main road to self-realisation and enlightenment. This is evidenced by none other than Elon Musk, who has tweeted ‘nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week. But if you love what you do, it (mostly) doesn’t feel like work’.2 With that in mind, platform companies’ insistence on categorising workers as independent contractors and their promise of flexibility, autonomy and of being one’s own boss say more about the developers’ and entrepreneurs’ desires than those who have come to depend on these jobs. Within that same logic, online service platforms can be considered self-serving insofar as Silicon Valley’s tech entrepreneurs and businesses develop fixes to lower the price of their own consumer and lifestyle choices. Already Barbrook and Cameron (1996) argued that ‘white people in California’ depend on agricultural workers, housekeepers, nannies, cleaners and gardeners, all of whom belong to racialised and marginalised groups of workers. This is also evidenced in anthropologist Christian Zlolniski’s study (2006) on the hazardous working conditions and political marginalisation of Mexican janitors and street vendors in Silicon Valley. In recent years, platform companies such as Uber and Lyft have only exacerbated these inequities through classifying their workers as independent contractors and investing USD 205 million into lobbying the State of California to pass Proposition 22, a bill that enshrines this status (Means and Seiner, 2015; Cherry, 2021). Thus, rather than being a job creation machine, the so-called platform economy has contributed to the increased vulnerability of already marginalised groups of workers. This vulnerability is laid bare in Sarah Kessler’s Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work (2018). Here, she recounts the stories of individuals who have ended up working for Uber, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and TaskRabbit. Hoping for flexibility, they ended up in an endless treadmill for jobs that pay below the hourly minimum wage. This is particularly the case in the women-dominated care and domestic work sectors, where investment into technologies remains low as productivity gains are difficult to achieve. Care users and care workers use technologies such as Facebook groups to find work or assistance for their loved ones, turning the social media platform into a job platform. At the same time, numerous other platforms, such as care.com, Helpling or Hilfr, offer relief personal and household services to over-worked families. While care and domestic work have always been the domain of women workers, the advent of platforms in the care and domestic work sectors has once again lowered the price, resulting in a further shift of the care burden onto migrant women and women of colour working on zero-hour contracts and without access to collective bargaining or social protection (Hall, 2020). Moreover, these platforms deepen power imbalances in the employment relationship as they ask for more information from workers than service users and have rating systems that arguably exaggerate racialised and gendered stereotypes. To make matters worse, workers’ isolation and working in other people’s homes frequently subjects them to sexual harassment (Ravanelle, 2019).
Winners and losers of digitalisation of work 363 Another use of algorithms that has been shown to have negative consequences for gendered and racialised groups of workers is the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in the hiring of employees. Unilever in Britain, for example, has moved to using HireVue’s artificial intelligence services in their recruitment processes. In doing so, HireVue analyses an applicant’s facial expressions and creates thousands of data points, allowing employers to identify non-verbal cues that a human interviewer would miss. Another AI recruitment software called Pymterics only requires 25 minutes to assess a candidate’s (emotional) intelligence, problem-solving skills and flexibility (Murad, 2021). In other cases, it has been reported that job interviews are being conducted by ChatBots. All of these allow companies to scan a far greater pool of potential employees at a lower cost than using a trained HR recruiter. However, these new technologies are not only leading to a decline in recruiter jobs but also raise questions concerning gender and racial discrimination in hiring. Amazon’s AI system for recruiting new IT staff was dropped after the robot continuously selected men (Dastin, 2018). Legal scholar Ifeoma Ajunwa (2019, 2020, 2021) has shown that algorithms are programmed in such a way that workers with gaps in their CVs, older workers and African Americans and Latinos are discriminated against. As we will see in the following section, companies do not only use artificial intelligence and algorithms during the recruitment process but also to manage, monitor and surveil their workforce in novel ways, raising privacy and workers’ rights concerns. At the time of writing, it is technologically possible for algorithms to either wholly or partially replace human managers, with the former being labelled algorithmic management and the latter ‘algorithmic assistance’. Measurement of performance and data collection occur through handheld devices, point-of sale systems, mobile phones, fingerprint scanners, fitness apps, wellness apps, smart cameras, microphones and body sensors. In particular, technologies such wearables allow for more pervasive forms of monitoring and surveillance. During the early part of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, US employers expanded their investments into new surveillance technologies, such as temperature monitoring, GPS location devices and RFID, which were introduced under the pretext of safeguarding employees’ health (Biddle, 2020; Chyi, 2020). These technologies blur the lines between monitoring and surveillance. However a court of law might interpret their use, these new technological capabilities enable management to expand their power in the employment relationship by assisting in the evaluation, assessment, monitoring, rewarding and disciplining of the workforce (Kellogg et al., 2020; Wood, 2021). In contrast to direct managerial control, this form of management is more comprehensive, instantaneous, interactive and opaque. This opaqueness is exemplified by a tech company called Humanyze that creates electronic badges that measure how long employees stay in the toilet, record what they are talking about and monitor every other movement.3 In her article ‘The Constant Boss: Work under Digital Surveillance’ (2021), Ahiya Nguyen adds a critical perspective. Instead of alleviating workers from labour, these technologies primarily reduce labour costs, protect assets and control workflows. The sheer quantity of data that can be collected is exemplified by the news story on Izaak System, which monitors 130,000 workers in Britain and has already gathered data on more than one billion actions of employees (Booth, 2019). This results in ‘new information asymmetries’ (Nguyen, 2021, p. 27), disempowering workers from contesting the surveillance, data collection and subsequent employment-related decisions made from this information (Nguyen, 2021, p. 24). This section has shown that online platforms and algorithmic work regimes might create jobs but deepen existing labour market inequalities. This growth model depends on low-wage,
364 Research handbook on inequalities and work racialised and gendered workers participating in this ‘human-fuelled automation’. As workers are rendered just another input into a platform or the algorithm, management can expand its power not only over these so-called platform and gig workers but also spur changes in other sectors of the economy, which will be dealt with below.
THE DISPLACEMENT OF WORKERS The previous sections have shown that a future of work characterised by robots and full automation still remains a distant dream. However, the fear of job losses and displacement due to the use of artificial intelligence, algorithmic management and robots is not a figment of the imagination. Estimates suggest that 85 million human jobs worldwide will be lost to algorithms (World Economic Forum, 2020). The Office of National Statistics meanwhile estimates that automation will potentially eliminate 1.5 million jobs in Britain (Office for National Statistics, 2019). At the same time, data suggest that ‘97 million new roles may emerge as the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms emerges’ (World Economic Forum, 2020, p. 5; EBRD Multimedia Team, 2021). A closer look at the data suggests that technology-driven job creation outpaces jobs lost due to automation. Moreover, robots, artificial intelligence and algorithms do not necessarily replace human labour but rather displace it. In many cases, the new jobs created require a higher skill level or ultimately change the job content and tasks all together. This is underlined by the McKinsey Global Institute (2021), which estimates that 25 per cent of workers will be forced to switch their occupations due to the double disruption of Covid-19 and digitalisation. This mirrors wider trends that ‘the share of core skills that will change in the next five years is 40%, and 50% of all employees will need reskilling (up 4%)’ (World Economic Forum, 2020, p. 6). Statistical evidence has suggested that cleaning – a predominantly female occupation – would be one of the occupations most likely to be automated given its routine and low skill requirement (Frey and Osborne, 2013). A closer look at the cleaning sector reveals that the widespread introduction of cleaning robots is likely to create new occupations higher in the value chain for human workers. Firstly, it will require a driver or technician to pre-programme the routes that the cleaning vehicle will drive. Secondly, it will require someone to load and fill the water tank. Thirdly, it will require a mechanic to repair and maintain the cleaning robot. Walmart’s announcement that it will be adding more than 4000 robots to its US stores and shift human workers to engage in more customer-oriented tasks by investing USD 2.7 billion into worker education and training appears to confirm this (Walker, 2019). The European Commission has purchased 200 ultraviolet light cleaning robots from the Danish UVD Robots that can clean a standard hospital room in 10 minutes time and a total of 18 rooms with one charge (European Commission, no date). Yet this technology also requires a person outside of the room to control the cleaning process. Similar processes of job displacement are occurring in the retail sector. Findings suggest that as frontline jobs in retail are being automated through self-checkout counters and the broader shift to e-commerce and logistics, women with poorer levels of education or those seeking part-time work are especially at a disadvantage (Wallace-Stephens and Lockey, 2019). In turn, the British retail industry is looking to move some of these jobs up the value chain by turning retail workers into ‘influencers’ within their premises (Wallace-Stephens and Lockey, 2019, p. 12). In other cases, the decline in traditional retail jobs has been paralleled
Winners and losers of digitalisation of work 365 by a growth in delivery, transportation and warehouse jobs. It can be argued that attempts of automation in this sector are a response to high levels of unionisation, as evidenced in France where unions’ stance against late and Sunday opening hours has forced supermarkets to invest into technologies so that they can stay open without workers (Williams, 2019). In the male-dominated road transport and logistics sector, job content and tasks are also changing due to the introduction of new technologies. As artificial intelligence systems in autonomous vehicles are still not capable of handling so-called ‘edge case scenarios’ (Khatry and Thompson, 2021) and validating certain actions (Koopman and Wagner, 2016), car and trucking companies have gone over to employ workers to take over in more difficult situations. For that reason, workers of one autonomous vehicle company sit behind a computer screen in an office somewhere to steer the car through difficult scenarios, such as a drive-in or a construction site. Thus, automation does not necessarily eliminate transport jobs but rather turns them into office jobs (Keim, 2020, p. 6). Another study states that non-driving tasks such as testing, loading and unloading; customer service interaction at different points; and visual checks will continue to be in demand (Gittleman and Monaco, 2020, pp. 12–14). Nonetheless, the threat of autonomous vehicles continues to be perceived as a real threat among drivers, leading some drivers to outcompete their colleagues (Shoag et al., 2021). While mainstream commentators have been focussing on the displacement of male-dominated jobs, the displacement of women-dominated jobs in retail remains under-appreciated. At the same time, the shift in tasks can create new employment opportunities for women workers in sectors such as logistics. Nonetheless, it remains a question for researchers to address whether the displaced jobs are going to be replaced by higher skilled and better remunerated jobs or whether a general de-skilling can be observed.
CONCLUDING REMARKS This chapter has critically investigated the existing literature on digitalisation and automation and spotlighted the economic and ideological roots of the current wave of digitalisation of work, its manifestations and its effects on low-wage gendered and racialised workers. Based on the readings, the main argument advanced here is that digitalisation has not led to the destruction of jobs in the way that some have predicted. By highlighting different sectors, it is evidenced that low-wage workers are displaced into different occupations rather than replaced wholesale. In other words, capital and management have sought to radically transform these existing forms of work – often to increase productivity. Through illustrative case-by-case examples it has been shown how digital tools are being used to increase control over and output from workers. The result is the creation of new kinds of work and new ways of managing work through intermediary platforms or company-internal platforms. This creates new divisions of labour, chief among them the rise of remote working with its gendered consequences. Silicon Valley companies and their leaders’ increasingly rightward-leaning ideology overdetermine some of these outcomes. By including this in the presented critical literature review, it was revealed how the sharpest end of Silicon Valley ideology is being tested. The above-mentioned ideologies do not only guide the tech community in their development of new technologies and their position on workers’ rights but also how they regard trade unions. Their anti-union stance is most clearly expressed by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi,
366 Research handbook on inequalities and work who has stated that he would not support the unionisation of Uber drivers because a union ‘becomes another power center’ and would ‘make […] things very difficult for the company’.4 Despite Silicon Valley thinkers treating political, social and economic problems merely as ‘design problems’ to be fixed (Odell, 2019), tech workers have been somewhat successful in engaging in workplace activism, as well as organising unions in Silicon Valley. However, it could be argued that ‘the Californian Ideology’ has predisposed this group of workers to prioritise branding and PR rather than recruiting members and building actual unions (Dewes, 2021). In their efforts to unionise these groups of workers, other unions, such as Swedish white-collar union UNIONEN, which has developed an algorithm to improve bargaining outcomes, underline the double-edged nature of these new technological innovations. In conclusion, it can be stated that the acceleration of the digitalisation of the world of work due to Covid-19 exposed what tech entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley companies have conceptualised as the future of work. The digital fixes have not boosted economic growth or alleviated rampant gendered and racialised inequalities and are unlikely to. Instead, they have transferred even more power to the so-called managerial class, as evidenced by rising share prices while unemployment rates have risen. In order to make digitalisation work for employees and workers, the socio-economic order, institutional arrangements and labour policies need to redress power imbalances urgently.
NOTES 1. See: https://www.workplace.com/rc/ebook/deskless-frontline-workers-report. 2. See the full Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1067173497909141504. 3. See: https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1178429549689921536. 4. See: https://www.facebook.com/axiosnews/videos/409967143290326/.
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25. The original gig economy: gendered precarious working in the UK music industry Vick Bain
INTRODUCTION The UK music industry is considered an exemplary economic and commercial success, generating billions for the UK economy as well as producing numerous intangible benefits, such as reputation, for the UK through its high-quality music output (British Phonographic Industry, 2017). Arguably, this has all come about because of a tradition of excellent musical education, performance opportunities, and a highly developed industry with its attendant robust management of intellectual property and legislative framework (UK Music, 2020, 2021). It is an industry imbued with excellence, glamour, and financial success, with many British artists achieving international fame and wealth. Conversely, the success for the few, the ‘winner takes all’ model, hides the precarity of music careers. The music industry is the original ‘gig economy’ (Bau Graves, 2021). The term ‘gig economy’, which is now used to describe increasing precarity in employment in the 21st century, was first used by jazz musicians in the period after the First World War as shorthand for an engagement; they secured one gig at a time. Careers in the creative industries as a whole are known to be precarious and music is a notoriously difficult way of earning one’s living, with half of contemporary UK musicians earning less than GBP 10,000 per annum from their music (Hesmondhalgh et al., 2021, p. 7) compared to the national median income of just over GBP 33,000 (Office for National Statistics, 2022a). An important and yet often overlooked aspect of precarity in music is that of gender. The 20th century witnessed a gradual dismantling of the musical patriarchy with increasing numbers of women establishing their careers in the music industry. However, the statistics demonstrate this is still a male-dominated environment, particularly for musicians and those in the senior management levels of the industry (Scharff, 2015; Smith et al., 2021; Hernandez et al., 2022). Despite many recent efforts to improve its diversity and inclusion, music remains homogeneous at the top with white men continuing to dominate its upper ranks. This has gendered consequences for women in their music careers. In this chapter I will explore the development of key feminist career theories as a means of better understanding women’s careers in music. Despite a feminist perspective being utilised for numerous business sectors over the past few decades, there is a gap in the research across the music industry. With this lens I scrutinise career pathways into music; uncertain employment structures and hierarchies in music, including the impact of intersectionality, as all women are not the same (Crenshaw, 1991); the repercussions of precarious working for women in music; and the reasons why working in the music industry remains problematic for women, concluding with a number of proposals to better support women in their music careers.
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CAREER THEORIES Development of Key Feminist Career Theories A career is an individual’s long-term work focus, pattern, and progress (Gunz and Peiperl, 2008). Given the importance of careers in our lives, they have become a natural focus of sociology. However classic career development theory, ostensibly gender neutral, is in fact androcentric, primarily observing male workers and male jobs, largely built on men’s career patterns, and based on men’s experiences at work (Gati et al., 1995). When early industrial sociologists Miller and Form researched careers in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, they saw a lifework pattern with a long, stable work period and factors for occupational success that were closely linked to one’s father’s occupation, income, education, and social class, with men reproducing the social class of their father’s work (Dalton, 1995, pp. 90-91). Feminist career theorists responded to this milieu by proposing alternative career models and identifying key factors with which to better explore and understand women’s careers. Subsequently, from the 1980s feminist sociologists and vocational psychologists, such as Astin, Betz, Bilimoria, Farmer, Fassinger, Fitzgerald, Hackett, O’Brien, Noonan, and Witz, started exploring women’s careers and through the development of new career models and research demonstrated the stark differences in career choices and patterns experienced by women. Influence of Social Role Theory Social role theory posits the position that socialisation and stereotyping facilitate sex-typical roles by enabling men and women to develop appropriate gender-congruent personality traits, skills, and interests (Eagly and Wood, 1999). Feminist careers researchers found that gender-role socialisation subsequently influences women’s career choices (Hackett and Betz, 1981), which are more complicated than those of men particularly because of their domestic responsibilities, sometimes leading to work/family conflict (Betz and Fitzgerald, 1987). A contradiction for women and their working careers is they are also still expected to do considerable amounts of non-paid work in the home. Feminist career researchers explored and challenged these circumstances. In the UK, having children once meant a permanent stop to a woman’s career but it is now considered more acceptable for women to return to work after having children and these career breaks are becoming shorter in length (Bull et al., 2002, p. 71). However, women subsequently work fewer hours for employers, as their unpaid work in the home increases, creating what is termed women’s ‘dual burden’ (Richardson and Robinson, 2015). Furthermore, most of Western society still believes that, although a woman should work, if she has children, she should be the primary carer and stay at home until school age (Park and For, 2013). Even if a woman does not have children, she will still be identified, and hindered, by her potential to have children (Gatrell and Cooper, 2008). Astin’s (1984) sociopsychological model of career choice and work behaviour was one of the first major career structures that specifically looked at the careers of women. Acknowledging the influence of the family pressures of gendered social roles and that early socialisation experiences are influential, she looked at what she termed the ‘structure of opportunity’ through a feminist lens, along with occupational accessibility and career choices and behaviours,
372 Research handbook on inequalities and work especially for those less advantaged. This model, combining both micro-psychological and macro-social dimensions, gave emphasis to issues in a woman’s whole life, such as the support systems of financial liquidity, family relations, and childcare options, as well as changing social norms and the variables that have influenced a woman’s socialisation, and offered a contrasting model to that of the linear, androcentric models. Intersectional Career Models Another important advancement in feminist career development theories were those that incorporated the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991), essentially the dynamics of multiple inequalities (Walby et al., 2012). However, it is not simply a matter of multiplying inequalities one on top of the other, it is more nuanced and complex than that (Tatli and Özbilgin, 2012). Fassinger’s career orientation model (O’Brien and Fassinger, 1993) was the first to incorporate an intersectional view of women in its variables and was based on many qualitative studies with successful women from different ethnicities and working in different career fields. Having progressed through a number of improving iterations, the career orientation model includes personal, environmental, cognitive, decisional, developmental, and relational variables, each career model that is developed through the years tending to be able to demonstrate the complex arrangements of a woman’s life. Building on this intersectional work and utilising a grounded research methodology via qualitative interviews, Noonan et al. (2004) specifically analysed the lives of high-achieving disabled working women and developed their dynamic self model. They highlighted that for women external barriers to career success include sexual harassment, lack of mentors and role models, and stereotyping, all complicated by discrimination for race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Pointing out the paucity of research in this area, they asserted that for women with disabilities, career outcomes were particularly troubling, with extreme barriers and poor outcomes. This model can be developed for differing axes of discrimination using personal, environmental, and cognitive variables. O’Neil, Hopkins and Bilimoria (2013) identified four factors common to most women’s working lives: women’s career paths are many and varied; women’s careers comprise more than work and are interconnected to their private lives; families and careers are central to women’s lives; and social capital is critical for women’s career development. Nonlinear Careers The awareness of the intersectional complexity of women’s lives – that women’s lives are nonlinear, that is, they transition in and out of their education, careers, and personal lives sometimes multiple times – is present in much recent feminist career thinking (Sang et al., 2013). The phenomenon of nonlinear careers is further explored in a number of metaphorically named theories: those of patchwork, frayed, and kaleidoscope careers. Patchwork career theory was originally used to explore men’s career characteristics: men who patched together different types of jobs and other activities in fragmented and unstable careers, primarily as a consequence of decades of globalisation (Halrynjo, 2009). Blossfeld et al.’s (2006) explorations of unstable careers acknowledge women experience far greater interruptions to their careers, especially when they attempt to re-enter the labour market after having children or are nearing retirement, when in their quest for flexibility they are most vulnerable. Moreover they detail
The original gig economy 373 the fact that these career patterns are considered not ideal and are viewed negatively. They are ‘other’, deviant from the norm of male, uninterrupted careers. Women with interrupted careers will likely suffer consequences in terms of not getting appointed or promoted as successfully as if they had had a continuous career, and this in turn can lead to reduced commitment and ultimately self-selecting out of once-prized career ambitions (Sabelis and Schilling, 2013). The concept of ‘frayed careers’ emphasises the differing rhythms, or arrhythmia, that encapsulate a woman’s career trajectory, which can often be circular and generally the opposite of a man’s expected steady vertical climb, and how the construction of careers is gendered, age-specific, and class-related. In their study of first-generation migrant female professors in UK business schools, Sang et al. (2013) found that rather than feeling disadvantaged through their interrupted, frayed careers, many of the interviewees felt they had achieved success, revealing an important aspect of these nonlinear career theories; that though women may ‘opt-in and opt-out’ (Cabrera, 20067), and for a myriad of reasons, they can still achieve success on their terms. Similarly, pointing out the gendered nature of careers, Mainiero and Sullivan (2005, p. 111) use the imagery of a kaleidoscope to convey the complexities of women’s working lives in that, like a kaleidoscope, ‘women shift the pattern of their careers by rotating different aspects of their lives to arrange roles and relationships in new ways’. The kaleidoscope model encompasses the shifting priorities and patterns for women at different points in their lives by articulating three parameters for making career decisions: authenticity, balance, and challenge. Over the course of a woman’s working life, they proposed that one of these parameters at a time will be a priority: being true to oneself, integration of one’s personal and work life, and the need for advancement and self-worth. This chapter will utilise intersectional theories such as the dynamic self model and nonlinear career theories such as frayed careers and the kaleidoscope career model to further explore the dynamics of gendered careers and women’s career journeys in the music industry. However, first in the next section I will examine career pathways into music, job roles, and employment structures and patterns in music, as whilst there are similarities with careers in other sectors, there are also unique phenomena.
JOB ROLES AND EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES IN MUSIC Education Pathways The career pathways for popular music are increasingly being channelled through universities and the result is a highly competitive industry with a large number of students emerging from British universities each year intent on forging careers on this path with the thought that they can follow in the footsteps of their musical inspirations. Just under two thirds of the workforce in the industry hold at least a bachelor’s degree compared to the national average of 35 per cent (Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, 2019). It has also been noted that compared to the general UK student population, music students are more likely to have parents in middle-class occupations (Bull et al., 2022). Thus the music industry workforce, akin to other creative industry disciplines, consists of predominantly white, middle-class people who can afford and have been encouraged to have a university education (Brook et al., 2020).
374 Research handbook on inequalities and work The education pipeline has reliable data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Authority and analysed in several reports (Bain, 2019; Bull et al., 2022) reporting approximately 25,000 students graduating with music-related degrees per annum in the five years from 2013. Of the undergraduate students, 43 per cent were female, and of the postgraduate students, 49 per cent were female. Thus the educational pipeline is very nearly gender-balanced and to what extent this is reflected in the professional domain is explored later in the chapter. Entry Routes Work placements and internships lasting many months for those studying degrees or for recent graduates are common in the industry. Most of these are unpaid. It is expected that applicants entering the industry will have already worked in numerous internships, ostensibly showing ‘commitment’, but meaning that they have personal economic support to allow them to undertake such placements (O’Brien and Oakley, 2015). The Institute for Public Policy Research (Roberts, 2017) found that the creative industries had the highest number of internships available compared to paid job advertisements. Anyone without such support (i.e., the working class) will suffer and be unlikely to be given roles in the most sought-after positions. These practices mean the replication of privilege because they ensure the middle-classes predominate in roles within the music industry. As O’Neil et al. highlight (2013), social capital is critical. The music industry is exemplified by high competition and a reliance on networks with invisible gatekeepers (Morgan and Nelligan, 2015). Those with high levels of social as well as economic capital (Bourdieu, 1984) will have access to high-quality educational opportunities critical for a career in music, especially those musicians who often start studying with parental support at the age of five, thus ever perpetuating the existing demographic make-up of the industry workforce that is predominantly white and middle class. Employment Structures When thinking about careers in music one may automatically think of musicians but there are a multitude of other job roles for people across the industry. There has been much debate over the years about exactly which job roles are included in the music industry and which are not (UK Music, 2013). UK Music developed a model when they published their first economic analysis, the Economic Contribution of the Core UK Music Industry, later rebranded as Measuring Music. In these reports UK Music argue that to be included in the music industry, an individual or a business has to have a relationship with at least one of four commercial assets, all forms of intellectual property: a musical work, a master recording, a live performance, or a musician’s brand. The relationships could be either one of music creation (the creative roles) or one of administration or distribution (the executive roles). The executive roles encompass music managers, record store workers, record label staff, digital campaign marketeers, festival and venue staff, those working for the collecting societies, and more, all of which are essential in terms of music reaching its audience. As of April 2022 there were only 13 music-related organisations (not including educational organisations) that employed more than 250 people and therefore must mandatorily report their pay gaps in the UK. The majority of those working for music companies tend to work for micro-businesses, which can also be precarious with no long-term guarantees of employment. Creative and Cultural Skills reported in 2011 there were 7,900 businesses in the UK
The original gig economy 375 music industry, 92 per cent of which had fewer than ten people. Similarly, in a later report the Creative Industries Federation (Chung, 2018) calculated that 95 per cent of creative businesses employ fewer than ten people. As for total numbers of those who work in the business, UK Music (2019) reported there were only 21,054 in non-creator music roles in retail, recorded music, music representation, and music publishing and 30,529 in live music. Additionally the live UK music industry formed its own trade organisation, LIVE, in 2020 and has published two reports indicating the number of those employed in its sector (Carey and Chambers, 2020, 2021). Explaining that they use a wider definition of those working in live music than UK Music’s reports, they calculated over 200,000 people worked in the live music sector pre-Covid-19, halving to 116,000, 61 per cent of whom were in part-time, temporary, or freelance roles, during the pandemic restrictions in 2021. Self-employment This highlights one of the unique features of the UK music industry: its extraordinarily high levels of self-employment, where short-term non-standard employment and freelance contracts predominate. Freelance or self-employment has been a growing trend in employment in the UK, especially since the financial crash of 2008 (Taylor, 2015). It is a phenomenon that has received much attention, particularly from government reports such as the 2019 Rose Review celebrating the fact Britain had become ‘the start-up capital of Europe’ (Rose, 2019) with over 1,100 new businesses being created every day. However, in music this has long been the situation. In that sense, this is why the music industry is the original ‘gig economy’, a term used by musicians for a century, who are invariably contracted one performance at a time (Bau Graves, 2021). All musicians signed to record labels are self-employed and have investment contracts not employment contracts (Arditi, 2020). The statistics specifically for musicians who are freelance are revealed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) analysis of a decade of data derived from the Annual Population/Labour Force Survey through their All in Employment by Status, Occupation and Sex reports. They reveal just under 45,000 people working primarily as musicians on average a year with the percentage of self-employment over the past decade remaining steady at around 83 per cent (ONS, 2012–2021). This freelance culture permeates through the music industry in all roles; even those in many music business support roles, such as artist managers, graphic designers, lawyers, and festival promoters, are often self-employed and work very short-term contracts. Creative and Cultural Skills (2011) stated 44 per cent of those working within the music industry were self-employed though it has published no further research into this area in a decade. This is still significantly higher than the 13 per cent across all other sectors in the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2022b). Women’s Participation From these numbers, what does the participation of women look like in music? UK Music’s Workforce Diversity Survey published biennially since 2016 shows that over half of the workforce are now female overall (UK Music, 2022). However, this statistic hides the lack of retention of women as they get older. Overall, 53 per cent of the 2022 respondents were female, but UK Music acknowledges this is because those working in entry-level positions,
376 Research handbook on inequalities and work with 64 per cent women reducing to 28 per cent for the highest paid roles. Moreover, in terms of age, women consisted of 68 per cent under 25s, which reduces down to 18 per cent by retirement age. This over-representation of women at the bottom of career hierarchies and men overrepresented at the top is vertical segregation. I have already asserted that as the pipeline from university degrees into the industry is nearly gender-balanced that this should be reflected in the profession itself. The ONS Labour Force Survey reports mentioned in the previous section reveal that 73 per cent of musicians are male and 27 per cent female (ONS, 2012–2021). This is clearly far lower than the nigh gender-balanced educational pipeline. This is in contrast to the business workforce, which is more equal overall, even if segregated vertically, with the point of attrition being women in their 40s and older. The statistics are even starker when looking at those who are signed to labels (only 20 per cent of whom are women), publishers (14 per cent of whom are women), and those who are nominated for/win music awards, which, similar to the executive roles, demonstrates extreme vertical segregation by gender for these most coveted of music industry rewards (Bain, 2019). It can therefore be presumed there are greater structural barriers causing the discrepancy for musicians, which will be explored in the next section. It should also be noted there are other contradictory statistics on the numbers of musicians; in the 2019 pre-Covid Music by Numbers report, UK Music (2019) reported that out of nearly 191,000 jobs in music, 139,000 were full-time ‘music creators’, a rise of 83 per cent since their first analysis six years earlier (Hesmondhalgh et al., 2021, p. 30). In the later This is Music report (UK Music, 2022) they stated that post-Covid 145,000 were employed in music but gave no further breakdown as to the exact numbers of musicians. It is clear, however, that their reports differ substantially from the ONS datasets, but as we are not privy to their data sources or methodology these numbers cannot be peer-reviewed. Intersectionality Examining other intersectional axes, UK Music’s 2022 Workforce Diversity Survey (UK Music, 2022) reported a total 21 per cent of respondents from Black, Asian, or ethnically diverse backgrounds. Whereas, according to the 2021 UK Census, 46 per cent of the total London population (ONS, 2021), where the music industry is predominantly clustered, identified as Asian, Black, Mixed, or from another ethnic group. Vertical progression up the management structures mirrors what we see with gender, with 36 per cent of entry-level jobs being filled by Black, Asian, and other ethnic groups, halving to 18 per cent at senior levels. Although the government’s Family Resources Survey (Gov.uk, 2017) reports that 19 per cent of people of working age in the UK have a disability, only 15 per cent of those employed in music reported having a disability. Moreover, 79 per cent of the respondents identified as heterosexual, far lower than the overall UK population of 89 per cent (ONS, 2021), perhaps indicating there is greater acceptance for diversity of sexual orientation within music. For the first time, UK Music asked respondents about gender identity, with 1.4 per cent saying their identity was different to that assigned at birth. This is close to the 1.6 per cent reported by Black Lives in Music (2021), but both are higher than the recently announced UK Census 2021 statistic of half a per cent, with a proportion being non-binary, genderqueer, genderless, and transgender. Thus, despite contradictory calculations on the actual numbers of musicians, it can still be seen that the industry is primarily one of freelancers or those who work for micro-businesses
The original gig economy 377 and that the numbers of women working professionally as musicians and in more senior roles in the business are far lower than what should be expected from the educational pipeline. In the next section I will explore precarious working conditions in music, including lower financial rewards, especially for women, and how these careers do not support women’s lived experiences and manifest in diminished participation from women.
PRECARIOUS WORKING FOR WOMEN IN MUSIC Women as Entrepreneurs We have seen with the statistics on self-employment in music that to sustain a career in music it is advantageous to be an entrepreneur. University music departments now run entire degrees or modules in entrepreneurship (Dumbreck and McPherson, 2016), and women are increasingly becoming self-employed as it can offer some form of flexibility and is one strategy undertaken to deal with the competing demands of parenting and earning an income (Sevä and Öun, 2015). Nevertheless there are barriers for women in particular, such as stereotypes against female entrepreneurs, the caring responsibilities they have to undertake at the same time, and a lack of entrepreneurial training in comparison to men, and just 4 per cent of investment goes to female entrepreneurs (Rose, 2019). Moreover, the attributes of entrepreneurship are essentialised as male (competitive, confident, and ambitious) so there remain gendered barriers (Greene et al., 2003). The phrase ‘portfolio career’ is often used in music but it is a euphemism to describe and glamourise the precarious working conditions comprising many short-term contracts in the music industry. A portfolio career comprises a variety of roles at one time (concurrent part-time working) or in quick succession as there is the recognition many musicians will not ‘make it’ professionally and have to support themselves through other parallel work, either in or outside of the music industry (Bartleet et al., 2020). Sabelis and Schilling (2013, p. 3) discuss the negative, gendered connotations of frayed careers, including the ageism rife across our society and how it impacts older women in particular. Ageism and an inability to re-enter the music industry after having children may explain the disappearance of women in their 40s and above. Financial Remuneration Furthermore, women’s self-employment is arguably associated with much lower levels of earnings compared to men’s and characterised by greater levels of precarity; research into freelance earnings consistently shows women earning far less than their male counterparts (Foong et al., 2018). Whilst musicians have high status positions in terms of the level of the social position they are considered to possess, with musicians being the ninth most prestigious occupation in the UK, not far below architects, doctors, and judges (Carey et al., 2021), in reality the vast majority struggle financially. Hesmondhalgh et al. (2021) lay bare the situation that most musicians earn very little from their creative endeavours; in 2019 more than a third of musicians earned less than GBP 5,000, nearly half earned less than GBP 10,000, and nearly two thirds earned less than GBP 20,000. For non-white, non-male musicians, earnings were even less, with the median income for women being GBP 13,057, whereas for men it was GBP
378 Research handbook on inequalities and work 20,160. Over half of the ethnic minority respondents reported self-funding with non-music income compared to just over a third of white men. Only those with existing financial capital can survive a music career and this perpetuates socioeconomic disadvantage already present in the sector. Analysis of the April 2022 pay-gap reports from the 13 large music organisations that had to report reveals that they paid their female workers 15 per cent less using the mean average and 17 per cent less using the median than their male counterparts. UK Music (2022) asked respondents to their Workforce Diversity Survey about income; in 2022 women constituted 36 per cent of the highest earners, although this was an increase on 2020 where it was only 28 per cent. This again highlights the vertical gender segregation in the music industry with women clustered into the entry-level, less well-paid roles and unpaid roles. The Motherhood Penalty Gender inequalities in the home make it difficult to achieve gender equality in the workplace, weakening women’s position to get the best jobs (Hartmann, 1976). There has been a lag in progress, an ‘incomplete revolution’ (Esping-Andersen, 2009). Despite progression in equality for women in some areas, the social roles for women remain deeply entrenched. For Bradley (1999) and other researchers, motherhood and the attendant responsibilities form the main block to equality in the workplace for women. Women’s careers are derailed and they experience the ‘motherhood penalty’, but for men, once they become fathers, they are rewarded, more often promoted, and paid more in what is considered a ‘fatherhood premium’ (Correll et al., 2007). This fact is reflected in the high levels of part-time roles in music, which are predominantly taken by women as a direct result of domestic responsibilities; thus, women are pushed into ‘low reward, low status jobs’ (Connolly and Gregory, 2008). Women work part-time in order to manage their dual burden but part-time work often leads to under-employment and under-utilisation, a ‘talent drain’ of often highly qualified and experienced women from the workforce (Women in Management Review, 2005). This compounds the pay penalty; Parents and Carers in Performing Arts (McDowall et al., 2022) reported that freelance mothers in music, theatre, and dance earned on average GBP 12,000 compared to GBP 20,000 for freelance men, reflective of the fact that women in the dataset were twice as likely as men to work part-time. Overall, in the UK, 38 per cent of women work part-time and 13 per cent of men (Devine, 2021). However, musicians are much more likely to work part-time than the rest of the working population. This is likely not by choice and represents a sign of precarious work and under-employment. Again, averaged over a ten-year period, 31 per cent of male musicians and 46 per cent of female musicians work part-time (ONS, 2012–2021). This is a precarious and uncertain culture of work, not securely held and dependent on chance and who you know. Social Capital Who you know, or networking, especially during evenings or late nights, is considered an essential part of working in music (Bartleet et al., 2020). However, there are inherent gender challenges, such as the unequal power relations within industry networks and the blurred boundaries between fragmented professional and social networking spaces (Hennekam et al.,
The original gig economy 379 2019). Men are better networked and have more human and social capital than women. The acclaimed protean ‘values-driven attitude’ appears to perfectly reflect the neoliberal ethos of the age of the individual where career self-management builds on the notion that the actions of networking, self-promotion, adaptability (the ability to cope with current and future vocational tasks), creating opportunities for oneself, and generally being proactive are the best way to achieving career goals (De Vos and Soens, 2008). All of these facets require considerable time investment and may be possible as an adult with no domestic responsibilities but become more of a challenge, if not impossible, while balancing the role of primary carer. Furthermore, the informality of self-employment can hide non-existent working protections that in turn can lead to exploitation and vulnerability. Harassment and Discrimination Consequently, Hitlan et al. (2006) argue the presence of sexual harassment in most workplaces acts as a control mechanism that can inhibit and ultimately remove women from the workplace. Freelancers are particularly vulnerable as they have no legal protection at all, with 66 per cent of 660 respondents to the Independent Society of Musicians’ Dignity at Work 2 report (Williams and Bain) in 2022 stating they had experienced harassment or discrimination, 78 per cent of whom disclosed that they were female and 67 per cent of whom were freelance. Over three quarters of respondents who had experienced discrimination or harassment had not officially reported the incident for fear of the consequences, rising to 88 per cent for freelancers. There are also intersectional dimensions such that the percentage of those experiencing discrimination and harassment rose to 74 per cent among those with disabilities and over 90 per cent among those who were Black. Black Lives in Music (2021) reported 73 per cent of their survey respondents had experienced racism, with a particular concern regarding how it affected Black women’s music careers. Thus, intersectional, gendered control in the music industry is exercised over women through both the actual incidents of sexual harassment and also where they are silenced, either through the threat of a ruined reputation or through the use and abuse of non-disclosure agreements and effectively disempowered (Rahman, 2022). The career consequences result in women being discouraged from entering the sector and conversely exiting the sector quicker than their male counterparts. They are also then unable to speak about their experiences afterwards, carrying the burden of a ‘toxic secrecy’ (Otte, 2021). Thus, the gig economy model of work in the music industry that manifests as precarious self-employment has gendered consequences beyond insecure earnings and nonlinear, frayed careers but also renders women in the industry vulnerable to sexual harassment leading to trauma and disempowerment, as well as career exit or stagnation. Sullivan and Mainiero (2008) articulate in their kaleidoscope career model that women seek authenticity, balance, and challenge in their careers and that organisations have difficulty understanding that women prefer working for organisations that align with their values, often leaving organisations, or sectors, if they witness or experience unethical behaviour, which sexual harassment most certainly is. It is therefore apparent that the culture of fear within the music industry, with its high levels of harassment, apparently endorsed by its silence and complicit inaction, will lead to women leaving.
380 Research handbook on inequalities and work Gendered Barriers to Boundaryless Careers Freelance careers are exemplified by the concept of being boundaryless. Boundaryless career theory outlines how these careers are characterised by both intra-organisational and inter-organisational mobility, as well as physical (i.e. location) mobility (Kost et al., 2019). Organisations are now required to be ‘flexible, efficient and innovative’ (Gerli et al., 2015, p. 1) with ideal workers to match, but the boundaryless career literature remains mostly silent in terms of its impact on women, rendering invisible the gendered consequences for these types of careers, who because of lives which are more constrained experience more barriers and boundaries than men. A notable exception is Cabrera (2007), who analysed the reasons why women moved out of their careers, including domestic responsibilities, relocating for their husband’s career advancement or career dissatisfaction, but also noted that 70 per cent attempted to return but nearly half subsequently experienced difficulties, citing a loss of contacts and skills. The music industry could be said to be boundaryless, with its freelance career structures. The boundaryless careers of the music industry make high demands of its workers in terms of time, energy, and lifestyle, which best suit the ‘unencumbered male’ (Acker, 2012). The ultimate boundaryless occupations in the music industry involve touring, usually involving a succession of gigs in differing cities over a period of weeks or months, and can often involve international travelling. Job mobility is often incongruent with family responsibilities but touring is an important aspect of music and so its demands, culture, and structures mean the workers are predominantly male (Pollstar and VenuesNow, 2020). This includes musicians, but also the myriad supporting roles such as tour manager, lighting designers, production managers, sound technicians, and roadies. Women’s careers in music are not boundaryless, they are strongly bound and constrained by gendered norms and roles both inside and outside of the employment sphere. The dynamic-self intersectional career model developed by Noonan et al. (2004) identified a full range of factors, such as family influences, social support, and educational opportunities, as all influencing career attitudes and behaviours, creating multiple factors influencing career decisions. All of these factors come into play in careers in the music industry, where women, especially women who are disabled or are Black, Asian, or from another ethnic minority, are less able to participate. The intersectional characteristics of a person’s family background and general social support systems give certain advantages or disadvantages, which in turn lead to or bar certain career paths.
CONCLUSION The Gig Economy Is Gendered This chapter explored how the precarious working structures of the music industry are incongruent with women’s complex lives, with intersectional dimensions as detailed in the dynamic self model, significantly contributing to the low percentages of women working as professional musicians. We also see a lack of retention for older female executives with a predominantly white, middle-class workforce. We see patterns of part-time working and increasing rates of self-employment for women in other sectors, but they are much greater in the music industry and where social capital is key in a tight network of relationships.
The original gig economy 381 Women’s priorities are often an interconnection of both work life and their families. This conflicts with the mantra of a tight network of micro-businesses and entrepreneurs across the music industry, where the culture is to reward employees for their ultra-focused dedication and male-orientated boundaryless careers. Incongruous career loyalties, such as those of women attempting the nigh-impossible task of balancing both work and domestic requirements, lead to more complex career patterns, such as frayed careers, and require greater understanding and support from organisations. The gendering of careers in the music industry is complex, and although it has commonalities with careers in other sectors, it is unique due to the extremely high levels of self-employment and temporary contracts, the culture of late-night performing and networking, and the incompatibility with family responsibilities. There is also the ever-present spectre of sexual harassment and the vulnerability of women in music to such behaviours with no legal protection or recourse. These are all gendered elements of precarity and, as outlined in the kaleidoscope career model, a misalignment of values in the workplace that will cause women to opt out of working in music. The result of these precarious working structures mean the UK music industry is dominated by white, middle-class, able-bodied men. As one would expect for an industry expert at creating glamorous imagery, the professional imaging of the industry does an excellent job of rendering inequalities invisible using deliberate marketing and imagery of women and those from ethnic-minority backgrounds, but the creative and workforce statistics reveal a different story in who it promotes to the highest status and well-paid roles. Recommendations As a way forward there is much that can be done by industry employers and by policy makers and government. Government can pass stronger legislation to extend pay gap reporting, paternity cover, and shared parental leave for the self-employed and extend maternity protections, give greater protection against sexual harassment and victimisation, strengthen flexible working requests, and provide greater access to legal advice in dealing with employment issues. Industry bodies and organisations need to instigate greater training in all of these issues, conduct internal audits of staff (including freelancers) and music artist rosters, set their own diversity targets, improve female recruitment (especially in leadership roles), improve female talent retention in companies for those aged over 35, and instigate flexible working and ‘return to work’ initiatives, while record labels and music publishers need to sign more female musicians. Moreover, more transparency around industry-collected data would be useful. Future research is required on the complex intersectional dynamics of women’s careers in the UK music industry. This should also incorporate exploring the gendered consequences of precocity, including not just for the women themselves but also the economic disadvantages for the sector. Research into careers in this unique industry has potential to expand our understanding of careers overall. We can glean new insights into career development, patterns, success, and inequalities by investigating this sector.
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26. Medical careers in the NHS: a case of segregation and disadvantage Carol Woodhams, Carol Atkinson and Ira Parnerkar
INTRODUCTION The medical profession in the UK provides an insightful setting for analysis of patterns of segregation between male and female doctors and implications for gender inequality in career opportunities and outcomes. Managing diversity so that all can achieve their potential is an important social justice imperative in the current context of considerable workforce shortages. This chapter illustrates how and why diversity management might not have achieved its equality aims. We offer evidence of gender segregation into areas of lower pay and status, as well as the change in and continuity of these patterns over the past decade. We discuss the role played by career structures and cultural factors in influencing them, interweaving competing explanations of labour market disadvantage. We also heed advice to be ‘intersectionally sensitive’ (Healy et al., 2019; McBride et al., 2015) and consider gender’s interaction with other protected characteristics such as ethnicity, nationality, age, religion, sexual orientation and disability. We analyse whether segregation is exacerbated by these intersecting identities for women and men in minority groups. We explore our data within the inter-categorical tradition (McCall, 2005) where existing analytical categories are used ‘in order to document relationships of inequality among social groups’ (McCall, 2001) to add to what is known about ways that multiple disadvantage impacts on labour market outcomes (see Berthoud, 2003). Our ambition is to identify patterns of disadvantage at identity intersections with a view to revealing the structures and processes underpinning them. The National Health Service (NHS) is under tremendous strain, despite being recognised globally as one of the best health care systems. Pressures include demand for health care outstripping supply, increased patient expectations, an increased focus on patient safety with a reduced tolerance of error, annual winter pressures, the Covid-19 pandemic, and higher turnover in the context of Brexit. These increase doctors’ workloads, resulting in psychological morbidity, reduced well-being and burnout. Indeed, recruitment and retention of medical staff are presented by several medical royal colleges as a crisis and staffing shortages result. Furthermore, pension changes have resulted in some consultants and GPs choosing to work less or retire early due to large tax bills for additional work. This, together with earlier pay freezes for doctors, has compounded current recruitment shortfalls particularly in acute specialties and for GPs. Employers face great difficulty in organising safe rotas in this overstretched environment and are increasingly offering additional work opportunities to fill rota gaps in on-call shifts and to reduce waiting lists. This has the potential to influence career progression, as men and women may have different opportunities to take on these extra roles depending on their specialty and caring responsibilities. The structure of the medical profession in the UK is complex, with three main groups of doctors. In England, the majority group are NHS-employed Hospital and Community Health 385
386 Research handbook on inequalities and work Service (HCHS) doctors. A smaller but substantial group are General Practice (GP) doctors. A third much smaller group are clinical academics, who mainly work in universities on academic contracts, also offering clinical services to the NHS. Data analysed here are restricted to HCHS doctors that work in NHS hospital settings. Doctors are employed on NHS-wide contracts, either the Consultant contract, the Specialty Doctor and Associate Specialist (SAS) contracts or the Doctors and Dentists in Training contract. Due to the unique structures of UK medical training, plus the origins of the data, our findings are limited to medical practice (medicine) in England.
EXPLANATIONS OF PATTERNS OF SEGREGATION Patterns of workforce gender segregation can be both ‘vertical’ – that is, men occupying higher positions within an occupation – and ‘horizontal’ – that is, men and women working in different occupational groups. Vertical segregation highlights the problem of the ‘glass ceiling’ as a barrier to women reaching senior positions. Horizontal segregation results in women being concentrated in less well-remunerated and prestigious occupations and highlights barriers to their entry into better paid and higher status areas of work dominated by men. When women enter male-dominated professions, they typically experience both vertical and horizontal segregation (Reskin and Roos, 1990). Theoretical explanations for workforce segregation revolve around the vexed question of whether it results from people’s own freely made choices or whether structural constraints created by institutions limit opportunity and access. Human capital theorists (e.g., Becker, 1975) explain segregation as a product of individual choice and differences in levels of career investment. They propose that differences in education, skills, preferences and experience between different groups of workers (Jacobsen, 2003) explain labour market outcomes. For example, women invest in and manage their career trajectories according to their preferences and choices (Hakim, 2006), which often differ from those of men. In medicine, women and men are seen as making different choices around the accumulation and deployment of their education and skills (Toutkoushian et al., 2007; Uhly et al., 2017). Women also have different ways of managing the work–life interface (Xiaoni and Caudle, 2016), different plans for engagement with paid work over the life course (Metcalf, 2009) and less work continuity and labour market experience due to breaks (Perna, 2005). Conversely, others suggest that patriarchal career constraints and discrimination in medicine inhibit women’s progression (Walby, 1988). Empirical evaluations tend to be informed by a ‘choice’ perspective. McManus and Sproston (2000), for example, question the existence of vertical segregation in medicine, suggesting that there is no glass ceiling for female doctors and that the ‘lower proportion of women overall in senior hospital grades merely reflects older doctors coming from cohorts with fewer women medical students’. This may be true, given the many years of training in medicine and the life events experienced during those years. However, before such conclusions about vertical segregation can be definitively drawn, we need to extend cross-sectional comparison study of groups at a single point in medical careers. The best way to study durability and change in segregation is via repeated cross-section analysis, as we demonstrate here. Explanations for horizontal segregation in medicine also reflect the choice vs. discrimination debate. In line with the ‘choice’ perspective is a well-aired argument that women actively choose different specialties according to their different interests. For example, it is held that
Medical careers in the NHS 387 women are ‘naturally’ less competitive and more caring than men (Boulis and Jacobs, 2011), preferring higher levels of patient contact where expressions of caregiving are not repressed (Ainsworth and Flanagan, 2020). They also prefer specialties that offer more ‘plannable’ working hours (Elston, 2009). An alternative view has its origins in the institutional discrimination thesis, which suggests that ‘specific industry and organisation characteristics and the behaviours of other key groups in the health services workforce are responsible for many of the disparities of between male and female physicians’ (Boulis and Jacobs, 2011). Mechanisms of institutional discrimination include unequal access to resources, less management support, fewer mentoring opportunities and higher structural barriers (Kanter, 1977) based on differences in power and status. Explanations within this tradition reject naturalist preferences and instead review the structural and organisational pressures that cause their clustering into specialties. Further, critics of ‘choice’ approaches emphasise that preferences are underpinned by the gendered and racialised cultural context of organisations and, in this instance, NHS trusts (Peel et al., 2018). This highlights elements that constitute active and persistent discouragement. For example, ‘choices’ may be attributed to poor workplace practice and cultural factors that prevent doctors from achieving their potential. Ethnic minority doctors may experience racism from patients (Shields and Wheatley Price, 2002; Cooke et al., 2003) and co-workers (Lemos and Crane, 2000). We explore this within our analysis. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) showed that ethnic minority UK medical graduates were nearly four times as likely to fail their first exam attempt as white candidates (Esmail and Roberts, 2013); however, the report concedes that this could result from subjective bias. Minority ethnic doctors are stereotyped as being less qualified than white counterparts (Esmail and Simpson, 2017). Doctors whose location of primary medical qualification is outside the UK and Europe are overrepresented in the specialties of general psychiatry, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics and histopathology (Oikelome and Healy, 2013; General Medical Council, 2012) and this is frequently represented as a free choice.
PATTERNS OF SEGREGATION IN THE NHS MEDICAL WORKFORCE The history of segregation in UK medicine is best illustrated by describing the initial exclusion followed by then gradual incorporation of women into the profession (Jefferson et al., 2015). For many centuries, women were legally and systematically excluded from medical training. The first school of medicine for women was opened in 1874 and thereafter British universities began to admit women; however, numbers were restricted, and many did not receive training equivalent to that of a man. This not only limited women’s opportunities but also encouraged a perception that a woman’s role as a medical practitioner was different from, and inferior to, that of a man. The two world wars saw a shortage of male entrants to the profession, prompting several medical schools to accept female students, only to withdraw access when men returned. In wartime, women were appointed with the same pay and allowances as men, and with ‘relative rank’, but their appointments were ‘for the duration’; that is, temporary (Elston, 1986). In 1948, with the creation of the NHS, all medical schools were opened to women, but many schools applied a quota of around 20 percent female entrants. It was not until 1975 with the
388 Research handbook on inequalities and work Sex Discrimination Act that women were accepted into medical schools on the same terms as men. From the 1960s onwards, part-time working was acknowledged as important, as the number of women entering medicine increased and the need to combine work and childcare emerged. Female doctors with children often worked part-time (Taylor et al., 2009), either running general practice partnerships with their husbands or stepping off the hospital career ladder and returning to work in assistant roles. By the 1980s, specific but restricted funding supported part-time female trainee doctors. However, subsequent medical workforce reviews have identified the inadequate nature of this response in supporting women’s career progression (Deech, 2009; Elston, 2009). By 2017, 59 percent of entering medical students were women, and by 2018, 45 percent of qualified doctors working in NHS hospitals were female. Their distribution throughout the workforce was uneven (NHS Digital, 2018) with evidence of both vertical (Elston, 2009) and horizontal segmentation (NHS Digital, 2018). Women now make up 36 percent of consultants compared with 30 percent in 2010 (NHS Digital, 2018). The general influx of women into medicine in England appears to be slowly reducing gender-based vertical segregation as women begin to filter through into higher grades (Jefferson et al., 2015), but the trend is slower than anticipated (Deech, 2009), especially in consultant posts and very senior medical leadership roles (Boylan et al., 2019). With respect to horizontal segregation, only 31.3 percent of surgeons in the UK are female (Dacre et al., 2020). Sometimes there is an apparent interaction of vertical and horizontal segregation creating detriment for women. McManus and Sproston (2000) studied several UK hospital specialties, for example, and found ‘in surgery, hospital medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology, fewer women seemed to progress beyond the SHO grade, and in anaesthetics there were deficits of women at each career stage’. By 2018, only 36.4 percent of women were consultants (Dacre et al., 2020) and in surgery this drops to 12 percent (Moberly, 2018), the lowest of all specialties. There is also a broader ongoing debate over feminisation leading to the downgrading of the medical profession. Former president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) Carol Black caused controversy when she questioned how the profession would retain its influence following feminisation and the increased proportions of part-time working that would follow (BBC, 2004). Feminisation has negative connotations linked to the loss of power and status, as medical doctors are threatened with being reduced to the same status as other occupations dominated by female workers whose work is typically synonymous with lower pay, lower security and lower status (Standing, 1989). It would be surprising if feminisation and the erosion of gender-based segregation did not cause structural friction and resistance. Segregation of other disadvantaged identity groups, especially in combination with gender, is not comprehensively evidenced. Doctors of minority nationality – not UK-born or not UK medically trained – are an integral part of delivering NHS services (Simpson et al., 2010). In recent times, the proportion of international medical graduates has considerably increased relative to UK-trained graduates (General Medical Council, 2022). The great majority emigrate from the less economically developed world – predominantly India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria – reflecting longstanding patterns of Commonwealth migration to the UK. Ethnic minority doctors are less likely to secure senior positions (Jaques, 2013), are paid less than white colleagues (Appleby, 2018; Woodhams et al., 2021) and are disproportionately segregated into specialties and geographic regions unpopular with UK-trained doctors (Healy and Oikelome, 2011). Evidence from Tariq and Syed (2018) studying female Muslim doctors and
Medical careers in the NHS 389 from Mansoor and Abraham (2021) studying Indian doctors suggests that religious segregation in employment may be a concern, although we can find no data on this for UK medicine nor the NHS generally. Quantitative analyses of segregation by sexuality and disability are limited due to lack of data and small sample sizes, even outside medicine. A rare large-scale study by Finnigan (2020) concluded that occupational segregation by sexuality is stronger amongst men than women. Based on US census data, Baumle et al. (2009) also found that self-declared gay and lesbian workers are most likely to be professionals but not found in occupations dominated by the same gender. Representative information about the employment circumstances of disabled doctors in the NHS is also not readily available and needs to be extrapolated from elsewhere. ONS (2022) data show that professions generally are not welcoming to disabled staff. Around one third of the employed non-disabled population is in professional occupational groups, but this drops to one quarter for the disabled employed population. In this chapter we respond to the call from Nkomo et al. (2009) to analyse workplace outcomes for those with ‘deep level’ non-visible social identities. Here we have shown evidence that groups are marginalised at the lower echelons of medical careers and also in certain specialties. However, we have also shown first that there is a great deal of missing information, especially regarding workforce religion, nationality, sexuality and disability; second that there is a lack of information on patterns of change in workforce segregation; and third that the intersection of protected characteristics with gender is insufficiently investigated. Our analysis addresses these gaps.
DATA AND MEASURES NHS Digital’s Electronic Staff Record (ESR) for HCHS doctors in England provided data for analysis. The ESR is an administrative database of human resource and payroll information of medical staff in 99 percent of NHS trusts in England that is updated monthly. Here, two cross-sections of hospital doctors are compared using data from September 2010 and March 2020, the maximum period for which detailed comparable data are available. We analyse change and continuity in segregation patterns for the following groups (see online resources for details of categories): ● Men (self-identified); ● Women (self-identified). To be true to our ambition of intersectional sensitivity, we also consider segregation patterns by gender within the following identity groups: ● ● ● ● ●
Ethnicity; Nationality; Religion; Sexuality; Disability.1
Vertical segregation is measured as the proportion of doctors from a group in a senior position (consultant, associate specialist or speciality doctor) across the population. Horizontal
390 Research handbook on inequalities and work segregation is measured as each groups’ representation in surgical specialties. We focus on representation in surgery since it is a prestigious and well-remunerated specialty of medicine that continues to be dominated by men. It has been resistant to change and is an important source of the gender pay gap in the medical profession (Dacre et al., 2020).
FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS The following tables offer portraits of hospital doctors at the intersection of gender plus ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality and disability, first in September 2010 and then March 2020. Male doctors are denoted as ‘M’ and female doctors as ‘F’. Tables also denote the mean age for each group as a proxy for experience where relevant. Analysis focuses on patterns of vertical and horizontal segregation plus continuity and change. Due to space limitations, we focus on highlights and encourage future researchers to reconfigure groups and categories to draw their own conclusions. To provide a comparable measure of the strength of barriers to becoming a consultant (vertical segregation) and a surgical specialist (horizontal segregation) for each group, percentages are calculated as a proportion within each intersectional group. Totals do not sum to 100 percent across groups in each condition. In September 2010, there were 84,017 hospital doctors, which increased to 108,408 by the end of the decade. Horizontal and vertical segregation – gender Table 26.1 establishes gendered divisions across all of medicine in England, providing a starting point for analysis of intersecting lines of segregation. Table 26.1
Gender distribution in senior ranks and in surgery (2010 and 2020)
September 2010 Group
Age
Senior
Surgery
doctor
(%)
N
Total
March 2020
Change
Change
Age
Total
seniority
surgery
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
Senior
Surgery
doctor
(%)
N
(%)
(%) Male
41.3
55.5
41.8
49918
59.4
42.2
57.6
40.5
60411
56.1
3.7
-3.1
Female
37.3
37.0
24.3
34099
40.6
38.6
44.2
23.5
47997
43.9
19.4
-3.2
There were more male than female doctors in both time periods. However, there is evidence of increased feminisation, with the proportion of female doctors increasing by over three percentage points to 43.9 percent with a corresponding decrease for men. The average population age increased by one year over the period. Men’s mean age was higher in both time periods, indicating more years of experience, although women’s mean age increased faster than men, reducing the difference between them by 4 months. Women have also made progress in seniority measures, from just over a third in senior grades in 2010 to 44.2 percent in 2020. The proportion of male doctors in senior grades has also grown, but not by as much (from 55.5 percent to 57.6). The table shows little progress in breaking down horizontal segregation. Overall, the proportion of doctors in surgical specialties fell, increasing competition for training places. Men
Medical careers in the NHS 391 outnumbered women in surgery in 2010 by 17.5 percentage points and this has barely changed in 2020. A possible explanation for this segregation lies in structural features of medical careers that disproportionately impact women (Dacre et al., 2020). One of the primary reasons suggested is women’s ‘preference’ for part-time work. In UK medicine, this is called (perhaps pejoratively) ‘less than full time’ (LTFT) work. LTFT training is informed by regulatory interventions from EU law and the General Medical Council (GMC) and has, over time, been subject to a number of alterations. In 2011, a GMC review concluded that hospital training on an LTFT basis should be at least 50 percent of full-time training and less only in exceptional circumstances. These principles still apply. LTFT training is intended to minimise the disruptive effect of caring responsibilities on career. Responsibility for caring for children and ill or disabled dependants is typically treated as a legitimate reason to request LTFT training. Male and female junior doctors are eligible to apply for it, but despite efforts to make it a positive choice for both sexes (Deech, 2009), it is much more likely to be taken up by women. The increase in the number of women entering the profession has been accompanied by an increase in the number of LTFT doctors at an estimated 28 percent (Dacre et al., 2020). Doctors’ working hours are typically long and provision of support for childcare and other responsibilities is often a crucial factor in sustaining a medical career. As Health Education England has noted (HEE, 2019), the NHS struggles to manage service provision around LTFT working for doctors and there is local and regional variability in support provided and considerable shortfall in childcare places. Evidence suggests that demand for NHS nursery places outstrips supply and formal childcare can be unaffordable for those who need it at non-standard times (Coleman and Cottell, 2019). LTFT arrangements are not yet then achieving their aim. LTFT working results in career detriment (Elston, 2009; Deech, 2009) over and above hours lost (Dacre et al., 2020). Patterns of horizontal segregation are compounded by uneven opportunities for LTFT training and working and wide variation in LTFT training within specialties (General Medical Council, 2017). For example, in paediatrics 21 percent of trainees worked LTFT in 2017; in general practice this is 17 percent, but in surgery it is only 5 percent. Horizontal and vertical segregation – gender and ethnicity Table 26.2 shows patterns of segregation by gender and ethnicity in 2010 and 2020. In 2010, 55 percent of doctors were white, followed by Indian (17.9 percent) and Chinese and Southeast Asian (SEA) (6.2 percent). White doctors were still the largest single ethnic group in 2020, although their proportion decreased due to increases in all other ethnic minority populations except for Indian doctors. There was a general mean increase in age for each ethnic group apart from Black men, indicating a higher turnover for this group compared with others. White men were disproportionately employed in senior ranks. The likelihood of white doctors being senior in 2020 was 55.4 percent versus 48.2 percent for all other ethnic minorities, a seniority penalty for ethnicity of 7.2 percentage points. However, men from other ethnic groups were also well-represented in senior grades. By 2020, Indian men were seemingly better promoted than white men, although it is likely that a large proportion of these were in non-training SAS grades. These are less well-paid and carry lower status (Jones et al., 2003; Healy and Oikelome, 2011).
33.0
38.1
BangladeshiW
28.4
BangladeshiM
30.5
50.7
35.1
41.2
ChineseSEAF
ChineseSEAM
33.0
18.0
52.7
34.7
51.4
36.5
40.1
IndianF
IndianM
35.8
24.3
42.8
33.4
38.1
MixedF
MixedM
43.3
34.0
43.9
37.0
40.7
OtherAsianF
OtherAsianM
BlackF
35.6
53.1
36.9
41.2
OtherF
OtherM
BlackM
20.0
43.5
34.4
39.2
PakistaniF
PakistaniM
40.7
61.4
36.6
42.0
Doctor (%)
Senior
WhiteF
Age
September 2010
35.4
25.8
30.3
20.2
41.2
27.0
43.8
23.1
42.4
25.3
39.2
24.1
41.5
22.8
38.9
19.6
42.5
24.9
Surgery (%)
373
233
1864
1101
3353
1862
10033
5014
1109
881
2178
1524
2340
1415
2896
1248
25772
20821
N
0.4
0.3
2.2
1.3
4.0
2.2
11.9
6.0
1.3
1.1
2.6
1.8
2.8
1.7
3.5
1.5
30.7
24.8
Total (%)
38.7
35.8
41.6
37.4
41.5
36.9
44.1
40.0
38.8
36.2
41.1
38.1
39.1
36.5
42.4
37.5
42.9
39.2
Age
42.3
26.0
43.9
29.4
50.9
35.6
68.0
53.0
43.1
32.8
49.3
37.9
42.6
32.3
50.6
31.0
61.8
48.6
Doctor (%)
Senior
March 2020
36.2
19.1
29.1
17.7
40.8
23.7
43.4
23.6
41.3
25.1
37.3
22.3
39.5
24.4
36.1
19.6
41.7
24.3
Surgery (%)
608
450
2781
2152
4448
2821
10977
6567
2019
1481
3983
2268
2918
2481
4998
3743
27679
26034
N
Gender and ethnicity distribution in senior ranks and in surgery (2010 and 2020)
WhiteM
Group
Table 26.2
0.6
0.4
2.8
2.1
4.2
2.7
10.1
5.8
1.9
1.3
2.6
2.3
4.8
3.4
3.9
2.1
25.1
23.8
Total (%)
28.1
44.4
-16.7
3.5
0.4
16.7
32.3
52.7
0.7
35.0
12.3
11.5
-19.7
-9.3
16.3
55.0
0.6
2.3
-26.3
-3.9
-12.4
-0.9
-12.2
-0.9
2.2
-2.6
-0.8
-4.9
-7.5
-4.8
7.0
-7.2
0
-1.8
-2.4
surgery (%)
seniority (%) 19.4
Change
Change
392 Research handbook on inequalities and work
Medical careers in the NHS 393 The interacting influence of gender within this analysis is clear. All groups of women are less well-represented, with sharp distinctions between men and women within ethnic categories. Here the intersection of ethnicity and gender within ethnic groups is especially concerning. Bangladeshi women have the lowest representation – only 26.0 percent were in senior grades in 2020 – though this needs to be read alongside their lower-than-average age, indicating lower experience. In a similar position are Pakistani women (31.0 percent) and Black women (29.4 percent). A similar story plays out in the distribution of gender and ethnic groups in surgical specialties. Women, especially those from an ethnic minority background, are under-represented, particularly Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black women. Of the male groups, only Black men have less than 30 percent representation. Indian men by 2020 could be found in surgery in a greater proportion relative to their population. In analysing change over the decade, there is a general mean increase in age for each ethnic group with the exception of Black men, where it has reduced by almost two years. Clearly, there is a higher turnover of Black men in comparison with other groups. The analysis of progression into senior grades shows mixed fortunes. Almost all diverse groups have increased their representation, with the exception of both composite groups of ‘other’ ethnicities and Black men. The proportion of Black men has decreased by over 15 percent. Similarly, as competition to get into surgery increases, disproportionate reductions are experienced by ethnic women, in particular Chinese women, Black women and Bangladeshi women, who have failed to enter or progress in surgery in significant proportions. Worryingly, these three groups already had the lowest representation. These segregation patterns could be explained by the unequal access that women and ethnic minority junior surgeons have to informal homophilous networks that bestow sponsorship and patronage important in securing promotions (Currie, 1993; Vaughan et al., 2015). Discriminatory treatment reported by these groups may also play a role. For example, doctors from an ethnic minority background are more than twice as likely to voice concerns regarding bullying – often on racial grounds – undermining or harassing behaviour than white doctors (Linton, 2020). They consistently experience racism from colleagues and patients (Esmail and Everington, 1993; Linton, 2020), are more likely to be referred to ‘fitness to practice’ processes than UK and European Economic Area (EEA) graduates and receive harsher decisions when fitness to practice is evaluated (Tiffin et al., 2018). Horizontal and Vertical Segregation – Gender and Nationality Table 26.3 shows that, in 2010, 71 percent of the doctors were British nationals, 22 percent were from outside the EEA and the remainder were from inside the EEA. By 2020, the workforce had expanded unequally with increasing reliance on doctors with EEA and non-EEA nationalities, the latter making up nearly a quarter of the total workforce. The fairly equal distribution in senior positions amongst male groups in the three categories of nationality in 2010 was by 2020 skewed in favour of British and EEA men, with 61 percent of the former and nearly 60 percent of the latter occupying senior ranks. On the other hand, the proportion of non-EEA male doctors fell by nearly 8 percent. Similarly, there was a considerable reduction of both EEA and non-EEA female doctors amongst ranks of senior doctors by 2020. Representation in surgical specialties among male doctors was similarly weighted against EEA and non-EEA men by 2020.
35.5
53.6
41.3
55.6
35.6
40.9
37.8
41.9
38.7
BritishW
EEAM
EEAW
Non-EEAM
Non-EEAW
41.8
55.7
Doctor (%)
41.0
BritishM
Senior
Age
September 2010
21.8
41.0
27.3
46.2
24.6
41.6
Surgery (%)
6142
12521
2424
2997
25533
34400
N
7.3
14.9
2.9
3.6
30.4
40.9
37.5
40.9
39.5
42.9
38.8
42.8
Total (%) Age
35.4
47.7
49.8
59.8
46.0
61.0
Doctor (%)
Senior
March 2020
21.5
38.8
27.7
44.3
23.6
40.7
Surgery (%)
9870
15356
4708
4680
33419
40375
N
Gender and nationality distribution in senior ranks and in surgery (2010 and 2020)
Group
Table 26.3
Change
9.0
14.7
4.2
4.3
30.7
37.1
-15.3
-14.2
20.6
11.6
29.5
9.5
Total (%) seniority (%)
-1.4
-5.7
1.5
-4.11
-4.1
-2.1
surgery (%)
Change
394 Research handbook on inequalities and work
Medical careers in the NHS 395 Although minority nationality status and International Medical Graduate (IMG) status differ, there is a great deal of overlap between them. IMG doctors are less likely to be offered training positions in prestigious specialities compared to doctors who attended UK medical schools (Majid, 2020; Jalal et al., 2019). Commentators have argued that IMG doctors are found in ‘occupational ghettos’, taking roles in specialties that are lower paid and less desirable to UK graduates (Fazel and Ebmeier, 2009; Oikelome and Healy, 2007). A comprehensive study of IMG women demonstrates that they are particularly disadvantaged in non-training career paths (Oikelome and Healy, 2007; Oikelome and Healy, 2013). Horizontal and Vertical Segregation – Gender and Religion Table A26.1 in the online resources section sets out the composition of the medical workforce subdivided by gender and religion. These data are limited in their completeness by the proportions of ‘missing’ or a ‘prefer not to say’ returns. However, proportions in these two categories reduced considerably (from a population percentage of 53.6 to 39.2) between 2010 and 2020, indicating that monitoring of religious identity may have become widespread only in the last decade. Leaving aside missing data but including ‘prefer not to say’ as a conscious response, Christian men were numerically dominant overall and in senior ranks in 2010 and in 2020. However, by 2020 Hindu men and Christian, Hindu and Muslim women had made considerable inroads into senior positions. Hindu and Muslim women increased by 68.2 percent and 57.5 percent in seniority respectively. The religious composition of the surgical specialty between 2010 and 2020 was fairly stable notwithstanding the general reduction in numbers. Men and women in the Muslim and ‘other’ categories and Christian women experienced the most striking decrease in their representation. Hindu men and women bucked this trend but only marginally and in the case of the latter from a low base. Medical training is a lengthy process, so the increased proportion of doctors of minority religion in junior grades in the last ten years means that patterns of vertical segregation are unlikely to be corrected for at least another decade. Case law on the basis of indirect religious discrimination2 plus advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission about long pay scales3 strongly suggest that formal equality would be assisted if scales and structures were compressed. There is also evidence from the NHS staff survey data (Workforce Race Equality Standard, 2019) that employees report high levels of discrimination on the basis of their religious identity. Muslim staff are over four times more likely to report religious discrimination compared to any other religious group, but this effect disappears once other characteristics such as ethnicity are accounted for (West et al., 2015). An intersectional study of Muslim women shows that they feel excluded from surgical specialties (Malik et al., 2019). However, there is a need for analysis on how religious identity discrimination might impact more widely on patterns of career segregation. Horizontal and Vertical Segregation – Gender and Sexuality Analysis of segregation by sexuality shows unusual, skewed and inconsistent patterns (Table A26.2 – see online resources). Sample sizes are small and they therefore suffer from possible instability. As above, the proportions of ‘missing’ and ‘prefer not to say’ responses dominated
396 Research handbook on inequalities and work in 2010 but by 2020 were considerably reduced, demonstrating that sexuality may not have been widely monitored or the culture of medicine discouraged disclosure prior to 2010. Arguably, it increases the validity of comparative data on sexuality to aggregate groups of doctors of minority sexuality and make comparisons with heterosexual groups, excluding ‘missing’, ‘other’ and ‘prefer not to say’ responses. Doing so, we can see that in 2010, only 1.8 percent of doctors (1.1 percent of women and 2.3 percent of men) declared themselves lesbian, gay or bisexual, but by 2020 this increased to 2.9 percent in total (2.1 percent of women and 3.5 percent of men). In terms of vertical segregation, proportions of gay, lesbian and bisexual doctors matched their representation in the medical population in senior ranks in 2010 – 1.8 percent of senior doctors were gay, lesbian or bisexual. By 2020, 2 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual doctors were in senior ranks, which appears to be an increase but was still below their representation across amongst the doctor population. In surgery, gay, lesbian or bisexual doctors were under-represented – 1.3 percent of surgeons declared themselves to be in this category in 2010, rising to 2 percent in 2020. In terms of changes to workforce distribution, however, we find lesbian women increasing their visible representation, particularly in the surgical speciality. Between 2010 and 2020, numbers nearly tripled from 31 to 83 and representation increased by nearly 4 percent. This is faster than the observed increase for gay men (99 to 228). With the caveat that we are drawing conclusions from small numbers, we find in line with prior theses that lesbian and bisexual women are successful in careers dominated by the opposite gender (Baumle et al., 2009). They are the only substantive group to have reversed the trend of decreased representation in surgery. The supposition that lesbian doctors are less inhibited by career constraints of raising children may be an explanatory factor. The number of same-sex couples who are living with children has increased substantially since 2015 (Sanders, 2019), but same sex couples are less than half as likely as heterosexual couples to have co-habiting children (Taylor, 2020), which may diminish the assumption that they are ‘encumbered’. They may however experience other forms of discrimination. Within NHS medical practice, qualitative case studies (BMA, 2016) give accounts of discriminatory treatment on the grounds of sexuality. It has also been shown using experimental methods that CVs that signal lesbian and gay applicants are less likely to be successful, even when all other accomplishments are comparable (Gorsuch, 2019). Relevantly though women are less likely to be penalised for showing ‘male’ characteristics such as assertiveness, if consistent with lesbian sexuality. Horizontal and Vertical Segregation – Gender and Disability In analysing the incidence of disabled doctors, again a very small number of doctors are prepared to self-declare (see Table A26.3 in the online resources). Under one percent of doctors in 2010 and only 1.5 percent in 2020 were open about having a disability, although in both years a significant proportion, especially of male doctors, stated that they ‘prefer not to say’. Definite conclusions cannot be reached about why this group would prefer to not reveal their status, although the nature and climate of the profession may be influential. One of the features worth highlighting here is the link to average age. Despite the general correlation between age and the onset of activity-limiting health conditions, the mean age of disabled doctors was reduced in 2020 by approximately two and a half years for men and almost four years for
Medical careers in the NHS 397 women. This could indicate greater acceptance of declaring disability status amongst younger doctors. Less positively, it could also indicate disproportionately high turnover of disabled doctors at later career stages. A 2019 British Medical Association (BMA) survey of 705 disabled doctors (BMA, 2020) found that the NHS is not perceived to have a disability-inclusive culture for doctors. The survey notes the poor outcomes of ethnic minority doctors on gaining disability support. It has also been shown that time away from a medical career, for whatever reason, can be disproportionately damaging to career (Dacre et al., 2020). An extended break can result in a doctor re-entering the workforce in a considerably less advantageous position than at departure. This has relevance for women and potentially for disabled doctors. In 2010 disabled doctors were well represented in senior ranks – over two thirds of disabled male doctors and over half of disabled women doctors occupied senior positions. However, by 2020 the proportion of disabled men doctors in senior ranks dipped sharply, and disabled women doctors fared even less well. In terms of representation in surgery, against trends the data show marginal expansion. Conclusion Findings given in this section have shown patterns of vertical and horizontal segregation that exist in the medical profession, largely to the benefit of male doctors who are white, UK nationals, Christian and non-disabled. Patterns observed in 2010 were largely still evident in 2020. Integrated analysis suggests explanations for each group. The discussion that follows explores the causes of segregation in relation to theoretical debates.
DISCUSSION Unsurprisingly, given continued reporting of career barriers and poor workplace practice, especially in surgery (Royal College of Surgeons of England, 2021), and in spite of superficial diversity in the medical workforce, patterns of segregation endure for doctors who deviate from the ‘ideal worker’ profile (Acker, 1990). Some of this might be defined as the product of unfettered choice, of groups of doctors in sizable proportions freely diverting their careers to suit their interests. Our argument, however, given the weight of prior research plus our data analysis, is that structural, institutional and cultural barriers create conditions that hinder doctors from disadvantaged groups from equally progressing within a medical career. In this section we draw together the main ways that cultural and historical ‘difference’ interweave within an inequality regime (Acker, 2006) to create and sustain disadvantage. There are very few exceptions to patterns of long-term segregation. To reflect first on the extent of horizontal segregation and its persistence across the decade, our tables show that surgery is not necessarily white or British or even heterosexual in composition; however, it is unswervingly male. It is also clear that as training spaces in surgery reduced in the decade, generating more competition for them, it was groups other than white men that bore the brunt of workforce reductions. Signalling to women, especially all groups of Asian women, as early as medical school that surgery (and other specialties) is incompatible with family responsibilities (Herath and Herath, 2019) by teachers and mentors (Yang et al., 2019) undoubtedly strengthened entry and progression barriers. Lesbian doctors seemingly reversed trends in surgery, potentially benefitting from a lack of preconceptions about caring responsibilities.
398 Research handbook on inequalities and work Male doctors of Indian ethnicity on the face of it made considerable inroads into senior positions and surgery between 2010 and 2020. Due to colonial roots, Indian medicine, both historically and currently, has the strongest structural association with UK medicine such that doctors of Indian ethnicity, whether UK- or overseas-trained, follow a well-trodden path. However, we do not go so far as to claim that the workforce position of Indian doctors is equal, as our data gloss over their disproportionate representation in non-training grades (Healy and Oikelome, 2011), in specialties that are not their first choice (Smith, 1980) and in less desirable parts of the UK (Taylor and Esmail, 1999). They also face racism and unfavourable training opportunities. One of the most widespread structural penalties is for doctors who work part-time. Part-time working can be a positive choice and offer a balance between working and other interests and responsibilities. However, it is more often a necessity, driven by the impracticalities of balancing a demanding career with caring for children and elders. Caring remains a female role and has intersecting consequences for those socialised in international cultural settings, such as groups of ethnic minority and international migrant doctors. Workplace facilities for convenient childcare are in critically short supply. Migrant groups may also lack extended family support. To add to the practical constraints, working part-time in the medical profession is associated with assumptions about lack of commitment to work, resulting in the loss of career-enhancing opportunities. The structural implications of career or maternity breaks are considerable in a highly credentialised and regulated profession. In spite of many high-profile commissioned reviews that have recommended change to benefit doctors, especially those that need greater flexibility (Elston, 2009; Deech, 2009; Dacre et al. 2020), most recommendations have not been implemented (Dacre et al., 2020). In line with previous analyses (Healy et al., 2011; Woodhams et al., 2015), our analysis demonstrates other disproportionate penalties experienced where two marginalised identities intersect. For example, Bangladeshi female doctors attract a greater penalty than women and Bangladeshi doctors as single-identity groups. Disabled female doctors showed a marked decline in their representation in senior ranks over a decade when all other groups were increasing their relative representation. In line with scholars who have argued that social identities such as gender and race cannot be mechanistically tagged on to each other (Yuval-Davis, 2006) because identities are combined into new forms following intersection (Sang et al., 2013), our findings suggest that the effects of dual disadvantaged identities interact in a ‘multiplicative’ manner. It is unfortunate that, because there is no information on social class in the data, we are unable to include the crosscutting effects of gender and social class. However, this is likely to be pertinent because according to a 2016 report by the Social Mobility Commission (Social Mobility Commission, 2016), only 4 percent of doctors come from working class backgrounds (BMA, 2015; Steven et al., 2016). Feminisation of the profession is unlikely to result in marked progress within existing structures. We have reviewed ways that lack of convenient childcare, intense working hours, inflexible and long career structures, nepotistic practices, sexism, racism and other forms of discriminatory behaviour create the conditions for an effective and exclusive inequality regime. Our analysis shows that advancement to senior levels is evident for all groups and frequently in greater proportions than for white men. However, the diversification of senior ranks and surgeons is still not proportionate to their recruitment into the profession. The situation is unlikely to reverse in the short to medium term. Pressure on healthcare budgets and reduced intakes for surgery make internal labour markets increasingly competitive. Bolton and Muzio
Medical careers in the NHS 399 (2008) argue that men within male-dominated professions put in place ‘defence mechanisms’ to prevent women from entering prestigious competitive specialties to maintain the high status of the profession. Medicine to a large extent relies on homophilous networks to overcome segregation, which in practice serve to funnel and block diverse groups into strata of lower status (Woodhams et al., 2022).
CONCLUSION Our analysis is specific to a single profession and employer in England, albeit one of the largest. By referring to a broad range of group characteristics and by intersecting all groups with gender, we have shown that, in almost all cases, lines of segregation are deep for those with double disadvantaged status. In each case we offer explanations of equality-resistant structures that, we argue, interact to create systems of inequality. Further, by taking two points of measurement, we show that although the demographic base of the medical workforce has changed, the populations of elite ranks and elite specialties endure, largely dominated by white, male, British, Christian, heterosexual and non-disabled doctors. The breadth and consistency of these patterns extend previous empirical studies on inequality regimes and intersectionality that typically draw conclusions on the basis of few group features. The NHS is facing a workforce crisis. In a post-Covid-19, post-Brexit landscape, medical workforce turnover is high (Palmer and Rolewicz, 2022), citing a lack of opportunities, incompatible working relationships and visa problems for internationally trained doctors (Brennan et al., 2021) as the top reasons. Overcoming deep-rooted patterns of inequality and segregation for NHS doctors is essential to retain talent. However, it will require a programme of radical workforce reform. Redesigning training structures to reduce assessments and implications of delaying assessments is one necessary step. We can also see the benefit of programmes of, for example, positive action to encourage recruitment into surgical specialties; a zero-tolerance approach to discriminatory or bullying behaviour supported by best-practice reporting mechanisms; monitoring progress using intersectional groups as a basis for measurement; plus shortlisting all candidates who meet a minimum specification for senior roles. Finally, we recommend an expansion of medical workforce numbers, including medical school places and ethical overseas recruitment, to reduce the competitive climate and allow more time for tolerance and inclusion.
NOTES 1. 2. 3.
This and all other online tables referenced in this chapter can be found at the companion website to this book here: https://www.e-elgar.com/textbooks/forson. Naeem v The Secretary of State for Justice [2014] UKEAT/215/13/RN. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/check-risky-practices.
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27. An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka1 Manesha Peiris
INTRODUCTION Based on life history interviews with 44 women entrepreneurs and 40 field observations with 8 of the participants, this chapter unpacks women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka. Entrepreneurship is an important route to employment for Sri Lankan women (Kodikara, 2018) yet those who choose this route encounter several social, cultural and economic barriers that to an extent stem from gendered ideas surrounding who an entrepreneur is and how entrepreneurship has to be practiced (Jayawardane, 2016; Jayaweera, 2002), which are upheld not only by multiple societal actors but also mainstream entrepreneurship scholarship. Rooted in the Schumpeterian trait approach, traditional entrepreneurship research claims to take a universal view of the entrepreneur by adopting quantitative models to assess entrepreneurial motivation and performance (Dean et al., 2017; Ahl et al., 2016; Poggesi et al., 2016). Yet the criteria to differentiate entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs are based on deep-rooted masculine personality traits and present a narrow and simplistic representation of entrepreneurship, obscuring the interplay of structure and agency in how individuals engage in entrepreneurship. This approach has been subjected to heavy criticism by feminist scholars (Dean et al., 2017; Ahl et al., 2016; Poggesi et al., 2016; Ahl and Marlow, 2012; Ahl, 2006; Bruni et al., 2004), who demonstrate that the masculine portrayal of the entrepreneur marginalises those who fail to conform to the heterosexual, Western, white male norm. To overcome the narrow and gendered understanding of entrepreneurship, scholars such as Thompson et al. (2020), Gartner et al. (2016) and Gartner (1988) urge the need to shift our focus from ‘who is an entrepreneur?’ towards considering ‘how is entrepreneurship practiced?’. When women have been studied, the experiences of white, Western, middle-class women continue to be drawn on to form a generalised view of women’s entrepreneurship, with limited focus on the experiences of non-Western women (de Vita et al., 2014). Yadav and Unni (2016), Mari et al. (2014), Ahl (2006) and Zavella (1991) argue that prevailing entrepreneurship research, including feminist research, has turned a blind eye to the complexities of non-Western women’s experiences of entrepreneurship. As the next section further elaborates, contemporary understandings of women’s entrepreneurship continue to consider the white, Western woman entrepreneur’s experience as representative of all women entrepreneurs. As a result the nuances of ‘doing entrepreneurship’ resulting from the interplay of sociocultural and socioeconomic factors are often overlooked. Furthermore, the Sri Lankan context offers us a research field that is rich for exploring intersectional dynamics of women’s practice of entrepreneurship due to historical and contemporary complexities of inequalities generated by caste, class, religion and ethnicity differences, as well as relatively better studied dimensions in gender and entrepreneurship research, such as life stage and parental status. After a brief 405
406 Research handbook on inequalities and work review of the othering of non-Western women in the entrepreneurship literature, the chapter describes the data collection process and presents research findings.
WESTERN WOMAN ENTREPRENEURS AND THE ‘OTHER’ When non-Western women entrepreneurs or women entrepreneurs in emerging economies are studied, scholars have found value in exploring the ways in which women’s outsider status within the realm of entrepreneurship shapes how they engage in their occupation. For example, scholars exploring the intersectionality of non-Western women entrepreneurs’ experience in the Western context (e.g. Essers et al., 2020; Essers and Tedmanson, 2014; Pio, 2007) recognise a status quo in how women are positioned socially as entrepreneurs and how this may influence their belongingness. Similarly, when emerging economies have been studied, there is an intricate relationship between how women are socially and culturally positioned and how they engage in their occupational role (Godwyn and Stoddard, 2017; Torri and Martinez, 2014; Welter and Smallbone, 2010). Thus, it is essential to explore women’s lived experiences regarding how they relate to the idea of being entrepreneurs and the practice of entrepreneurship. Equally, it is necessary to pay attention to the differences between the experiences of non-Western women entrepreneurs in the Western context and in emerging economies. In their work, de Vita et al. (2014) argue that when examining studies focusing on women entrepreneurs, women in emerging economies are often ignored. For example, the authors find that between the period of 2000 to 2012, only 70 papers focused on women entrepreneurs in emerging economies, with many of these publications appearing in country-specific journals. Among them, only 12% focused on South Asian women. As a result, the experiences of non-Western women are either overlooked or often assumed to be unified. Rashid and Rattan (2020) recognise that, when considering South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, individual, social and institutional factors are commonly used by scholars to examine women entrepreneurs. A major shortcoming of such studies, as identified by the authors, is the limited attention given to informal institutions, such as culturally embedded norms, behaviours and social protocols, in unpacking why and how women engage in entrepreneurship as an occupation. Another area of concern is related to stereotypes governing the understanding of non-Western women entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Primarily, in the context of emerging economies, women entrepreneurs are assumed to be rural and in poverty (Shabbir and Di Gregorio, 1996). As a result, little attention is paid to women entrepreneurs in urban regions and those who are from middle class backgrounds. For example, Baruah (2004) states that women in developing countries choose self-employment for different reasons than people in developed countries. While those in the developed world are considered to choose self-employment in spite of having the option for wage/salary work, people in the developing world are assumed to turn to self-employment for survival as they have no other options (Shah and Saurabh, 2015; Sandhu et al., 2012; Tambunan, 2009; Niethammer et al., 2007; Goheer, 2003). Such studies focus primarily on micro- and SME-level businesses in the informal sector, while large-scale businesses have been largely ignored. Such narrow depictions continue to paint a gendered view of women-owned businesses and spaces occupied by women entrepreneurs.
An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka 407 In the context of South Asia, the low growth potential or the informal appearance (e.g. home-based) of women-owned businesses has primarily been linked to women’s limited access to financial capital (Wellalage and Locke, 2017; Bushell, 2008; Niethammer et al., 2007). Alternatively, Davis and Abdiyeva (2012) propose that women in developing countries face institutional barriers, such as exclusion of women entrepreneurs by the government-supported networks and third-party networks. However, Demirguc-Kunt et al. (2013) explain that women’s limited access to economic capital may not necessarily be due to institutional exclusions and is instead a result of male dominance in such communities. In such cases, the family unit holds control over the decision making and sourcing of financial aid. Thus, the systemic structural oppression of women has a significant impact on women’s ability to access capital. Interestingly, scholars such as Roomi (2013) explain that the low growth in women-owned ventures can be attributed to the deep-rooted sociocultural beliefs present in the South Asian region. For example, studies focusing on non-Western countries, particularly in South Asia, affirm that gender constrains and discredits women in their access to institutional support. Wellalage and Locke (2017), Sandhu et al. (2012), Niethammer et al. (2007) and Goheer (2003) agree that as a result of the discrimination and disadvantage South Asian women face in accessing external financing, women entrepreneurs turn to informal means of financing their businesses, such as personal savings or funds borrowed from their family/spouse. Bushell (2008) provides further insight into barriers faced by women and explains that due to the subordinate position of women in South Asian society, women are often distrusted by banks and micro-financiers. As a result, unlike their male counterparts, women are expected to present evidence of their legitimacy in the form of guarantees from their male guardians and/or collateral/referral letters, placing an additional burden on women who seek institutional support. When examining the women’s entrepreneurship literature in Sri Lanka, the findings show that the focus primarily rested on factors affecting business performance (Darshani and Perera, 2021; Salfiya Ummah et al., 2021; De Silva et al., 2019), work–family balance (Dambugolla, 2022; Kodagoda and Samaratunge, 2022; Kim et al., 2022; Wijewardena et al., 2020), and SME/micro-enterprises (Ranabahu and Barrett, 2022; Salfiya Ummah et al., 2021; Hewamanne, 2020; Wijewardena et al., 2020; Bernhardt et al., 2019; Surangi, 2018; Wellalage and Locke, 2017). Kim et al. (2022) recognise that in the case of women entrepreneurs who receive microfinancing their gendered family role often leads to microfinance diversion. Bernhardt et al. (2019) further expose that in the case of women entrepreneurs, women’s capital is often reinvested into their spouses’ business, resulting in low profit response from their own ventures. When considering the sociocultural beliefs surrounding gender roles, Kodagoda and Samaratunge (2022) explain that motherhood plays a significant role in how women entrepreneurs perceive their role as entrepreneurs, resulting in women undertaking coping strategies to negotiate between their role as mothers and entrepreneurs. When considering women entrepreneurs in STEM-related industries Adikaram and Razik (2023) find that women face an array of structural and administrative gender-related challenges emerging from the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship and industry. These results further highlight the need to unpack women’s practice of entrepreneurship by accounting for the intersectionality of structures that locate them as both women and entrepreneurs. The insights presented in this section reveal the necessity of diverting from the traditionalist approach of examining women entrepreneurs from emerging economies towards deeper explorations of the interplay between structure and agency to capture the intricacies of how
408 Research handbook on inequalities and work women engage with entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the sensitivity to the intersection of gender, class, caste, religion, and lifecycle stage provides an avenue for the researcher to overcome ‘othering’ by providing insights beyond the white, Western, heterosexual norm maintained by mainstream entrepreneurship research.
METHOD OF INQUIRY Motivated to unpack the complex and nuanced everyday experiences of women entrepreneurs, this study adopts a qualitative methodology informed by Feminist Standpoint Epistemology (FSE). The qualitative approach favoured by feminist scholars (Poggesi et al., 2016; Henry et al., 2016; Liñán and Fayolle, 2015; Verduijn and Essers, 2013; Ahl, 2006) empowers the researcher with an in-depth understanding of social reality and helps overcome the narrow image of women entrepreneurs presented by the traits-based approach. This study requires a qualitative approach, which supports examining the practice of entrepreneurship from the standpoint of Sri Lankan women. Thus, FSE is instrumental for an empirically immersive and theoretically rich understanding of practice at the interplay of individual and structural dynamics. FSE is particularly apt in this study as it provides a means to study how power results from the intersection of gender, class, ethnicity, religion, caste and lifecycle stage, rather than viewing these social relations as independent and isolated. Therefore, the standpoint of Sri Lankan women entrepreneurs based on the intersection of these factors enabled me to gain a deep understanding of the multi-faceted experiences involved with the practice of entrepreneurship. FSE is also valuable as it recognises that women in their position of disadvantage possess a deep understanding of social structures and barriers. According to Sprague (2016), ‘all knowledge is constructed from a specific position and that what a knower can see is shaped by the location from which that knower’s inquiry begins’ (p. 47). Within this definition, the standpoint does not merely express an individual perception but an achieved social location at the intersection of time and place. It is the complex architecture of the individual’s location that allows the researcher to extract deep interpretations of experiences through which legitimate knowledge can be produced. To capture lived experiences of women entrepreneurs, 44 life history interviews (LHIs) and 40 field observations with eight of the participants were used. Recent works such as those by Poggesi et al. (2016), Henry et al. (2016) and Ahl (2006) recognise the value of LHIs in unpacking the complexities of women entrepreneurs’ lived experiences. Here, not only are the contemporary experiences of the participants captured but the researcher also pays keen attention to historical events that mould the participant experiences and their interpretations of these experiences, allowing for both the researcher and participants to be reflexive in the interview process. In addition to LHIs, field observations are valuable to describe where and when things happen, how they occur and, from the standpoint of the participants, why they occur. As Jorgensen (1989) states, field observations focus primarily on the meanings of human existence as seen from the standpoint of insiders by uncovering the realities used by participants to make sense of their day-to-day lives. The insider view gained through observations equips the researcher with a coherent understanding of the events of everyday life, revealing hidden meanings of observations that would have often been considered meaningless from an outsider’s perspective are but significant from an insider’s perspective.
An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka 409 The study involved 44 women entrepreneurs who had joint or sole ownership of the venture. Two types of business owners were interviewed: founders (84%) and second-generation owners (10%). This was a conscious decision made to examine how the participants’ social position was affected by occupational status, family name and venture reputation. What is most insightful is that 6% of these participants were founders of one or more ventures while also the second-generation owners of another. Among the participants, 70% identified as Sinhalese, 16% as Sri Lankan Tamil, 7% as Sri Lankan Moor, 2% as Indian Tamil and 5% as Burgher ethnicity. In terms of religion, 57% identified as Buddhist, 16% as Christian, 16% as Hindu, 7% as Islamic and 4% as not following a specific religious institution. Of the participants, 73% were married, 2% were separated/ divorced and 52% identified as mothers. The capturing of marital status and motherhood served as important in recognising the participants’ lifecycle stage. During the LHIs, the participants were asked about their employment history. Interestingly, 73% of the participants claimed that they have been employed prior to starting their businesses while 27% were concurrently employed in another occupation. There was no direct link between the industry of employment and the industry of their business. The selection of participants was guided by strategy to include women entrepreneurs from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, as well as classes, castes and lifecycle stages and with diverse marital statuses and gender identities. Therefore, though a snowball strategy was adopted in the recruitment of participants, specific regions in the island and groups were used to guide the recruitment process to ensure representation of women entrepreneurs from different backgrounds and identities as above.
RESEARCH FINDINGS This study focuses on the question, ‘how do women in Sri Lanka practice entrepreneurship?’. Thus, there is an interest in examining the interplay of structure and agency to unpack how gender shapes the practice of entrepreneurship. The following sections lay out findings across four themes that emerged from the data analysis: social acceptance and belongingness, growth as a double edged sword, doing entrepreneurship as women and managing roles.
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE AND BELONGINGNESS The fieldwork exposed that in the case of Sri Lanka the perceptions surrounding entrepreneurship as an occupation are complex and highly influenced by the class structure. The Sri Lankan class structure gives prominence to educational qualifications, occupation and income. Within this context, women are expected to do well in education and their learnedness is considered symbolic of their virtue (Chapin, 2014). Thus, for the Sri Lankan woman occupation reflects not only her educatedness but also her social status and respect. As a daughter, a woman’s occupation reinstates the class position of, and brings respect to, her family. An important implication of this is how practice is internalised and ritualised in such a way that the overarching hegemony of the class structure is not disputed by participants. Guided by scholars like Essers et al. (2020), Essers and Tedmanson (2014) and Pio (2006, 2007), this study recognises that to better understand how women are socially located as entre-
410 Research handbook on inequalities and work preneurs it is necessary to first examine how women entrepreneurs are socially perceived. The fieldwork revealed that the degree of acceptance women entrepreneurs experienced was highly influenced by the sociocultural beliefs within the social spheres they navigated through. For example, the beliefs within the family nucleus and the beliefs held by non-family members had a great impact on how women entrepreneurs’ occupation was accepted. As Fayasa (38 years old, Sri Lankan Moor ethnicity, part-time lecturer and founder of a baby clothes and women’s ethnic clothing businesses) explains, she is often questioned by her family as to why she would pursue running a business when she already has a reputed profession. And my mother was questioning that and saying ‘Why do you do that? You have a really respectable role as a lecturer, so why do you want to be a businesswoman?’
Due to the social hierarchy in Sri Lanka, the individual’s chosen career acts as a determinant of their social position. A reason for the negativity surrounding entrepreneurship is due to the presumption that starting a business is a decision made by an individual who has not succeeded in education. The Sri Lankan social hierarchy gives prominence to education, occupation and income. Locally, occupation and qualifications are often used as cues of class positioning in daily interaction. Therefore, due to the association of business ownership with low qualifications, the title of entrepreneur is seen as discrediting. It is also important to note that there is a link between how entrepreneurship is perceived and business scale. Considering how women-owned businesses are often perceived as ‘underperforming’ (e.g. home-based, small-scale), this further introduces a barrier for women, who must maintain their social position while managing the stigma associated with the occupation. To understand the deeper meaning of the above quote, it is important to examine the nature of Fayasa’s position across her family and external social spheres, such as in the presence of vendors to whom she sells her products. In the context of Sri Lanka, the class position of a family is re-established by the ability of the children to gain professional and educational qualifications of a standing equal to or higher than those of their parents. Thus, to Fayasa her family role as daughter obligates her to maintain a professional career to sustain her inherited class position. However, in the presence of her suppliers, retailers and clientele, she explained that: …when you have done higher studies and have a good educational background, it definitely makes you stand out! Especially in the market where people just assume that everybody can do this business. Then people think twice and say, ‘Why have you decided to do a business?’, ‘Maybe she is better, she’s got an education’. It’s just all about perception.
Thus, educational qualifications and academic accomplishments allow women entrepreneurs to positively distinguish their social position. The common perception that entrepreneurship requires little skill is disrupted by their qualifications. Their qualifications act as means of reinstating their position beyond the common identity of an entrepreneur as skilful. Deeper examination of the interview narrations reveals that 32 interviewees referred to how ethnicity, class, lifecycle stage and region further contribute to the beliefs surrounding women’s ability to claim the role of entrepreneur. While gender discredited women’s position as entrepreneurs, the participants revealed how ethnicity, class, lifecycle stage and region resulted in acceptance as entrepreneurs or further discredited them. For example, among the Indian Tamil community involvement in business is appreciated, while it is frowned upon by
An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka 411 the Sinhalese community. As Anu (28 years old, Indian Tamil ethnicity, founder of a yoga studio) explained: Because of the mindset. Because if you are working for someone, they have a mindset, ‘Oh! Okay, you are working for someone’ [adjusting her tone to indicate disapproval] and if you are doing something on your own, they regard you, ‘Okay you are doing something on your own, you should!’ [her tone and facial expressions indicate respect]. Because that is the background women entrepreneurs come from. That is how Sri Lanka works right… Like in our community, especially women entrepreneurs are Hindus. And in our community, like, all are like businesspeople. So, they give high regard and they give you a good place when you are doing a business. Even at the temples. That’s how it works. Like women entrepreneurs have our community temple, for us separately. So, when you are doing something on your own, the whole family respects you.
The above excerpt from Anu’s interview reveals the implication of gender, ethnicity and religion in her acceptance as a businesswoman. In her interview, Anu described that her community places women in subordinate positions, as women are regarded as an inferior gender. However, she recognises that as a woman doing business, she overcomes the barriers oppressing her in her community. Her community grants her higher respect as she conforms to its traditional values. Thus, in this case entrepreneurship opens opportunities for women like Anu, whose cultural belief system grants value to the occupation of entrepreneurship. In contrast, participants of Sinhalese ethnicity and of the upper-middle class explained that in the Sinhalese community entrepreneurship is frowned upon as it is not considered a respectable occupation. During my interviews with Bhavani (65 years old, Sri Lankan Tamil ethnicity, a fish vendor who co-owns the business with her husband), she explained how her acceptance as a fish vendor in her region was a result of the class position, ethnicity and caste. They call the people who fish as ‘harayaa’, my side nor my husband’s side are not from that caste. I learnt fishing as a job due to the difficulties we faced; we accepted that as our means of living
As a result of the 26-year ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, many were displaced and relocated to regions outside the war zone. Bhavani was relocated in a small village in the coastal area of the eastern province, predominantly occupied by individuals of Sri Lankan Tamil ethnicity who belonged to castes associated with fishing. As Bhavani explained, though she is not from the fishing caste, her occupation as a fish vendor has often led her to be perceived as someone who is pursuing an occupation that is linked to their ancestry. Through this her belongingness is affirmed. Her position of poverty has also resulted in acceptance of her as a woman within a mostly masculine space. It is interesting to also note that her forced social positioning results in internal conflict for Bhavani, who is not from a fishing caste and in actuality holds a higher caste position. However, to continue her livelihood Bhavani continues to not question how others perceive her belongingness within this space. When questioned about the influence of caste in their belongingness and acceptance within their occupation, participants of Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicity stated that it was not a factor that was overtly discussed or known.
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GROWTH AS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD When asked what entrepreneurial success meant to them, the participants’ responses were highly influenced by business scale, lifecycle stage, religious beliefs and ethnicity, revealing a paradox in their lived experiences. For example, married women who ran micro-level businesses attributed success to their ability to maintain a balance with their obligations to family (as wives/mothers while their children were young). However, their perception of success gradually focused on sustaining their lives and being content with the earnings from their businesses as a result of their diminishing role as mothers (as their children grew older). In these situations religious beliefs linked to modesty and minimalism impacted their decision to deviate from venture growth towards maintaining their living expenses. On the other hand, women running SME-level businesses referred to economic growth indicators as targets of success. Interestingly, women who identified as unmarried and were aged below 40 had similar aspirations of economic growth, while participants who were over 40 referred to success as a means of maintaining a sense of independence. As Navoda (44 years old, Sinhalese ethnicity, founder of a boutique hotel) explains: Okay look, I have no interest in expanding. Because… expand and do what? Make more money and then do what? I always believe in that story about the fisherman. And someone asked why he was sitting and waiting, to go catch more fish and open a ‘this-thing’ and then do what? To sit back here and to fish? He is already doing it! So, I have a small business, it’s making enough for me to live, everybody is happy and I have no interest in making more money. That doesn’t interest me. My life is – If I have enough then that is enough!
Among these women, who are often ignored in the realm of entrepreneurship, owning a business provided a means of self-sustainability. As Navoda explains, self-sustainability achieved through the income from her business translates to entrepreneurial success. Together these narratives disrupt the traditional view of entrepreneurial success and entrepreneurial intention, providing an important indication of targets towards which women entrepreneurs organise their practice of entrepreneurship. However, women entrepreneurs’ perceived success contradicts the broader structural view of entrepreneurial success. Thus, ventures owned by women entrepreneurs are often classified as unsuccessful. The study of women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka reveals an intricate relationship between the aspiration for business growth and women’s ability to attract institutional support. Business growth can be described as a double-edged sword for women entrepreneurs. For example, the business scale of women-owned ventures reduces their ability to establish legitimacy and limits their ability to attract government and non-governmental support, while this limited access to resources continues to constrain potential venture growth. The literature on women entrepreneurs portrays women-owned ventures as having low growth potential (e.g. Davis and Abdiyeva, 2012; Hanson and Blake, 2009). Stereotypical beliefs relating to what constitutes a woman-owned business further oppress women entrepreneurs in their ability to showcase attributes of growth expected by institutions. This further positions women entrepreneurs as outsiders and classifies women-owned ventures as low in economic capital. However, an emerging theme in the interview narratives highlighted by 20 participants was a conscious decision or choice to manage the scale of the business. The motives for managing the business scale differed based on intersectional factors, as mentioned earlier. In their work, McGinn and Oh (2017) form a connection between class and gender in
An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka 413 women’s employment preferences and further explain that, like members of other low-power groups, women are less likely to put themselves before others. As a result, due to cultural beliefs surrounding women’s societal role, women entrepreneurs place family as a priority in relation to work obligations. Thus, there is now an interest in examining how women pursue their occupation while managing societal expectations linked to womanhood.
DOING ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS WOMEN An interesting observation in the field work was how women’s social role as women shaped how they were perceived within their entrepreneurial role. The gendered beliefs linked to women entrepreneurs’ lifecycle stage, and which appeared in the narratives through descriptors such as ‘young girl’, ‘married’, ‘unmarried’ and ‘mother’, establish a complex status quo regarding women’s ability to gain acceptance as entrepreneurs. As participants below the age of 41 (25 participants) exposed, their status as unmarried women created an image of instability and low credibility. In contrast, women who identified as married or as mothers referred to favourable outlooks towards their role as entrepreneur due to their claim to these titles. The favourable view was supported by the presumption that these women turned to self-employment as a result of their lifecycle stage. For example, Arali (36 years old, Sri Lankan Tamil ethnicity, founder of a digital marketing agency), a mother of a toddler, explains: I think they know women when they are doing their own business, it’s easy for them. They always say, ‘Ah! it’s good now, isn’t it? You can take your kids to school and all of that’.
Arali explains that due to her status as a mother, she experiences acceptance as a business owner. In the above excerpt, Arali refers to the cultural belief that the role of entrepreneur gives a married woman flexibility in managing work while giving priority to her domestic responsibilities as a wife/mother. The cultural belief in Sri Lanka is that the mother is the nucleus of the family unit; this discourages women from seeking paid employment during the early years of motherhood, as it is assumed to deviate from their domestic responsibilities. However, as an entrepreneur Arali is viewed in a new light, as the role of entrepreneur is assumed to give flexibility in managing the gendered obligations attached to the role of wife/ mother. This perception facilitates her belongingness in the entrepreneurial field. Similarly, out of the 24 women in the study who identified with the title of wife/mother, 14 explicitly referred to the beliefs surrounding marital status and the status of being a mother. Regardless of the specific industry they were in, their status as wives/mothers provided a social validation of their belongingness through a perceived stability. Marriage in traditional and contemporary Sri Lanka is symbolic of a person’s transition into adulthood and acts as a rite of passage (Abeyasekera and Marecek, 2019; Abeyasekera, 2017). For the married woman, her husband’s social status acts as security in presenting her with social and economic stability. While marriage and motherhood grant privileges and financial security, the unmarried woman is considered to be in the custody of her family elders (Perera, 1987). Among the participants who did not identify as married or as a mother, a shared view of exclusion was conveyed, revealing a paradox in women entrepreneur’s lived experiences. When discussing the exclusion of certain categories of women in these spaces, Dinithi (33 years old, Sinhalese ethnicity, founder of a travel company and tutoring service) said, ‘I mean, they all start by
414 Research handbook on inequalities and work saying they are mums! So, immediately women entrepreneurs are cut off!’. Among other women entrepreneurs, the title of wife/mother further endorses their entitlement to the position of entrepreneur. As a result, the single or childless woman’s ability to claim the title of entrepreneur is reduced. Thus, it can be argued that the non-conforming woman is alienated as an outsider.
MANAGING ROLES As explained in the previous section, women entrepreneurs’ sense of womanhood shapes not only their subject position but also their views of how entrepreneurship should be practiced. In this regard, women experience an internalised conflict in maintaining their adherence to internalised values linked to womanhood while establishing their worthiness to be recognised as entrepreneurs. To further unpack the conflict resulting from their gender and occupational expectations, there is value in understanding how entrepreneurship is normalised in Sri Lankan society. The data analysis reveals that in practicing entrepreneurship, women also undergo a performative process of adapting. In embodying the role of entrepreneur, participants manage multiple roles attached to their gender alongside their entrepreneurial identity. In the process of becoming an entrepreneur, individuals undertake a role transition where they must adjust not only to the skill expectations attached to the role of entrepreneur but also to the process of integrating the entrepreneurial role to an overall self-concept (Fauchart and Gruber, 2011; Hoang and Gimeno, 2010). The analysis shows that women undergo a process of adapting to fit into the role of entrepreneur. Similarly, 28 participants referred to their experiences in adapting to the role of entrepreneur while managing their role as daughter/ wife/mother. For example, Hafeeza (44 years old, Sri Lankan Moor ethnicity, founder of an IT company) explained: I guess it was quite the experience. I was freezing breast milk and doing all sorts of crazy things [she laughs] to make sure that I can go for meetings! And in-between feeds and oh my god! It was crazy! [She laughs] … So like I said I honestly don’t know how I got through it! Because there would be nights when, you know, I had clients on the phone and I’m breastfeeding [she laughs]! And of course they didn’t know that I was breastfeeding!
Typically, in Sri Lankan society motherhood is considered a culturally respected role (Chapin, 2014). In the early stages of motherhood, the new mother learns the ropes with the aid of her mother/mother-in-law. During this time, women are not expected to engage in work. Their primary concern is expected to be the welfare of the infant and their newly acquired role of mother. This raises many concerns in the case of women entrepreneurs. As was highlighted by 22 participants, in the case of women-owned businesses (often micro businesses or SMEs) there is a high operational dependency on the business owner. As illustrated in the above quote, as a mother of an infant and an entrepreneur in the early stages of her entrepreneurial journey, Hafeeza struggled to attain a balance. To align herself with the role of entrepreneur, Hafeeza attempted to separate her role as a mother from her entrepreneurial self. In doing so she attempted to present herself as a legitimate business owner. By shielding and separating behaviours linked to motherhood, Hafeeza re-established a sense of normality attached to being a business owner.
An intersectional study of women’s practice of entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka 415 The managing of roles were not only limited to motherhood and entrepreneurship, as illustrated through my observations with Sachini (32 years old, Sinhalese ethnicity, café owner), even within the role of entrepreneur there were nuances of how the intersectionality of gender, class, religion and lifecycle stage shaped her practice of entrepreneurship. A female employee comes out of the kitchen to a whiteboard where Sachini is standing. The whiteboard has the staff roster written neatly on it. She stands directly in front of the whiteboard as she speaks to the staff member in Sinhalese not looking directly at them. Her tone is informal but there is a seriousness in which she discusses the roster granting it an importance. She turns away from the roster and moves towards the employee. Sachini advises her about how to clean the trays being used in the kitchen. As she explains this there is a sternness in how she conveys the instructions. Her expression is neutral. The employee listens attentively. As Sachini navigates these spaces, she uses her tone to establishing her authority, she uses terms such as ‘lamai’ [‘children’ in Sinhala] to address the staff even though the age difference between them is not very large. [Field notes]
In this observation, it is important to note how Sachini claimed authority in the interaction. She carefully used language as a way of establishing respect in the exchange. Rooted within the dominant religious beliefs in the island (Buddhism and Hinduism), Sri Lankan culture grants respect to age. Thus, in an exchange there is respect in how individuals holding an older age group are addressed and the power position granted to them. By referring to her employees as ‘lamai’, Sachini distinguishes herself as having authority. As was explained earlier, in Sri Lanka, in relation to womanhood, lifecycle stage provides cues of one’s social position. As a young married woman but one who does not claim the status of ‘mother’, Sachini carefully navigates this structure to sustain her position of authority as a business owner. There is a delicate differentiation of how she presents herself as a business owner and a manager and Sachini carefully manages these roles while ensuring there is a clear boundary between them.
CONCLUSION The prevailing liberal and Western bias in women’s entrepreneurship research has been critiqued for its epistemic limitations in presenting the diversity and complexity of women’s experiences (Foss et al., 2019; Henry et al., 2016; Vossenberg, 2014). By grounding the belief that women and men possess equal capabilities, entrepreneurship scholarship has continued to reinstate the view that women are underperformers in entrepreneurship in comparison to men. As a result, women’s own actions are generally used to explain and rationalise the structural, institutional and patriarchal oppression that women entrepreneurs experience. To remedy the limited and descriptive portrayal of gender and entrepreneurship in the mainstream literature, I adopted a Feminist Standpoint Epistemology. By recognising women as a category of epistemic privilege and grounded in the strategic essentialism of gender, this study unpacked the lived experiences of women from varying ethnicities, classes, castes and lifecycle stages. The methodological contribution of this chapter rests on its critique of a number of limitations in entrepreneurship studies, such as essentialist assumptions, a reductionist binary of men versus women and the treatment of middle-class and white women as the norm (Foss et al., 2019). The findings help overcome these limitations by recognising the commonality of experience among marginalised groups via strategic essentialism while also recognising difference among women by paying keen attention to intersectionality.
416 Research handbook on inequalities and work For Sri Lankan women, social acceptance within the realm of entrepreneurship requires a delicate balance between the socially constructed ideals of womanhood and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, women’s social positioning across categories of gender, class, caste, ethnicity, religion and lifecycle stage has a significant influence on how their belongingness is perceived by other agents in the sphere of social interaction. The findings further illustrate that women’s practice of entrepreneurship is influenced by gendered social structures. Women practice entrepreneurship in such a way to strike a balance between overarching gendered beliefs linked to womanhood and entrepreneurship. Thus, entrepreneurial success itself is subjective and is mediated by the intersectionality of gender, ethnicity, class, caste and lifecycle stage. To deepen our understanding of the complex and layered nature of practice of entrepreneurship, there is a need to move beyond male- and Western-centric representation of entrepreneurship and use frames of references, epistemologies and methodologies that help peel off layers of biased and narrow assumptions that unwittingly inform our research. The findings laid out in this chapter present the opportunity for future work to examine women’s practice of entrepreneurship by paying keen attention to the nuances of how intersectionality shapes women entrepreneurs’ everyday practices and how these practices performatively evolve over time.
NOTE 1.
Pseudonyms have been used throughout this chapter.
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28. Safe and suitable yet unequal for women: understanding the inequalities in the hiring process in the Indian software industry Shreyashi Chakraborty
INTRODUCTION Gender inequality manifests in multiple forms, one being segregation in specific occupations (horizontal or essentialist) and the other being where women are concentrated in the lower levels of hierarchy (vertical) (Charles & Grusky, 2004). One such segregated industry that has emerged in recent decades is the software industry. It is male-dominated in the western developed economies, especially in the United States (Chang, 2019), where women constitute roughly 25% of the population compared to the overall labour force participation rate of 47% (Beckhusen, 2016). Interestingly, India has been one of the frontrunners of the software industry’s revolution and witnesses the presence of women employees constituting 35% of the workforce (NASSCOM, 2020), despite a dismal labor force participation rate of 19% in 2021.1 Arguably, the Indian software industry does not show signs of horizontal segregation; however, the limited representation of women in C-suite or top-level positions (less than 1%; Raghuram et al., 2017) could indicate vertical segregation or a masculinised profession. The prior literature (Levanon & Grusky, 2016; Rider & Tan, 2015) argues the possibility of supply and demand-related challenges regarding horizontal or vertical segregation of women employees. Such segregation results in women occupying low-status or low-paying jobs in the economy (Reskin & Roos, 1990). The possibility of vertical segregation in the Indian software industry becomes confounding considering the profession’s appeal amongst young female technical graduates and their family members, as the profession is considered safe and suitable for women (Parikh & Sukhatme, 2004). The attraction of the profession reflects in the proportion of women (51%) in entry-level jobs in the industry (Raghuram et al., 2017). The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has been instrumental in enhancing diversity and inclusion in the Indian software industry for more than a decade and confers excellence awards to organisations for their efforts. According to the industry association report (NASSCOM, 2018), more than 50% of the companies that participated had 4% women in senior management positions in 2012 and 2017. Balanced proportions at the entry level and highly skewed proportions at the top-level hierarchies reinforce the belief that demand-side mechanisms create conditions for either exit or stagnation in women’s careers. Recruitment and selection processes are the first encounters where demand-side mechanisms are at play and could create hurdles for women applicants. It is necessary to understand the employee hiring and selection practices in the Indian software industry that both men and women applicants go through. Organisational practices or processes like employee selection, performance evaluation, and promotions (Castilla, 2008) are inflicted by bias against women and have been documented 420
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women 421 for both male-dominated and gender-neutral professions. Scholars (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Ely et al., 2011) suggest second-generation gender biases are invisible and difficult to identify and eliminate because they tend to be unconscious in nature and exist when criteria for evaluation are highly subjective. The understanding of the employee selection processes in the simultaneous presence of biases (both first- and second-generation), stereotypes, and prejudices would enhance our understanding of the causes of gender inequality, especially vertical segregation, inside the Indian software industry.
LITERATURE REVIEW Acker (1990) in her seminal work posits that organisations are gendered and suggests managerial decisions initiate certain divisions (based on gender) with respect to jobs, appropriate behaviours, workspaces, etc., and organisational practices are instrumental in maintaining such divisions. For instance, selection practices contribute to sex-based discrimination (Neumark, 2018) and result in gender-based disparities. Acker also illustrates how application of organisational logic, rules, or directives for running organisations with a gender-neutral concept of a ‘job’ brings alive a disembodied worker who exists only for that particular work and has negligible obligations beyond the boundaries of the job. Such attributes of a worker have the potential to impact the decision-making processes of managers in HR processes and practices like selection, performance appraisal, compensation, etc. The HR processes and practices are instrumental in ensuring equal opportunity for women employees and enhance the possibilities of achieving gender equality. Women continue to experience segregation, harassment, work–life challenges, and glass ceilings in most of the Asian countries (Tatli et al., 2017). Despite the presence of equal opportunity laws and increasing proportions of female students opting for higher education, the presence of women in managerial jobs (Community Business, 2014), including the Indian software industry, is minimal. Employers limit their policies or programs to maternity leave policy, prevention of sexual harassment, and work–life initiatives (Cooke & Saini, 2010). A recent study (Singh & Pandey, 2019) conducted on the top 83 listed companies in India showed that they voluntarily disclosed on average 3.5 women-friendly policies pertaining to prevention of sexual harassment, maternity leave, recruitment and selection, and leadership development programs. The first two are mandated by Indian laws whereas leadership development has become an imperative due to the requirement for women board members in the publicly listed companies. Only 15 out of the participating 83 companies voluntarily disclosed their women-friendly recruitment and selection policies or programs. Employee selection, a process where hiring managers and recruiters attempt to collect information and evaluate it against job specifications (Gatewood & Field, 2001) is fraught with information asymmetry. Decision-makers use a variety of signals to evaluate the future productivity or capability of the candidate. Sometimes the capability is inferred from membership in social categories like race or gender (Correll & Benard, 2006; Fryer et al., 2013), resulting in statistical discrimination (Fang & Moro, 2011). As decision-makers use group membership as a proxy to predict capability, they resort to stereotypes acquired either directly or indirectly. The dominance of one sex over the other in the occupation could activate the status characteristic and influence the hiring decision (Ridgeway, 2009).
422 Research handbook on inequalities and work Employers tend to adopt selection approaches that are subjective and rely on intuition (Lodato et al., 2011). Decision-makers favour the gender of those applicants that fits the decision-maker’s mental model of the job-holder in question and has been shown to be successful on the job, as suggested by role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Men are assumed to possess more agentic qualities and higher levels of commitment, aspiration, and ambition. On the other hand, women are considered to be relationship-oriented and are perceived to be less committed and less ambitious. Interestingly. empirical evidence indicates the contrary (Dunn-Jensen & Stroh, 2007). The highest level of gender role congruity bias has been reported for hiring decisions for male-dominated roles (Koch et al., 2015). Cultural beliefs also inform subjective decisions about what women or men should do. For example, according to social role theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002), a ‘good mother’ should focus on the child’s well-being and her primary responsibility lies in the family. Such prescriptive stereotypes contradict the ‘ideal worker’ image, who is only focused on the assigned organisational tasks and responsibilities. Such prescriptive stereotypes work against working mothers (González et al., 2019), creating hiring inequalities. Most studies studying selection or hiring practices in different occupations are correspondence audit studies, wherein fake resumes are sent to real businesses, and interview invitations are considered favourable outcomes. Such studies consistently indicate discrimination against women (Ayres, 2003; Moss-Racusin et al., 2012). However, such audit studies focus on the initial phases of the hiring process, where the resume is either rejected or shortlisted depending on the applicant’s gender or qualifications. On the other hand, laboratory studies manipulate the gender or qualifications of the applicant or the characteristics of the decision-maker and indicate the presence of biases and prejudices in decision-making. The applicability of the laboratory findings in real-life situations could be a cause of concern. Such studies fail to give voice to the real-life experiences and challenges of the candidates and employers. Undurraga (2019) has attempted to document the discriminatory practices hiring managers and recruiters adopt to explain the inequalities in the Chilean labour market. My study also attempts to bring forth the lived experiences of the different stakeholders in the hiring process and understand how they reproduce or reduce gender-based inequalities inside the Indian software industry.
METHODOLOGY I conducted 49 semi-structured interviews with individuals who had different roles in the employee hiring process – namely, hiring managers (those who initiate the hiring process and conduct the interviews), recruiters, headhunters, and consultants (those who source the applicants and sometimes conduct the initial interviews) – and employees/candidates who had gone through the selection process. Interviews with three different categories of respondents were utilised for data triangulation. It was also helpful getting knowledge about selection processes in multiple firms. All the participants were working professionals and belonged to the software industry, working in private or public limited companies. The sample had 27 women and 22 men with experience ranging from 5 to 25 years of experience. Confidentiality and the anonymity of participants and their company were assured. Informed consent was obtained from them before the interview was conducted. A unique identifier ID number was assigned for each participant. The identifiers for different categories of respondents are: H denotes Hiring managers, R denotes Recruiters and F denotes female employees.
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women 423 I used my connections to get access to my research participants. I also used the snowballing technique to get access to further participants through my first level of connections. One of my executive students, a working professional, enhanced my reach to multiple participants. Employees were asked about their experiences of the last selection process. Hiring managers or HR recruiters were asked about the selection process they undertook or conducted in the last hiring they did. The interviews were conducted from August to October 2021. All the interviews were conducted online through Zoom and were recorded with the necessary permission. The interviews were conducted on Zoom because of the limited options for travel owing to the pandemic restrictions. The duration of interviews ranged from twenty-five minutes to one and a half hours. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed manually by entering the answers in Microsoft Excel.
FINDINGS The analysis suggests that employees and decision-makers have to go through various stages during the complete hiring process to ensure the acquisition and performance of the right person in the right place and at the right time. The multiple stages in the hiring process create occasions where discrimination could either happen through the practices adopted or in the decision-making process, creating inequalities in the outcomes for the women candidates. Each stage of the hiring process is discussed, presenting evidence of the discriminatory practices. The findings also illustrate the adoption of gendered stereotypes by the hiring managers in their decision-making processes. Sourcing of Applicants The hiring process in the Indian software industry begins with a recruitment process wherein applications are sought from eligible applicants. Companies mostly adopt a centralised approach where talent acquisition experts administer and coordinate the process with the active support of the hiring managers. Most of the companies hire both fresh graduates from engineering campuses or universities and experienced professionals with relevant skills. Software companies are the biggest recruiters from the engineering colleges, accounting for 70 to 80% of the offers.2 Female students comprise 42–43% of the STEM graduates in India and a sizable portion of the applicants. The ratios are good when we hire people through campus – we get a good and even ratio without efforts. (H7, male, 15 years’ experience) I always prefer to hire a best. So, when I go for a hiring, my selection would be I keep the cut-off of 80% throughout their academic qualifications. Then there was a test. I got 30 female candidates who cleared the test and had clearing the screening criteria. There were only 9 male candidates who cleared the steps. So definitely my selection will be obviously more female. (R4, male, 12 years’ experience)
Female applicants perform better or are at the same level on the aptitude or cognitive ability tests vis-à-vis the male students. However, companies struggle in sourcing experienced female applicants. It was a consistent experience across all the recruiters and hiring managers, who had worked in numerous software companies or profiles across India. To overcome the chal-
424 Research handbook on inequalities and work lenge, companies either partner with vendors that specialise in sourcing female candidates, provide more incentives (or payoffs) to vendors for placing a successful female candidate, organise women-specific recruitment drives, or advertise positions or roles for only female applicants. However, such initiatives and programs are limited to multinational companies headquartered either in Europe or the US. Not anything specific but that was more of initiatives to increase diverse pool like extra percentage to vendor partners, more referral bonuses, diversity-specific hiring drives. (R11, female, 14 years’ experience) Advertisement clearly mentions hiring is for women candidates, there are referral programs for women candidates. We also talk about returnship programs, support policies, and flexibility provided to women candidates in the print or digital ad. (R16, female, 10 years’ experience)
Companies provide more referral bonuses to their employees if they refer successful female candidates. Referrals are one of the common ways to enter the applicant pool and could constitute 30 to 50% of the applicant pool (Petersen et al., 2000; Leicht & Marx, 1997). As the number of male employees in the technology space is higher, there is a possibility that the mental model of the role fits with a male candidate (Hogg, 2001). Technical skills in the software engineering domain have been associated with masculine attributes (Cech, 2013) and that could increase the chances of more male applicants getting referred into the candidate pool in comparison to female applicants. Yes. There are more and more male counterparts in technology space for the same skill than females. Overall, the number of available female candidates available in technology as compared to male counterparts is lower in number. Though there are more and more females pursuing technical education, but numbers are significantly low in number overall. (F3, female, 12 years’ experience)
It is encouraging to witness that the number of female applicants for the entry-level jobs in the industry is on the rise. In spite of the common perception that information technology (IT) or software jobs are suitable or preferable (Gupta, 2020) compared to employment in other industries in India, the availability of female candidates for experienced profiles is limited. A study (Community Business, 2014) reports that women comprise 16.4% of middle-level and 10.6% of senior-level jobs in corporate India. Shortlisting of the Applicants The Indian software industry employs more than four million workers and every year nearly 200,000 new jobs are created. The attrition rate of the industry hovers around 10%, which has significantly jumped to 20% post-pandemic. Hence, the hiring process and the HR recruiters get overwhelmed with processing of numerous applicants and selecting suitable profiles. To facilitate such time-consuming, tedious tasks, companies have started using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms that provide a matching score for each candidate corresponding to the job specification. Most employers consider a gap in employment or education as undesirable (Pedulla, 2016) and make negative inferences about candidates’ capability or commitment based on such gaps. Such details are collected through the application forms and the algorithm (trained through previous data) calculates a match score such that an individual with an educational or experience gap gets low match scores.
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women 425 The technology doesn’t read that as what happened in that gap, it only reads it as a gap and rejects the profile. Now, if that was a case, a candidate actually upgraded his skill, though he is taking a break and should give a value add to the profile, alright. But what happens with this Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) will not consider that profile. (R3, male, 16 years’ experience)
Women are likely to take career breaks owing to managing the domestic responsibilities of caring for children and the elderly (Fahle & McGarry, 2016), especially when organisation support is limited or non-existent. The AI technology limits the possibility of shortlisting such a profile (even if all eligibility requirements are fulfilled) as it eliminates the profile from the pool, rather than suggesting a human intervention. Although female candidates with breaks in their career could get rejected, targeting returning mothers and conducting a completely separate selection process could attenuate such rejections. There is no process where at least a flag is raised there, where the ATS comes back and tells you that there’s a flag here. This guy has a one or two years kind of a gap, okay, this needs to be checked, otherwise, the profile is a match. Okay, which would happen with a human touch. (R3, male, 16 years’ experience)
The parameters or the attributes that have been deduced or derived from job specifications may not explicitly work against the selection of female employees. However, the machine algorithm developed for shortlisting applicants is based on previous historical successful profiles, which could have a significant number of male employees. The higher availability of male candidates for experienced profiles accentuates the biased shortlisting of applicants conducted through technology. Interviewing the Candidates Hiring managers use objective, subjective, formal, or informal tests or interviews to gather information to assess the performance potential of the shortlisted candidates. In the case of experienced professionals, all the participants in the study indicated that they have three to four rounds of interviews where two to three rounds are with technical experts and one round is with the hiring manager or HR. All the rounds happen in succession and are elimination rounds. The interviews are competency-based; however, interviewers don’t follow a structured format in most of the scenarios. Amongst the 33 hiring managers and recruiters that I interacted with only 2 mentioned a structured interview substantiated with a hiring consultant. Because more often than not, it’s very unstructured and goes extemporary. It depends on candidate profile, they will start with, candidate talking about himself. And then the questions related to the work that the person has been doing, on the technologies that the person’s worked on. so there’s a split there. Structured would be preferred… But unfortunately, it doesn’t happen, in at least 60% of cases. Okay, it happens in 40%, yes, some of the major organizations do use them. One of the major issues, why this doesn’t work is you can get somebody at maybe a manager level, to fill in your sheets. But somebody who’s a little more senior, would put more trust on his judgment, rather than any of those sheets. (R3, male, 16 years’ experience) But I did face discrimination previously in another organisation’s hiring process. It happened in the first round. I felt like the interviewer was having the impression that women are not good in technology and the sole purpose was to grill, humiliate, and demean me. I was constantly made feel that I am being considered only because of the referral. The interviewee cleared my first round and told me clearly that I am being sent to the second round to be grilled more. (F7, 8 years’ experience)
426 Research handbook on inequalities and work The initial rounds of interviews are technical in nature. In the absence of a structured format, the interviewer or the panel members could be under the influence of mental schemas, stereotypes, or biases and are not able to extract job-relevant individual information. The panel members consider the group membership as a proxy to inform their questions and evaluations of their potential, and statistical discrimination becomes evident. One of the recommendations provided by scholars consistently over the last few decades to reduce gender-based selection biases during interviews is administering structured interviews (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998; McCarthy et al., 2010). Another recommendation is conducting panel-based interviews where individuals from different social groups or functional departments are present, reducing the possibilities of gender-based stereotypes or prejudices creeping into the decision-making process. Amongst the 16 participants I interacted with, 14 mentioned that they had one-to-one interviews or were administered single-member panels. A limited number of hiring managers (3/16) and recruiters (4/17) mentioned that they try to bring female panel members or HR personnel during the interviews. However, it is not mandatory and gets restricted owing to the availability of eligible female interview panelists. There is no pre-identified panel composition, and it is based on panel availability in the team. We are not specifically focussed on women panels. (R8, female, 15 years’ experience) For roles beyond a specific grade, we do encourage having a diverse interview panel at least one female panelist. If no female panelist is present, we encourage diversity in different forms for example…. from a different age group. (R12, female, 4.5 years’ experience)
Interestingly, all the hiring managers barring 2 out of 16 in my sample were male employees and that indicates a dearth of female panel members and a limited number of women in managerial or leadership positions. There is a possibility of finding interviewers specialised in different skills who are available on an hourly payment basis and only one recruiter mentioned this. Beyond hiring external interviewers, technology has opened new opportunities for interviewing. Interview panel members could join in a video or audio call from anywhere across India or other countries during the pandemic, making it more efficient and quicker, which was not the case before the pandemic. Alright, panel interviews also can happen now, now more than ever. I am hiring and sitting in Bangalore, my director is in Bombay… and we can all join the call together. When we’re taking interviews for senior candidates, we do a panel, easier one shot and it’s much more easier. (R3, male, 16 years’ experience)
Although technology could enable multiple panel interviews where panel members and candidates are spread across different geographies and time zones, there is a possibility of adopting unfair means (e.g., using notes, prompting of answers by a third party, accessing the Internet, etc.) to excel during the interviews that would not be possible during a face-to-face interview. Prevalence of faking or using unethical means would not support the possibility of online interviews. Interviews are an opportunity to gather information both relevant and irrelevant to the jobs in question. Absence of female panel members or HR personnel during the interviews could provide freedom to panel members to ask about personal information regarding marital status or number of children without any accountability. Managers need to acquire job-relevant information but the absence of regulations and policies preventing panel members from
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women 427 seeking personal information sends a signal to panel members that such questions can be asked. All the female candidates that I interacted with were asked such questions. I did face such questions for one of the job interviews that I took. I had just gotten married at that time and the interviewer checked with me twice if I was planning to start a family anytime soon as he was hiring for a critical project and did not want the candidate to join and then leave for maternity. (F8, 6 years’ experience) During the hiring process, these are very common instances where hiring manager would check for personal details like family members and marital status. It is a general scenario where they would like to check if I will be able to work without any disconnect. For ex. this job requires person to stretch on frequent basis to catch up with US stakeholders, will you be able to catch up? Or do you have any commitments that would stop you from providing extended hour support if required? Most of the times, the focus was to identify if I can stretch or will I have issues with that. Some also wanted to understand my spouse work/job as well. (F3, 12 years’ experience)
Although the personal questions could provide job-relevant information regarding the candidate’s capacity to extend efforts beyond office hours, it could seem as intentional discrimination if such personal questions are not asked to male candidates. If women candidates appear to be of a marriageable age, masked questions pertaining to family background or family members are asked. In the absence of opportunities for asking direct questions regarding marriage, children, or planning a family, panel members search for other cues, especially forms of jewellery and adornment (bangles, mangalsutras, vermilion) that Indian married women (especially Hindu married women) wear on a regular basis. Indirectly we ask sometimes when we meet candidate… So, you have completed your engineering so how many family members are there… like siblings. Then they say like one or two. We check like older or younger then a thought comes, okay, if she’s elder she should get married first. Who are in the family, what is the family background? (R4, male, 11 years’ experience)
The absence of a structured interviewing format and the unavailability of multiple panel members in an interview reduce the reliability and validity of the assessment tool (McCarthy et al., 2010). The juxtaposition of unstructured interviewing with questionable reliability and validity and the asking of personal and job-irrelevant questions to female employees could not only lead to flawed decision-making, creating unequal outcomes for female employees vis-à-vis male employees, but also cause hiring errors that could negatively impact organisational performance. Decision-making The family-related personal questions asked to female candidates originate from the gendered social roles or prescriptive stereotypes panel members ascribe to female employees, wherein women have to take on the domestic responsibilities and take care of the children and elderly parents. Employers sometimes ask about the marital status of candidates and candidates also voluntarily disclose their marital status in their resumes. I think one of the common misconceptions, especially for female employees in India, is that if a role requires either long and/or flexible hours, we tend to generalize that this role cannot be done by women employees, simply for the fact that our social ecosystem does not encourage that. But, in my opinion, women employees are as vulnerable as their male counterparts when it comes to working
428 Research handbook on inequalities and work long hours for a sustained period of time. I don’t think one gender is better than the other in this case. (H1, male, 11 years’ experience)
The requirement to work for longer hours or work in different shifts, especially late at nights catering to US-based clients, is in contradiction with the gendered expectations and highlights the inability to fill the shoes of the ‘ideal worker’ (Acker, 1990). Such contradictions manifest as biases or stereotypes when they are applied to all female candidates. Levanon and Grusky (2016) suggest that women could be perceived as less committed or competent software engineers. At the start of the process when we list down the criteria for a role, till technology no stereotype would come in factor. As soon as we move to some of the softer aspects of the job, then we tend to get little gender stereotype. For example – shift timings in particular can really get in the way of hiring a women candidate mostly due to multiple responsibilities they have. As hiring manager, we tend to lose confidence at this level and check several times to confirm. (H9, male, 5 years’ experience) It is highly perceived that women will not take up jobs with long hours or late shifts. Which is not true all the time. There is an unconscious bias against female applicants when someone is considering a tough job. (R12, female, 4.5 years’ experience)
The hiring managers and the recruiters acknowledge the presence of stereotypes and biases against the candidature of female employees for profiles requiring late-night work shifts, extended work hours, or working during weekends that entail multiple responsibilities. The overemphasis on the ability to work for extended hours or in different shifts was also supported by the comments of hiring managers and recruiters when they were asked about work–life balance. Candidates seeking work–life balance in technology jobs are perceived negatively. In few cases, managers do ask to drop their candidature due to nature of the job wherein incumbent has to work for late hours and sometimes over the weekend as well. (R11, female, 14 years’ experience)
The assumptions and apprehensions of recruiters and hiring managers regarding women employees, especially married women with or without children, are reinforced by the breaks in the career of experienced women employees. All the hiring managers and recruiters indicated that women go on breaks owing to the responsibilities of childcare or care for the elderly. Such breaks signal that the priorities of women lie in catering to their family responsibilities rather than their work, which requires long stretched hours and working in shifts. As women fulfil their prescriptive stereotype, they send signals about their commitment towards the job that accentuate the activation of status characteristics; in this case, it is married women. In technology world, the quality of education is more or less similar… But as we grow in experience ranges, clearly there are gaps observed in three out of five resumes where a women has taken a gap to plan for personal engagements. (R7, female, 7 years’ experience) It is well-known norm that women candidates even if they start at same levels as their male counterparts, they will be lagging in the race of 10–15 years down the line. Reason is pretty simple – they are managing home and families along with their work. They will take break in between for family reasons and end of the journey they are lagging and their male counterparts have progressed both in terms of level of the role as well as the salary part. (R5, male,14 years’ experience)
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women 429 The highly patriarchal society in the Indian scenario creates an environment where the decision to continue to participate in the workforce or take a career break is a household decision rather than the individual’s own decision (Sudarshan & Bhattacharya, 2009). The gendered expectation that the woman will be the primary caregiver is not disputed and reflects in the assumptions of recruiters and hiring managers that the female employee is highly likely to take a break. Apart from the assumptions regarding the commitment of women towards roles or profiles that require extended hours and night shifts, another stereotype that emerged from the interviews was that women are either not good at coding (the essential skill in the industry) or they do not prefer it. It is general perception that coding and development is an interest area for male candidates than the female candidates. Though I have not faced a situation where I have been told that a male can do a better coding than a female, but since automatically more number of applicants tend to be boys it remains to appear a masculine job. There are good number of females who are interested in coding and can do so. (F3, 12 years’ experience) Quality of education was better in female candidates, but their real-time experience is very limited in technology space like coding. Their orientation tends to be less technical than their male counterparts. (R15, female, 4 years’ experience)
The presence of limited women in coding or technical jobs creates chances for statistical discrimination. With fewer opportunities, female employees are not able to gain relevant experience in coding and cannot display enough of the technical orientation that is essential for technical roles, reinforcing the stereotype. Women seem to be more interested in jobs like testing or business analyst or techno-functional roles that are not seen as technical enough. Another profile that presents higher representation of women in IT companies is that of human resources, a support function. Segregation within the software industry in quality assurance or testing-related jobs has been recently observed in the US too (Campero, 2021). I have heard a lot of females talking about how the male team doesn’t prefer female co-workers because they might not be technical enough. (F5, 7 years’ experience) On the record or formally no one will accept this. But offline, there are many stereotypes called out unconsciously. For example, female students would take up less coding jobs or show more interest towards less technical jobs, so there is better female ratio available in jobs like testing, business analyst, etc.… They tend to take up more jobs with customer facing. (R12, female, 4.5 years’ experience)
The quality assurance jobs or profiles are lower in status with respect to pay in the US. The study also showed that once individuals have such quality assurance experiences in their resumes, it becomes a deterrent for them to explore or gain entry into more technical profiles. Lower valuation and barriers to movement could also be prevalent in the Indian software industry, which could explain the fewer growth opportunities and the segregation of women in the Indian software industry, substantiating the propositions of previous scholars (Bielby & Baron, 1986; Reskin & Roos, 1990). The profile of a business analyst requires interaction with the clients and the development team. Qualities like relationship orientation, good communications skills, and stakeholder management are important for the profile and resonate with feminine qualities. However, previous research (Chakraborty, 2019) indicates such
430 Research handbook on inequalities and work profiles could limit the career progression of female employees as they limit the opportunities available. As a role, business analyst is neutral role where both male and female have good expertise since it requires strong communication and stakeholder management experience. Females are good orators and capable of good project management skills. (F4, 9 years’ experience)
The decision-making process is dependent on an assessment tool that is likely to have low reliability and validity scores. Beyond the tool, the information that is being acted upon is a cause of concern as stereotypes against women employees abound with respect to their commitment in highly demanding profiles, as well as their competencies in technical roles. Interestingly, decision-makers strive to bring representation of women employees in their teams and organisations. However, the representation is not necessarily sought to encourage gender equality. There are times when diversity is favoured only to create a balance in the team where there has been higher presence of male candidates already. (R6, female, 5 years’ experience) I would like to also keep in mind the gender ratio in the team, if its required. Like virtually, it does not matter much but in physical setups, it can be very tricky. (H9, male, 5 years’ experience)
Depending on the ratio that decision-makers have decided to achieve, efforts to increase representation of women employees get stalled as that target ratio is achieved. Most recruiters and hiring managers indicated a preference that one third of the team or department be women. The industry also has roughly one third female employees. Managers see whether they have 30% women in their teams. If it is less, they will try hard and try to think less about the urgency of the business. If they have achieved it, they will say that business is suffering. (R17, female, 20 years’ experience)
Although the entry-level jobs indicate balanced proportions, hiring managers and recruiters adjust their targets for diversity hiring ratios to one third. There is a possibility that target gender ratios are reconsidered regularly after looking at supply statistics and industry averages. The industry statistics could also be the consequence of preferred target ratios in the minds of decision-makers.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The Indian software industry has a higher number of women employees compared to western developed economies, with a greater number of fresh female graduates entering the industry every year. Yet the industry is masculinised in nature, with the expectation of long hours and late-night shifts personifying the ‘ideal worker’ (Acker, 1990) that contradict the gendered roles and expectations of a woman. The contradictions manifest in the career breaks of experienced women professionals, who lose out in experience, pay, and skills. The exit generally happens in the first five years of employment (Gupta, 2020) and employers struggle to find women candidates with experience, which could also result in vertical segregation.
Safe and suitable yet unequal for women 431 Although the organisations in the Indian software industry are aware of the limited availability of experienced female professionals, their focus tends to be more on getting a higher number of female applicants rather than ensuring that their selection tools or decision-making processes are bias-free. Sex bias is a persistent cause for gender inequality and manifests in various organisational processes like selection, evaluation, and performance management. Most employers in my study neither adopted structured interviewing techniques nor ensured the presence of diverse panels in the interviewing process. HR recruiters in the MNCs implement diversity management policies, which were originally designed in developed economies like the US and the UK. However, the translation of such policies could be ineffective if the contextual understanding of the geographic location is missing (Haq et al., 2020; Öztürk et al., 2015). For example, interviews are a standard assessment tool for most employers in most countries; however, the cultural norms in India permit interviewers or hiring managers to ask personal or family-related questions to employees during the interviews. In a similar vein, the practice of viewing career breaks in a negative light in India worsens the gender bias against experienced female professionals who may have taken career breaks, especially in the shortlisting stage. As the findings suggest, the application of artificial intelligence in shortlisting resumes or profiles indicates the possibility of gender bias. A recent meta-analysis (Hardy et al., 2020) indicates that a sub-group bias causing 1% variance in assessment scores could lead to an impact ratio of 0.59–0.61 when the selection ratio is 0.01. The reluctance in adopting more valid assessment tools, mainly structured interviewing and diverse interview panels, indicates indirect or institutionalised discrimination owing to convenience and efficiency. Such inaction unveils the rhetoric–practice gap in the Indian software industry’s context, which is also mentioned by researchers in other countries (Australia (Kramar, 2012) and the UK (Hoque & Noon; 2004)). It is noteworthy that managers and recruiters strive for a ratio between male and female employees within their teams or within the candidate pool that is not necessarily balanced or equal and hence not a factor in decision-making. Representation of women among teams and candidates is the objective that restricts investment of resources or changing of hiring processes that could contribute to gender equality. The masculine nature of the profession creates stereotypes that work against women as they have to fulfil their gendered roles and responsibilities of caregiving and nurturing, which obviate the commitment towards the profession. Prior research (Carless & Wintle, 2007) indicates work–life balance arrangements increase the organisational attractiveness for both young and older employees (Hall, 2004). However, most of the hiring managers in my sample indicated a dislike towards candidates who sought work–life balance. Owing to women’s social roles, it is evident that female candidates would not be preferred for such profiles. The presence of more men in technical roles like coding also creates a mental model in the minds of decision-makers that resonates with a male employee more and could create hostile environments during the interviews that would hinder the display of optimal performance by the candidate. Such mental models and biases against female candidates result in horizontal segregation within the industry wherein women with testing and business analyst profiles are predominant, which are not as highly sought when compared to the technical coding profiles. Limited studies delineate the segregation within a specific industry and my study presents evidence of both horizontal segregation and vertical segregation within the software industry. My study also provides evidence that gender inequality in the software industry is an outcome of the interplay of both institutional and individual discrimination. My study also presents evi-
432 Research handbook on inequalities and work dence of stereotypes pertaining to gendered roles and expectations and gender biases emerging from role incongruence wherein the lower number of women in technical or coding jobs creates a gender bias that women either are not good at such jobs or are not interested in them. Indian software organisations need to reassess and incorporate selections tools that are procedurally fair. Although there is evidence of second-generation biases, HR personnel could design and administer structured interviews for different roles or profiles. Structured interviews limit the opportunities to ask job-irrelevant personal questions. Panel members from diverse groups need to be trained and selected for interviewing purposes to ensure gender bias is reduced in the decision-making process. The trainings designed and administered for interview panel members should integrate the context-specific knowledge of what diversity entails and the norms and practices prevalent in the region or the country. The integration of such context-specific knowledge not only enhances the acceptance of global diversity management by different stakeholders but also improves the likelihood of achieving equality and social justice in the workplaces. The presence of female panel members sends a positive signal to female applicants that the organisation values diversity and inclusion and opportunities exist for women to grow inside the organisation. As Indian software organisations increasingly resort to using artificial intelligence for shortlisting resumes, they need to conduct regular audits to assess what kind of applicants are getting rejected and the likely reasons for those rejections. The algorithm could be designed to not inadvertently reject female applicants who have taken a break. HR personnel could thoroughly discuss with hiring managers to understand the extent of long hours or late-night shifts required for different roles. This would ensure that job descriptions do not emphasise masculine attributes and allow applicants to self-select themselves into such jobs. However, in the wake of the pandemic and with overall well-being becoming an essential concern of employers, attempts could be made to redesign work so that extended durations of peak workload could be reduced.3
NOTES 1. 2.
See: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS. See: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/covid-19-campus-hiring-in-engineering -colleges-by-it-firms-might-see-5-10-drop-5661091.html. 3. The author is grateful to Ms Barkha Kataria for her efforts in supporting the data collection.
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PART V CRISIS, COVID, INEQUALITIES AND CHANGE
29. Future of working at home Abigail Marks, Oliver Mallett, Lila Skountridaki and Danny Zschomler
INTRODUCTION When troops of workers are suddenly and with little warning working from home in the midst of a global pandemic we are in a unique position to try to further understand the relationship between home-based working and work–life balance, as well as the impact of organisational support on the success of home-based working. What can the recent national lockdown, which forced over 40% of the UK workforce into home-based working, teach us? One element of this chapter is the reporting of findings from the Working@Home project. The project collected data from a wide range of participants across the UK between May 2020 and February 2022. The data combined four rounds of in-depth interviews with 80 participants representing the spectrum of this novel group of home-based workers, as well as three large-scale surveys (June–July 2020, December 2020–February 2021 and November 2021– February 2022), each representing between 1200 and 1500 Covid-19-enforced home-based workers across the UK. The last phase of interviews and surveying was conducted at the point when many were returning to the office or working in a hybrid manner. The Working@Home project provided unrivalled insights into the experience of home-based working for the UK population and the lives of citizens in this unprecedented time. This chapter gives voice to our participants and presents some of their stories but also data from all three surveys. The research develops our understanding of the expectations that organisations have of workers, as well as of the robustness of the support systems that have been put in place, considering the rapid advancement of home-working systems with almost no preparation and only limited existing support structures and expertise. The findings provide a benchmark for the resilience of both individuals and businesses and demonstrate the potential for the robustness of the infrastructure in the return to a ‘new normal’ after the crisis. This chapter starts with a review of the history of home-based working, followed by a discussion of the impact of the pandemic on the experiences of and attitudes towards working from home.
THE CHANGING LOCATION OF WORK What much of the literature on home-based working fails to highlight sufficiently, is that throughout history working from home was the norm rather than the exception. In medieval times, most working-class people in Britain lived in single-story, one-room houses that serviced all their sleeping, eating and living needs. For many, the one-room house also functioned as a ‘workshop’ and ‘shop’ for professions such as potters, bakers, brewers, etc. Home-based workers were both male and female members of the household. The work undertaken in the home continued to evolve to include street-facing shops and workshops with a private 436
Future of working at home 437 living space attached. Moving into the 1500s, a few selected workers began moving into administrative buildings or offices for core administration and retention of archives. With the evolution of schools and universities and a focus on centralised learning outside the household, citizens started to move towards an understanding of labour and activity beyond the domestic environment. Clearly the most profound change in the development of work outside the home for the majority of the working population in the UK was at the point of the Industrial Revolution. Large-scale industrial work, predominantly in factories, created a profound change for both women and men that meant leaving the home and working within the employer’s premises. From the late 1700s, the pattern of work that we are familiar with today started to become established, with working hours determined by the employer, who was also the provider of the tools to undertake the work. However, the ‘office’ became a more familiar element of work lives, with supervisors and managers having dedicated administrative space. Allen (2005) argues that the 17th century was a key point in the development of the office, where greater numbers of the ‘new’ professions – lawyers, civil servants, etc. – began to work from offices in the world’s capital cities. This created, for middle-class men, a distinction between the home for relaxation and the office for work. The office itself grew on a large scale, with transformative inventions such as the telephone and the typewriter enabling increased efficiency in administrative work. Further transformations in the late 1800s, including the steam engine, combustion engine, etc., paved the way for mass public and domestic transport options allowing affordable commuting. The return to working from home following the 2020 lockdown, necessitated by measures to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, was rapid and significant and the history books may herald this as another key point in the transition of work between home and the office. The tasks and activities that were traditionally positioned as ‘impossible’ to conduct online were rapidly and effectively enabled via teleconferencing software. What has been referred to by some commentators as a ‘mass experiment’ in working from home (Gratton & Stern, 2020) has renewed debates about working from home and work–life balance, including ‘family-friendly’ flexibility, greater productivity and well-being (e.g. Skountridaki et al., 2021). The working from home ‘experiment’ was rapidly hailed as a success by popular media (e.g. Hern, 2020). High-profile businesses such as Twitter and Facebook have enthusiastically embraced home-based working for their staff and initial research has indicated that many employees want to remain working from home at least some of the time (Bartik et al., 2020; Chung et al., 2020). Working from home has been widely considered to offer the potential for greater flexibility (Felstead et al., 2002; Sullivan & Smithson, 2007) for many who may have found themselves more constrained by long commutes, extended office hours and imposed routines. Writers have long argued that properly implemented home-based working can enable employees to achieve improved work–life balance by facilitating the optimisation of both work and family responsibilities, as well as providing more time for family and leisure (Crosbie & Moore, 2004; Powell & Craig, 2015). Work–life balance and home-based working therefore remain at the heart of debates around the potential for improvements in employee well-being and productivity.
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A BRIEF EXPERIENCE OF PANDEMIC-ENFORCED HOMEWORKING The successes of the pandemic home-based working are not as clear cut as some commentators would like to portray. As our project identified, not everyone has the luxury of a spare room or even a desk that can be dedicated to home-based working or is engaged in work tasks that can be conducted expediently via technology (or indeed has unproblematic access to this technology) (Figures 29.1 and 29.2).
Figure 29.1
Survey one (June–July 2020) – satisfaction with home working space
Data from our first survey at the start of the pandemic showed a statistically significant difference by gender in terms of access to homeworking spaces, with women being less likely to have a dedicated room than men. Only 51% of women reported that they had a dedicated room compared to 65% of men. This difference was statistically significant at the 1% level (χ2 (1, 1312) = 13.95, p < 0.001). Although there are very specific issues related to pandemic home-based working, such as the closure of schools and nurseries, our data clearly showed that at the start of the pandemic homeworkers with children under the age of ten reported significantly poorer work–life balance than respondents with no children or older children. The problem with working with small children was clearly articulated by our interview participants. From our first round of interviews during spring 2020, a male project manager noted: So we’re a family of four, so my wife and my two young boys. So they’re not at nursery, obviously, so they’ve been at home the whole time. So I work in our bedroom, it’s not the greatest setup either. I don’t feel totally – I don’t feel like it’s a workspace at all really, and I can always hear [laughs] I can always hear the kids, basically. If they’re having fun in the garden I can hear them, but if they’re crying I can hear them as well. So, it just – it’s just a niggle all the time… But – and that’s the bit that
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Figure 29.2
Survey one (June–July 2020) – availability of dedicated homeworking space
I’m finding difficult when I work from home, is if I go and make a cup of tea and he asks me to play cars, I get that guilt straight away of – my natural reaction is, I’ve got to go and do my work. But if I’ve not got a call, or if I’ve got a video call, or something really important to come back to then I’ll have to tell him, no, I’ve got to get on with my work and I have to just come back upstairs and shut the door. But if it is I’m just coming back to a spreadsheet, or a document I’m working on, then I might just say, yeah, I’ll give in – you know? That’s the – it’s, kind of.
It was clear from many of our participants that home-based working was much easier when children returned to school, as noted by a female administrator participating in interview three during Spring 2021: So, they’re all back at school. So, that makes it a little easier. Obviously, for, well, for one of them, they’re still doing the school run because things like school clubs aren’t really running…. well, I’m still, yeah, I’m probably doing more hours of actual work whereas before, you know, I might lose two or three hours of a workday to do home schooling or childcare or whatever.
However, the pandemic presented particular challenges for managers who had to operate with a team composed of members with parental responsibilities. In the second round of interviews in autumn 2020, a director of advisory services discussed some of the challenges she faced in accommodating caring responsibilities as detailed below. Yes, we have had quite a lot of that because of home schooling. So I have got quite a lot of, an awful lot of my team, have chosen to work from home for various reasons. But there is a fair few that it is because of kids and childcare. And yes, working in a food factory is usually 12-hour days. It is not normally conducive to bringing up a family. So, they have done their times in the factories and they have come out and this is a really good job for them, to give them that freedom. But it means I have probably 80% of the team have got school-age kids, and that had caused some major issues. I have two ladies on furlough at the moment who are on furlough, not because we haven’t got work, but
440 Research handbook on inequalities and work because they cannot work with their kids at home. I don’t actually know how I am going to get them back in, because schools don’t seem to be showing any sign of opening. We are obviously coming up to summer holidays, so we have got another six weeks yet. And they are talking about not knowing what is going to happen in September. And again, because we do such a detailed job, it does take a lot of concentration. And one of the, if she couldn’t stay on furlough she would resign because she literally couldn’t work with the kids at home. And the other one was struggling so much, we just said look go on furlough. And we have backfilled them both with contractors, but we need, we need the work done. It is not that we are short of work.
Other participants commented on the appearance of children in meetings and managers were often aware of the gendered nature of care in terms of home schooling being mostly the responsibility of a female partner. There were also comments about the tensions that occurred in the home environment due to multiple adults trying to work in the same home. So I have got to, recognise that people are going through, it is really tough for them. And quite a lot of them have said that what they have found really hard was their husband working from home. Because their husband seems to have decided that he can go into their office as well. And they say, you’re so loud on the telephone.
Whilst the above is a brief presentation of pandemic-driven home-based working, it is also important to recognise that we identified significant variations from the common narrative presented about the benefits for all of home-based work. We thus need to understand what needs to be put in place for home-based working beyond pandemic measures.
HOME-BASED WORKING, WORKING HOURS AND OVERWORK Across much of the Western world, we are very much wedded to the concept of the eight-hour working day and five-day week. In the UK, the move to the nine-to-five working day started with the welcome limitations placed on child labour. In the early 1800s Robert Owen in his cotton mill at New Lanark instituted a 12-hour day for women and children with 1.5 hours for meals (Gorb, 1951). By 1817 Owen moved to a goal of an eight-hour day for all with the slogan, ‘Eight hours’ labour, Eight hours’ recreation, Eight hours’ rest’. Owen lobbied Sir Robert Peel with moderate success to limit the working hours of children in particular as part of the 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts. However, it was not until 1847 that women and children in the UK were allowed a ten-hour working day. By the 1840s and 1850s, there was more robust legislation in Australia and New Zealand limiting the working day for all to eight hours (Anderson, 2011). In the UK however the 1833 Factory Act limited the working day for 9–13-year-olds to eight hours and 12 hours for those aged 14–18. Children under nine were not allowed to work and had to attend school (Clark, 1991). In 1884 the Social Democratic Federation with Tom Mann published a leaflet creating a case for a universal eight-hour working day. Mann subsequently formed the Eight Hours League which pressurised the Trades Union Congress to focus on the eight-hour goal as a central ambition (Duffy, 1961). The book Eight Hours Movement written by academic Harold Cox and British Socialist Sidney Webb developed a research-informed argument supporting the eight-hour day (Cross, 1986). In 1880 a gasworks in Beckton achieved the first eight-hour day in the UK following strike action over excessive working hours. The gas workers were led by
Future of working at home 441 Will Thorne, who was the founder of the organisation that is now the GMB union (Bluden, 2016). Currently, UK working hours are specified following the European Commission (2003) Working Time Directive, which has a maximum limit for working hours of 40 hours a week for those under 18 and of 48 hours for those over 18. Nonetheless, in the UK employees can choose to work more than 48 hours a week on average if they are over 18. Whilst employers can ask employees to work more than 48 hours a week, workers cannot be sacked or treated unfairly for refusing to do so. The eight-hour day is thus an arbitrary metric created as a response to the exploitation of 19th-century industrial worker yet accepted as the ‘norm’ for full-time work in the UK. What can pandemic-driven homeworking tell us about the reality of modern working hours? Steve Glaveski (2018) in the Harvard Business Review, whilst calling for a six-hour day, wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek piece about the distribution of time when working in the office. He identified problems with the fixation on hour-long meetings for matters that may not require either a meeting or indeed an hour; interruptions due to emails and instant messages; travelling for a meeting when a phone call may suffice; the cognitive penalty of switching from one talk to another constantly; and the time spent on rudimentary and administrative tasks, to name a few issues related to excessive work. Further, writers such as Lee (1916) have discussed the physiological irrationality of the eight-hour working day. As we can identify from the information above, the length of the working day is socially determined rather than biologically determined. This is not a new debate and is central to Marx’s belief about the priority of capital to subjugate labour through consumption rather than value health. Marxian analyses focus on the role of class power in determining ‘normal’ hours of work. Normalised working hours are seen to be set by industry norms and legislation. Marx argues that ‘the establishment of a norm for the working day, presents itself as a struggle between collective capital, i.e.: the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e.: the working class’ (1867, p. 344). Broadly, the capitalists are seen to want to make workers spend as long as possible in the workplace not solely for the ‘positive’ impact on surplus value but because workers themselves frequently provide a significant market for the goods being produced (see Ford and the sale of the Model T to workers). For Marx there is a clear relationship between consumption and overwork: Long hours of labour seem to be the secret of these ‘rational and healthful processes’, which are to raise the condition of the worker by improving his ‘mental and moral powers’ and making a rational consumer out of him. In order to become a rational consumer of the capitalists’ commodities, he must before all else – but the demagogues prevent him – begin by letting his own labour-power be consumed irrationally and in a way contrary to his own health, by the capitalist who employs him. (Marx, 1885, pp. 591–592)
Within contemporary working life there are reasons in addition to the sales of material goods that made long hours working desirable. We all operate in a 24-hour global society and the longer employees work the more available they become to respond to the emails, phone calls and messages that may emerge outside working hours from clients, customers and colleagues across the globe. However, again, while this extended working day appears to benefit employers, workers struggle with eight hours, never mind a longer period of labour. Although it is the accessibility of the technology that affords the opportunity to extend the working day, the technology itself also creates an impossible working scenario. If we look at our data across
442 Research handbook on inequalities and work the three surveys, then the number of working hours did not change much between pre-Covid figures, Covid-driven homeworking measures and the start of 2022, with full-time workers varying little from 40 to 41 hours working a week. There has been a considerable body of work more broadly looking at cognitive and emotional overload from a psychological perspective. For example, Harris et al. (2015) found that technological overload leads to greater work–family conflict. Overload comes not only from the competing pressures of novel technologies and communication frequency, as detailed earlier, but also from the enduring nature of the connection to the world of work. Sandoval-Reyes et al. (2019) found that a more permanent connection to work as a product of technology leads to workday extensions and work overload as a result of a diminished ability to detach psychologically. The ubiquitous nature of mobile devices blurs the work–life boundary.
IMPACT OF COLLABORATIVE SOFTWARE AND VIDEO CONFERENCING TECHNOLOGY ON WORKERS In a typical (office-based) workday, there are emotional and material buffers between meetings; for example, the informal debrief in the corridor or the quick catch up before the meeting. However, in a homeworking environment, workers are missing a range of ‘buffer’ activities associated with work, including the commute. It is these activities that form a key part of the natural change of pace during the day and that mitigate to some extent overload and intensification. This problem was made very clear by a number of our participants: One of the things that we’re all finding is that lack of personal interaction, that – specially the school, you go from one class to another class, you meet colleagues, that social personal interaction is a big part of the working day. (Male, modern language secondary teacher) I definitely miss the having a coffee break and running into someone random and having a chat and seeing how they are getting on. I think I also miss socialising just with my friends so outside of office is also definitely one thing that I am missing. (Young female graduate, financial services)
It is also apparent from our data that there is a substantial difference between the degree of use of collaborative technology when working in an office environment and working at home. As indicated in Figures 29.3 and 29.4, when working in their employer’s workspace respondents spent much less time engaging with collaborative and video conferencing software (CVCS) during a typical working day, signalling a return to face-to-face engagement. Importantly, when working is dominated by information and communication technologies (ICT), and in particular collaborative and video conferencing software, we found a significant impact on the pace of work and employee well-being. To give a flavour of this impact, survey two found that 26% of participants identified that CVCS forced them to work harder than they were used to, 24% believed that CVCS forced them to undertake more work than they could handle and 33% felt that CVCS forced them to work to increasingly tight time schedules. I think the biggest issue is the technology and it either works or it doesn’t. I think the difference is not having that face-to-face contact as it were, that inter-personnel relationship building. You can see people’s body language, you can see their facial expressions when you’re there in front of them and you can do that to a degree via conference call or video conference call but it’s not quite the same in
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Figure 29.3
Survey two (December 2020–February 2021) – time spent working with video conferencing software when remote working
Figure 29.4
Survey two (December 2020–February 2021) – time spent working with video conferencing software when working from the employer’s workspace
444 Research handbook on inequalities and work terms of, I don’t know, empathy. It is very much more clinical if you like, and a little stilted when you haven’t got that person directly in front of you face to face. (Male, senior project manager)
A significant proportion of participants not only felt that CVCS negatively impacted their working lives but also transferred to problems in their non-work experiences. For example, 35% of participants reported working during annual leave because CVCS afforded them the opportunity to do so, 32% felt that they had had to sacrifice holiday time because of the additional demands placed by CVCS and 37% of people felt that CVCS had had a negative impact on their personal lives. The ‘eradication of leisure’ (Boggis, 2001) is not a new phenomenon but appears to be magnified for those working at home. This magnification is not solely due to the increased pressures on individuals due to the measures put in place at the peak of the pandemic but, as we found, such technological pressures are still extreme for homeworkers and as such this degree of work burden has become normalised. In part, the pandemic has some degree of responsibility. The lack of mobility during the period of lockdown forced workers to feel ‘able’ to be switched on to work more of the time. Often this was rationalised in terms of guilt for having to undertake caring duties during the pandemic but slowly this extension of the working day became normalised. I’m 100% sure of that. I’ve never like, I’ve just like sit nine o’clock and I don’t move from there. Like, not even to, most of the time I don’t even stop to have lunch, it’s like okay I want to get it out and sometimes I realise and it’s like I’m supposed to finish at five and suddenly it’s like six thirty and there is still like things to do. So, I believe that at least for my case, productivity is like way higher. I don’t know if it is the same for the rest of the team, but there is like part of the team that I do feel that do like really work a lot and others that, I don’t know if they are working or if they are having a beer with their flatmates. So, it is a bit of a – I also had – like I had that fear that it would be perceived from my bosses that I wouldn’t, like I’m not working and I’m just like having a chat with my boyfriend or with my flatmates and that was like a big fear because it is like okay I am working like crazy, like I’m not getting paid for all the hours that I am over working and you don’t even know that I’m actually over working. But if things that I want to get out of the way and I want things to be sorted and working, but I wouldn’t like you to think that I’m actually not working. That I just like wake up and lie in bed. (Female, reception and reservations manager) Well, it’s supposed to be that all together I will work 16 but I usually end up working more, I do. Because the casework takes much more like things I could do on the phone during the day I usually do in writing at night and send it over. So, I could get it quickly done you know, if I raised a complaint with someone on the phone on behalf of a client it takes me five minutes. If I have to do it in writing officially it takes me like half an hour to draft a proper good letter. So, I think it’s hard to manage the time because in the evening time I am like more tired. And it’s usually that I end up like you know going to bed like midnight. And I really wish I could get back to normal [laughing] hours and to be back to the office. (Female, Citizens Advice adviser)
Whilst CVCS has become highly normalised in a working environment, there appears also to be an increase in the use of mobile phones for work purposes, particularly when working at home and this merges the boundaries between home and work even more so (e.g. Dén-Nagy, 2014). While working from home can have a positive outcome for both employees and organisations by enhancing work–life balance, well-being and productivity, it is important to recognise that home-based working can also present vulnerabilities, including overwork and social isolation (Cooper & Kurland, 2002; O’Neil et al., 2009). Evidence of technostress is inherent in our data and is also supported by Molino et al.’s (2020) work on pandemic-driven CVCS adoption in Italy. In the heightened context of Covid-19 lockdowns, this has also manifested
Future of working at home 445 in increased rates of divorce and domestic violence (Ford, 2020; Grierson, 2020). Clearly, the relationship between home-based working and work–life balance is not a simple one (Moore, 2006; Sullivan, 2012).
THE PANDEMIC AND BEYOND When we look at home-based working post-pandemic, organisational support is likely to be a significant factor in its success (Lewis et al., 2007). Gálvez et al. (2011) identified three key factors in organisational support for work–life balance for teleworkers: a widely available telework programme; technological infrastructure; and line managers who support those who telework. Support is also important in limiting any negative organisational factors such as poor career opportunities, fragmented teams and professional isolation (Sullivan, 2012). However, a remote relationship with the organisation can also create challenges. The sense of control implicit in notions of flexibility may itself be illusory: policies and practices can obscure persistent rules, prohibitions and other means of control derived from organisational norms and expectations and home-based working has been identified as having the potential for work intensification (Bathini & Kandathil, 2019). If we start therefore with the perception of flexibility, interestingly, throughout all three surveys many of our participants perceived that they were afforded flexibility by their workplace. Indeed, there were minimal differences between responses regarding flexibility between the surveys. If we look at the survey conducted at the end of 2021/start of 2022 (Figure 29.5), we can see that over 50% of participants felt that they had a good degree of flexibility. However, it should also be noted that male participants perceived a greater amount of flexibil-
Figure 29.5
Survey three (November 2021–February 2022) – perceptions of flexibility
446 Research handbook on inequalities and work ity than female colleagues. This difference was statistically significant at the 1% level (χ2 (4, 1546) = 27.79, p < 0.001). Some of our interview participants discussed how they have always had a flexible working model. For example, a male employee from a local council noted: As for our employer, for [name of local council], we have always operated on a basis of like managed by output and outcome rather than presence and the presenteeism thing so we have always had that flexibility from the council actually… I mean we have got quite a trusting and accepting team really and we operate on like an adult-to-adult sort of basis and just mutual trust and respect. And we totally manage the outcomes and outputs so you know as long as the job is done when it needs to be done it doesn’t matter how it is done or when it is done.
However, for others, the opportunity for increased flexibility was based on the learning process experienced throughout the pandemic, as for example a female IT specialist observed: Yes, I think it has definitely improved my productivity, and fortunately, and I shouldn’t be saying this as there’s too many people, but if I am, I remember some days for example, I was in the office and I was very tired. I didn’t, I hadn’t slept well for whatever reason, or I have my period and I was in pain and I was taking painkillers and it was, it was like a torture of a day. So, what I was practically doing is I was there, I like mentally refused to do anything except from just responding to things, and I would make it up to me to do double or triple or whatever the work by the end of the week. Because like, we are in a line of work that you are producing something you know, daily, I have to get it done like I have a certain amount of work that needs to be done by the end of the week and at work I can do that. So, what I would do is that I would the spend a day in the office feeling exhausted just looking at the clock to go home, and obviously this lost time. Because now if this happens now, I can minimise this time to two hours, because I would lay in the bed, I would take some painkillers and sleep a bit more and I would utilise the rest of the day [unclear]. So, I have never, I’ve never felt like I’ve wasted a whole day working from home.
It was evident that line managers were key for both the success of implementation and the affordance of flexibility for employees: But one of the big things about having a team that work from home is, you do have to trust them. There has to be trust. You will drive yourself mad as a manager if you are trying to monitor what people are doing when they’re at home, because actually you can’t do that. And I do it, I go and make a cup of tea and go and put the washing machine on. Why shouldn’t I? If I was in an office, I’d probably stand and have a 10-minute chat with someone by the water cooler, and I don’t have any issue with people doing – and people will ping me and say, you know, ‘The dog’s ill, I need to take it to the vet’, and it’s like, that’s fine, because I know they’ll make the time back, because they appreciate the freedom they have from working from home. You get far more work out of people who work from home than you do from people in an office, because they appreciate it. (Female, senior team manager)
The perception of being separated from colleagues and the lack of opportunities for emotional and social interaction with colleagues and managers was a problem for several of our interview participants. For example, a male modern language secondary teacher commented that: One of the things that we’re all finding is that lack of personal interaction, that – specially the school, you go from one class to another class, you meet colleagues, that social personal interaction is a big part of the working day.
He further observed:
Future of working at home 447 But what I would also say is, that actually the joy of teaching is standing up in front of the class, engaging with the class, having a laugh with the class, and just sitting gawping at the laptop day in and day out, that’s not why I went into the teaching profession.
Another participant, a senior project manager for a local council, noted: No, I think the biggest – the technology is the technology and it either works or it doesn’t. I think the difference is not having that face-to-face contact as it were, that inter-personnel relationship building. You can see people’s body language, you can see their facial expressions when you’re there in front of them and you can do that to a degree via conference call or video conference call but it’s not quite the same in terms of, I don’t know, empathy. It is very much more clinical if you like, and a little stilted when you haven’t got that person directly in front of you face to face.
Indeed, earlier studies identified the detrimental impact of social isolation on well-being (Stephenson & Bauer, 2010). Considering the extreme social isolation during the pandemic we would expect that employee well-being would have been at its lowest at this point. Nonetheless, there was little variation between employees’ well-being at the start of the pandemic and in early 2022.
Figure 29.6
Levels of strain across the three surveys
These past two years have seen high levels of strain for both men and women. Figure 29.6 shows that 54% of respondents reported feeling constantly under strain during June–July 2020 whilst working from home and that this percentage had fallen to 39% in the second survey (December 2020 to February 2021). This reflects a 15% reduction, possibly indicating that respondents were able to adapt to their new situation after the initial shock at the onset of the pandemic. However, the percentage of respondents reporting that they felt constantly under
448 Research handbook on inequalities and work stress was nonetheless high and remained high (at 39% once again) into the November 2021 to February 2022 period.
Figure 29.7
Feelings of unhappiness and depression across the three surveys
While the data on feeling under strain show a decline between the first and second surveys, data on feelings of unhappiness and depression did not fall until the most recent period (Figure 29.7). The data show that 45% of respondents felt unhappy and depressed during June–July 2020 whilst working from home and that 43% of respondents reported this during December 2020–February 2021. By November 2021–February 2022, this had declined to 32%; however, almost one third of respondents reporting poor mental health still represents a worrying proportion of people feeling unhappy and depressed. Overall, the high rates of feelings of constant strain and feelings of unhappiness and depression seen above were even higher for women than for men. In the period from June to July 2020, 56% of women and 47% of men reported that they felt constantly under strain, a difference of 9% (Figure 29.8). During the period from December 2020 to February 2021, 42% of women and 36% of men reported that they felt constantly under strain, a difference of 6%. In the most recent survey, 42% of women and 35% of men reported that they recently felt constantly under strain, a difference of 7%. In all three time periods, the differences between men and women were statistically significant (in period one, the difference was statistically significant at the 5% level (χ2 (4, 1318) = 10.01, p < 0.005); in period two, the difference was statistically significant at the 1% level (χ2 (4, 1226) = 17.69, p < 0.001); and in period three, the difference was statistically significant at the 5% level (χ2 (4, 1558) = 15.32, p < 0.005)). Regarding feelings of unhappiness and depression, men and women reported similar levels in the June–July 2020 period, with 45% of women compared to 44% of men reporting that
Future of working at home 449
Figure 29.8
Trendlines for levels of strain across the three surveys by gender
Figure 29.9
Trendlines for feelings of unhappiness and depression across the three surveys by gender
they felt unhappy or depressed (Figure 29.9). This difference was not statistically significant. The data show that the percentage of male respondents who were experiencing such feelings fell to 37%, while the percentage of female respondents experiencing such feelings rose to
450 Research handbook on inequalities and work 48%. This was a difference of 11 percentage points and was statistically significant at the 1% level (χ2 (4, 1224) = 41.22, p < 0.001). In the period November 2021–February 2022, rates of depression appeared to fall somewhat for both groups, although the decline was steeper for men. In this period, 40% of women compared to 27% of men reported that they recently felt depressed, a difference of 13%. This difference was statistically significant at the 1% level (χ2 (4, 1558) = 43.05, p < 0.001). What is clear is the responses to our surveys therefore suggest that women were more affected by pandemic-driven changes in terms of damage to well-being than their male colleagues.
IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC ON WOMEN In addition to having direct negative effects for women’s employment in terms of reduced opportunities in female dominated sectors (International Labour Organisation, 2020), the pandemic may also have had wider implications for gender inequality. School and nursery closures increased caregiving responsibilities and our data, as can be seen above, seemed to place a large burden on women. From our Working@Home project, we noted a change in women’s and men’s patterns of work and their experiences of work and the relationship between paid work and domestic work changed during the pandemic. As we can see from earlier in this chapter, women were less likely to have access to a dedicated room when working from home. Moreover, they were more likely to be responsible for child- and eldercare than men.
Figure 29.10 Childcare responsibilities across the three surveys by gender Data from the period June–July 2020 show that 81% of women reported that their children lived with them full-time or some of the time compared to 70% for men (Figure 29.10). This difference indicates that some of the female respondents may have been single mothers. The
Future of working at home 451 percentage of women who indicated that their children were living with them was consistently higher for female respondents than for male respondents – 77% compared to 74% in the period December 2020–February 2021 and 83% compared to 74% in the period November 2021–February 2022.
Figure 29.11 Other caring responsibilities across the three surveys by gender In general, women were also more likely than men to have other caring responsibilities beyond childcare during the lockdown (Figure 29.11). Data from the period June–July 2020 show that 20% of women had other caring responsibilities compared to 14% of men. In the period December 2020–February 2021, 8% of women had other caring responsibilities compared to 3% of men. For both groups, this reflects a decrease in reporting other caring responsibilities compared to the period June–July 2020. Overall, there appears to be more pressure on women’s time than there is for men. From all three surveys, it is clear that women were more likely to take responsibility for domestic labour than men. Data from our third survey at the end of 2021 and the start of 2022 clearly demonstrate this additional burden. Fifty-six percent of women reported undertaking all the domestic chores compared to only 36% of men and 15% of women described undertaking more than their share compared to only 8% of men (for reference, 21% of the women in our sample lived on their own or with children) (Figure 29.12). Whilst 48% of men claimed that the domestic chores were equally distributed within their household, only 27% believed that the adult residents in the house shared domestic labour equally. Only 2% of women answered that they undertook less than their share compared to 8% of men. These findings are similar to the first two surveys; however, they show an ever-increasing trend towards women reporting taking on more and more domestic chores. This increase in burden on women may to some extent relate to the slow move back to the office for many. This difference in reporting was statistically significant at the 1% level (χ2 (3, 1558) = 111.32, p < 0.001).
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Figure 29.12 Survey three (November 2021–February 2022) – responsibility for domestic labour by gender
THE FUTURE OF HOME-BASED WORKING The future of home-based working is still unwritten. However, there will be two key factors that will surely determine whether the Covid-inspired experiment has a meaningful influence on the future of work: firstly, whether there is a sufficiently convincing narrative about increased productivity, and secondly, what proportion of the workforce can cope with the potential stress and isolation of working from home? The key issue for employers is clearly the impact home-based working has on employee productivity. Historically, there has been no agreement on this. Bloom et al. (2015) suggest that working from home boosted productivity for those in a call centre setting. This work and other contributions (e.g. CIPD, 2022) position any increase in productivity as an outcome of the ‘peace’ that is afforded to home-based workers. In fact, Bloom and colleagues’ more recent work (Barrero et al., 2001) argues that ‘working from home will stick’. However, despite some positive indications of increased productivity, compelling counter positions argue that in the longer term productivity will decrease due to the distractions that prevail within the domestic setting, as well as the collegiality and ease of knowledge sharing embedded within the office environment (e.g., Thorgeirsdottir, 2013; Van der Lippe & Lippényi, 2019). Certainly, our data suggest that whilst retaining and sometimes enhancing productivity, employees were starting to become exhausted with the pervasive interference of technology, the back-to-back online meetings and the perceived pressure of digital presenteeism, as workers felt obliged to evidence to their employer that they are as effective at home as they are in the office. As demonstrated earlier in the chapter, this pressure seems to have led to a home-based workforce that is on the brink of a mental health crisis. Employees for the most part still however appear to want the flexibility of working partly in the office and partly at home, which may mitigate the disadvantages of home-based working
Future of working at home 453 and exploit the benefits. Thus, there is certainly support for a hybrid pattern of working for many. However, within the body of employees, there are still some that wish to remain at home and some that wish to be entirely based back in the office. Not only do employers have to negotiate their needs with the competing demands of employees; employers also need to be mindful of the needs of workers who are unable to work from home due to the nature of their job role or of their domestic scenario. Certainly, the pandemic has at least started meaningful conversations about the reality of hybrid and home-based working, as well as other forms of flexibility, including reduced working weeks and community-based working hubs. Whether these positive discussions become the reality and lead to a healthier, less pressurised and more productive world of work only time will tell.
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Future of working at home 455 Thorgeirsdottir, T. (2013). ‘Now you see them, now you don’t’: Impact of flexible work arrangements on intra-workgroup relations. MSc thesis. Retrieved 21 July 2022 from https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac .uk/handle/1826/12489. Van Der Lippe, T. and Lippényi, Z. (2020). Co-workers working from home and individual and team performance. New Technology, Work and Employment, 35(1), 60–79.
30. Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society – the perfect storm to highlight racial inequalities Nicolas Treloar
INTRODUCTION The murder of George Floyd on the 25th May 2020 rightfully sent shockwaves around the world. A Black person, once again, had been murdered in front of our eyes. Perhaps what was different this time was that the world was in a state of lockdown. COVID-19 had already begun to indiscriminately kill people the world over. However, what quickly became apparent was that Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) people were facing the worst impacts of this virus. In a sense, we were collectively facing the same storm but facing it from within very different boats. The murder of George Floyd told us nothing new – that the lives of Black people were seen as lesser and that in 2020 a police officer could still murder with no compunction or fear. The treatment of BME people as second-class citizens has a long history going back to slavery and colonialism, with societies today built on past and current exploitation of BME people. This has meant that BME individuals and groups (in the UK for the purposes of this chapter) face well-documented disparities in educational outcomes and labour market and job access/ opportunities, (un)equal treatment in the workplace, disproportionately negative interactions with state institutions (hostile environment policies and criminal justice) and severely disproportionate health outcomes. With this in mind, the notion of ‘race’ being a social determinant of health is well-documented in the academic sphere (Hackett et al., 2020; Williams and Mohammed, 2009). In essence, as a result of your ‘race’ you are more likely to suffer from worse health outcomes. This much is also true for the above-mentioned areas and with socio-economic markers, which disproportionately disadvantage BME groups.
WHAT IS RACISM? Society usually presents racism as an individual thing – the case of a few bad apples. Indeed, this can be racism in its most visceral form. Some research shows racism is a multi-level problem, which operates across the levels of the individual, organisation, and the society (Öztürk and Berber, 2022), and that ‘taking the bait’ of the individual only serves to ignore the real problem: institutional racism (also referred to as structural and systemic racism) (Bourne, 2021; Feagin 2013). Institutional racism is perhaps the most deep, insidious, and often hardest to see form of racism – as opposed to individual racism, which can all too often be seen at football matches and on Twitter. In other words, all racism is bad, but institutional racism is more 456
Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society 457 dangerous and harder to see. Sometimes it is tricky to understand how societies have become racist or how an institution or structure can be racist. This is why history and context are so important and matter so much. People of colour are held back from achieving their cultural, political, and economic potential. As Dr Sanjiv Lingayah (2021) explains: We can say that systemic racism is the condition where society’s laws, institutional practices, customs and guiding ideas combine to harm racially minoritised populations in ways not experienced by white counterparts… Systemic racism results in patterns whereby some people who are racially minoritised are over-scrutinised, over-sanctioned, under-served and under-valued in various settings, such as in schools, by the police, by social and health services, and in the jobs market. Ultimately, the existence and extent of systemic racism is an empirical question, revealed by familiar and persistent patterns of racial disparities in a range of domains. And on this empirical basis, there should be no doubt that our society is systemically racist.
One of the outcomes of the murder of George Floyd and the partial awakening to the realities of racial inequality and racism has seen racism as an institutional force become more accepted in daily narratives. The COVID-19 pandemic has been the perfect demonstration of how the disadvantages BME groups face in the UK are institutional. The disproportionate deaths, infection rates, and experiences prove once again that racism exists, that it is unfortunately alive and well and continues to discriminate, costing people their lives.
COVID-19 The coronavirus pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the very real social and economic barriers that different ethnic minority groups face. In 2017, nearly half of all Black children and well in excess of half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani children were living in poverty (Khan, 2020a). Yet policy has not been guided and led by such statistics; instead we hear politicians speaking of issues of racism as being ‘fashionable’ and a growing movement to discredit what the race equality movement broadly is seeking to achieve – namely, equal access, opportunities, experiences, and life chances. The pre-existing conditions of the pandemic meant that BME groups had been set up to fail and bear a disproportionate brunt of this virus. Ethnic minorities are economically vulnerable. On average, they own less, earn less, have less in savings to weather economic uncertainties such as COVID-19, tend to be overqualified for their roles, tend to be overrepresented in insecure work, and have higher unemployment rates (Weekes-Bernard, 2017). Although these disparities can vary between groups, ethnic minorities are concentrated in sectors that have been negatively affected by the lockdown(s) and they are overrepresented in ‘key worker’ industries, including healthcare, and within zero hours contracts roles. For context, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (Joyce and Xu, 2020) found that Black African and Black Caribbean men were 50% more likely than White British men to work in shutdown sectors. The pandemic has also shone a light on the fact that crises do indeed discriminate along racial lines and COVID-19 has demonstrated just that. BME communities are more likely to be living in poverty than White British people, to be in the lowest paid work, and to have had lower levels of savings when the pandemic hit (Social Metrics Commission, 2021; Khan, 2020a). This is due to lower wages, higher unemployment rates, higher rates of part-time
458 Research handbook on inequalities and work working, higher housing costs in England’s large cities (especially London), and slightly larger household sizes. With higher rates of poverty, naturally come higher rates of child poverty, an under-examined outcome of the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, 59% of Bangladeshi children, 54% of Pakistani children, and 47% of Black children lived below the poverty line in the UK (Weekes-Bernard, 2017). Such figures do not just do harm to these children at a young age but have long-term scarring effects on their life chances and economic positioning into adult life. The pandemic has thrown more ‘at-risk’ families into economic peril, with lumpy costs such as for home-schooling, which may be impossible to meet for some. In other words, the COVID-19 crisis has thrown into sharper focus the way racial inequalities in education, employment, and housing lead to unequal economic outcomes.
BOX 30.1 PRE-COVID-19 STATISTICS – UNEQUAL OUTCOMES FOR BME GROUPS BEFORE THE PANDEMIC • Black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women in the UK; Asian women are twice as likely to die compared to white women (NPEU, 2019); • Just 21% of Black African households own their own home, compared to 68% of White British ones (Fewehinmi, 2019); • Black African and Bangladeshi households have ten times less wealth than White British people (Khan, 2020a); • BME communities are more likely to be living in poverty than White British people (Runnymede Trust, 2020a); • For those in the lowest 10% of economic households, which are disproportionally BME, they would have to spend 74% of their household income in order to meet the health standards as outlined by EatWell (The Food Foundation, 2019). The above statistics have, in part, ultimately led to Black people being four times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts (Booth and Barr, 2020).
SET UP TO FAIL – COVID-19 HAS NOT HAD AN ‘EQUAL’ IMPACT ON ALL The pre-existing inequalities facing BME groups have been sharpened by COVID-19. Overall, there have been higher levels of lost income, greater growing debt as a result of low pay, more insecure work and redundancies, and a lower ability to be able to work from home as a result of the roles that they do (Women and Equalities Committee, 2021). COVID-19 has not just been a health crisis for BME groups in the UK; it has also been a social and economic crisis. Racial discrimination is, like poverty, a ‘social determinant of health’. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on Ethnic Minority people in terms of loss of life. Even when age, sex, and geography are taken into account, the estimated death rate for people of Black African heritage was 3.5 times higher than for White Britons (BBC, 2020).
Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society 459 For people of Black Caribbean heritage, per capita deaths were 1.7 times higher, rising to 2.7 times higher for those with Pakistani heritage (BBC, 2020). The above figures are not unrelated to economic precarity. On average, these groups earn less, own less, and have lower levels of savings needed to weather the long-term uncertainty of COVID-19 (British Academy, 2021). Whilst this varies between groups, ethnic minorities are concentrated in sectors that have been disproportionately affected by lockdowns and are overrepresented in ‘key worker’ industries (ibid.). The way in which society hinders the progression of BME groups in education, employment, and more broadly economically has been highlighted in two key ways by the COVID-19 crisis: ● Increased exposure to infection and the subsequent health risks, including mortality; ● Greater risk of exposure to loss of income. These greater risks are highlighted by a number of the aforementioned pre-existing conditions. These include but are not exhausted by: the disproportionate number of BME deaths from COVID-19 tracking existing social determinants of health (Khan, 2020b); age-standardised ONS data on COVID-19 deaths by local area and socio-economic deprivation showing that deaths are 118% higher in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived areas (Office for National Statistics, 2020a); one in two BME people live below the poverty line compared to only one in four of their White counterparts (Goulden, 2020), meaning the economic hardship experienced as a result of COVID-19 will have had a disproportionate impact on them; and in 2017/18, 45% of ethnic minority children were living in poverty compared to 20% of White British children in the UK (EHRC, 2018). As work from both 2020 and 2021 found, BME people were more likely than White people to have been hospitalised with the virus, to be living in overcrowded households, to be working outside of their homes, and to have lower levels of pre-pandemic economic savings, meaning they would have been more severely hit by the pandemic, and they were less likely to have heard of or been aware of government measures designed to help them throughout the crisis (Haque et al, 2020). Even when government measures have been heard of, these have often been inadequate in ensuring the necessary protections for those that need it most.
PRE-EXISTING SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS – WHY THIS HAS MATTERED AND MADE COVID-19 WORSE People from BME backgrounds are more likely to be working in sectors such as health and social care (Office for National Statistics, 2020b), more likely to be vulnerable to the economic and health impacts of the crisis (gov.uk, 2020), and more likely to be in insecure labour, living in overcrowded housing, living below the poverty line, and to have higher exposure rates to COVID-19 (Runnymede Trust, 2020a). COVID-19 has compounded these pre-existing conditions and worsened the lives of BME people. For example, the Fawcett Society and the Women’s Budget Group found that, of people who were not in employment due to a disability or retired, over twice as many BME women and men had reported that they had recently lost support from the government (42.5% and 48.3%) than White women and men (12.7% and 20.6%). In particular, BME women
460 Research handbook on inequalities and work expressed particular concern about access to NHS treatment and medicine (Fawcett Society, 2020). The disproportionate infections, deaths, and impact of COVID-19 for BME people rely on pre-existing socio-economic inequalities linked to structural racism rather than biological explanations, which cannot explain away these disparities, as many attempted to do in the early stages of the pandemic by suggesting that it was a ‘vitamin D deficiency’ that was leading to these disproportionate deaths. Perhaps the most important factor at play here is the pre-existing economic poverty, which disproportionally affects BME people. A report by the Social Metrics Commission (2020) found that BME households in the UK were over twice as likely to live in poverty when compared with their White counterparts. BME families are between two and three times more likely to be living in ‘persistent’ poverty when compared to White households. The commission went on to find that BME households were more likely to be in ‘deep poverty’ compared to White families. One in ten adults from Black British, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or mixed backgrounds are unemployed compared with one in twenty-four White British people. The commission found that 19% of people in families where the head of the household was White lived in poverty compared with 32% for mixed-ethnicity families. Moreover, 46% of Black/ African/Caribbean/Black British families lived in poverty. In other words, people in BME families are between two and three times more likely to be in persistent poverty compared with White families. Indeed, a Runnymede Trust report from 2020, ‘The Colour of Money’ (Khan, 2020a), found that Black African and Bangladeshi households had GBP 0.10 of wealth for every GBP 1 of White British wealth. This means that these households were ten times less able to cover the new impacts of COVID-19 or to make up for their lost income. BME people, who have worse outcomes in the labour market and reduced levels of savings, are then less able to insulate from the ongoing financial impacts of COVID-19. By contrast, White British households hold the most wealth, with on average GBP 282,000 per household compared with Black African and Bangladeshi household wealth standing at around GBP 30,000 per household. Labour market inequalities and changes to tax and benefits since 2010 have also left families on low incomes with less money in their pockets. This has been marked for ethnic minority families, particularly women. Research by the Women’s Budget Group (2016) and the Runnymede Trust (Women’s Budget Group and the Runnymede Trust, 2017) found that the poorest Black and Asian women were hit the hardest by these changes. Such economic shifts are important because they have continued to expose the most financially insecure. This means that when COVID-19 struck the impacts were more keenly felt by those least likely to have a sustainable economic platform. As of 2020, only around 30% of Black Caribbean, Black African, and Bangladeshi households had enough in savings to cover one month of income (Platt and Warwick, 2020). In contrast, nearly 60% of the rest of the population had enough savings to cover one month’s income (Platt and Warwick, 2020). Further to this, among working-age adults, 19% of White people in Britain are living in poverty; this compares with 22% for Indian, 28% for mixed, 29% for Chinese, 39% for Black Caribbean and Black African, and 45% and 46% for Bangladeshi and Pakistani working adults (Butler, 2020).
Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society 461
ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION FOR ETHNIC MINORITIES IN BRITAIN – DEEPER THAN JUST CORONAVIRUS Although BME people are more likely to have a university degree, this has not translated into improved labour market outcomes (Mcgregor Smith Review, 2017). Nearly 40% of Black African graduates are in non-graduate jobs, nearly double the White British rate of 20% (Henehan and Rose, 2018). This is a small microcosm of the way in which structural racism operates today in the UK: more ethnic minorities are entering higher education but disparities in pay persist. Indeed, alongside the necessity for gender pay gap reporting lies an urgent need for ethnicity pay gap reporting. Research by the Resolution Foundation (Henehan and Rose, 2018) found that Black male graduates can expect to be paid 17% less than White male graduates after accounting for their background and their job. This is equivalent to GBP 3.90 an hour, or over GBP 7,000 a year. The reasons for these disparities in education and employment are complex but the evidence suggests that discrimination plays a role (Khan, 2020a). The government’s Race Disparity Audit showed that while employment rates have been improving overall, BME groups are, on average, twice as likely to be unemployed when compared with their White British counterparts and much more likely (particularly Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups) to be in low-skilled and low-paying occupations (Race Disparity Audit, 2018). Furthermore, a Trades Union Congress (TUC) report in 2019 showed that BME groups were twice as likely to be in precarious employment, including zero-hour contracts and agency contracts (TUC, 2019). Deep economic disparities were therefore clearly in existence prior to the COVID-19 crisis, being allowed to run their course. COVID-19 has simply served to heighten and highlight the ultimate outcomes of these disparities: persistent socio-economic inequalities that have existed for decades have cost people their lives.
OVERCROWDED HOUSING AND HOUSEHOLD WORTH As per government data, ethnic minorities live in the most overcrowded accommodation in the country. Even after controlling for regions, only 2% of White British households live in overcrowded housing compared with 30% of Bangladeshi households and 15% of Black African households (Marmot et al., 2020). In London, fewer than 2% of White British households have more residents than rooms. This compares with just under 30% of Bangladeshi households and 16% for Black African households (Platt and Warwick, 2020). Furthermore, people of a BME background have on average 11 times less access to green space than their white counterparts (gov.uk, 2020). These statistics are particularly important when considering the high prevalence of BME workers within key worker, NHS, and care roles and the greater threat of COVID-19 exposure that they face. The most common household size in Britain among adults is two people (34%). By contrast, among adults in Britain from BME backgrounds, the single most common household size is four people (25%). Despite living with more people on average, BME people do not live in households with more rooms than White people, thus making social distancing much harder (Haque et al., 2020). The poorer economic settings mean that paying for housing, and in particular spacious housing, is much harder for a greater proportion of BME individuals. In real terms this means overcrowded housing and fewer rooms for people.
462 Research handbook on inequalities and work From a COVID-19 perspective this has meant that not only are BME workers more likely to work outside of their homes but they are also less likely to be able to self-isolate as a result of their household situation. Work in 2020 (Patel et al., 2020) found that if White people faced the same risk factors relating to COVID-19 as the BME population there would have been an estimated 35,000 to 58,000 extra deaths during the first wave. Overcrowded housing is just one of the many additional risk factors that cause such figures to be a sobering reality.
OVERREPRESENTATION OF KEY WORKERS AND AN INSECURE JOBS MARKET Amongst the key conversations that have been taking place to explain the disproportionate deaths of BME people has been that on the overrepresentation of BME workers amongst what have been classified as ‘key workers’. Work from the Fawcett Society has found that people from ethnic minority backgrounds, particularly Indian, Black African, and Black Caribbean people, are overrepresented in key workers jobs, especially in front-line health and social-care roles, in comparison to their White counterparts. Whilst a Runnymede Trust survey (Haque et al., 2020) found that BME people were more likely than White people to be working outside of their home, a third of BME people were working outside of their home (33%) compared to closer to a quarter of White people (27%), with people of African ethnicity particularly likely to be working outside of their home (41%). The survey also found that a greater proportion of BME key workers than white key workers said that they had not been given adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, over three in ten BME key workers said they had experienced not being given adequate PPE (32%) compared to two in ten White key workers (20%). In their role as key workers, one in ten BME key workers said that they had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment because of their ethnicity (10%). Such figures give weight to the argument that BME groups have been historically mistreated by state institutions and have long-lasting trust issues, continually exacerbated by ‘hostile environment’ policies, amongst other examples. BME workers are also more likely to have been affected by the lockdown. The younger age profile of ethnic minorities means that they are more exposed to the volatile labour market conditions seen in the last 18 months. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) (Joyce and Xu, 2020) found that men from minority groups are more likely to have been affected by the shutdown. Bangladeshi men are four times as likely as White British men to have jobs in shut-down industries due in large part to their concentration in the restaurant sector, and Pakistani men are nearly three times as likely, partly due to their concentration in taxi driving. In the population as a whole women are more likely to work in shut-down sectors. Black African and Black Caribbean men are also both 50% more likely than White British men to be in shut-down sectors (Joyce and Xu, 2020). Self-employment – where incomes continue to be uncertain – is especially prevalent amongst Pakistani and Bangladeshi men. Pakistani men are over 70% more likely to be self-employed than the White British majority. Furthermore, these key workers are likely to be working longer hours and receiving relatively low pay (JARI, 2020). The sorts of jobs where many ethnic minorities are ‘clustered’ are not only low-paid, but they also have limited prospects for progression, training, and wage increases (Khan, 2020a).
Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society 463 The IFS study also found that within the Black African ethnic group almost a third of the working-age population are employed in key worker roles and one in five in health and social care jobs. In other words, this means that a Black African is 50% more likely to be a key worker than a White British working-age person and almost three times as likely to be a health and social care worker. In real terms this is highlighted by the fact that since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, just over one in ten adults in Britain say that they have used public transport – either for work or for any other reason – at least once a week (12%); however, this figure stood at 26% for BME people. This combination combined with the above-mentioned overcrowding of households serves as a double-edged sword to worsen the exposure to COVID-19 for BME groups. Work from Turn2Us also suggests that minority ethnic workers are more likely to have had their employment affected by COVID-19 than White or White British people (Turn2Us, 2020). Overall, ethnic minorities are much more likely to be unemployed even when controlling for previous employment history and the ‘scarring’ effects of unemployment are more pronounced (Li and Heath 2018).
LOW PAY, LACK OF PRE-EXISTING SAVINGS, AND THE ROLE OF GENDER As seen above, BME groups are more likely to be in the lowest paid work and to be living in poverty (JRF, 2017). Government data show that BME families are more likely to be on state benefits and Universal Credit than their White counterparts, particularly when receiving income-related benefits (gov.uk, 2021). BME groups, and BME women in particular, are more likely to be in receipt of state benefits and have an insecure tenancy or job, making them vulnerable to any negative impacts associated with waiting for state benefits, including schemes such as furlough (TUC, 2019). The fact that people with Asian- or African-sounding surnames also have to send in over twice as many CVs to get an interview compared to White people is not a random inequality that can be waved away (FullFact, 2015). It highlights the real racism that inhibits the fair and equal progression of some because of their names and the role that racism plays in issues such as low pay. BME workers are also more likely to participate in the ‘gig’ economy. This figure stands at 25% for BME workers compared with 14% for the general population. Part of this is related to issues such as the above-mentioned CV discrimination, for example. BME workers being forced to take lower paid jobs in more insecure settings regardless of their own skill level (EHRC, 2018) prevents their equal progression. Previous studies from the Runnymede Trust (Khan, 2020a), the IFS (Platt and Warwick, 2020), and the Women’s Budget Group (2016), amongst others, have shown that for many households both short-term and longer-term economic shocks can present serious challenges to their finances. Overall, around 60% of the working-age population live in households with enough savings to cover three months’ worth of income. In comparison, we see that among working-age Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, and Black African individuals, only around 30% live in households that hold enough savings in either current accounts, savings accounts, or ISAs to cover one month of household income. With, as we have seen, such a high proportion of particular ethnic minority groups being overly represented in the ‘gig’ economy, zero-hour
464 Research handbook on inequalities and work contract positions, and self-employment, this places a particular challenge at the door of those already most financially insecure. As the Women’s Budget Group (2020) have highlighted, BME, disabled, and low-income women and single mothers will be struck particularly hard by the gender-insensitive COVID-19 response. The analysis the Women’s Budget Group found that BME women are three times more likely to be in precarious employment, making them less likely to qualify for statuary sick pay and/or furlough. As we have seen, BME people and women in particular are also overrepresented in the NHS and thus at greater risk of both exposure and being affected by the ongoing shortages of PPE (Women’s Budget Group, 2020). The response to the economic fallout from COVID-19 has to not only target interventions at BME groups but particularly at the women found within those groups. BME people are also twice as likely as White people to have not received any form of sick pay even though they have had to self-isolate or go on sick leave (16% of BME people versus 7% of White people). Coupled to this, 29% of Bangladeshi working-age men both work in a shut-down sector and also have a partner who is not in paid work. This figure compares with just 1% of White British men, whilst Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, and Black Africans also have the most limited savings (Platt and Warwick, 2020). The above statistics should highlight the numerous intersectional barriers that BME groups face in coping with and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that Bangladeshis, Black Africans, Black Caribbeans, and Pakistanis all live in households that are less likely to hold two or more earners, are overrepresented in key worker sectors, and face racist discriminatory barriers in accessing the labour market all cross-pollinate together to create an environment in which BME communities are more at risk of being disproportionally impacted by COVID-19.
CONCLUSION As we begin to slowly emerge from the pandemic and the furlough scheme, isolation pay support, statuary sickness pay, and other safety nets are pulled away, the growing levels of unemployment and job vacancies will have a disproportionate impact on the poorest in society. This will affect working-class groups across the board, but BME groups will always face an additional layer. This is not about denying that White people will also experience the economic fallout from COVID-19. However, it is a recognition that the worst of the impacts – such as precarious employment, low income, and overcrowded housing – are also driven by racism and are disproportionately experienced by racially minoritised individuals. It is also a recognition that these impacts have been compounded for BME individuals as a result of facing the same and persistent inequalities over the course of many decades. Indeed, this is a prime example of how institutional racism continues to manifest and imbed its tentacles into every aspect of modern life. The issues that have been covered in this chapter have highlighted that these outcomes, whether they be social, economic, or health, are not randomised. They are too persistent, long-standing, and obvious to be random. The deep-seated racial inequalities that we see here and remain systemic are the direct result of institutional racism. These inequalities, particularly in the context of work, are historical and contextual, and they require scaled-up remedies that go beyond the individual level. Whilst calling out individual racism that we see in the street and online remains a key facet to creating a just
Racism, COVID-19 and the racial patterning of society 465 and fair society, without a significant institutional shift, the waves of inequality that we are increasingly seeing in disaster situations will not abate but will become worse. One possible option is recommending mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting, more widespread use of positive action, further regulatory interventions, etc. In view of this significant and widespread institutional racism, which continues to shape the lives and work chances of BME people, it is important to offer tangible and actionable policy proposals. Whilst being unable to go into minute detail within such a short piece of work it is possible to suggest changes that would make genuine impacts. These include but are not limited to: ● Introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting; ● Ensuring that all government departments undertake equality impact assessments for policy actions; ● Ensuring a more diverse and accurate curriculum (across all subjects) and diversified workforce; ● Encouraging more widespread use of positive action; ● Ensuring equal access to medical services and running regular equality impact assessments on this; ● Making race-equality training mandatory for all teachers, educationalists, public figures, and politicians (extending it to all workers where possible); ● Ending discriminatory processes such as stop and search and no recourse to public funds and re-thinking programmes such as ‘Prevent’; ● Ensuring that the Home Office finally ends its hostile environment policy and does not go forwards with policies such as the ‘Rwanda policy’. Policy makers and the state more broadly need to do more than pay lip service to the racial inequality that exists in the UK today. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the disadvantages with which BME groups are saddled with from cradle till grave. While life may go back to some form of ‘normality’ for certain groups in the coming years, this ‘normality’ was not one that served or benefited a large number of the population of this country. Without better policy making and targeted state intervention(s), BME groups will continue to experience life through a prism of disadvantage patterned and upheld by a system of institutional and structural racism.
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31. Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown: fears and changes for disabled people Nadia Ahmed
INTRODUCTION My chapter aims to provide an autoethnographic review of my self-reflection, which allows a subjective account of my own struggle of surviving through the Covid-19 pandemic as a disabled person and then connecting these experiences to wider political and social understandings (Ellis, 2004; Adams et al., 2021). In this chapter, I have placed myself with the detailed political and social reality of managing to live, work and survive through the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in London, while encountering obstacles in an ableist social and political environment (Desai, 2021). I feel that using an autoethnographic writing style is a socially just and powerful way of making people understand the hardships and struggles of employment and wider life challenges faced by disabled people. As said by Ellis et al. (2010: 1), this approach seeks ‘to describe and systematically analyse personal-experience, in order to understand cultural and social experience’, thereby helping to fill the void in which disabled people struggle during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, struggles which are rendered invisible (Brown, 2020). In other words, my position towards using an autoethnographic style is deliberate and not an accidental research style because it involves research practices that are pedagogical as well as political (Haynes, 2011). Doing autoethnography has presented me with a rich and immersive toolkit to study and perceive the world. As Denzin (2006: 422) said, ‘These performances are messy and pedagogical. They instruct our readers about this world and how we see it. The pedagogical is always moral and political; by enacting a way of seeing and being, it challenges, contests, or endorses the official, hegemonic ways of seeing and representing the other’. He further talks about an autoethnography also becoming a critical pedagogy, which is demonstrated by using an unorthodox research-writing approach. In the same vein, I undertake autoethnography to deconstruct and disrupt the dominant research methodologies that reproduce the status quo culture and call for a ‘more just, democratic, and egalitarian’ workplace (Kincheloe and McLaren, 2011: 285).
MY AUTOETHNOGRAPHY I shall be using the ‘first person’ to tell this autoethnography in order to share my own lived experiences ‘through an interaction and participation in an intimate and immediate eyewitness account’ (Ellis et al., 2010: 4). While the use of language in this chapter is very personal and emotional, which might seem inappropriate at times (Atkinson, 1997), it allows me to locate 469
470 Research handbook on inequalities and work myself in a cultural context, documenting my livedexperiences (Ellis and Bochner, 2000, Richards, 2008). This chapter came into existence when I received an email from Professor Geraldine Healy (one of the book’s editors) inviting me to contribute towards this book. When I saw the email, I was excited as I enjoy academic research and writing. However, I considered myself unable to accomplish this task, as I was in a precarious and vulnerable situation at that time as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown crisis, which caused me much stress (Gabriel, 2020). Anyhow, I did not want to email her a blunt ‘no’ as I was really stressed and anxious about my current financial circumstances; instead somehow I wanted to avail myself of this opportunity to move forward within my academic career (Baruch and Hall, 2004). So I decided to email her back my frightening Kafkaesque story, mentioning to her that I was unable to provide a contribution in the form of a chapter to this book due to my current circumstances. However, I told her my entire situation (story), asking if she thought sharing my experiences could be of benefit by creating awareness among people about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown on disabled people (Lebrasseur et al., 2021), and if so I would most definitely contribute towards the Research Handbook. This project also meant acting as an activist, as I would be able to create awareness in society for disabled people dealing with the added complexities of the pandemic. In other words, this chapter offered me an opportunity to explore critically my lived experiences and by extension those of other disabled people. This enabled me to ‘prise-open the different dimensions of this lived totality’ (Gottfried, 1998: 452), which will reconnect to reality (Crook, 1998). The whole point of using an autoethnographic writing style is to place myself within a social context (Reed-Danahay, 1997). Although autoethnography addresses difficult and complex phenomena, it is deeply beneficial and meaningful in developing unique ways of thinking and feeling for people making sense of themselves and each other (Ellis et al., 2010), therefore permitting me to share my lived experiences (Ellis et al., 2010). In short, I wanted to write a form of self-narrative that describes and analyses cultural experience (Campbell, 2016). Campbell (2016: 1) suggests that using this approach means adopting an ‘ultra or hyper reflexive process’, which allows the author to communicate thoughts, feelings and experiences. Furthermore, according to Ellis et al. (2010) it assists in the understanding of micro-level social experiences, which are central to understanding the positive and negative issues faced by disabled people during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. I also wanted to clarify that I am not at all telling my story because I needed some kind of sympathy and/or financial assistance; in fact, the point was /is to somehow be able to contribute to the Research Handbook through a powerful personal narrative shaped by multiple institutional constraints.
INTRODUCING MYSELF My personal circumstances are fundamental to my autoethnography, so I shall begin by providing my personal context, which is integral to my story. I am a Muslim British disabled woman, one of the people of different backgrounds and beliefs that government equality leaders like to hold up as evidence of a more inclusive and fairer London, a fine example of diversity. Yet what are the equality rights and fairness applied in my case, especially regarding disabled people’s employment? Therefore, once again the reason for my own interest in contributing to this Research Handbook is to expose inequities faced by disabled people and to bring about essential social change within the society and politics.
Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown 471 The motivation behind this contribution was because I became disabled (permanently wheelchair-bound) during my postgraduate degree. My disability is called Friedreich’s ataxia; it is a progressive, neurodegenerative condition. Just to make this more interesting to read and to set the context, I will tell you some facts about it. Friedreich’s ataxia is described as a rare genetic disease, making me unable to walk anymore, which means I am a full-time wheelchair-user. My rare genetic disease also gave me scoliosis, which is an uncomfortable twist in my spine, so every year I have to have an X-ray of my spine showing these artistic abstract shapes; if I was a futuristic artist, I would display them at the Tate Modern art gallery. I also struggle with my impaired speech, which means I sometimes suddenly sound like a chipmunk. So in short the word ‘ataxia’ means a lack of order and this condition is named after the 1860s German pathologist and neurologist Nikolaus Friedreich (Delatycki et al., 2000). I do not choose to join ‘the true confessions brigade’ (Barnes, 1998: 146), i.e. by including a lengthy personal biography, though it would be wrong to ignore something that had such an impact on the research process. Hence, the implications of my disability are fundamental to my story (Finch, 1984; Barnes and Mercer, 2001). My MSc (Management) concentration from the University of Bath was in Human Resource Management (HRM) and Peoples’ Management at the Workplace. Becoming disabled at that time inspired me to investigate the workplace management of disabled employees: ‘I would certainly not have become involved in disability [if I was not disabled myself]’ (Sheldon, 2001: 76). Through previous research and studies, I discovered that disabled employees’ management at the workplace is challenging, as there are issues of high costs from the employer’s perspective. Although ‘Access to Work’ costs are shared between the employer and the government, this agreement only comes into effect after the disabled employee has been working at the employer’s workplace for more than six weeks and after the approval of the ‘Access to Work’ assessment application (DWP, 2021). In the beginning the employer will have to pay from their own pocket for special aids and equipment (specially adapted software, chairs, computers and tables, which are expensive) and also adaptations to the premises, which could be a pretty heavy expense. Although legally all newly constructed buildings need to be disability-friendly, renting less accessible, older buildings is cheaper, which is much preferred by small and medium-sized businesses. These are a few reasons for the lower rates of employment for disabled people. It is often assumed that asking employers to bear greater costs would emphasise the employee’s disability, thus increasing the salience of differences and prejudice, as well as reducing employment chances, affecting workplace relations and/or reducing felt independence at work (Thornton and Corden, 2002). Simultaneously, according to Nota et al. (2014) there are widespread negative attitudes and behaviours, which make it more even more difficult to overcome physical barriers, and challenges around recruitment, selection, promotion, training, performance appraisal and reward (pay). Even new research has shown that regardless of progress, a disability equality gap still continues (Cole, 2017) in the workplace. This desire to correctly understand and comprehend the nature and extent of oppression experienced by disabled employees further inclined me towards doing a PhD on disabled employees. Now, especially in 2020-21, the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and its aftermath have given rise to many other new problems, highlighting various policies and practices demonstrating the inequality of disabled people in the UK. Hence, writing this book chapter in the form of an autobiography, I am both ‘inside’ the culture and participating in that which I am observing. In other words, I am writing about my own post-2020-21 Covid-19 pandemic lockdown experiences, which also reflect the experiences of other disabled employees
472 Research handbook on inequalities and work (Oakley, 1981). These experiences, including ‘ethnographic (inter-personal) relations, practices, and representations, as well as the metaphors we use to make sense of them, are contextually contingent [and] their character is shaped by who we look at, from where we look, and why we are looking in the first place’ (Wheatley, 1994: 422).
DISABILITY INEQUALITY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN AND ITS AFTERMATH Now the story begins. Towards the end of 2020, I was offered and accepted a university contract-based job as a Module Organiser, which involved 226 hours managing an entire Master’s level module. This required teaching approximately 50 to 55 students in the form of lecturing them online via Zoom, marking their 3000-word essay assignments and undertaking all the associated administrative work in return for the gross pay of GBP 5478. Covid-19 has definitely changed the way people work, both mentally and physically, and for some working from home can become quite monotonous and boring (Ruffolo et al., 2021). However, for me as a disabled wheelchair user the entire experience turned out to be extremely advantageous and beneficial professionally (Ahmed, 2020a). It was also liberating from the structures that characterise face-to-face teaching. For me there were many disadvantages of face-to-face teaching in the conventional lecture room situation. In particular: ● Physically going into the classroom holds real challenges for a wheelchair-bound academic. I always have to wait outside of the classroom after having asked my students to remove the tables and chairs out of my way, so that I can enter the classroom in my wheelchair; ● Podiums are at a fixed height and are not adjustable to the level of wheelchair users. Moreover, the computers are often at podium height, leaving me and others in my position unable to independently switch on the computer and access my slides. I therefore had to ask one of the students to switch on the computer and find my files. Thus, in these practical aspects of teaching I am placed at an immediate disadvantage to many of my peers who can independently begin their lectures. However, for me as a wheelchair user the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown changed the way we work in a positive fashion. I was required to teach online, which meant saving a lot of time and not wasting precious teaching time on reorganising tables and chairs or asking a student in class to help me with operating the computer or slide projector for teaching (Ahmed, 2020b). What an exciting and adventurous three-month teaching journey I had. Remote teaching removed many of the barriers I faced as a university teacher and restored dignity and control to my labour process; that is, until the dark clouds fell, when everything went so wrong. At this point of my story narration, I would like to interject and go on a tangent about my autoethnographic writing style. Many a time this style of writing is criticised for being too reflective (Haynes, 2011). However, if I had used a traditional writing style, it would have most definitely sucked ‘the life out of the text’ (Campbell, 2016: 98), resonating with Richardson’s (1992: 131) view of traditional academic writing where the style is ‘deadening even when the topic is riveting’.
Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown 473 Enough of my tangent on the autoethnographic style of storytelling, now back to the frightening Kafkaesque nightmare event. On the 4th of January 2021 I received a letter from Job Centre Plus, which is part of the government Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), informing me that my Employment and Support Allowance1 (ESA) benefit had been cancelled: ‘We cannot pay you an allowance from 1st September 2020. This is because you are working for 16 hours or more a week’. Well, luckily this frightening Kafkaesque nightmare event took place almost after the completion of my teaching employment, which meant my housing rent was paid as well as my council tax for the previous three months; however, I had to return all of this money back to the DWP. This was because I had worked only for three months (November, December and January); it was not even six months, which was a shocker! Apparently, if I am getting ESA, which is only GBP 300 a month, it means I can only work for a salary of GBP 60 a week; what a bummer! However, getting these benefits is huge; it means my housing rent and Council Tax are paid for by the government but puts severe limitations on the kind of employment I can take and my earnings. These limitations are most certainly a drawback and mean living in a state of constant anxiety (Mehta et al., 2020). As Bartholomew (2013) argued, getting these benefits surely creates a disincentive for holding employment and instead creates dependency on the welfare state’s benefit system. Thus, it can be said that citizens receiving benefits are forced to be dependants. While the UK welfare state holds the responsibility for taking care of its citizens, its workings evoke the machinations of a bureaucratic despot. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) argues that the nature and design of a tax, benefit and tax credit system can ensure a more redistributive outcome, limiting the growth of inequality and improving outcomes across society (TUC, 2010). However, the current system is flawed and leaves some of the most vulnerable trapped in poverty, making them more dependent on the state (Pierson and Castles, 2006). Problematically, underprivileged people suffer the most due to delays in benefit payments because these claimants have no money to buy food or to pay rent, which can push them into homelessness, crime or potentially unsafe work, such as sex work (Parveen, 2018). So now continuing my nightmare, the cancellation of the ESA caused a crazy domino effect; i.e., automatically cancelling my housing benefit and my council tax benefit. The ESA is not a lot but it assisted me in paying my domestic bills, like water, gas, electricity, and Wi-Fi, as well as my groceries and covering my disability expenditure (gym exercises). As I am a disabled UK citizen, I am entitled to certain benefits, but this sudden exclusion from benefits created much havoc, stress, tension and commotion. By taking away my benefits, which would normally cover my council tax and housing rent, the UK welfare state snatched my independence. Thank God I had saved up money so I could pay all these expenses for a couple of months; seriously, it could be worse, I could have been from the United States of America where no one is bothered about anyone, as it is all about individualism (Sampson, 1988). Anyway, after all this hullabaloo, I had to fix things back into place, but while doing so I found myself in a Kafkaesque nightmare. This meant spending hours and hours calling different people based in various departments of the government who were responsible for restoring my benefit provision service. This meant submission of unlimited amounts of paperwork, including the filling of many forms, and documentary evidence like National Insurance, disability medical records, etc., which meant turning my house upside down searching for these documents. I felt trapped in a financial black hole, and I was already falling into a financial crisis. So now my everyday routine was my struggle trying to contact various people at the
474 Research handbook on inequalities and work DWP during the lockdown when everyone was working from home. Trust me, this was not an easy task because getting hold of the right person was another test of patience as they put me on hold for hours, literally without exaggeration, and then they would hang up on me or after putting me on hold on the phone literally for hours I would find out that the person who came on the other end of the line was the wrong person. This meant back to square one and once again the entire process started again from the very beginning. I felt like pulling my hair out of my scalp at times! When finally I got through to them, I was told that I had to make a new claim online for Universal Credit2 as the government was getting rid of ESA. Although applying for Universal Credit was a hassle, the new benefit system allowed me to do everything online (I wonder what people do if they do not have access to the Internet). As I am physically unable to write letters and travel to the post office to post them due to my disability, the online application process was kind of less stressful for me. So now I would say that I had learnt a hard lesson. I had not realised that earning a modest amount from an annual salary perspective would threaten my benefits. I now know I should never ever work while receiving benefits, I just have to be dependent on the welfare state until I get a full-time permanent job that means I can afford to pay the rent and other expenditures. However, the contradiction ignores the fact that I am severely disabled and unable to work full-time! My inability to work full-time because I am disabled is the whole reason that I claimed benefits in the first place! By converting my experience of disability into an autoethnography with respect to remote working and the traps set to limit the welfare state’s support, I believe that the storytelling style allows the challenges of disabled life to come to the fore. In academic terms I would say it provides multi-layered knowledge of a phenomenon, which assists in understanding its truths, meanings and place, because the thick description embodied in an autoethnographic approach can help make sense of one’s own experiences (Ellis et al., 2010). Furthermore, it contains self-reflection to understand multicultural others, qualitative inquiry and narrative writing (Chang, 2008).
DISCUSSION In this chapter, I have shared my lived experience as a disabled person striving to survive through the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. Although the ease and hardships are unique to my story, it is also a story that is replicated in the experiences of different people and different contexts throughout the UK. I have therefore drawn on the relevant literature to support my autoethnography (Denzin, 2006; Ellis et al., 2010; Ellis, 2020; Akehurst and Scott, 2021). I have also identified the four most significant conflicts and finally I offer potential recommendations for change. The four barriers I faced were inadequate bureaucratic procedures, lack of funding for emergency income, the poor disability awareness of gatekeepers and underestimation of disabled peoples’ capabilities. I develop these points below: Inadequate Bureaucratic Procedures During my struggle through the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, there were many easy, as well as problematic, procedures that were unable to take account of my exceptional disability circumstances. For example, I encountered ease regarding a non-permanent contract-based
Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown 475 job as a university lecturer but this inadvertently became problematic when I did not realise the consequences for my ESA. Thus, my story provides evidence of the inflexible nature of the UK welfare system, which undermines a disabled person’s abilities. Moreover, this inflexibility results in injustice, regardless of whether one has a disability (Woodhams and Danieli, 2000). Although the bureaucratic policies and procedures of the UK government are apparently accustomed to catering for disabled people, during the lockdown, in my experience and that of others, this was not evident (Eskytė et al., 2020). The installation of automated phone lines that cause huge stress for people (disabled or not) trying to get through to a person should be streamlined and properly staffed so that callers are answered promptly. Endlessly waiting is a form of torture! Funding of Emergency Income Funding towards income in case of emergency is always required to enable us disabled people to be treated equally; for example, when my benefit during the lockdown was suddenly cancelled, which left me extremely worried and deprived financially (Machin, 2021). Unfortunately, in reference to my situation there was no emergency income available; funds were only available for people suffering from the coronavirus. However, after just a bird’s eye view scrutinising the entire lockdown situation, applying for these emergency funds may have required a lengthy and painstaking processing time, leaving someone waiting for many weeks without food and potentially making them homeless. Fortunately, I had a bit of savings with which I was managing to survive; however, many disabled people in similar situations would not have any savings. This clearly demonstrates the historic stigma of disabled people struggling with poverty (Longmore, 1988). Poor Disability Awareness of Gatekeepers I experienced a lack of disability awareness among gatekeepers at every stage of my quest to contact the people at the DWP in a so-called welfare state (Comas-Herrera et al., 2020). I had to battle to convey my needs and requirements to various government agencies by contacting people for essential benefits. These gatekeepers had very problematic views towards decision-making, and it seemed they had never experienced speaking directly to a disabled person and/or dealing with their benefit issues (Andrews, 2005). For example, while I was conversing with them on the phone trying to explain the reason for my benefits being cancelled, they were unable to understand why I was working if I am disabled. Underestimating Disabled Peoples’ Employment Capabilities Disabled people can be easily ignored by others when dealing with their employment capabilities (like teaching) (Roulstone, 2012). For example, after having a conversation with one of the gatekeepers at the DWP, it was arduous to make them realise that the underprivileged people of society like disabled people are unable to get paid employment not due to their disabilities but actually due to the worry of losing their housing benefit and becoming homeless during the difficult times of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown (this was certainly my worry and I am sure many others are also affected). Thus, this gives rise to informal occupations, irregular
476 Research handbook on inequalities and work activities and potentially unsafe work, such as sex work (Fisher et al., 2020). Employment rules need to be reconsidered. My story raises important policy issues and points to the lack of flexibility in the welfare system. The all-or-nothing approach of the DWP is nothing short of scandalous. Why take all benefits from a person who takes a temporary job, in my case for three months? Why was this not taken into account, as well as the likelihood of further temporary posts? Why not make an adjustment to benefits rather than implementing total cessation of housing and other support in one go? It would not take much for someone to look at my file and realise that I would not be able to work full-time and that this was a temporary situation and should not require that all my benefits be cut off and for to reapply. Bearing in mind the near impossibility of finding a person to enable the reapplication, this seems nothing short of torture to an already vulnerable disabled person. In other words, as said by Healy (2019: 677), ‘[we] find [ourselves] punished for “not fitting in”, alienated and “othered”, a process that reflects and reinforces organisational inequality regimes’. After recognising the four most significant conflicting issues stated above, I provide a potential recommendation/remedy, which is as follows. Policy Implications and Training of Officials (Potential Recommendation/Remedy) The Covid-19 lockdown in the UK has impoverished a large proportion of the population, especially disabled people, leading to a downward spiral of interconnected economic, physical, social and psychological deprivations. This chapter (my autoethnography) looks critically at the effects of and responses to the crisis from the government agency, the DWP, with respect to provision of financial help. The cruel paradox that gaining temporary employment can take away hopes of employability and lead to benefit dependency because the temporary employment pay is unable to cover housing and everyday domestic expenditure is stark in my story. However, unsatisfactory policy application by the government has most definitely raised the demand for an essential policy review (Van Barneveld et al., 2020). I have managed to expose the systemic weaknesses in the current policy system of financial benefits towards employment and preference towards unemployment for disabled people at the DWP, clearly implying its implications were highly disappointing. My story is not exceptional; a significant number of vulnerable people were forced into unemployment and dependency on the state (Pybus et al., 2021) during the pandemic lockdown, which had already exacerbated some of the existing systemic problems, like the inadequacy of payments, deductions, the conditionality of gaining employment and the claims process. For this purpose, state policies and governmental agencies providing benefits to vulnerable individuals need to be urgently reassessed for system-wide improvements and policy change. Secondly, government officials, gatekeepers of various departments and the administration at various governmental agencies, like the DWP, need essential training when dealing with vulnerable service users, especially disabled people.
CONCLUSION The above conflicts have been developed through my own self-participation; i.e. the process of gathering, analysing and interpreting my own experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic
Entering a frightening Kafkaesque world during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown 477 lockdown. This helps me to demonstrate outcomes and barriers experienced by myself, which can be also extended towards other disabled people in an able-bodied world (Neville-Jan, 2004). Just as Healy (2019: 684) stated: Researching inequalities [in this storytelling manner] has been both motivating and depressing. Motivating because as a researcher you feel you are continually uncovering inequalities and that may lead to change; depressing because, while there has been change, often the research reveals the persistence of unfair employment practices over time. This persistence is despite copious studies, including our own, revealing the way that inequalities are reproduced.
Therefore, this chapter is not just a story of me, it is a story of social, political and cultural barriers, which also can be applied to many other disabled people as well (Chang, 2008).
NOTES 1. ESA is a United Kingdom welfare payment for adults younger than the state pension age who are having difficulty finding work because of their long-term medical condition or a disability. It is a basic income-replacement benefit paid in lieu of wages. It is currently being phased out and replaced with Universal Credit. 2. Universal Credit is a United Kingdom social security payment. It replaces and combines six benefits for working-age people who have low household income: income-based Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit, and Housing Benefit.
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32. Client-facing work and homeworking: the case of auditors Suki Sian
1. INTRODUCTION In times of national or international crisis, existing social disparities and discrimination related to social class, race and gender tend to be reinforced and exposed because resources are limited and people are fearful (Kantamneni 2020). Despite the mantra that ‘Covid-19 does not discriminate’, there is evidence that the pandemic increased the vulnerability of the most socially and economically deprived and exacerbated inequalities in employment, health and education. As the UK responded to the global pandemic by entering lockdown in March 2020, it became apparent that those from lower social class groups, who were perhaps in lower-paid or more unstable employment, were less likely to be able to work from home and more likely to be furloughed1 or lose their jobs (Felstead and Reuschke 2020; Patel et al. 2020). Children from poorer homes were more likely to miss schooling as they did not have access to laptops or equipment to join online classes. On the health front, economically disadvantaged families were more vulnerable to infection because of limited access to outdoor space and overcrowding, which reduced opportunities for social distancing and increased the risk of respiratory infection (Patel et al. 2020). Disparity amongst racial groups in the UK has long been highlighted but Covid-19 had a disproportionate impact upon minority ethnic groups. Data from the Office of National Statistics have highlighted a significantly increased death rate amongst this population as many worked in front line jobs in the NHS and within the wider community (Moorthy and Sankar 2020). Similarly, gender-related disparities were also exacerbated during the lockdown as women were more likely to take on the burden of housework, childcare and home-schooling in addition to their own paid work, amplifying extant gender stereotypes and the gender division of unpaid labour in heterosexual households (Rudnicka et al. 2020; Anderson and Kelliher 2020; Chung et al. 2021). However, despite the increased burden upon working women during the pandemic, many welcomed the opportunity to work from home. Under emergency legislation, the Coronavirus Act 2020, the UK Government directed the population (other than key workers)2 to ‘stay at home’. In some industries such as hospitality, travel and the arts, this edict meant that employees could not actually perform their work and many were made redundant or furloughed. In other industries, for example those with many office-based jobs with better-educated and better-paid workers, the transition to working at home was much easier and more widespread (Bartik et al. 2020; Dingel and Neiman 2020; Felstead and Reuschke 2020).3 The distinction between being unable to perform the job without being present and being able to switch to homeworking is particularly interesting in the case of the audit industry, which is the focus of this chapter. The very nature of audit work4 is client-facing and much of it is performed at the client’s premises. The client-service ethos of audit firms has traditionally meant that those unable to maintain an on-site presence and be available on-demand to clients could not easily assume 480
Client-facing work and homeworking 481 client-facing roles. In recent years, most audit firms have implemented policies supporting agile or flexible modes of work, but these are not widespread in client-facing roles and aim (mainly but not solely) to assist women to return to work after maternity leave or maternity-related career breaks (Sian 2021; Kornberger et al. 2010). Despite the well-established and incontrovertible requirement for audit staff to ‘be present’, during the pandemic audit firms instructed their staff to ‘work from home’ in compliance with the new legislation. This sudden and enforced switch to homeworking essentially became a great experiment in remote working as employers rapidly developed technologies to facilitate and support staff working from home. This chapter draws on data gathered through interviews with auditors during the first UK lockdown in 2020 to examine whether the audit function could be successfully performed remotely and, if so, whether this could become a more permanent feature of the audit work model, thereby widening participation and equality of opportunity and access within the audit industry.5 The chapter is structured as follows. It begins by offering some context and demonstrating how practices and expectations within the profession have, in the past, created inequalities of access and opportunity. The following section draws upon interview data to highlight how audit work patterns changed immediately in March 2020 as audit firms directed employees to work remotely. Conclusions are presented in the final section.
2.
MARGINALISATION AND INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN AUDIT
Connell’s work on gendered institutions suggests that hegemonic masculinity pervades many institutional areas, including business (Connell 1987). This means that gender is very present in the ‘processes, practices, images and ideologies, and distributions of power’ therein (Acker 1992, p.567) and that organisational structures are not gender-neutral (Acker 1990) even if the appearance of gender neutrality is maintained (Acker 1992). Such notions are particularly applicable to the audit industry and various studies present evidence on the gender regimes that exist in audit firms. Audit firms are organised along hierarchical reporting lines, in which juniors report to seniors, who in turn report to managers and ultimately partners at the pinnacle of this hierarchy. Audit groups (or divisions or sections) are normally composed of members within each level of the hierarchy and group managers and partners oversee the provision of audit services to their clients, with whom they will build strong relations over the years. Accounting firms are, therefore, driven by a very strong client-service ethic and the client has been identified as key in shaping the architecture and organisation of firms and the behaviour and beliefs therein (Anderson-Gough et al. 2000). The visible outcome of organisational gendering within audit firms is that although women now succeed educationally in accountancy and enter the profession in roughly the same numbers as men, they still experience inequalities in their advancement as they hit the metaphorical ‘glass ceiling’ (Broadbent and Kirkham 2008; Ciancanelli et al. 1990; Roberts and Coutts 1992; Loft 1992).6 The gendering of audit firms is connected not only to the organisational structures and the temporal organisation and appraisal processes within firms but also to more informal components, such as the socialisation of audit trainees as they enter and progress within the audit firm (Anderson-Gough et al. 2005).
482 Research handbook on inequalities and work Entrants to the profession undergo a training process that develops and builds their professional identity, as professional values and characteristics are embedded. The training of audit staff and their socialisation into professional firms is built around the fundamental notion of the primacy of client service. The client demands the best currently available advice from its auditors, high standards of technical expertise, the work to be performed with speed and efficiency (as they are being charged for the service) and the opinion offered by the auditor to be a fair reflection of its performance and operations. The client also expects a degree of professionalism that is directly delivered by the formal and informal socialisation processes of the firm supplying the service. As Anderson-Gough puts it, ‘client service is elevated as perhaps the central value transmitted by socialisation… and, therefore, the pursuit of career success depended upon contributing to this’ (Anderson-Gough 1998, p.131). The dominance of the client service ethic is not only accepted as a working norm by trainees but, it is claimed, is also a means by which firms legitimise demanding practices.7 The centrality of the client-service ethic within the profession is powerful because of its impact upon individual auditors in terms of professional identity and forms of conduct. Whilst high levels of client-service and the professionalism of a firm’s employees may be viewed as a ‘competitive weapon’ and a means by which firms attempt to win and retain clients, they can also be viewed as a means of building professional solidarity amongst firms as they strive to offer ever higher levels of client service (Anderson-Gough et al. 2002).8 At the firm level, it is a means of engendering cohesion amongst teams on an audit assignment. The auditors see themselves as part of a team that represents the firm and its beliefs and standards of service. The power of the client-service ethic is both a means of organisational control by the firm and a means for the individual to display dedication and commitment in order to progress upward within the firm. The client-service ethic and the team-ethic instilled into audit trainees are potentially metaphors that ‘might serve the purpose for the person in charge of legitimating the requirement to work long hours and complete work to, or, preferably, under, budget at the clients’ (Anderson-Gough et al. 2005, p. 480). Developing a professional identity is key to the training process for auditors – what does an auditor look like; how are they expected to conduct themselves and behave; what is expected by clients? Prior research suggests that audit firms have significant power in shaping trainees and their professional identity through both formal and more informal processes (Khalifa 2013; Haynes 2012; Kamla 2012; Fearfull and Kamenou 2006; Anderson-Gough et al. 2005). Although firms will enter into negotiations with clients regarding the timing, length, staffing, and pricing of audit assignments, the primacy of client demands is presented as an accomplished fact, non-negotiable and packaged as the client-service ethic (Anderson-Gough et al. 2000; Haynes 2010; Kornberger et al. 2010; Gammie and Whiting 2013; Windsor and Auyeung 2006; Ruiz Castro 2012). Long working hours to meet client demands are exacerbated by additional long hours of ‘socializing at the bar’ or social events organised by the firm, as well as residential courses. These hours are further supplemented by the requirements for evening and weekend study for trainees and the culture is so firmly embedded that it continues well after trainees have qualified. However, what this approach fails to recognise is that the ‘utter devotion’ evoked by the power of the client-service ethic often comes at a cost to the individual, marginalising family, social life, friends and well-being. Those unable to meet the demands can be viewed as unprofessional or not a ‘good fit’ with the firm because ‘single-minded work devotion is, in the main, still demanded’ (Whiting 2004, p.19).
Client-facing work and homeworking 483 The literature shows that throughout their training, accountants are socialised into thinking that demonstrating presence is an important part of professional behaviour. Khalifa’s interviews with women auditors examined this theme, concluding that ‘negative images [are] associated with parting from group norms of working long hours even if one tries to make up for it by working more efficiently or at different times’ (Khalifa 2013, p.1232). Other researchers too have shown that accountancy can be characterised as an essentially ‘male’ occupation (Kirkham 1992; Emery et al. 2002) in which both men and women adopt ‘masculine’ stereotypes as a condition of moving up the corporate hierarchy (Maupin and Lehman 1994). Thus, women stereotyped as prioritising family life over work are perceived as lacking commitment (Kirkham 1992; Kirkham and Loft 1993; Barker and Monks 1998). The literature evidences that motherhood in particular is associated with restricting or even halting opportunities for career progression, especially to partnership level (Windsor and Auyeung 2006; Dambrin and Lambert 2008; 2012). The ways in which audit firms are structured have also been examined and researchers have shown that the normal or approved routes for progression are more suitable for men than they are for women (Lupu 2012). Women with family constraints are more likely to be dissuaded from remaining in or entering more prestigious specialisms such as consultancy and would rather consider roles within the firm that are ‘less prestigious’ and financially rewarding, such as taxation (Khalifa 2013; Lupu 2012). Specialising in tax is associated with regular working hours, less face-to-face contact with clients and greater potential for flexible work arrangements – making it apposite for those unable to meet the requirements for client-facing roles with long hours and extensive travel (Khalifa 2013). Many firms have attempted to redress such inequalities by introducing flexible work arrangements or encouraging women to return to work after career breaks. These arrangements may help to reduce work–family conflict and encourage opportunities for women auditors to return to work, although the return is not always to a client-facing role (Kornberger et al. 2010; Sian 2021). Indeed, such arrangements can even hamper progression and promotion prospects as they are perceived to be a sign of unwillingness to ‘put in the hours’ and ‘be present’ in an organisational culture that traditionally values prioritizing work over family (Sian 2021) and help to normalise the notion of what it is (and what it is not) to be successful (Bapuji et al. 2020). With its limited flexibility, masculine practices and gendered cultures alongside the gendered closure of the most lucrative parts of the profession, the audit function and its training and socialisation processes perfectly depict a highly gendered profession. Those unable to commit to the demands of client-facing roles within the profession and the requirement to be present ultimately face the possibility of changes in career trajectories or even discontinuity (Sian 2021).
3.
COVID-19 AND CHANGES IN AUDIT WORK PATTERNS
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic restricted travel and therefore audit work could no longer be conducted on-site as firms directed their employees to work from home – nobody could ‘be present’. Although a number of prior studies in the accounting literature have shown how the pandemic impacted upon the audit function and on audit firms (Robson et al. 2021; Rinaldi et al. 2020; Pimentel 2021; Carungu et al. 2021; Luo and Malsch 2020; Albitar et al. 2020;
484 Research handbook on inequalities and work Delfino and van der Kolk 2021), this chapter focuses on how a profession previously fixated on presenteeism dealt with enforced homeworking and conducting audit work remotely. It draws on the findings of interviews conducted between March and June 2020 at the height of the first UK lockdown (Sian 2022). Thirty-seven online, semi-structured interviews were conducted with male and female auditors at various levels in four large audit firms – juniors, seniors, managers and audit partners. The interviewees were geographically spread across the UK and involved in audits across a variety of industries, dealing with both larger international clients as well as more local clients. The findings presented here will focus on three areas that potentially have an impact on the future working lives of female auditors who might benefit from increased levels of homeworking facilitated by remote audit: (i) Did interviewees think that it was possible to successfully conduct audit work remotely? (ii) If so, what might the perceived advantages be of greater levels of remote audit in the future? (iii) What limitations might constrain firms as they consider implementing greater levels of remote audit work? Is Remote Working a Possibility for Auditors? In practice, the day-to-day work of auditors includes audit testing, which takes place on-site, allowing the auditor to access documentary evidence and assess the integrity of audit trails by interrogating the financial systems of the client. The tests are supplemented by face-to-face questioning as the auditor elicits explanations and clarifications from the client’s staff and management. This mode of operation therefore traditionally requires an on-site presence, which has also meant that audit work is associated with travel to the client’s premises, overnight stays or international travel. However, developments in technology have allowed large audit firms to institute secure share-points where documents can be uploaded by clients for auditors to access. In recent years, this has entailed the audit team being present at a client’s premises but still accessing many documents via share-points. This meant that during the lockdown, audit staff were still able to remotely access client systems and documentation via the share-points (augmented by screen-sharing). In the absence of face-to-face conversations to ask questions and elicit explanations, communications with client staff and with their own teams were conducted via Microsoft Teams, Skype or Zoom. Instead of being in an audit room with almost constant access to the client’s staff, interviewees said that they scheduled meetings with the client (some daily) and ‘saved up’ audit-related questions for these scheduled meetings. Daily meetings were also a common feature to facilitate communications with the audit team and these replicated, as far as possible, something that would have happened naturally in the physical setting of the audit room. Audit tests can include physical inspection, observation, confirmation, re-calculation, re-performance and analytical procedures as a means of providing audit evidence. Ultimately such evidence must be a valid, relevant and reliable basis for the audit opinion. The participants in the study were questioned about this fundamental aspect of audit work and interviewees commented that there were no specific audit-related tasks that ‘could not be done remotely without compromising validity and reliability of evidence’ (audit partner). Although virtually all work could be performed remotely, it was not quite as straightforward for certain tasks, such as the physical stock-count. Whilst some firms delayed their stock-counts, others described novel methods for viewing physical stock ranging from a laptop camera online to the use of drones in large warehouses.9 The period of enforced remote audit showed clearly that
Client-facing work and homeworking 485 removing the auditor from the client’s premises or the firm’s office had ‘no significant impact on performing the audit’, on gathering reliable evidence or on delivering the audit. Whilst some interviewees suggested that there were indeed limitations, a senior partner at a large firm noted that: ‘So, we are working through and signing audit opinions from start to finish, having worked remotely… well, it can be done remotely, it’s just harder, so it takes longer and it’s harder but it can be done and we’re proving it can be done’. Perceptions of the Advantages of Increased Homeworking The enforced move to remote audit during the pandemic was generally perceived as being successful by firms and by interviewees involved in the study. This means that there are potential implications for the future of the audit work model arising from the opportunities associated with greater levels of homeworking. For instance, there are reduced travel requirements, which has additional benefits such as: elimination of commute times;10 potentially reducing audit fees as clients no longer pay for travel and hotel bills; reducing the carbon footprint of audit firms and thus supporting the green policies and initiatives to which most large audit firms are committed. At the individual level, most male and female interviewees welcomed the autonomy that was associated with working from home and, as shown below, female participants particularly commented on how this increased autonomy impacted on their work–family balance: At work I felt awful because I felt a bad mum as well as a bad worker. Now I find myself happier… just spending time with the kids, and being at home… that motivates me because then when I come to my desk I’m literally just, ‘Yep, yep, now I need to do this because I’m satisfied, and I don’t feel like I’m a bad mum… I can mostly organise my own day. (Senior manager) Perhaps a good thing, well, definitely a good thing is that I’ve seen more of my daughter but both she and I have had to learn what that means, i.e. if she comes in to see me then I am working and so I can’t just stop what I’m doing and go and do something with her because I am at work and that’s been a bit of a process of adjustment for both of us. (Audit partner)
Similarly, the elimination of the daily commute both to the office on a daily basis and to the client’s premises was welcomed by many participants. This was particularly the case for female interviewees who commented that it facilitated better time management for their working day, which previously may have been constrained by the school day: Normally I get into the office around 8:30 until 5 and then I tend to be the one that comes home on time, for kids and everything, and then once I put the kids back down to bed around 8 pm I used to pick up the laptop and just do a bit of work in the evening as well… Now I find it’s very effective just your commute is literally one second, you’re at your desk immediately. (Audit manager)
Although increased homeworking would be helpful for many with caring commitments, the pandemic was a unique point in time and threw up some unexpected complications specific to the situation. For instance, some participants commented that it was difficult to sometimes separate work and home activities and, with little else to occupy them at the time, this had a potentially negative impact as days merged into evenings and employees often worked through. Additionally both male and female interviewees who were parents to young children were vocal about the difficulties of managing home-schooling alongside homeworking. In interviews, female participants talked more about the need to take on the burden of childcare,
486 Research handbook on inequalities and work housework and home-schooling, as shown in other studies conducted at the time (Rudnicka et al. 2020; Anderson and Kelliher 2020; Chung et al. 2021). My husband and I both work fulltime… I’m trying to balance doing my work versus ensuring that the kids are taken care of. And I find that I am doing maybe 30 minutes of work and then 30 minutes of home-schooling, and then coming back to my desk. That’s my biggest challenge. (Senior audit manager) I mean the general messages is people are coping well… they wish the kids could just go back to school and then life would be a lot easier. It does polarise, the vast majority of people are doing really well… there is a minority of people who are trying to home-school two or three school children who are, frankly, having a miserable time. (Head of UK audit)
Since remote audit had been shown to be possible and even successful, policy-makers within firms were asked if this was something that could be more widespread in the future, therefore making audit a more an attractive career prospect for those with caring commitments in terms of managing their work–home balance. Responses suggested that a major shift had been instigated by the pandemic remote-working experience and that the requirement for a face-to-face presence was no longer as entrenched as it perhaps was prior to the pandemic. Interviewees commented that there were definitely some aspects of the audit that would continue to be conducted remotely, greater levels of homeworking were anticipated and there were associated implications for enhanced flexibility and accessibility, as illustrated in the quotation below from the female head of policy in a large firm: We would’ve always, I think, wanted to say we are very open to recruit people with all sorts of different needs, different needs for flexibility, but persuading people that they can apply for a job (at this firm) might’ve been much more tricky and I hope this will make people feel, well actually maybe I can go and work somewhere like that. So I do think that’s a great opportunity… And so although on the face of it, it might look like it might be easier this way, and it probably is easier to cope with practical caring challenges and so on, you know, the actual demands of the job have not changed.
The evidence suggests that at a personal level most auditors prized this new-found autonomy alongside the improved work–family balance that homeworking afforded. When questioned, many interviewees commented that in the future they would like to have the opportunity to work from home more often as the norm, perhaps two or three days per week, subject to peaks and troughs in the audit calendar (Sian 2022). Perceptions on the Limitations of Remote Audit and Homeworking Despite the opportunities afforded by increased homeworking, there were also downsides. For instance, the literature recognises that employees who work from home often have problems self-regulating and disengaging from work (Cook 2020). There is also evidence that the number of online meetings and calls increased during the pandemic (Delfino and van der Kolk 2021). This section examines some of the challenges relating to remote audit unearthed by the interviews that might restrict the desirability of increased homeworking. As noted previously, training involves on-the-job learning as audit teams gather in the audit room on-site. Team members not only engage with each other in the audit room but also with client staff and junior members learn ‘how to act’ as an auditor as they participate in or overhear conversations amongst team members or with clients, allowing them to follow threads
Client-facing work and homeworking 487 regarding technical issues or judgements. The research findings suggested that the online daily team meetings were vital to ensure cohesion, deal with team questions and monitor the progress of more junior staff. Many participants noted that although it was possible to coach online during the pandemic, it was more time-consuming than being physically present in an audit room. Senior participants in the study pointed to the main challenge of coaching online as being ‘how to be sure’ that the junior has understood the task and the accompanying explanations whilst working remotely, as illustrated by the comments below: The daily calls are a very good way for people to ask questions, so if they don’t understand what they’re doing or, because the prompt I would always go with is, ‘OK, talk me through what you did yesterday and talk me through what you’re going to do today’. And if they say, ‘Well, I did this, I don’t really actually understand this part of it’, you can coach them through it. (Audit Manager)
What the evidence gathered suggests is that whilst coaching online may be possible it was not always easy or successful. Therefore, for those unable to commit to client-facing roles the stumbling block may be the individual in-person coaching and learning that takes place in the audit room. Whilst direct coaching might be more relevant for junior staff, the physical audit room also presents many opportunities for learning through observation and participation in decision-making at all stages of the auditor’s career. Another aspect that is lost when working online is the opportunity for spontaneous interactions with colleagues and work friends and opportunities to meet and have social or ad hoc conversations with people who may not be on the same team (Chung et al. 2021; Bapuji et al. 2020), as illustrated by the quotation below: Because the one thing I would say I’ve found personally very hard to replicate is the chance conversation that you might have with somebody just because you pass them in the office, and that conversation might’ve been about a cake you baked or it might’ve been about something that was very relevant to the business agenda… those chance conversations I think are very, very rich, sometimes in terms of content, always in terms of relationships and social capital and we’ve not found a way to replicate that. (Audit partner)
This absence of social interaction was also perceived by some participants as reducing networking opportunities within the firm or a loss of the opportunity to discuss a work problem or just have a social chat. As noted earlier in the chapter, networking is an important feature of progression within the profession and such opportunities can be restricted for some employees, particularly if they take place outside of work hours. The literature shows that being ‘present’ can assist the creation of networking opportunities and potentially upward career moves; therefore, it should perhaps be recognised that this may be lost and that firms must build-in such opportunities if higher levels of homeworking are to become the norm.
4. CONCLUSION As the UK emerges from the pandemic, it does so with an altered landscape with regard to working patterns. This chapter has focused on auditors, highlighting the entrenched position traditionally adopted by many firms with regard to client-facing roles. However, the evidence shows that the move to remote audit and homeworking has been mostly successful and has raised new possibilities and opportunities that have implications for future planning and
488 Research handbook on inequalities and work work patterns within audit firms. Whilst there has been a tendency within the profession to marginalise those unable to be present, the en-masse move to remote working has shown that many constituent elements of the audit function can be performed without an on-site presence. This is important because it presents the prospect of redressing inequalities of access and opportunity in this industry and significantly widens the talent pool for audit firms with related implications for the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives that firms are already championing. For instance, through heightened levels of homeworking on a more permanent basis, firms could better address and accommodate the needs of working parents, disabled workers and those with caring responsibilities. Increased opportunities for conducting audit work remotely not only facilitate a far higher degree of autonomy over the working day but also reduce the requirements for travel and commuting. Further, the advantages and effectiveness of online auditor–client and audit team meetings have been proven through their proliferation since March 2020. Whilst there are many advantages and opportunities associated with increased homeworking and it certainly might make personal time management easier, it does not detract from the fact that the job itself remains pressured. Although the enforced move to homeworking during lockdown has shown that it is possible to perform much of the audit function remotely, it has also exposed negative aspects of homeworking, such as the impact on mental and physical health of extended periods of homeworking, the separation of work and home activities, the need to be visible in online group meetings and the difficulty in replicating coaching, networking and social interaction. However, as Covid-19-related restrictions lift, the large audit firms in the UK have supported a phased return to work for staff and have signalled a new ‘hybrid working’ model in which staff can expect to work from home for at least for some of the week. The hybrid model incorporates the positive aspects of homeworking whilst at the same time offering opportunities for certain in-person activities and camaraderie that were greatly reduced during the enforced period of homeworking. The adoption of a work model that grants a higher degree of autonomy and recognises that many aspects of audit work can be performed remotely offers opportunity of access for (mainly) women auditors with caring responsibilities who, in the past, have had little agency with regard to where and when their work is performed.
NOTES 1.
The UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme ran from April 2020 to the end of March 2021. This furlough scheme allowed the UK Treasury to pay employees 80% of their salary for hours not worked due to the pandemic (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-job -retention-scheme). The scheme was later extended until September 2021, albeit with a lower contribution of 70% from 1 July 2021 and 60% from 1 August. 2. Critical key workers provide front-line essential services and include doctors, nurses, other hospital workers, police, the fire service, workers in factories manufacturing essentials items such as food, and those involved in education and teaching (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision). 3. ‘The surge in homeworking triggered by the lockdown … was experienced most strongly by the highest paid, the better qualified, the higher skilled and those living in London and the South East’ (Felstead and Reuschke 2020, p. 3). 4. An auditor is appointed by any organisation (the client) that is required to have their financial statements independently audited by law. The client is most commonly a commercial company but could be a public sector organisation, a charity, or any organisation that has external stakeholders. The auditor’s role is to independently verify that the financial statements produced (usually annually)
Client-facing work and homeworking 489
5.
6. 7. 8.
9.
10.
by an organisation are a ‘true and fair’ reflection of its financial activities and position. This independent verification comes in the form of an audit report that is published alongside the financial statements. The report is based on the work conducted by the auditor, which includes testing the company’s processes, controls, structures and corporate governance systems and assessing risks. Although the focus of this chapter is on women with caring commitments for young families, the same might apply to men with caring commitments, disabled employees or those with special caring responsibilities for elderly parents or spouses. Findings of a Law Society study suggest the vast majority of disabled people in the legal sector welcomed opportunities for homeworking during the pandemic (Foster and Hirst 2020). The overall percentage of female student members (50%) within the profession is greater than the overall percentage of female qualified members (37%) (FRC 2021). In their paper ‘Work hard, play hard’, Anderson-Gough et al. (1998) explain how phrases associated with culture management initiatives in audit firms ‘colonise the mind’ in framing organisational practices and are therefore taken for granted and seem very natural. In his study of the history of professional accountancy, Macdonald (1995) notes how accountancy was viewed as a ‘gentlemanly’ occupation in the 19th century at the time of its establishment, although in modern times the literature suggests a focus on commercialism over professionalism and the drive to offer ever higher levels of service to reap economic rewards. This concurs with the conclusions drawn by Luo and Malsch (2020), who noted that auditors improvised by modifying the sequence of the audit, changed the format of audit procedures and produced new behaviours in order to maintain quality and ensure that audits were delivered on time during the pandemic in 2020. Although research has found that commute times are often used (and valued) as de-stressing periods (Cecchinato 2018).
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33. What about the formal workers? Informality in formal employment and social protection gaps in developing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic Volkan Yılmaz
INTRODUCTION The COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact on household incomes due to job losses and reduced working hours, which created a perfect testing ground for investigating social protection systems worldwide (Razavi et al., 2020). Social protection systems are intended to function as automatic stabilisers during economic crises such as the one induced by the pandemic by buffering the effects of unemployment and sudden income loss. The COVID-19 pandemic also revealed the vulnerability of formal workers to wage loss and poverty. Although social protection schemes are expected to provide formal workers income security and maintenance in such situations, this is not always the case. Using data from a study on an upper-middle-income developing country, this chapter shows that social protection schemes fail to perform their intended function because of long-standing informal practices that are embedded in formal employment relations (e.g. false self-employment, paying part of workers’ salaries off the books). It also illustrates the multi-layered power dynamics formal workers encounter when they want to access their social insurance entitlements. The departure point for this chapter is that the existing literature’s exclusive focus on informal workers might be providing an incomplete picture of social protection gaps in developing countries, particularly in terms of income security. The failure to include informal workers in social insurance programmes is indeed a major problem in developing countries. However, it is wrong to assume that formal workers in developing countries are always well-protected against income losses simply because they are officially part of a social insurance programme. A closer look at formal workers’ access to social protection in developing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic will shed light on the vulnerabilities of these workers in the area of income security and will identify social protection gaps that affect them. It will also highlight the weaknesses of social protection systems in those countries and provide insights into ways to eliminate them.
SOCIAL PROTECTION AGAINST INCOME LOSS AND INCOME FLUCTUATIONS The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines social protection as ‘the set of public measures that a society provides for its members to protect them against economic and social distress that would be caused by the absence or a substantial reduction of income from work 492
What about the formal workers? 493 as a result of various contingencies’ (Bonilla Garcia and Gruat, 2003, 13–14). It is a broad term that encompasses statutory and non-statutory forms of income support, contributory and non-contributory cash benefits, health insurance, and other forms of benefits. This chapter focuses only on social insurance and social assistance schemes that address income loss and income fluctuations. Social insurance and social assistance differ in terms of the links between entitlements and contributions. Social insurance is contributory and is often available only to those who have contributed to the scheme. Social assistance, on the other hand, is non-contributory; that is, eligibility is not dependent on previous contributions. Governments have considerably more discretion in determining eligibility for social assistance than for social insurance. Social insurance consists of employment-based schemes that are designed to guarantee income security and/or income maintenance for their members. They supply earnings-related income that will help the rights-holders maintain their standard of living throughout a crisis. The benefits are proportional to the rights-holders’ previous earnings (and contributions). Examples include unemployment insurance, sickness benefits, and wage subsidy schemes. Social insurance is not strictly egalitarian, in that benefits normally reflect salary differentials. However, the inegalitarian benefit structure is not necessarily at odds with public perceptions of fairness (Ahrens, 2020). Social assistance programmes, like social insurance schemes, can be used to guarantee a basic income, either temporarily or for the long term, in the case of emergencies and crises. Unlike insurance programmes, however, the assistance schemes are non-contributory; they are funded instead out of general tax revenues. Benefits are often flat, making them strictly egalitarian, but benefit levels are considerably lower than in social insurance, which means assistance programmes are unable to guarantee income maintenance. Most social assistance programmes are means-tested and rely on targeting, but only a few take the form of a universal basic income. Limited population coverage is also a shared characteristic of social assistance programmes in these countries. More specifically, most social assistance programmes exclude lower-middle-income households in these countries, particularly when the programme relies on narrow poverty targeting (ILO, 2017a). Data on employment and social insurance in developing countries show that those countries’ contributory social insurance schemes are limited in scope. The ILO (2018, 14) reports that worldwide 61 per cent of all workers in non-agricultural sectors are informally employed, and 93 per cent of all informal workers live in developing countries. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, no more than a third of the world’s population enjoyed comprehensive social insurance coverage (ILO, 2017a). The coverage rate for unemployment benefits was slightly higher at around 39 per cent (ILO, 2017a). Coverage gaps are especially pronounced in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East (ILO, 2017a). An important consequence of a high level of informality in employment for social protection is a mismatch between social insurance coverage and the actual working population. Informal workers by definition are ineligible for social insurance programmes – unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, and old-age pensions, for example. Informality here refers to ‘all economic activities by workers and economic units that are – in law or practice – not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements’ (ILO, 2015). Kumar (2021, 2) identifies three forms of informality, which are activities ‘(1) covered by the regulation but not in compliance; (2) covered by the regulation initially, but actors adjust their activity in a way that puts them out of coverage; and (3) not covered by the regulation’.
494 Research handbook on inequalities and work The limited appeal of social insurance in developing countries is explained by the prevalent ‘insurmountable’ problem of informality in their labour markets. In response, the dominant social policy paradigm in the 1990s promoted the expansion of social assistance in developing countries and instituting social assistance schemes as the main axis of social protection (Hanlon et al., 2010). This recommendation stands in contrast to social protection systems in welfare states in Western Europe, where social assistance plays ‘the role of the instrument of last resort’ (De Neubourg et al., 2007, 39). Instead of presenting informality in the labour market as a political challenge for governments in developing countries, many international actors, such as the World Bank (e.g. The World Bank, 2012), have promoted social assistance as a quick fix for the exclusion of informal workers from social protection systems. However, Ben Cheikh and Moisseron (2021) observed that the reliance on social assistance programmes in Tunisia even created disincentives for workers to work formally and contribute to social insurance schemes.
SOCIAL PROTECTION RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES In the face of the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for jobs and incomes, developing countries introduced a wide range of social protection measures to relieve the pressure on affected households in the form of job retention schemes and contributory and non-contributory social insurance programmes, all with varying levels of generosity and coverage (Dorlach, 2022). The most common measure (adopted by 91 per cent) was financial support to companies but in terms of direct financial support for workers only around a third of developing countries extended unemployment benefits and wage subsidies (Weber and Newhouse, 2021). This discrepancy between support for firms and support for workers can be partially explained by the high proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises, which account for slightly more than half of total employment in these countries (ILO, 2017b). However, this factor alone cannot account for the stark discrepancy and should not overshadow the fact that many developing-country governments decided to prioritise businesses over workers. In academic and policy circles, the prevailing view is that developing-country governments should have focused their income support efforts on informal workers during the pandemic. This is understandable given that informal workers were not eligible for social insurance. However, in these academic and policy accounts, the vulnerabilities of informal workers in developing countries are often presented alongside a rosy picture of the perceived situation of formal workers. For example, OXFAM emphasised that those who were hit the hardest were informal workers and stated that formal workers are more likely to ‘enjoy effective labour protections like sick pay, to have savings, and to be able to quarantine themselves in a secure and connected home while continuing to work’ (2020, 2–5). Similarly, the ILO (2020), in its policy brief on the pandemic response, defined the social protection gap in developing countries as the unavailability of social protection coverage but only in the case of informal workers. Alternatively, the World Bank had a distinct focus on ‘the missed middle’, which it defined as informal workers who fall through the cracks not only in social assistance programmes for the poor but also in contributory social insurance schemes for formal workers (Guven et al., 2021). The World Bank’s emphasis on the missed middle resonated with scholars studying the
What about the formal workers? 495 complexity of providing social protection coverage for informal workers in Latin American countries ‘who are non-poor but are at a high risk of poverty’ (Busso et al., 2021). In the scholarly literature as well, the most frequent criticism is that social insurance systems in developing countries serve only a privileged minority and exclude informal workers (Devereux, 2021; Leisering, 2021). In an article on social protection responses to the pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa, for instance, Jawad (2020) suggests that formal workers, particularly civil servants and public sector workers, enjoyed strong social protection during the pandemic, citing paid sick leave for healthcare workers in Lebanon as an example. When it comes to formal workers, the question of whether or not social protection entitlements translate into genuine income protection or maintenance has never been treated in the literature. In other words, the connection between formal workers’ de jure social insurance entitlements and their de facto enjoyment of the right to social security is not addressed. This is especially surprising as in middle-income countries formal workers often constitute the majority of the employed population, despite a non-negligible presence of informal workers (Gerard et al., 2020). Leisering (2021) identifies the ILO as the only international organisation that is committed to the formalisation of informal employment and the strengthening and expansion of social insurance systems. The World Bank also appears to have adopted a similar approach to the problem of informality (e.g. Ohnsorge and Yu, 2021) but with less emphasis on social insurance in its recommendations. Scholars have assumed that formal workers would be able to access income security programmes during the pandemic thanks to their formal-worker status, which promised access to social insurance schemes. However, they have disregarded the level of informality that is enmeshed in formal employment relations, which often hampers formal workers’ ability to avail themselves of social insurance schemes. Although the ILO definition of informality (2015) explicitly includes ‘insufficient coverage by formal arrangements’, scholars tend to diminish the complexity of the social protection gap in these countries by reducing it to a binary variable (workers with and those without social insurance). In practice, informal employment is defined only on the basis of a worker’s employment status (ILO, 2018). Workers are considered informally employed only if they are a ‘contributing family worker’ (which is common in the agricultural sector), an employer or a self-employed person whose economic unit is not registered, or a paid worker whose employer does not contribute to the social insurance fund and who lacks access to annual paid leave and paid sick leave (ILO, 2018, 10–11). In practice however the existing forms of informality in employment are not limited to situations that meet these criteria. The simplification of the problem of informality in employment results from two questionable assumptions at the level of operationalisation. The first is that once workers are formally registered and covered by at least one social insurance scheme, they can and will avail themselves of this benefit when the need arises. The second assumption is that insiders (formal workers) and outsiders (informal workers) of social protection systems are mutually exclusive categories. Once these assumptions are uncritically accepted, the research agenda and policy recommendations focus on the outsiders. A few studies have paid attention to support for formal workers in developing countries’ social protection responses to the pandemic. In one, Lustig and Trasberg (2021) observe that Brazil’s social protection response was heavily skewed away from formal workers in favour of the informally employed: in addition to easing access to the existing conditional cash transfer programme, an additional cash transfer was introduced that worked alongside the
496 Research handbook on inequalities and work existing measures. For formal workers, it provided credits to small and medium-sized enterprises and salary compensations paid through employers, aiming to minimise the number of layoffs (Lustig and Trasberg, 2021). An ILO study, in a rare reference to the vulnerability of formal workers during the pandemic, noted that a sudden drop in demand for textiles resulted in layoffs of formal workers in Bangladesh without any severance pay or unemployment benefits (ILO, 2020, 5). Finally, Blofield et al. (2021) found that the unemployment insurance funds in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia were insufficient to mitigate the impact of the pandemic-induced crisis on the formally employed. This chapter contributes to this emerging body of research that focuses on formal workers. In its treatment of informality in formal employment, it goes beyond the employment statuses listed in the ILO’s operational definition (ILO, 2018). It also highlights the negative effects of this informality on formal workers’ ability to access social security. It shows that identifying informality and underinsurance is not a straightforward empirical exercise, for which reason further research is needed on the interplay between de jure and de facto social protection for formal workers in developing countries.
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND EMPLOYMENT IN TURKEY The share of formal workers in total employment and with social security coverage is higher in Turkey than in most other developing countries, which made it a particularly suitable research site for this study. The ILO (2021) classifies Turkey as an upper-middle-income developing country with a relatively strong social security system that covers 80 per cent of its population with at least one social protection benefit (not including health care). The Turkish social protection system is the culmination of over eight decades of policy efforts that started in the 1940s with public old-age pensions, followed by non-contributory social assistance in the 1970s and an unemployment insurance scheme in the 1990s. The still-immature unemployment insurance system has strict eligibility requirements, low benefit levels, and short payment durations, much like its counterparts in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia (Blofield et al., 2021). Severance pay, on the other hand, is a mature and more generous scheme for formal workers in periods of unemployment (Ozkan, 2016, 126). Informal employment in Turkey has gradually declined to a fifth of all non-agricultural employment (Social Security Institution, 2020), but it continues to pose a major challenge. Despite the fact that most workers in non-agricultural sectors are formally employed, Çelik (2015) contends that the Turkish labour law has lost its capacity over the last decade to protect workers from a variety of employer-related abuses. Increased reliance on subcontracting since the 1990s added fuel to the fire in the Turkish labour market (Birelma, 2017) and possibly led to a higher degree of informality in formal employment relations. A downward trend has also been observed in collective labour relations in the form of de-unionisation and the strengthening of what Çelik (2015) refers to as ‘symbiotic’ unionism. In 2016, the unionisation rate in Turkey was below 10 per cent and the collective bargaining coverage was even lower (around 6 per cent) (ILO, n.d.). The Turkish social protection response to the COVID-19 pandemic was not a robust one. It allocated only 2.7 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) versus 4.1 per cent in other
What about the formal workers? 497 emerging economies and 17.3 per cent in advanced economies (IMF, 2021). Overall, additional spending and forgone revenue were comparatively low. As for concrete policy changes in response to the pandemic, the Turkish government’s first step was to use the short-time work scheme and relax its eligibility requirements. Employers had to apply for it, and a successful application meant that workers would receive a wage subsidy for a limited period. The monthly value of this wage support was capped at 1.5 times the gross minimum wage. The second step was a ban on layoffs, which was imposed shortly after the first comprehensive lockdown in April 2020, more than a month after the official announcement of the first COVID-19 case in Turkey. It did not apply retroactively to workers who had already been laid off. Alongside the layoff ban, the government introduced a furlough scheme that included a flat-rate income transfer to individual workers. The monthly value was set at 1,200 Turkish Liras (TL), equivalent to half the minimum wage at the time. Two features of the Turkish social protection response to the pandemic in terms of its contributory component are noteworthy. First, government decisions about benefit levels for workers seriously undermined the earnings-related character of these schemes and led to low benefit levels that, in many cases, failed to satisfy household needs. Second, the government asked employers to decide which workers would receive support. The resulting social protection gaps are discussed below in detail. The government eased the eligibility requirements for non-contributory social assistance for the poor, which refers, in the Turkish legislation, to households whose income is below the official poverty line and where no member has formal employment. This group received a non-contributory income support payment of 1,000 TL (slightly less than half the minimum wage at the time) that was repeated three times during the pandemic. Another noteworthy development was a government-organised philanthropic campaign (‘Biz bize yeteriz Türkiyem’ (‘We will look out for each other, my Turkey’)) to help fund these social assistance programmes for the poor; otherwise, they would have had to be funded fully from the public budget.
INSIGHTS FROM WORKERS IN PANDEMIC-STRICKEN ISTANBUL The pandemic created a rare ‘opportunity’ for researchers to explore social protection gaps for formal workers in developing countries. It also brought to light the difficulties that formal workers faced in accessing social insurance benefits – challenges that might have escaped scholarly attention in other times. It was in this context that I led a research team to conduct exploratory qualitative research to answer the following questions: During the COVID-19 pandemic, did formal salaried workers in Istanbul have effective access to their social insurance benefits and entitlements? And if not, what caused the social protection gap? Methods We focused on the experiences of formal workers in a metropolitan city (Istanbul) in an upper-middle-income country (Turkey) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (March through May 2020) (Yılmaz et al., 2020).1 Istanbul was selected as the research site because it is the largest Turkish metropolitan city, it hosts around a fifth of the country’s
498 Research handbook on inequalities and work working population, and it generates a third of the country’s GDP (TURKSTAT, 2019). The unemployment rate in non-agricultural sectors in Istanbul was relatively high (15 per cent) just before the pandemic hit (TURKSTAT, 2020). The services sector was the city’s largest employer (67 per cent), followed by manufacturing (31.8 per cent) and agriculture (1.2 per cent) (TURKSTAT, 2020). We conducted in-depth interviews with 43 formal, salaried workers in Istanbul via online platforms (Zoom, Skype, etc.) or by phone. We used a combination of purposive and snowball sampling to recruit participants. The distribution of employment by gender, sector, and enterprise size in Istanbul underpinned our purposive sampling strategy. The final sample was gender-balanced and included a heterogeneous distribution of workers across different-sized enterprises. The majority worked in the service industry, followed by manufacturing; there were no participants from the agriculture sector. Participants were asked how their jobs and incomes were affected by the pandemic. In case they were negatively impacted, we enquired whether (and to what extent) they were able to receive their social insurance benefits and entitlements. For the analysis presented in this chapter, I adopted an inductive thematic analysis approach to identify the factors and mechanisms through which the informality that is enmeshed in formal employment relations created gaps in social protection. The quotes presented in this chapter draw attention to three major factors that reflect and explain social protection gaps for formal workers: the government’s discretionary power, employers’ discretionary power, and weak labour protections. All interviews were conducted in Turkish; I translated the quotes into English myself. Explaining the Social Protection Gaps for Formal Workers The pandemic-induced economic crisis affected the jobs and incomes of formal salaried workers in Istanbul in different ways. The variability stemmed from the fact that public health measures and the pandemic-induced economic dynamics did not have the same effect on all sectors, subsectors, and businesses. At the time of the interviews, workers in some sectors – hospitality, entertainment, and sports, for example – were either unable to continue working or had had their working hours significantly reduced. Workers in the healthcare sector, on the other hand, and some companies in the wholesale and retail sectors, reported longer working hours. Not surprisingly, access to income security was a major concern for workers who were forced to stop working or whose working hours were drastically scaled back. What is striking however is that, despite Turkey’s relatively strong social security coverage, many formal salaried workers in Istanbul did not have effective access to their social insurance benefits and entitlements. The Government’s Discretionary Power The government’s discretionary power to amend social security provisions is one of the key factors that account for social protection gaps. Social insurance schemes such as unemployment insurance are considered automatic stabilisers, especially in the discourse of macroeconomics, implying that no further government intervention (or political decision) would be required for them to function when a crisis hits. However, during the pandemic, the government did have
What about the formal workers? 499 to make several decisions: when to officially declare the pandemic, for example, and whether or not to amend social security eligibility requirements. These decisions determined access and shaped the benefit pathways of formal workers. In some cases, keeping the eligibility criteria for these schemes intact put many formal workers in a vulnerable position and sometimes caused them to be excluded from social insurance benefits. The experience of a 42-year-old woman who had been formally employed in a small business in the hospitality sector illustrates how a delay in the government’s response led to a social protection gap. I didn’t receive any compensation because I was dismissed [before the government introduced the ban on layoffs]. But we [the employees] had a verbal agreement with our employer that we would be rehired when the shop reopened.
The above quote shows that a delay in introducing pandemic-specific measures – in her case, the ban on layoffs – resulted in dismissal when there was a sudden drop in demand for the services her company provided. Had the furlough scheme been introduced earlier, she could have received a flat-rate income. Under the circumstances, however, she had to trust that her employer would indeed rehire her when the pandemic was over. In the interview, her disappointment with the social security system was obvious; she was frustrated when she found out she could not benefit from unemployment insurance because she did not meet the strict criteria to qualify for this scheme (4 months of continuous employment before the layoff and having been in employment for at least 20 months in the last three years). Employers’ Discretionary Power The discretionary power of employers was another significant barrier to workers’ ability to access social security. In the context of the Turkish social protection response to the COVID-19 pandemic, employers were asked to initiate the process for putting workers on furlough or short-time work; both measures would allow workers to benefit from social insurance schemes if the employer’s application was approved. In essence, therefore, formal workers’ effective access to social security depended on their employer’s initiating the necessary administrative procedures, and in a timely manner. The practice of tying formal workers’ access to social security to their employer’s initiative assumed that employers would be fully compliant and would act with good will. It further skewed the already asymmetric power balance between employers and workers. One interviewee was a 24-year-old man who was formally employed as a waiter in a small catering business. He explained how his employer’s tactic prevented him from accessing social security benefits: We were forced to sign off for unpaid leave for the following 15 days. We weren’t able to get any information after that. … We had no choice but to sign it. … I don’t have any income now because I was put on unpaid leave.
This quote highlights the frustration of a formal worker who was involuntarily put on unpaid leave when the pandemic hit and the government closed down cafés and restaurants as part of its public health measures. The duration of the lockdown was indefinite, so he had no idea how long he would be without a salary – but because he was still officially employed, he did
500 Research handbook on inequalities and work not qualify for unemployment benefits. Nor did he qualify for social assistance, again because technically he was still employed. During the interview, he complained about being unable to contact his employer to get an idea of what the future held for his job and the workplace itself. He could have been benefitting from the flat-rate income transfer for furloughed workers, but his employer’s unresponsiveness left him in an uncertain and economically vulnerable position. His predicament as a formal worker shows how tying workers’ access to social security to employer initiative rendered social security ineffective. Workers employed in other small businesses reported similar experiences, which suggests that tying access to social security to an employer’s initiative might have hit workers in small-sized enterprises particularly hard. Some employers developed strategies to circumvent the social security framework altogether. A 29-year-old woman formally employed in a medium-sized career guidance and education counselling business described her experience as follows: The state provided some money for people who were on unpaid leave [the furlough scheme during the pandemic]. I think it was around 1,200 TL. [My employer said] ‘I’ll top it up, but you’ll continue to work full-time’. You can’t say no to this. Under normal circumstances, you could say ‘What? No way!’. But in this case, you know he fired another girl, so you know that can happen to you as well.
The employer officially placed the worker on furlough but obliged her to continue working full-time. This practice benefitted the employer in that the state paid a flat-rate for income support to the worker, which decreased the amount to be paid (off the books) by the employer. The interviewee was aware that her employer was sidestepping the social security system, but she lacked the means to challenge him, knowing that, if she did, she could lose her job. In the end, she agreed to be officially placed on furlough, received the equivalent amount of pay (the sum of flat-rate income support for furloughed workers and the informal top-up from her employer), and continued working full-time. This arrangement did not result in any decline in her income in real terms, but it put her at a disadvantage in terms of her lost contributions towards the old-age pension. In essence, she traded her future social security benefits in order to ensure her job and income security. Weak Labour Protections Weak labour protections in Turkey also put formal workers at a disadvantage when it came to accessing income security during the pandemic. A case in point is the practice of false (or bogus) self-employment, which had been on the rise before the pandemic, especially in the healthcare, entertainment, and fitness sectors. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2000, 156) defines false self-employees as ‘people whose conditions of employment are similar to those of employees, who have no employees themselves, and who declare themselves (or are declared) as self-employed simply to reduce tax liabilities or employers’ responsibilities’. One of our interviewees, a 26-year-old man who was working as a personal trainer in a fitness club chain, stated that he was working ‘off payroll’ when the pandemic hit. Prior to the pandemic, he had agreed with his employer to set up a sole proprietorship and work on a fee-for-service basis instead. He explained the situation he found himself in with the pandemic: Others [payroll workers doing the same job] receive half of their salaries from the state and the other half from the company [referring to the wage subsidy as part of the short-time work support
What about the formal workers? 501 scheme]. … They are in a much better position [than those who previously agreed to the bogus self-employment status, including the interviewee himself]; at least they receive their regular salaries. We don’t have that chance, unfortunately.
This quote illustrates the negative consequence of false self-employment arrangements for workers, especially when they face an unexpected drop in the demand for their service and therefore in their income. The interviewee stated that he had voluntarily agreed to switch his employment status (from a payroll worker to an individual contractor) with the expectation of earning more. This was prohibited by the labour law, however: outsourcing an organisation’s fundamental business tasks is not allowed. In the end, he found out that by agreeing to this arrangement, he had jeopardised his social security entitlements and freed his employer from all his employer responsibilities during the pandemic. Fitness clubs were closed with the lockdown, so he found himself excluded from social insurance programmes for formal workers. Unregistered wage income (envelope wages) is another facet of informality that was widespread in the Turkish labour market long before the pandemic. Often considered a feature of informal employment, it also takes the form of under-declared employment where only a portion of the wage income of formal workers is reported (Williams and Horodnic, 2017). Employers pay a portion of a worker’s salary off the books; that is, this amount is not declared to the social security authorities in order to keep employer-paid social security contributions low. The remainder (usually the minimum wage equivalent) is registered. The experience of a 39-year-old man, a senior lawyer at a medium-sized law firm, illustrates how the practice of undeclared wage income undermines the income maintenance function of social insurance in times of crisis. Here’s how it works: We get part of our salary through legal means and the rest in cash [informally], which is the largest part of our salary. Now he [the employer] is applying for the short-time work programme … Our official salary is low, so how are we supposed to get the rest of it? We have no idea.
This quote expresses the anxiety experienced by a senior lawyer about how much his wage subsidy would be if his workplace switched to the short-time work scheme. He told us he was happy with the salary arrangement he had made with his employer before the pandemic, perceiving it as a win-win deal for both sides. He was receiving a higher salary than if the entire amount had been registered, and his employer was saving on his social security contributions. However, when the volume of business decreased with the pandemic, the interviewee’s chances of finding another job also declined, and leaving his current firm was not a realistic option. He was therefore left in an untenable position and was concerned about receiving only the formally registered portion of his salary. Even though that amount still provided him with a stable income and protected him from abject poverty, it would not allow him to maintain his current standard of living, he said. His situation exemplifies the need for earnings-related social insurance programmes that will provide income maintenance for formal workers. It also reveals the scale of informality that is embedded in formal employment relations in Turkey.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The unprecedented economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted workers in developing countries. Several international organisations and scholars have encour-
502 Research handbook on inequalities and work aged policymakers in these countries to prioritise reaching out to the informally employed with non-contributory social assistance schemes. Although the high prevalence of informal employment and the exclusion of the informally employed from social insurance schemes necessitate such a response, the assumption underpinning these recommendations is that the formally employed in these countries enjoy adequate income protection, but this is misleading. Based on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with formal salaried workers in Istanbul during the first wave of the pandemic, this chapter brings to light the multiple facets of informality that are embedded in formal employment relations. It also highlights the negative implications of these informal practices for formal workers in terms of their ability to access social insurance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three factors account for the extent to which de jure social security entitlements are turned into de facto enjoyment of the right to social security for formal workers: the government’s discretionary power, employers’ discretionary power, and weak labour protections. My analysis indicates that the statutory social security entitlements of formal salaried workers can be significantly compromised, especially in cases where there is government failure to protect workers from economic downturns, employer-dependent access to social security, limited collective labour relations, or inadequate enforcement of labour law. In this chapter, I call for a nuanced approach to informality in employment and to social protection gaps in developing countries, one that would transcend the simplistic, dichotomous understanding of formal and informal employment in the current literature. Without a more nuanced approach, we risk diverting attention from the very real informal practices in formal employment and ignore the fact that formal workers sometimes end up forfeiting the social security benefits they are entitled to. Addressing the barriers to formal workers’ ability to access social protection in developing countries would not necessarily undermine efforts to provide social protection for the informally employed. If left unaddressed, however, the link between formal employment and social security will deteriorate, further undermining workers’ trust in social security. The erosion of social insurance for the formally employed should ring alarm bells for all who think social insurance should be broadly available. When the level of trust in public institutions is low, workers might choose to trade future social security benefits for present job security or a higher income in the short term. Experience during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that this strategy of so-called ‘voluntary’ informal employment could leave them in a precarious position when a crisis hits. Alternatively, strong regulations on formal employment, combined with effective social security benefits, would function as a benchmark for the whole labour market and make attempts at formalisation politically more palatable. The analysis here reveals that complicated power dynamics, which affect workers’ access to social insurance benefits and entitlements, are at play at every level: the macro (political) level, the meso level (the workplace), and the micro level (individual workers). At the macro level, governments fix benefit levels and determine the criteria for accessing social security entitlements. The decisions reflect the input of various political considerations and the complex power dynamics that involve interactions between business and government. At the meso level, accessing social insurance entitlements is not a straightforward procedure that is immune to uneven power dynamics. Power in the workplace is heavily skewed towards employers, who, in effect, control their workers’ access to social security. In the absence of strong collective bargaining traditions and trade unions, social insurance benefits and entitlements are often considered negotiable, either overtly or covertly. At the micro level, individual
What about the formal workers? 503 workers can sometimes exert agency to make their own decisions about applying for social security and using their entitlements. This can involve trading their social security entitlements for short-term gains. This chapter also offers an alternative to the dualistic (formal–informal) conceptualisation of employment where social security is tied to employment. It introduces the notion of hybridity as a heuristic tool for the study of the interactions between statutory social insurance entitlements and their actual use and take-up. Previous studies have used hybridity as a feature of workers (Bögenhold and Klinglmair, 2016), enterprises (Murgia and Pulignano, 2021), and labour regimes (Kong, 2013);2 I propose, however, to use this notion for investigating and describing the relationship between de jure and de facto social security that is tied to employment. Using hybridity in this manner will help us avoid the mistake of ignoring the power dynamics that hinder the ability of formal workers to access their rightful social insurance benefits and entitlements. Using hybridity as a heuristic tool will also allow us to explore how and to what extent workers on the same type of employment contract (and even in the same workplace) differ in their ability to access social insurance benefits. In terms of geographic applicability, a hybridity framework would apply broadly in contexts where social insurance schemes are present but where enforcement of labour rights is weak and collective labour relations are limited. It can also be used in studying social security in precarious sectors in advanced economies. A hybridity construct will also be useful for scrutinising disparities in access to formal employment and social insurance that are based on gender, social class, and disability – and possibly even intersectional disparities. One unexplored area for further research is whether or not workers in marginalised social groups (e.g. women, blacks, the disabled, and ethnic minorities) show a different pattern in terms of access to social insurance.
NOTES 1.
The research team included the following researchers at the Social Policy Forum Research Centre at Boğaziçi University: Anıl Gürbüztürk, Cemre Canbazer, Ekin Ekici, Oğuzhan Hışıl, Püren Aktaş, Remziye Gül Aslan, Simla Serim, Tuğba Zeynep Şen, and Zeynep Kesici. Ethical approval for this study (Decision no: 2020-29) was granted by the Social and Human Sciences Ethical Review Board of Boğaziçi University. 2. The notion of hybridity in employment is used to describe the employment status of people who engage in two different types of employment at the same time, such as a salaried worker also offering a freelance service on the side (Bögenhold and Klinglmair, 2016). In another account, Murgia and Pulignano (2021, 1352) observe a trend toward hybridisation of work, which they define as ‘the blurring boundaries – both at the structural and at the cultural level – of working experiences that were earlier typical either of self-employment or of salaried employment.’ Another use of hybridity refers to the combination of market and non-market forms of coordination at the level of labour relations (Kong, 2013).
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PART VI CLIMATE CHANGE AND INEQUALITIES
34. Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry Linda Clarke, Melahat Sahin-Dikmen and Edmundo Werna
INTRODUCTION Climate change has major implications for the world of work. Extreme weather events such as heat waves, wildfires and floods pose a direct threat to workers’ health, safety and lives in many sectors, including construction. Climate adaptation measures are expected to affect all sectors of the economy with medium- to long-term impacts ranging from complete closure and disappearance of industries to upgrading of competences and the emergence of new occupations and employment. Despite the major transformation implied, the interplay of climate change and work remains seriously under-researched. Analysing the implications of climate change from a labour perspective is particularly pertinent as green transition policies are overwhelmingly driven by a technological vision focused on emission reduction targets and too often neglect the implications of adaptation measures for work and workers (Lipsig-Mummé and McBride, 2015). Compounding this, climate governance processes also largely exclude workers and their representatives, particularly at the sectoral and organizational levels (Morena et al., 2020; European Trade Union Confederation, 2020; Clarke and Sahin-Dikmen, 2020; Preuss et al., 2015; Rathzel and Uzzell, 2013). Framing the transition to a sustainable economy globally, the ‘social’ dimension of the UN Sustainable Development vision incorporates ‘decent work’, articulated in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) (UN, 2020; ILO, 2012, 2018). ‘Decent work’ is a broad concept encompassing full employment with good quality of work and defined by the ILO as ‘productive work for women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity’. In general, work is considered as decent when it: (a) pays a fair income, (b) guarantees a secure form of employment and safe working conditions, (c) ensures equal opportunities and treatment for all, (d) includes social protection for the workers and their families, (e) offers prospects for personal development and encourages social integration and (f) means workers are free to express their concerns and to organize (Lawrence and Werna, 2009). However, evidence suggests that ‘greening’ of production does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with decent and inclusive work and employment (Weghmann, 2020; Wikström and Stén, 2019; Gregson et al., 2016; Littig, 2017; Stevis, 2013). The case of building construction exemplifies the tensions between structural, organizational and social conditions that shape experiences of work and climate adaptation strategies. In this chapter, we examine how these tensions play out in the sector and show that in both the Global North and Global South the green transition in the built environment is at risk of being limited to an ecological modernization of building production without addressing the social relations and structures that give rise to inequalities in work and employment (Pellow et al., 2000; Mol et al., 2009). There is a great need to investigate building construction as 507
508 Research handbook on inequalities and work one of the major contributors to climate change and the target of climate adaptation policies at local, national and regional levels. Building construction is responsible globally for around 40% of carbon emissions, 28% of which are attributed to the operational phase (i.e. energy needed to heat, cool and power buildings) and 11% to the construction phase (i.e. materials and construction process/embodied carbon) (Bataille, 2019; World Building Council, 2019). As articulated in SDG 9, the transformation of building construction into a sustainable industry is essential for the transition to a zero-carbon economy (UN, 2020) and is to be tackled as a priority by many countries in a bid to reduce national emissions and meet commitments to the Paris Agreement. There is a particularly optimistic narrative around the transition to a green built environment, with much emphasis on the potential for job creation; the construction sector is set to gain more in employment than any other sector through low-energy construction programmes, retrofitting of existing buildings and the installation of renewable energy sources (ILO, 2018). What tends to be neglected is that this transition is set to take place in the context of an industry that encapsulates the intertwined nature of environmental and social sustainability and the impossibility of addressing the former without transforming the social structures and relations of production. As well as being responsible for the exploitation and degradation of nature through high levels of carbon emission and waste generation and the use of high-carbon materials such as cement, the construction industry is also characterized by poor working and employment conditions, exclusion of women and indigenous minority ethnic populations and disparities in vocational education and training (VET). Indeed, much of the sector is at odds with the ILO decent work standards, with examples of exploitation, breach of labour standards and poor health and safety rife in all corners of the globe, from the heart of the European Union (EU) to Asia, Africa and the Americas (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2019; Amnesty International, 2019; Know the Chain, 2019; Focus on Labour Exploitation, 2018). The aim of this chapter is to highlight the inequalities faced by building workers in selected countries in the Global North and Global South and show that transformation of the dominant employment and VET models is essential for a just transition to an environmentally and socially sustainable construction industry (BWI, 2015). In both regions, work inequalities are interpreted broadly to include the full range of issues relating to labour standards and working and employment conditions, such as health and safety risks, gender and ethnic discrimination, lack of unionization and lack of access to collective agreements, social protection and VET. The chapter discusses the interaction between, on the one hand, such inequalities and, on the other, climate change and action in building construction, offering an illustration of the labour-related issues that need to be addressed as part of climate change strategies. In examining the transition in the Global North as exemplified by the EU, the ambitious EU policies for improving the energy performance of buildings are juxtaposed with, on the one hand, inequalities in terms of gender, ethnicity and nationality and, on the other, poor working and employment conditions. It is argued that addressing inequalities at work depends on tackling structural problems including sectoral fragmentation, the lack of labour market regulation, low levels of unionization and a masculine culture. Drawing on examples from across the Global South, the next section examines the highly exploitative labour practices and work and employment inequalities embedded within the very structures of the construction industry, dominated by large multi-national companies. Here, it is argued, the goals of equitable and inclusive work appear as elusive as the objective of an environmentally responsible industry.
Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry 509 Comparing examples from the Global North and Global South based on recent primary research by the authors and a review of secondary evidence on the transition to green building construction, a different set of priorities and issues emerge in relation to what are in effect differences in the nature and scale of inequality in the workplace. Despite similarities in terms of the dominance of sub-contracting and irregular employment, low unionization, poor health and safety standards, women’s exclusion and inadequate VET, the scale of these problems is of a much greater magnitude in the Global South. Equally significantly, addressing these issues presents a much greater challenge due to the weak legislative and regulatory framework relating to both climate change and labour rights, low compliance, non-existent inspection regimes and the persecution of union members. In the North, VET and the role of the unions feature more prominently than in the South, though in both regions the issues of precarious and insecure employment and lack of labour market regulation and enforcement also dominate. What the chapter does not address is the vast disparity between the Global South and the North in terms of contributions to carbon emissions and the urgency of and ability to combat climate change. Overall, investment is North-biased; in 2021, global building sector investment in energy efficiency increased by an unprecedented 16% from 2020 to a total of approximately USD 237 billion (IEA, 2022a). This increase occurred primarily among countries in the North through public investment programmes, including in Germany, the UK, Italy, the USA, Canada and Japan. Yet historically it is these Northern countries that have been largely responsible for carbon emissions, whilst the Southern countries are by and large the victims of the ensuing climate crisis. The bulk of the impact of construction on the environment, through for instance CO2 emissions, comes from the Global North where the construction process itself is more highly mechanized, with buildings consuming much more energy than those in the South, where low-carbon buildings are achieved through traditional methods and materials. Paradoxically, such traditional approaches are undermined by industry-led standardization and the global marketing of high-carbon materials and methods (BWI, 2015). International companies, forced to comply with stringent climate adaptation regulations and adhere to labour standards, are not subject to similar restrictions in the Global South, where the impact of climate change is more acute, construction output is projected to rise with rapid urbanization and neither climate nor labour market regulations are as stringent or enforced. The social transformation needed to achieve a just transition to an environmentally sustainable building construction industry, providing decent, fair and inclusive employment whilst attuned to regional and local needs and circumstances, cannot ignore the power of multinationals and global industry and institutional structures that connect the Global North with the Global South (Chandler and Mazlish, 2005; Coe et al., 2013; ILO, 2016).
GREEN TRANSITION IN THE GLOBAL NORTH – THE EXAMPLE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION The Energy Efficiency Drive in Building Construction In the EU the construction industry contributes 9% of GDP and broadly defined1 employs 21.3 million workers. Around 12.7 million, 60% of the construction workforce, are building workers and technicians found in ‘building construction activities’ narrowly defined. The sector, responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions, is a major target of the
510 Research handbook on inequalities and work EU’s net-zero carbon strategy. Climate adaptation measures for the built environment, set out in ‘Clean Energy for All Europeans’, aim to reduce emissions by 32.5% and increase the share of renewable energy and energy efficiency by 32% compared to 1990 levels by 2030 (European Commission, 2019a). The long-term aim of reaching a carbon-neutral built environment by 2050 is also supported by the European Green New Deal (European Commission, 2019b), the EU’s strategic programme for implementing the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Decarbonization of building construction, essential to meeting these targets, is driven by the Energy Performance of the Buildings Directive (EPBD, 2010, 2018), which sets out the energy performance targets for nearly zero-energy new buildings (NZEBs) and the renovation of existing buildings and for renewable energy. The EPBD tasks EU Member States with the transposition of NZEBs into national law and implementation, including the development of national energy action plans detailing financial incentives, energy performance certification and inspection schemes, renovation strategies and complementary measures. As a result, the implementation of the EPBD varies substantially between the EU countries with NZEBs too interpreted in the context of varying climates, building types and codes (European Commission, 2016a, 2019c). Employment in the construction industry is expected to grow 4-7% in the next decade, largely driven by energy efficiency policies and programmes, creating employment in retrofitting the existing building stock and the installation of renewable energy systems (e.g. heat pumps, solar panels) across Europe. It is estimated that between 3–4 million workers need to be trained or ‘upskilled’ to meet energy efficiency and carbon reduction targets, whilst at the same time the demand for better educated and more highly qualified workers is set to increase with digitalization (ECSO, 2019, 2020; European Commission, 2022; CEDEFOP, 2019). Yet the construction sector is woefully unprepared to meet the challenge ahead. Construction Workforce and Employment: Irregular and Insecure Employment, Lack of Diversity, Poor Working and Employment Conditions Calls for rapid recruitment and training in ‘green’ construction jobs come in the context of an industry with acute labour shortages (Hayes, 2022); building occupations continue to feature high on the list of ‘shortage’ occupations (McGrath, 2021), a long-standing pattern that worsened following Covid-19. The average age in the industry is 35, with between 11% (Slovenia) and 25% of workers (Ireland) over the age of 55 (Clarke et al., 2019a, 2019b). Often described as a problem of ‘image’, the industry struggles to attract young people as building construction is perceived as low-paid, dirty, manual work. The sector has a poor health and safety record, accountable for more than one fifth (22.2%) of all fatal accidents at work in the EU (Eurostat, 2022), with high levels of mental health issues and work-related stress also reported (Lopez, 2019). The risks associated with new materials and methods of sustainable construction, such as insulation and removal of asbestos in retrofitting projects, have received little attention (Cater, 2022; Schindler, 2020). Many European countries rely on migrant workers who constitute between 14% in Germany, 25% in Finland and 30% or more of the construction workforce in Italy, Poland and Slovenia, although the definition of ‘migrant’ worker varies ranging from established ethnic minorities to more transient posted workers. Evidence on the working and employment conditions of migrant workers reveals high levels of exploitation, low pay, wage theft, long hours, and limited or no access to holidays, training or health and safety equipment (European Union
Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry 511 Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2019; Know the Chain, 2019; Focus on Labour Exploitation, 2018). Across Europe, questions of equity loom large over demands for a transition to a sustainable industry. The construction workforce is predominantly white and male, with women’s participation proving particularly difficult to improve. On average, according to 2018 figures, women constitute around 10% of the entire workforce, including professionals, site workers and those in administrative roles, ranging from 13% in Germany and 11% in the UK to 7% in Denmark and only 6% in Italy, Romania, Ireland and Poland (European Construction Sector Observatory, 2020). Women are found in greater numbers among professionals, making up 30% of engineers in Bulgaria, 20% in Italy and Slovenia and 15% in Germany, Ireland and Finland (Clarke et al., 2015). Among skilled trades, the percentage drops to around 3%, a figure that has remained stable for decades. For example, in 2016 in Ireland, out of 10,000 apprenticeships available, only 33 were taken up by women (Clarke et al., 2019b). The reasons for the low participation of women are well-documented: the fragmented and temporary nature of employment, ineffective procurement measures, inflexible and hazardous working conditions, lack of work–life balance possibilities, long working hours, lack of formalized recruitment practices, a male-dominated culture and sexist attitudes, inappropriate equipment and lack of facilities on construction sites (Clancy and Feenstra, 2019; Baruah, 2018; Clarke et al., 2004, 2015; Worrall et al., 2010; Sang and Powell, 2013; Styhre, 2011; Fielden et al., 2000). Employment in the growing renewable energy sector is also gendered; although women constitute 35% of all those employed across Europe, they are in non-technical, administrative roles rather than in technical or managerial positions (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2016a, 2016b). The operative workforce (e.g. metal workers, electricians, heating and cooling experts, insulation specialists, plumbers) in particular is heavily male-dominated (Clancy and Feenstra, 2019). The challenge of green transition is thus not only about increasing the number of workers but about addressing questions of inequality. Climate adaptation policies need to ensure that the workforce and new entrants into it are diverse as well as being equipped with appropriate expertise, skills and competences. The Challenge of Vocational Education and Training for Low-energy Construction Low-energy construction calls for a different kind of expertise and role fundamentally different from those for traditional construction occupations (European Commission, 2014; Clarke et al., 2017). Buildings must meet specific energy performance targets, which imply high levels of precision. NZEBs call for broader and deeper theoretical education embedding climate literacy, technical competences, inter-disciplinary understanding and a broad range of transversal abilities such as project management, problem-solving, greater co-ordination and communication on site and more collaborative working between different occupations. Analysis of the performance gap between design intent and implementation shows that, if the workers are not adequately trained, energy performance targets are compromised (Zero Carbon Hub, 2014; Gleeson, 2016; European Commission, 2014). EU programmes to stimulate the renovation of existing buildings (European Commission, 2020a) and promote a circular economy (European Commission, 2020b) mean that construction workers need to be able to work with non-standard methods and new, sustainable materials, as well as understand and practise resource management and waste minimization.
512 Research handbook on inequalities and work The EU’s flagship initiative BUILD UP Skills (2010–2017), launched to develop NZEB competencies in the workforce, illustrated the complexity and the sheer scale of the task facing the industry (European Commission, 2014, 2016b, 2018). Significant differences exist in terms of VET structure, governance mechanisms and capacity to respond to the challenge between the better equipped Northern European countries, such as Denmark, Germany and Belgium, on the one hand, and under-resourced Eastern and Southern European countries, such as Hungary, Italy and Bulgaria, on the other. Across the EU, millions of construction workers have low levels of general education and lack formal VET and qualifications (European Commission, 2014; Clarke et al., 2019a, 2019b), with ‘skill shortages’ a common and persistent theme (CEDEFOP, 2019). In many countries the existing VET systems are seen as a major barrier; many need to upgrade teacher training and improve facilities, resources and work-based learning. Moreover, whilst the social partnership systems in Belgium, Germany and Denmark allow the input of employers and unions into VET and climate governance, elsewhere the role of unions can be non-existent or limited to an advisory capacity (Clarke et al., 2019a, 2019b). Countries also vary in terms of the progress made in developing and delivering VET for NZEBs. For example, while in Belgium, Germany and Denmark significant progress has been made in embedding the relevant knowledge, skills and competences within existing VET programmes, in many countries, including Bulgaria, Italy, Poland and Spain, they are almost non-existent within initial VET except for higher-level technical occupations and qualifications related to the installation of renewable energy systems. In countries such as the UK, Hungary and Slovenia, training tends to be limited to short and narrow courses by manufacturers and employers. Lack of VET for NZEBs for building workers contrasts sharply with that for ‘professional’ occupations such as architects, engineers, surveyors and site supervisors. Disparities in the approach to training for workers have implications for worker agency in the transition. VET systems based on the principle of broad occupational education and training, for example in Belgium and Germany, embed NZEB training within existing VET pathways. By contrast, VET systems based on narrow conceptions of building occupations, as in the UK and Ireland, rely on short add-on courses in specific skills such as installation of renewable energy sources (e.g. heat pumps, solar panels) or insulation (Clarke et al., 2020a, 2020b). NZEB expertise is thereby reduced to technical skills training to the neglect of climate literacy, theoretical knowledge, higher technical competences and transversal abilities such as project management and communication. Indeed, approaches to VET for NZEBs are often underpinned by instrumental conceptions of labour, aligned with a fragmented labour process designed to prioritise ‘cost’ and ‘efficiency’. With some exceptions, skill and labour shortages represent the product of long years of lack of investment in VET and meaningful action to improve the working and employment conditions that deter women and young people from entering construction. The very structure of the sector and prioritization of short-term interests undermine efforts to enhance workers’ capacity and agency for an active role in transforming building construction into an inclusive and sustainable industry (Winch, 2006). Structure of the Construction Sector – Small Firms, Sub-contracting Chains and Fragmented Labour Process Employment in the construction industry is irregular. For instance, in the recession of 2008–2016, the construction workforce was halved in Spain and Italy and all EU member states reported dramatic declines in employment, with workers migrating or leaving the
Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry 513 industry entirely. Employment also tends to be temporary as sub-contractors are engaged on a project basis and the construction process is characterized by extended sub-contracting chains, which make it difficult to monitor work and employment conditions to enforce pay and health and safety legislation and establish access to training for migrant workers. The sector is dominated by micro firms with fewer than ten employees, ranging from less than a quarter of the 338,535 firms in Germany to about half of the 480,000 in Poland and about two thirds or more of the 529,103 in Italy (Clarke et al., 2019a, 2019b). The domination of the sector by small firms undermines the training infrastructure as small and micro firms do not have the capacity to take on apprentices or facilitate work-based training (European Commission, 2014; Clarke et al., 2019a, 2019b). Low take up of and access to NZEB training for the existing workforce is exacerbated by high levels of self-employment as many find it difficult to take time off to complete further training. Undeclared work by small companies lost in complex sub-contracting chains, inadequate labour market regulation and irregular employment also contribute to discouraging young people. Conditions such as these are replicated in ‘green’ construction sites across Europe and are difficult to challenge, particularly in the context of low union density. With the exception of the Scandinavian countries, unionization remains low, estimated between 12% (e.g. the UK) and 25% (e.g. Germany). In summary, while extensive policies and targets are in place in the Global North, and particularly in the EU, to address climate change as well as the VET required for zero-carbon construction, these have tended to focus on technical solutions and failed to address the existing social inequalities embedded in the structure of the construction industry. These inequalities themselves deter the effective implementation of these policies and the development of the comprehensive and inclusive VET system and labour process required for NZEBs.
GREEN TRANSITION IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH Overview of the Global South and Its Construction Industry – Challenges and Efforts related to Green Construction This section provides an overview of the green transition in construction in the Global South, with particular attention paid to labour and the impact on inequality. Given its wide variety of countries, the built environment of the Global South is more diverse than the Global North in the quality of buildings and infrastructure, encompassing traditional construction from places as far away from each other as Mexico, Tanzania, Egypt and Mongolia. High-income urban areas, for example, tend to have a quality of construction compatible to that of the North but, by and large, quality decreases in middle- and low-income areas – usually more abruptly than in the North. Reasons for this include the limited resources of residents to pay for better quality products, inadequate policies to promote affordable construction, the lack of adequate building codes or their implementation and the limited capacity of the local construction industry. The construction sector is often a target for corruption that, in many cases, deviates resources; each project is different and usually involves several stakeholders and complex procedures, which make it more difficult to control and monitor (World Bank Group, 2020). Deals are made between governments and multinational companies, such as Chinese construction companies all over Africa, just to encourage more foreign investment in the country, even if non-green, without transfer of knowledge.
514 Research handbook on inequalities and work Countries in the South also have large deficits in buildings and infrastructure so that construction output is forecast to increase exponentially (ILO, 2015; Mella and Savage, 2017). In Africa alone, the construction sector is worth USD 5.4 billion and expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 6.4% by 2024 whilst population growth through to 2050 is expected to reach 2.4 billion people, with 80% being in cities (Cheong et al., 2021; African Development Bank, 2019). In addition, many existing dwellings do not have heating or cooling systems, as for instance around 56% of the African population live in informal housing and only 43% have access to electricity. The International Energy Agency (IEA, 2022b) estimates that household energy demand for cooling and appliances will quadruple by 2030 so that the need for cooling presents a major future challenge for residential energy demand, with ownership of fans standing at 0.6 units per household and current cooling device ownership at only 0.06 units per household (IEA, 2022a). Altogether this means that construction in the Global South could increase its toll on the environment significantly if preventive measures are not implemented. Here too the transition to low-carbon building construction calls for a transformation of the industry, including changes in the materials and methods used, education and training of the existing and future workforce and the reconfiguration of the construction labour process. Yet the industry in the Global South is ill-prepared for the challenges posed by climate change. Building regulations are vital to addressing building sector emissions. Yet only five African countries (or 9%) have a mandatory building code and worldwide Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Central America have the lowest numbers of mandatory codes (UNFCCC, 2022). At policy level, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), embodying efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change, and roadmaps are yet to be fully realized in practice. NDCs are at the heart of the Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) and the achievement of its long-term goals, requiring each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs and to pursue domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions. Progress on construction policies grew in 2021, with 76% of countries referring to buildings as part of their NDC actions plans and 22 countries’ NDCs being revised and updated with a greater level of detail and commitment to building efficiency and adaptation. However, though more governments recognize the role buildings play in their decarbonization actions, many countries in the South have not yet even committed; for example, in 2021, only six African countries provided further detail with their NDC update regarding commitments to decarbonising the building stock. One of these, Mozambique proposed to reformulate building codes to develop resilience, highlighting micro-generation of energy for commercial and residential buildings, increases in energy efficiency, promotion of energy-efficient appliances and promotion of the use of energy-efficient household appliances (UNFCCC, 2022). In turn, the roadmap development process provides a way to build targets and strategies charting the path to sustainable construction through a collaborative approach, highlighting the importance of national governments, regional cooperation and partnerships. More than eight roadmaps have been published, including GlobalABC and the IEA’s jointly published Global, Asia, Africa and Latin America Roadmaps. Planned roadmaps include those for the Middle East/North African (MENA) region and China’s Greater Bay Area. Similar to NDCs, roadmaps represent an important step, yet implementation remains to be seen, though a number of voluntary schemes are in place (GlobalABC, IEA and UNEP, 2020). There are also voluntary certification schemes, such as the national chapters of the World Green Buildings Council, though these generally focus on upper-income buildings as building
Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry 515 owners pay to be certified (Werna et al., 2020). These could scale-up to other neighbourhoods, but their broader impact is unclear and there is a risk that Southern cities increasingly have a green/brown divide – green construction for the rich and non-green for the poor, thereby exacerbating the intra-urban differentials that already exist in developing countries. A significant part of the built fabric in the South is vernacular, which according to current definitions is indeed green. Many projects focus on revisiting and promoting such construction, sometimes with modern increments though retaining the traditional characteristics. In parallel are attempts from the private sector to bring green equipment to the market; for example, solar panels and wind turbines. Important as they are, such efforts do not entail a systemic change in the green transition in the built environment in the Global South. Combatting climate change necessitates also addressing labour inequalities in the existing situation and future trends if a just transition is to take place. Labour, Inequalities and the Transition In the Global South, existing trends related to green transition are largely aligned with the current structure of the construction industry, where the challenges faced by workers tend to be much worse than those in the North. These challenges contribute to or perpetuate inequalities and include high informality with the proliferation of non-standard forms of employment (part-time, casual and temporary contracts), unequal opportunities for women and migrants, child and forced labour, poor safety and health records, lack of social protection benefits and significant skill shortages that affect sector productivity and can indirectly contribute to lower wages and slower economic growth. Non-standard employment is the dominant form, with conditions varying depending on the level of enforcement of labour rights at national and city level and the nature of the labour market. In countries with weak law enforcement, such as in Mozambique, the more specialized workers are less vulnerable, while those at the bottom of the pyramid bear the brunt of poor conditions of work. In the ‘triangular employment relationship’ and related casualization, workers’ rights are often unclear, and they enjoy less protection from the law than those who are directly employed. Informal workers, by definition, are outside the boundaries of the law, leading to deficits such as underpayment, delays, long working periods, occupational accidents and diseases, bonded labour, child labour and discrimination against migrants and female workers. Flexibility in recruitment is a broad trend with casual contracts, and employers have also pushed for ‘zero-hours’ contracts, with no obligation to provide minimum working hours. Workers constantly look out for assignments in different enterprises. Flexibility has also entailed the recruitment of workers as ‘self-employed’ or a ‘one-person enterprise’ as opposed to contracted workers, which means that there is no employment relation (ILO, 2001; Lawrence and Werna, 2009; Mella and Savage, 2017; Werna, 2007, 2016). While a large share of construction in the Global South is labour-intensive, providing opportunities to enter the labour market, there are challenges in terms of employment stability as well as earning a decent income as costs associated with hiring and firing are reduced. Aggressive strategies of downloading costs and responsibilities therefore have mixed results and corporate approaches generating value-added and structured around maintaining labour and environmental standards have not been mainstreamed (Amin, 1994; Cox, 1997; Shimbo, 2020). Payments below those legally stipulated and overwork without proper compensation are illegal but given the
516 Research handbook on inequalities and work number of casual workers and lack of control such practices happen and delays in payment are also a common practice (Wells, 2016, 2018; Wells and Prado, 2019). Overwork is one of the causes, inter alia, of occupational safety and health deficits. Construction is one of the most dangerous occupations (ILO, 2001, 2015; Mella and Savage, 2017), especially in the South, as subcontracting on a piecework basis intensifies pressures while increasing the difficulties to coordinate the work and ensure site safety. It is estimated that 95% of serious accidents involve workers employed by subcontractors, mostly on temporary contracts, which in a context of fluctuating demand encourages long working hours (ILO, 2001, 2015; Werna, 2007). These workers are also less likely than those on permanent contracts to have the training required to work safely and are in a weaker position to refuse unsafe work. Indeed, based on international data, a construction worker with a fixed-term contract is three times more likely to suffer an occupational accident than one with a permanent contract and informal workers are particularly vulnerable (Lawrence and Werna, 2009; Mella and Savage, 2017). As the products of construction have a fixed location, production takes place on a project-by-project basis with sites constantly changing so that the labour force has to be mobile. Indeed, construction has a long tradition of employing migrant labour. During urban growth, construction provides migrants from the countryside with an entry point into the labour market, frequently being the only significant alternative to agricultural labour for those without particular skills or education. When the pool of surplus labour from the countryside dries up or there is a shortage of local labour, recruitment from overseas may occur (Mella and Savage, 2017; Werna, 2007). Migrant construction workers are generally from less-developed and lower-wage economies with labour surpluses (ILO, 2001). They tend to be vulnerable because they are often illegal, do not know the local context and have to accept precarious conditions in order to survive. (Lawrence and Werna, 2009; Kumar and Fernandes, 2017). Inspection and compliance are much weaker than in the North, rendering migrants more exposed. For example, according to data collected by Infrastructure and Cities for Economic Development (ICED) and the UK Department for International Development (DfID), in 2000 Mozambique had 195,700 migrants, increasing to 222,900 in 2015, for whom construction provided one of the main entrance points into the labour market (Mella and Savage, 2017). In addition, in 2017, Northern Mozambique received some 500,000 internally displaced people who also needed to find work. One of the worst challenges faced by migrants is bonded labour, which, despite the global campaign against bonded and child labour, still occurs in construction. Even rich cities in the Middle East and in Asian countries have large numbers of migrants coming from the South in situations defined as bonded labour, such as under restrictions that make it impossible to change jobs and move around during their free time; sometimes, their passports are confiscated (Buckley, 2014; Kumar and Fernandes, 2017). Child labour is also found in peri-urban activities related to the production of building materials and low-income housing construction (Lawrence and Werna, 2009). There is also evidence of deficits in the rights of female workers, pointing to a lack of equal treatment compared to their male counterparts and the existence of various forms of harassment. According to the latest publication of the ILO on labour in construction (ILO, 2015), despite some increases, the participation of women in construction remains lower than for many sectors. Women are sometimes employed as part of a family work unit, often without receiving direct payment. The share of women workers out of all workers in the construction industry in the South is 7.5% for Asia and 0.5% for Latin America.
Climate change, inequality and work in the construction industry 517 There are no aggregate data for Africa, but figures tend to be very low: in Mozambique, for instance, it was 1.87% in 2014 (Mella and Savage, 2017). High shares in some countries ‒ such as 23.5% for Kazakhstan, 22.9% for Singapore, 21.1% for Mongolia and 17.8% for Ethiopia ‒ are partly explained by women working in administrative, clerical and other office-related and technical areas of work. Women represent up to 50% of the workforce on some sites in India, most (92%) engaged in load-carrying, the rest in semi-skilled work, including plastering or mixing concrete; 93.6% are engaged as casual workers. Despite large numbers of workers in construction in the South, continuity of employment is low given the project-based nature of the industry and its susceptibility to periods of boom and bust. During downturns workers may resort to unemployment insurance in countries that provide it. Otherwise they need to seek employment on poorer construction sites or in other sectors or rely on family support as many employers do not contribute to social security funds for workers on temporary contracts, which means that workers most in need do not receive the necessary care (ILO, 2001, 2015; Lawrence and Werna, 2009; Mella and Savage, 2017; Werna, 2007). Many countries also face shortages of skilled labour in construction, which impact the existing industry, leaving aside the requirement for new skills with the green transition. Part of the problem is due to inappropriate technical training institutions (ILO, 2001, 2015; Mella and Savage, 2017). Vocational training centres are weak and many construction workers are trained on the job through the apprenticeship system. In many countries, community and technical colleges teaching construction trades can be hampered by the inadequate competencies of trainers (Mella and Savage, 2017). Working conditions can also be demotivating, leaving no time for reskilling with the constant look-out for new work, long working hours and frequent job-switching to other sectors. In locally clustered interactions of small-scale specialized suppliers, (sub)contractors and developers, the potential for the development of a diversified base of skills and competences, setting the stage for further learning-by-doing and incremental innovation, is higher. However, endogenous skills development is more challenging in settings where local builders are hierarchically inserted into a satellite type of territorial interaction, coordinated by external contractors who download costs and responsibilities in the procurement of relatively standardized products. This results in predatory subcontracting, cost-cutting and low value added as local and external suppliers, subcontractors and lead firms rely on a low and undiversified pool of skills and competences, whilst often complaining at the same time about the lack of skilled labour (ILO, 2015; Mella and Savage, 2017). The high proportion of temporary, casual, informal and unemployed workers in the South makes it difficult to organize and engage in social dialogue between employers and governments to collectively bargain for improving conditions (Van Empel and Werna, 2010; ILO, 2001, 2015; Mella and Savage, 2017). Zero-hours contracts and one-person enterprises compounded by threats to unionized workers make for precarious organization, and respect for and enforcement of workers’ rights vary according to the capacity of the government. The Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) is the global confederation of construction workers, and its constituents have often successfully engaged in dialogue though challenged by the low level of unionization. In summary, while construction in the South provides employment for many and an important entrance into the labour market, the structure of the industry contributes to the challenges faced by workers in obtaining and maintaining employment and decent working conditions,
518 Research handbook on inequalities and work combatting inequalities and being part of labour governance. The transition to green construction so far has not brought with it visible improvements.
CONCLUSIONS This chapter brings to the fore the inseparability of climate adaptation in building construction from questions of inequality in employment, access to decent work and labour standards, including the right to unionization. The ambitious energy efficiency programmes pursued by the EU and the rhetoric of a digital and sustainable future construction industry stand in stark contrast to labour conditions. Review of current practice in the EU shows that climate adaptation strategies are implemented to fit the existing structures and social relations, which at the same time create and exacerbate inequalities and deter the achievement of environmental ambitions and emission reduction targets. In the Global South, the challenges appear even more insurmountable, especially with institutional voids in legal, policy and political accountability, pointing similarly to the need for a social transformation of the industry. The key message is that addressing work and employment conditions and inequalities is not a given in climate adaptation strategies but must be if a just transition is to be achieved. A zero-carbon built environment requires a transformation of the labour process and the VET system. It includes changes in the materials and methods of building construction and implies overcoming the marginalization and devaluation of labour. Addressing employment inequalities effectively requires a different vision of the transition, beyond job creation.
NOTES 1. The broad definition of the construction industry in Eurostat includes: manufacturing, real-estate, architecture and engineering and building-construction activities.
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35. Green is not White: giving voice to Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized workers in the environmental justice movement Naolo Charles, Patricia Chong, Tyjana Connolly, Denise Hampden, Anna Liu, Rosemarie Powell, Shanice Regis-Wilkins and Christopher Wilson
I’m [interested] in how we are building relationships with each other as human beings. How are we able to rely on each other? What does a community of care look like? That’s the kind of work that I’m really interested in. Because at the end of the day when we’re fighting and we’re tired and we can’t rely on each other to hold ourselves up, then [the oppressor] has won. (Danielle Boissoneau of Garden River First Nation speaking on the resiliency of Indigenous peoples in the face of environmental genocide from the poisoning of their land and water to the forcible removal from their homes (Regis, 2019)) ‘First to die, Last to Fly’ Black Lives Matter activists chant in London, UK to protest the impact of global warming upon peoples of African descent around the world. ‘There are no jobs on a dead planet,’ trade unionists cry out in solidarity with Toronto Environmental Justice activists. ‘I can’t work if I can’t breathe,’ Black community activists chant in opposition to police brutality. (Brown, 2016)
Our times are defined by the genocidal impact of the climate emergency upon Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized1 people around the world. The science is clear, but the solutions are opaque as deeply vested corporate interests rooted in White supremacist ideology prioritize profit over human life. The dominant narrative within the mainstream White environmental justice movement, however, has focused upon greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels, lacking a critical race or intersectional analysis and centering White spaces for policy debates (Firempong, 2020). The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Canada (CBTU) created a participatory workshop titled ‘Green Is Not White’ with the objective of engaging trade unionists across Turtle Island in the struggle to confront environmental racism. ‘Turtle Island’ is a symbol of ‘life and earth’ used to convey the act of decolonizing our understanding of North American history by learning and standing in solidarity with Indigenous ways of knowledge and connection to the land. The CBTU, along with the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA) and in conjunction with other community partners, trade unions and non-profit agencies, has engaged over 3000 workers and activists in workshops to explore the question: how can we take action to confront environmental racism in our workplaces, unions and communities (Manek, 2018)? Following the spiral model of popular education (Burke et al., 2002), participants shared their knowledge and lived experiences to learn from each other and co-develop strategies to take action to confront environmental racism. The project was inspired by the works of Horton and Freire (1990). The chapter follows the structure of the workshop by exploring the following themes: ● Defining environmental racism; ● Examining the connection between environmental racism and the workplace; 523
524 Research handbook on inequalities and work ● Applying an intersectional analysis to the Green Jobs movement; ● Developing strategies to confront the socio-economic barriers to Green Jobs facing Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized communities; ● Taking action to confront environmental racism: a case study of an environmental racism bill.
1.
DEFINING ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM AND EXPLORING HOW IT IMPACTS INDIGENOUS, BLACK AND RACIALLY MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES IN CANADA
When BIPOC individuals are in green spaces, we already have a heightened sense of ‘you don’t belong,’ without having someone interrogate us on our intentions in that space, don’t police us! (Sylvia Denton Carryl, Outdoor Learning Program Coordinator and Green Is Not White workshop participant (Baron, 2021))
Environmental racism is a structural, historical and ongoing fact of life for Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized people dating back over 400 years in Canada to colonialization and slavery. The term ‘environmental racism’ was first introduced by the former Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Dr. Benjamin Chavis in 1982 to describe the proximity of industrial projects, waste and pollution to Black, racialized and poor communities in the United States along with the consequent adverse health outcomes (Beech, 2020). Dr. Robert Bullard, colloquially known as the father of environmental racism, built on this work and was a champion of environmental justice throughout the 1990s to the present day (CBC, 2022). Dr. Ingrid Waldron undertook a similar toxic mapping project in Nova Scotia and emphasized the importance of using the term ‘environmental racism’ through her research: While the term ‘environmental racism’ is increasingly being used in Nova Scotia and Canada, there is still a preference among environmental activists and researchers for using the term ‘environmental justice’ rather than ‘environmental racism.’ This speaks to the discomfort of many people in Canada in discussing race and engaging in a dialogue about the underlying structural facts that produce the need for environmental justice, to begin with. (Waldron, 2018a, p. 15)
Within the context of labour education, definitions are useful to the extent that they reflect the lived experiences of participants. This section details some of the forms of environmental racism recounted in workshops including colonialism and segregation, inequitable access to green spaces, gentrification, toxins and pollution in our workplaces and communities and state-sanctioned violence. Canada’s reserve system is one of the earliest examples of environmental racism. The first reserve created by Europeans was Sillery, near modern day Quebec, in 1637 (Miquelon, 2015). Reserves were created to isolate and assimilate Indigenous communities, expropriate their lands and restrict their movements under the auspices of creating ‘a new nation.’ Europeans were promised land, farming supplies and money to settle on Indigenous lands. Indigenous peoples were cut off from their traditional ways of living and isolated from the resources that they had protected for thousands of years as stewards of these lands. Reserves were enforced through Pass Systems and Pass Laws, where in order to hunt, gather, visit friends and family or leave the reserve for any reason, they needed the permission of the state-managed Indian Agent,
Green is not White 525 all of which was regulated through punishment for non-compliance. The reserve system continues to be enforced today through the Indian Act. This colonial legacy has nearly destroyed Indigenous peoples’ traditional ways of living. Reserves are chronically underfunded with a severe lack of infrastructure. The reserve system in Canada was used as a model for the brutal apartheid system in South Africa (Engler, 2013). The histories of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are a 400-year journey of resilience in the face of assimilationist policies. Segregated schools, pass laws, the Indian Residential School systems, disenfranchisement, inadequate housing and the Sixties Scoop were all colonial policies that institutionalized the exclusion and isolation of Indigenous peoples. The history of African Canadians dates back over 400 years to slavery in Canada and is rooted in a freedom struggle from the earliest emancipation movements. For example, formerly enslaved Black Loyalists were promised land and their freedom in exchange for loyalty by fighting with the British during the American Revolution. Black Loyalists who came to Canada were met with broken promises and no land or in some cases they received far less land than White Loyalists who came with the same expectations. Gentrification is another form of environmental racism. Major city centers in Canada are going through intense processes of gentrification as housing prices soar well beyond the means of working people. Cities such as Toronto are becoming segregated based upon economic, racial and gender lines. Gentrification is often introduced as a benign benefit to the community as developers build neighbourhood ‘improvements.’ Communities are promised new housing, improved services, fancy retail outlets and new schools. The impact of these developments can be destructive for Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities as working-class families are displaced. Green Is Not White workshop participants recounted the story of Africville and contemporary examples such as family dislocations in neighbourhoods in major city centres across Canada (Holness, 2019). Mark Yearwood, Executive Director of the Kids in the Woods Initiative, described one of the impacts of gentrification, including the inequitable access to green space: ‘Two dichotomous experiences: exclusion for some and exclusivity for others, combine to “build” what I call “the green wall” of exclusion’ (Yearwood, 2022). Yearwood described the parallel experiences of those who are granted the privilege to experience the outdoors, green space and public space and those excluded, arguing that: ‘regular use of green space is a pathway to social inclusion and all of the benefits that flow from feeling included in society’ (Yearwood, 2022). Another form of environmental racism is the industrial practice of placing toxic and pollutive industries that emit harmful waste near poor, racially marginalized and Indigenous communities (Samson and Gigoux, 2016, p. 115). Examples of this include polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB, a toxic industrial compound) and mercury contamination of seals and fish eaten by the Inuit in the High Arctic; the Alberta Tar Sands; the toxic landfill in Lincolnville, Nova Scotia; and the proximity of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation to ‘Chemical Valley’ (Samson and Gigoux, 2016, p. 117; Waldron, 2020, p. 2). Affected communities across Turtle Island bear the burden of adverse health effects, higher rates of cancer, birth defects, higher percentages of individuals with asthma and respiratory conditions and lower life expectancy. When toxins enter waterways, Indigenous and racialized communities have reduced or no access to clean water such as in the mercury poisoning of the Ojibwa people of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows, Ontario). There are at present 29 Indigenous communities across Canada with drinking advisories, the majority (21) being in Ontario (Government of Canada, 2020). The Neskantaga First Nation in Ontario has had a boil water advisory since February 1995, making it the longest standing water advisory (Government of Canada, 2018).
526 Research handbook on inequalities and work Table 35.1 White men’s
Earning power of White compared to racialized men and women Racialized men
Racialized women
White women
earnings CAD 1.00
Source:
CAD 0.78
CAD 0.50
CAD 0.67
First-generation
First-generation
racialized migrants
racialized migrants
(men)
(women)
CAD 0.68
CAD 0.48
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (2021).
Police brutality is another form of environmental racism, particularly when the police are called upon by the state to repress Black Lives Matter demonstrators and land and water defenders. Environmental violence must be understood in the context of the spatial segregation of Indigenous and racialized bodies sponsored by the state and police to create spaces associated with poverty, crime, waste and pollution (Waldron, 2018b, pp. 253–254). When Indigenous and Black communities defend their land and human rights, they are repeatedly met with brute force to cover up or silence their voices and struggles, as is the case in the ongoing struggle between the Wet’suwet’en Nation, the state and Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, where Indigenous protestors, often Indigenous women, are brutalized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), with little news coverage and few or no ramifications for such brutality. Environmental racism is manifested within our workplaces, unions and communities in a myriad of different ways. Developing a comprehensive understanding of environmental racism lays the foundation for taking effective anti-racist actions. How are workers affected and how can workers bring an end to these structures of racial oppression? In the next section, we examine these questions in the context of the workplace and how certain events can expose these structural inequalities.
2.
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM AND THE WORKPLACE
Racialized and marginalized communities frequently navigate the paradox of health and employment in capitalist political-economic systems. They often have to choose between earning a wage to live and working in an environment that limits their life expectancy. (Payton Wilkins, CBTU Education Director, Chair of the NAACP Black Just Transition Initiative (BJTI) (Wilkins, 2022))
This section explores the connection between environmental racism and the workplace in Canada by looking at the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 upon Indigenous, Black and racialized workers2 and how the pandemic amplified the stratification of race and other intersecting identities, such as gender, class and citizenship, embedded in the neoliberal capitalist economy. Race and other intersecting identities significantly impact who gets the ‘good’ jobs in Canada, with Indigenous, Black, and racialized workers more likely employed in precarious, low-wage, dangerous and dirty jobs than White workers. Galabuzi uses the term ‘Canada’s Economic Apartheid’ to describe this racially ‘colour-coded’ labour market hierarchy (Galabuzi, 2006). Canada’s 2016 census data (see Table 35.1) compares a dollar earned by White men to the earning power of different oppressed social groups, with racialized women and racialized immigrant women earning the least, respectively (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2021; Block and Galabuzi, 2011, p. 12).
Green is not White 527 Indigenous communities face systemic barriers preventing them from even entering the labour market: 63% of Indigenous people in Ontario are unemployed compared to the 7% average, and 87% live in poverty (Colour of Poverty, 2019); see Tables A35.1 and A35.2 in the appendix. As the pandemic raged on, the pre-existing labour market divisions were exacerbated, with Black, racialized and Indigenous people less likely than White people to be able to work from home and have access to proper workplace health and safety precautions and the privilege to self-isolate/quarantine (i.e., access to paid sick days, adequate residential space, facilities). Workers in low-paid and now hazardous jobs (due to increased potential exposure to COVID-19) had little power to demand and enforce workplace health and safety standards such as safety protocols, access to adequate personal protection equipment (PPE) and access to paid sick days and were working initially without vaccinations and scientific data regarding how COVID-19 spread. Examples of such jobs include restaurants, food app delivery, grocery stores, warehousing, storage, food production and especially the gig economy (Jeon et al., 2019). Despite the risk of exposure, poverty creates significant pressure on these workers to continue working. While deemed ‘non-essential,’ these jobs were essential in allowing ‘the majority of the population to obey public health orders by sheltering at home and prevent the spread of the virus’ (Alook et al., 2021, p. 26). The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that 80% of jobs lost between August 2020 and June 2021 occurred in three industries: accommodation and food services; information, culture and recreation; and wholesale and retail trade. These industries traditionally employ higher rates of racialized people and this overrepresentation remained consistent throughout the pandemic. As a result, ‘Racialized workers bore a disproportionate burden during the pandemic in two ways: they were more concentrated in industries that were most likely to suffer job losses from the pandemic and they were more concentrated in frontline occupations at high risk of infection’ (Alook et al., 2021, p. 25). Statistics Canada (2020) found that the COVID-19 pandemic had significant negative health impacts on Indigenous people. The Indigenous population aged 50 years and older are at increased risk of COVID-19 infections and complications due to underlying health issues caused by environmental racism. Indigenous women had the highest risk of COVID-19 exposure at work as measured by physical proximity at 30.2%, followed by non-Indigenous women at 28%, Indigenous men at 14.6% and non-Indigenous men at 12.5%. COVID-19 exposure was higher in the healthcare sector where workers were deemed ‘essential’ and provided in-person labour (Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, 2020). The risk of infection was experienced unequally in long-term care facilities, which accounted for 16% of all infections and 64% of all deaths in Ontario according to the CCPA report ‘What Does It Cost To Care?’ (Block and Dhunna, 2020, p. 4). Demands to improve long-term care working conditions, wages and staffing levels to provide adequate support to patients were long-standing issues that left the sector vulnerable and unable to cope with COVID-19. The long-term care workforce is made up almost exclusively of women (86%). Racialized women represent 25% of this workforce, which is twice their proportion in the general Ontario workforce. Likewise, immigrant women represent 29% of the long-term care workforce but only make up 15% of the general Ontario workforce. Nearly 90% of long-term care workers in Ontario have experienced physical violence in their workplace and they experience higher absences due to illness and injury than workers in other occupations. From an environmen-
528 Research handbook on inequalities and work tal racism lens, Black and racialized women healthcare workers were targets of ‘persistent forms of abuse and harassment’ that added to the extraordinary stress of working during the pandemic (Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, 2020; p. 5). The spike in anti-Asian racism was due to long-standing racist and xenophobic beliefs that resurged during the pandemic. COVID-19 became racialized as an ‘Asian’ illness because the first known infection was identified in Wuhan, China, and anyone perceived to be ‘Chinese’ was erroneously assumed to be a carrier. Canada now has more reported anti-Asian racism crimes per capita than the United States (Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, 2021). A Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) survey of 1,877 frontline healthcare workers in Manitoba found that one in five staff members who self-identified as ‘Asian’ had experienced racism in the workplace compared to only 1% of those who did not identify as ‘Asian’ during the same period (Canadian Union of Public Employees, 2020). This undoubtedly added to the struggles people of Asian descent encountered at work dealing with racist behaviours from employers, colleagues, patients and fellow union members (Liu and Ramsaroop, 2020; Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, 2021). Lastly, Canada’s seasonal agricultural workers programme that began in 1966 has largely brought racialized migrant farm workers from the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. Many studies and advocacy groups have uncovered the exploitation and environmental racism endured by migrant farm workers, such as lack of personal and protective equipment, exposure to pesticides leading to health issues, lack of sanitary living conditions, pressure to work even when ill, lack of meaningful recourse in workplace issues, forced migration for work purposes, etc. (Encalada Grez, 2008; Perry, 2012; Smith, 2015). While these abusive living and working conditions pre-date the pandemic, they exacerbated the spread of COVID-19; for example, overcrowded housing, which prevented workers from self-isolating and social distancing; lack of access to clean water; unsanitary living conditions; lack of access to health care; and lack of access to sufficient nutrition and culturally appropriate food during quarantine. As non-citizens, migrant farm workers lack the same rights and privileges that Canadian residents and citizens have, which plays a determining role in their exposure to environmental racism and their limited ability for recourse. Migrant farm workers have severely restricted freedom to leave their employer’s property, and workers report experiences of racism from local communities and feelings of isolation, depression and anxiety related to structural forms of exclusion (e.g., fear that speaking out against and/or refusing substandard working and living conditions may lead to deportation) (Ramsaroop, 2021; Ramsaroop, 2022; Vosko and Spring, 2021). With more than 1300 migrant farm workers infected with COVID-19, outbreaks in Ontario’s agricultural sector underscored the lack of migrant worker rights, the role that race and citizenship play (‘othering’) and the absence of public concern and support for their well-being (Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, 2020). In the context of such inequalities, how can a transition to a green economy contribute to improving the rights of Indigenous, Black and racialized workers? Climate justice initiatives must have an explicit equity and anti-capitalist analysis; otherwise, the new ‘green economy’ will replicate the systemic inequities of the old. In the next section, we explore the intersectionality of gender and race in the Green Jobs movement.
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3.
THE TRANSITION TO A GREEN ECONOMY: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR ALL We don’t want the new green economy to look like the old white economy. (Jawara Gairey, Co-Investigator, Green Is Not White Research Project)
The climate crisis is fundamentally the by-product of a capitalist system that drives inequality in the pursuit of infinite profit and growth (Stuart et al., 2021). The impacts of the climate emergency, such as extreme weather, ecological changes, climate-related displacement and air and water pollution, are greatest upon Indigenous, poor, marginalized and racialized communities across the world (World Health Organization, 2018; p. 72). The environmental justice movement calls for a just transition to a green economy. In the absence of a critical race and gender analysis, however, it is possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time reproducing the same systemically racist employment systems resulting in structural racial and gender income inequalities. Calls for a ‘green economy’ must apply an intersectional analysis that is inclusive of Indigenous, Black and racialized voices. The concept of a ‘green economy’ has become increasingly popular among international institutions, NGOs and the private sector. The calls grew louder following the 2008 global recession, as many viewed the green economy as a viable recovery strategy for the economic downturn (Varro, 2020). The promise of green jobs and green investments offered attractive benefits in the face of depressed financial markets. For proponents, the green economy alleviates tensions of market and environment, striking a balance between growth and sustainability. As the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) notes: ‘the greening of economies need not be a drag on growth. On the contrary, the greening of economies has the potential to be a new engine of growth, a net generator of decent jobs and a vital strategy to eliminate persistent poverty’ (United Nations Environment Programme, 2011, p. 2). In this sense, the greening of economies is what Wichterich calls ‘[the] ecologization of the economy and an economization of nature’ (Harcourt and Nelson, 2015, p. 72). The UNEP defines the green economy as: ‘One that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a Green Economy can be considered as one that is low in carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive’ (United Nations Environment Programme, 2018). The emphasis on social equity promotes inclusivity in the new green economy. However, most green jobs are concentrated in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as energy, transportation and manufacturing. The vision for a socially inclusive green economy is not a reality for women and other marginalized groups. An equitable green economy must consider gender – specifically, the work that women do – which is vitally important to protect the environment and human wellness. Climate change is the greatest threat to human health, and women, as care providers, are uniquely positioned to build climate resilience while improving the health of the population. As Armstrong et al. assert: ‘the working conditions and job security of these care providers is critical to health. Poor work environments for providers necessarily undermine the quality of care, as well as the health of providers’ (Armstrong et al., 2000, p. 39). The participation of health care workers in preventing future outbreaks is crucial; however, their health and safety must not be sacrificed. Robust investments in the health care sector are needed in the transition to a green economy. Currently the health sector accounts for 4% of Canada’s GHG emissions, which makes it the
530 Research handbook on inequalities and work third largest emitter per capita when compared to other health systems (Watts et al., 2019). Currently steps are being taken to curb emissions in the sector, including a pledge from the Canadian government to transition to a low-carbon health system by 2050; however, substantial investments are urgently needed (CBC Radio, 2021). Strengthening the health care sector has mutual benefits for both the economy and the environment. With greater capacity in the sector, there is potential to reduce health costs for patients, shrink the carbon footprint and create jobs. Decarbonizing the health sector is crucial to building climate-resilient health systems, but policies must be firmly grounded in equity to meet the needs of everyone, and health care providers must be included in the planning and decision-making to ensure that health and equity are prioritized (World Health Organization, 2021). Beyond health care, women’s labour activities are generally low-carbon. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ‘as much as half of the world’s work is unpaid [and] most of it is done by women’ (Georgieva et al., 2019). Women’s unpaid labour makes up 10–60% of GDP globally yet is not recognized in economic valuations (Georgieva et al., 2019). Women perform the bulk of reproductive labour – activities associated with caregiving and household production such as cooking, cleaning and childcare. The unequal gendered division of labour suppresses women’s economic opportunities. Improved family care, including affordable childcare, and flexible work policies are needed to alleviate the burden of reproductive labour for women. For women to fully participate in the green economy gender disparities must be eliminated. The transition to a green economy raises questions about who is being left behind. A focus on growth rather than centering on the needs of people will reproduce existing inequalities in our society. The green economy must go beyond the insular ideas of sustainable capitalism. It requires a paradigm shift towards achieving environmental, gender and racial justice. What are some of the tangible actions we can take to ensure inclusion in the green transition? The last two sections of the chapter recount examples provided by workshop participants of strategies to promote diversification and inclusion in the green jobs movement.
4.
STRATEGIES TO CONFRONT THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC BARRIERS TO GREEN JOBS FACING BLACK, INDIGENOUS AND RACIALLY MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES
A way to make people feel more inclined to get involved in environmental justice work is to change the face of it – the face of it needs to reflect the communities that are being lived in. (Sarah Jama of the Hamilton Transit Riders’ Union (HTRU) (Regis, 2019))
Linking the creation of green jobs in construction to employment equity is one strategy to support a just transition that breaks the cycle of systemic economic inequalities. Anti-racist activists within the environmental justice movement are seeking to confront gentrification in major urban centres through community benefit agreements (CBAs) with public infrastructure and large development projects (Toronto Community Benefits Network, 2016). Reinvesting massive infrastructure funds back into the communities who reside in such locations can slow the process of racial segregation that results from intense increases in housing costs. Over the past decades, the City of Toronto and other municipalities across Canada have witnessed an extraordinary amount of capital reinvestment that has led to residential neighbour-
Green is not White 531 hood transformation and gentrification of many downtown and inner suburban communities. Billions of dollars are being spent by all levels of government on building infrastructure, and investment in infrastructure is a key economic driver as we seek to recover from COVID-19. This investment has spurred the interest of developers, who are now looking at those same communities to revitalize and redevelop, often without intentional consideration about the impacts upon these vulnerable communities. Meanwhile inequality has risen, housing has become unaffordable for many families and living costs like childcare have increased while community and green spaces have diminished. Recent data show how increasing income inequality in the city has resulted in increased spatial and income polarization for racialized and White populations in the City of Toronto (Hulchanski and Maaranen, 2018). Where are those residents to live when due to this revitalization they are not able to afford to live in their neighbourhoods again? Examples in Toronto include the Casino Woodbine, Regent Park Redevelopment, Lawrence Heights, Little Jamaica, etc. Had it not been for the intervention of the community in the multi-billion dollar regional transit development plan to demand community benefits, this legacy would have undoubtedly continued. More and more the community demands that the workforce building public infrastructure better reflect the demographics of the local community and that the benefits of economic development be shared more equitably. As a result, the community benefits movement is growing with enabling policies at all levels of government being enacted. Like in the case of Toronto, community and labour activists have mobilized to establish themselves as legal entities with the legal standing to negotiate and sign community benefits agreements. Now there are several infrastructure and urban development projects well underway in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan that have commitments to community benefits. The fight for community benefits builds on a well-established history of similar initiatives that have taken place in other locations in Canada and beyond, including over 300 Impact Benefits Agreements (IBAs) that have been privately negotiated between Indigenous communities and developers stemming from the Government of Canada’s duty to consult and where appropriate accommodate Indigenous groups when it considers conduct that might adversely impact potential or established Aboriginal or treaty rights. Community benefits also build on examples from North American municipalities that have adopted similar policies, some of whom adopted such policies as early as the 1990s. Many of these municipalities have established minimum hard targets of upwards of 40% equity hiring, with tracking, monitoring and reporting systems, specific language for project agreements and robust plans for implementation. For context, New York set a 30% equity hiring target in the midst of COVID-19. In 2015, the Province of Ontario’s Bill 6, Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act, was introduced by the provincial government to ensure infrastructure planning and investment include community benefits, specifically the supplementary social and economic benefits arising from infrastructure projects that are intended to improve the well-being of communities affected by the projects. From this legislation, the province identified five pilot infrastructure projects in its Long-Term Infrastructure Plan that would include community benefits requirements.3 The passing of these policies is celebrated as a win for the community; however, there is a recognition that the deep systems-change work being undertaken means a long battle ahead as some construction and engineering firms have dismissed the community’s demand
532 Research handbook on inequalities and work for CBAs and the livelihoods they support. This is why accompanying these policies there is a need for clear regulations and implementation road maps. This involves creating, implementing and evaluating the local pathways into construction projects, building and testing strategies and prototypes to address systemic barriers on the supply side and consulting with industry partners to make recommendations to address systemic barriers on the demand side. Enforcement measures (such as oversight, third-party auditing, arbitration or other contractual penalties) will also be necessary as there are employers who have always resisted compliance measures, going back to when the first building codes were adopted, the first fair wage policies, the first safety laws and standards for trades qualifications. Moreover, experience has shown that simply having a CBA with a general contractor or consortium does not guarantee that either the letter or the spirit of the policy will be implemented by the many subcontractors on a project, whereas if everyone involved signs onto a common framework there is greater commitment by decision-makers at all levels of the project. As such, it is important to stimulate early and continued involvement of the local community in the entire lifecycle of community benefits agreements. This facilitates building relationships and gaining knowledge among the community where recruiting will occur, as well as leading to important concerns being raised on possible negative impacts of the building on local communities. Research on best practices (the CARDUS Report on Community Benefits Agreements) identifies ‘community consultation and consensus as a defining key element of CBAs’ and states that ‘For community benefits to be successful, communities can and must be meaningfully engaged and involved in all stages of the process’ (CARDUS, 2021). Foundations such as Atkinson, Metcalf and the United Way, along with top-level contractors such as AECON and Ellis Don and the unions, are accelerating opportunities for local citizens to learn about, participate in and benefit from building inclusive local economies. They are doing so because they understand the benefit of transparency and the power of informed citizens to build a better economy for all. In Ontario, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the first large-scale project to have a formal CBA program, is a good example of how community, labour and industry can collaborate well together to achieve common goals. As of March 31 2021, the project’s general contractor, Crosslinx Transit Solutions, has reported 424 community benefits placements, including 202 apprentices and journey persons and 222 in professional, administrative and technical positions, and just over CAD 800,000 in social procurement (Toronto Community Benefits Network, 2022). These achievements were made possible in large part because some unions, in collaboration with their employers, took steps to adjust their traditional recruitment, hiring and procurement practices to incorporate more inclusive approaches to attract, employ and retain individuals hired through community benefits (Toronto Community Benefits Network, 2022). The local neighbourhoods impacted by the development have also achieved commitments for investment in community use of space and other neighbourhood and environmental improvements. Community-led advocacy and action is one of the ways in which impacted communities can benefit from the green transition. However, as mentioned above, a systems-based approach is necessary to create meaningful and lasting change. In the next section we discuss the ways in which another system – the political system – can be used as an avenue for change.
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5.
TAKING ACTION: A CASE STUDY OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM BILL
This section provides a case study of a proposed environmental racism bill introduced into the House of Commons of Canada. Bill C-230, titled National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism, invited the Canadian government to develop a national strategy to redress the harms caused by environmental racism in Canada. The Bill included a series of measures to examine the links between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk to form part of a new national strategy to redress environmental racism. These measures included a provision for the collection of information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards as well as the negative health outcomes in communities that have been affected by environmental racism, among other measures. The Bill was introduced as a private members bill to the House of Commons on February 26 2020 by former Liberal Party member of parliament Lenore Zann. Dr. Ingrid Waldron’s work inspired Zann to take the Bill to the Canadian House of Commons (Schneidereit, 2020). Through her ENRICH research project, Dr. Waldron mapped, documented and raised public awareness of the harmful impacts of environmental racism upon Black and Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia. The Bill unfortunately died as a result of the federal election. The Bill provided an opportunity for telling more stories: stories of environmental racism, stories about climate impact, health inequalities that are left out of mainstream environmentalism and conversations on climate change. Bill C-230 is significant for many reasons: first as a means to collect race-based data on the connections between socio-economic status and pollution in Canada (Bulowski, 2021) and second to document and describe instances of environmental racism and their impacts on racialized communities. Environmental racism is not universally accepted – as with other forms of systemic discrimination and marginalization, there are many opponents who do not ‘see’ or believe in the toxic effects of pollutive industry on poor and racialized communities. This legislation provides an avenue to explore the topic and make this information widely available as it relates to negative health and socio-economic outcomes prevalent in racialized communities in Canada (ENRICH Project, 2018). Storytelling and public education are necessary to create and mobilize support for legislation like Bill C-230 so that impacted communities can hold policy-makers accountable for their explicit and implicit role in environmental racism. Quantitative data can be a useful tool to persuade policy-makers. Having data that support the experiences and amplify the voices of those most affected provides supporting evidence of the realities of Black, Indigenous and racialized Canadians and helps to legitimize their claims in a way that cannot be denied by sceptics. If the Canadian government is set to collect race-based data on the connection between race and environmental harm exposure, these data will only be useful if we can use them to tell more stories that create a balance of stories in society. They will only create lasting impact if we have smart and accessible ways to visualize them and gain the attention of people supposed to learn from them. We know that research can only accurately describe the realities of marginalized communities if it is designed to tell their stories. If the Canadian government is to follow through with its commitment in the Environment Minister’s mandate letter to run research to tackle environmental racism in Canada, it needs to work with organizations like the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice (Manek, 2021). By working in consultation with communities affected by environmental racism, the research produced will
534 Research handbook on inequalities and work better reflect their lived experiences. Black communities are exposed to radically different ecosystems in cities from one street to another; by consequence, only hyperlocal data can really tell the stories of environmental racism. We cannot only rely on data from air quality monitoring stations around cities or data widely collected at the city level. Now that the Canadian federal government has pledged its support to environmental justice, we need to hold the government accountable. At the time of writing, the Bill has been reintroduced to Parliament as Bill C-226. Once enacted the data collected can be used to create community-driven solutions to support the clean and sustainable development of Indigenous and racialized communities. In addition to supporting this Bill, Green Is Not White workshop participants called upon unions to adopt proactive just transition measures such as negotiating green contract language, engaging members in labour education courses on climate justice, advocating for workplace environmental audits, refusing work in toxic environments, stopping toxic waste dumping in our communities, advocating for clean air and water, promoting proactive just transition measures in extractive industries and supporting just transition legislation. Although tactics and strategies may vary the objective remains the same: responding to the climate emergency through worker power.
6. CONCLUSION In the end we believe that worker power guided by a critical race, class, gender and intersectional analysis is an essential component in a strategy to win and secure a just transition to a green, sustainable and inclusive economy. The scale of the engagement must involve the entire movement working in genuine partnership with community coalition partners (McClean and Wilson, 2020). All indications are that we are heading in the wrong direction. Natural disasters are intensifying, greenhouse gas emissions are rising above emission targets, racial economic inequalities have been exacerbated throughout the pandemic and racial hate crimes are becoming more visible in our workplaces and communities. The call to action is clear as we chant ‘our house is on fire.’ Confronting environmental racism is a matter of life and death (CBC, 2022). The only question that remains is: what side are you on?
NOTES 1. The term ‘racialized’ is contested for normalizing whiteness (Tewelde, 2020). ‘Racially marginalized’ is offered as an alternative term when referring to non-White communities’ experiences of racism. The term ‘racialized’ is often used as an alternative to ‘racial minority’ or ‘visible minority’ to convey the process through which groups come to be socially constructed based upon race. This chapter uses both terms with these understandings. 2. The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists analysed research conducted by the Toronto Environmental Alliance, Statistics Canada, Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, and the City of Toronto that showed that, notwithstanding outbreaks in long-term care facilities, COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths as of April 6, 2021 were concentrated in City of Toronto areas with a high Black population, low individual income, and higher levels of toxic chemicals release. Those living in these areas were also found to be less vaccinated reflecting the lack of vaccine accessibility. 3. Following this policy, several others were enacted by the different levels of government, including: •
2017: The Building Better Lives: Ontario’s Long-Term Infrastructure Plan (Government of Ontario, 2022);
Green is not White 535 • •
2018 Federal Community Employment Benefits, 2020 Investing in Canada Plan and 2021 Budget; 2019 and 2021: The City of Toronto’s Community Benefits Framework.
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536 Research handbook on inequalities and work Cartwright, J. (2018). Toward a Just Transition [online]. World Resources Institute. Available at: https:// www.wri.org/climate/expert-perspective/toward-just-transition. CBC (2022). What on Earth with Laura Lynch [online]. CBC Listen. Available at: https://www.cbc.ca/ listen/live-radio/1-429-what-on-earth [Accessed 17 January 2022]. Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children (2020). ‘More Exposed and Less Protected’ In Canada: Systemic Racism And COVID-19 [online]. Available at: https://www .vawlearningnetwork.ca/our-work/backgrounders/more_exposed_and_less_protected_in_canada _systemic_racism_and_covid19/ [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children (2021). Examining the Intersections of Anti-Asian Racism and Gender-Based Violence in Canada [online]. Available at: https://www.vawlearningnetwork.ca/our-work/backgrounders/examining_the_intersections_of _antiasian_racism_and_genderbased_violence_in_canada_/index.html [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Colour of Poverty (2019). Fact Sheet: Racialized Poverty in Employment [Online]. Available at: https://colourofpoverty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cop-coc-fact-sheet-5-racialized-poverty-in -employment-2.pdf [Accessed 20 January 2022]. Encalada Grez, E. (2008) Migrant Workers Reap Bitter Harvest in Ontario [online]. Toronto Star, 28 October. Available at: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2008/10/28/migrant_workers_reap_bitter _harvest_in_ontario.html [Accessed 27 January 2022]. Engler, Y. (2013). Our Shame: Canada Supported Apartheid South Africa [online]. Canadian Dimension. Available at: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/our-shame-canada-supported -apartheid-south-africa1. ENRICH Project (2018). Background [online]. ENRICH Project. Available at: https://www.enrichproject .org/about/background/. Firempong, J. (2020). Too White to Solve the Climate Crisis? Asparagus Magazine [online]. Available at: https://asparagusmagazine.com/environmental-movement-diversityproblem-inclusion-racial -justice-activism-93caeb539766 [Accessed 17 January 2022]. Galabuzi, G. (2006). Canada’s Economic Apartheid: The Social Exclusion of Racialized Groups in the New Century. Toronto, Canadian Scholars Press. Georgieva, K., Alonso, C., Dabla-Norris, E. and Kolchhar, K. (2019). The Economic Cost of Devaluing ‘Women’s Work’ [online]. IMF Blog. Available at: https://blogs.imf.org/2019/10/15/the-economic -cost-of-devaluing-womens-work/. Government of Canada (2018). Long-term Advisories Affecting Water Systems Not Financially Supported by the Government of Canada South of 60 [online]. Available at: https://www.sac-isc.gc .ca/eng/1516134315897/1533663683531. Government of Canada (2020). Impacts on Indigenous Peoples [online]. Statistics Canada. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-631-x/2020004/s7-eng.htm [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Government of Canada (2021a). Gender Differences in Employment One Year into the COVID-19 pandemic: An Analysis by Industrial Sector and Firm Size [online]. Statistics Canada. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2021005/article/00005-eng.htm. Government of Canada (2021b). Ending Long-term Drinking Water Advisories [online]. Available at: https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1506514143353/1533317130660. Government of Ontario (2022). The Building Better Lives: Ontario’s Long Term Infrastructure Plan [online]. Available at: https://files.ontario.ca/ltip_plan_aoda_english.pdf. Harcourt, W. and Nelson, I.L. (2015). Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: Moving beyond the ‘Green Economy.’ London: Zed Books. Holness, S. (2019). Gentrification as Environmental Racism 2019 [online]. Available at: https://vimeo .com/311066551 [Accessed 17 January 2022]. Horton, M. and Freire, P. (1990). We Make the Road by Walking: Conversation on Education and Social Change. Philadephia: Temple University Press. Hulchanski, D. and Maaranen, R. (2018). Neighbourhood Socio-Economic Polarization & Segregation in Toronto Trends and Processes since 1970 [online]. Available at: http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/ documents/2018/09/hulchanski-2018-toronto-segregation-presentation.pdf. Jeon, S.H., Liu, H. and Ostrovsky, Y. (2019). Measuring the Gig Economy in Canada using Administrative Data. Statistics Canada. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/ 11f0019m2019025-eng.htm [Accessed 23 January 2022].
Green is not White 537 Liu, A. and Ramsaroop, C. (2020). COVID-19 and the Need to Confront Racism [online]. Our Times. Available at: https://ourtimes.ca/article/virus-precaution-versus-racism [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Manek, H. (2018). A Green Economy for All [online]. Our Times. Available at: https://ourtimes.ca/ article/a-green-economy-for-all [Accessed 17 January 2022]. Manek, H. (2021). Here for All Seasons [online]. Our Times. Available at: https://ourtimes.ca/article/ here-for-all-seasons. McClean, Y. and Wilson, C. (2020). We Will Not Rest, We Will Not Stop [online]. Our Times. Available at: https://ourtimes.ca/article/building-for-better-in-a-post-pandemic-recovery [Accessed 19 January 2022]. Miquelon, D. (2015). Sillery [online]. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available at: https:// www .the canadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sillery [Accessed 22 January 2022]. Perry, J.A. (2012). Barely Legal: Racism and Migrant Farm Labour in the Context of Canadian Multiculturalism. Citizenship Studies, 16(2), 189–20. Ramsaroop, C. (2021). Who Is Listening to Migrant Farm Workers? [online]. The Hamilton Spectator, 28 September. Available at: https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2021/09/28/who-is-listening -to-migrant-farm-workers.html [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Ramsaroop, C. (2022). Report Details Gov’t’s Failure to Protect C’bean Farm Workers during Pandemic [online]. Jamaica Gleaner. Available at: https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20220101/report -details-govts-failure-protect-cbean-farm-workers-during-pandemic [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Regis, S. (2019). Green Is Not White [online]. Our Times. Available at: https://ourtimes.ca/article/green -is-not-white [Accessed 17 January 2022]. Regis, S. (2021). How Labour Activists Pushed for Policies That Protect Workers and the Environment This Election [online]. PressProgress. Available at: https://pressprogress.ca/how-labour-activists -pushed-for-policies-that-protect-workers-and-the-environment-this-election/. Robinson, A. (2018). Turtle Island [online]. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.the canadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/turtle-island. Samson, C. and Gigoux, C. (2016). Indigenous Peoples and Colonialism: Global Perspectives. London: Polity Press. Schneidereit, P. (2020). Zann Goes National with Fight against Environmental Racism [online]. Saltwire. Available at: https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/opinion/paul-schneidereit-zann-goes -national-with-fight-against-environmental-racism-416225/ [Accessed 8 April 2022]. Smith, A. (2015). The Bunk House Rules: A Materialist Approach to Legal Consciousness in the Context of Migrant Workers’ Housing in Ontario. Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 52(3), 863-904. Available at: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2958&context=ohlj [Accessed 27 January 2022]. Statistics Canada (2020). Impacts on Indigenous Peoples. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ pub/11-631-x/2020004/s7-eng.htm [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Stuart, D., Petersen, B. and Gunderson, R. (2021). Shared Pretences for Collective Inaction: The Economic Growth Imperative, COVID-19, and Climate Change. Globalizations, 19(3), 408–425. Tewelde, Y. (2020). Canadians are using the term ‘racialized’ incorrectly [online]. Rabble. Available at: https://rabble.ca/anti-racism/canadians-are-using-term-racialized-incorrectly. The Atkinson Foundation (2018). Community Benefits as a Strategy for Economic Inclusion in Ontario: The Eglinton Crosstown LRT Story [online]. Canadian CED Network. Available at: https://ccednet -rcdec.ca/en/toolbox/community-benefits-strategy-economic-inclusion-ontario. Toronto Community Benefits Network (2016). Toronto Community Benefits Network Foundation Document on Track to Opportunities: Vision, Commitment and Objectives for Community Benefit Agreements [online]. Available at: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/communitybenefits/ pages/70/attachments/original/1458668750/TCBN_Foundation_Document_2016.pdf?1458668750 [Accessed 7 April 2022]. Toronto Community Benefits Network (2022). Crosslinx Transit Solutions [online]. Available at: https:// buildingdiversity.ca/previous-awardees/crosslinx-transit-solutions/. United Nations Environment Programme (2011). Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World [online]. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. Available at: www.su stainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=655&menu=1515.
538 Research handbook on inequalities and work United Nations Environment Programme (2018). Green Economy [online]. Available at: http:// www.unep.org/regions/asia-and-pacific/regional-initiatives/supporting-resource-efficiency/green -economy. Varro, L. (2020). Green Stimulus after the 2008 Crisis – Analysis [online]. IEA. Available at: https:// www.iea.org/articles/green-stimulus-after-the-2008-crisis. Vosko, L.F. and Spring, C. (2021) COVID-19 Outbreaks in Canada and the Crisis of Migrant Farmworkers’ Social Reproduction: Transnational Labour and the Need for Greater Accountability among Receiving States [online]. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 23(4), 1765–1791. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34744516/ [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Waldron, I. (2018a). There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities. Black Point: Fernwood Publishing.Waldron, I. (2018b). Women on the Frontlines: Grassroots Movements against Environmental Violence in Indigenous and Black Communities in Canada. Kalfou, 5(2). Waldron, I. (2020). Environmental Racism in Canada. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Watts, N., Amann, M., Arnell, N. et al. (2019). The 2019 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: Ensuring that the Health of a Child Born Today Is Not Defined by a Changing Climate [online]. The Lancet, 394(10211), 1836–1878. Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/ journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32596-6/fulltext. Wilkins, P (2022). Unpublished interview with Christopher Wilson. World Health Organization (2018). COP24 Special Report: Health and Climate Change [online]. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/276405. World Health Organization (2021). COP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health [online]. https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/cop26-special-report. Yearwood, M. (2022). Why our civic space is vital. Globe and Mail, January 17. Zoledziowski, A. (2020). T’suwet’en Isn’t Just about a Pipeline. It’s also about Keeping Indigenous Women Safe and Preventing MMIW [online]. Vice. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ m7qp8a/wetsuweten-isnt-just-about-a-pipeline-but-keeping-indigenous-women-safe [Accessed 15 April 2022].
Green is not White 539
APPENDIX Table A35.1
Racialized population, composition
Population
Percentage of Canadian Population
Aboriginal population (First Nation, Métis, Inuit)
1,673,785
4.9%
Visible minority population
7,674,580
22.0%
Source:
Statistics Canada, 2016 Census (Catalogue Number 98-400-X2016), adapted from Block et al. (2019).
Table A35.2
Racialized and Indigenous population breakdown
Racialized group
Population
Aboriginal groups First Nations (registered)*
820,120
Inuit
64,325
Métis
537,855
Visible minority groups South Asian
1,924,635
Chinese
1,577,060
Black
1,198,545
Filipino
780,125
Latin American
447,320
Arab
523,235
Southeast Asian
313,260
West Asian
264,300
Korean
188,710
Japanese
92,920
Visible minority n.i.e.**
132,090
Multiple visible minorities
232,375
Notes: Source:
*14% of the Indigenous population are Non-Status/Un-registered; **n.i.e.: not included elsewhere. Statistics Canada, 2016 Census (Catalogue Number 98-400-X2016), adapted from Block et al. (2019).
According to Canada’s 2016 Census of the Population, 4.9% (1,673,785) of Canada’s total population self-identify as Indigenous. Indigenous peoples in Canada are categorized as First Nations, Inuit and Métis.
36. Climate crisis and labour market inequalities: a socio-ecological fix approach to energy transition in Greece Vasiliki Krommyda, Stelios Gialis and Anastasia Stratigea
INTRODUCTION The contemporary climate crisis highlights the necessity for low-carbon economies through extensive use of renewable energy (RE) sources. The increasing penetration of RE into the energy mix is supported by international agreements such as the Paris Agreement (United Nations 2015) and the European Green Deal (EGD) (European Commission 2019), which set targets to limit global warming and achieve ‘climate neutrality’ by 2050. However, their effectiveness is limited insofar as they rely on a technocratic perspective that views ‘green technologies’ and emissions trading as sufficient solutions for the climate crisis (Kobayashi-Solomon 2019; Harvey 2010). Among the less-discussed impacts of such a narrow response is the potential exacerbation of uneven and unjust effects that the attempted transition to new low-carbon socio-ecological fixes for energy production may have on coal-intensive regions (Sovacool 2021; Sovacool et al. 2021; O’Sullivan et al. 2020). As argued below, these usually peripheral regions have experienced numerous ‘negative externalities’ during the coal-intensive era of global capitalism and are currently facing the adverse socio-spatial impacts of the unravelling ‘green growth’. The main objective of the chapter is to examine the impact of the ongoing energy transition on regional labour market inequalities in semi-peripheral countries of advanced capitalism. Countries in Southern Europe, such as Greece, have been suffering from increasing inequalities since the 2008 crisis and are marked by high unemployment, precarity, wage disparities, disinvestment, and sectoral lock-ins (Hadjimichalis 2018). We rely on a theoretically grounded empirical approach inspired by notions from Geographical Political Economy; namely, the concept of socio-ecological fixes. Fixes may effectively capture and represent the inherent spatial inequalities of capital accumulation in the era of green energy production. The chapter utilises a brief literature review as well as an in-depth analysis of the background and inherent contradictions associated with the energy transition in the case of Western Macedonia (WM). WM has played a pivotal role as the most important coal region in Greece since the mid-1950s and is currently bearing the burden of a fast-track lignite phase-out decided by the Greek government in 2019. However, the transition plan faced an abrupt and urgent halt in 2022 due to the new energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. Although post-2022 developments are not analysed here, the analysis below points to a link between the low-carbon transition and the exacerbation of employment inequalities and emphasises that the evolving energy landscapes contribute to increasing employment precarity. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. The first part outlines some conceptual connections between the climate and employment crises through the lens of socio-ecological 540
Climate crisis and labour market inequalities 541 fixes. The second part contains an in-depth analysis of secondary data that documents and empirically grounds the increasing inequalities in the labour market in WM vis-à-vis the rest of the Greek regions. Finally, the third part discusses the findings and identifies future research perspectives.
CONCEPTUAL CONNECTIONS: CLIMATE CRISIS, EMPLOYMENT INEQUALITIES AND SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL FIXES Socio-ecological Fixes in Coal Regions Under Transition The energy transition is not only a process of technological innovation and substitution but also a complex socio-spatial phenomenon. It is shaped by political and economic factors as well as power asymmetries and carries profound economic, social, environmental, and cultural implications (García-García et al. 2020; Contorno 2019; European Commission 2019). A critical aspect of the contemporary energy transition is its potential (in)direct impacts on less privileged communities (Sovacool 2021). Energy peripheries are a prominent example of such peripheral communities that suffer from systemic vulnerabilities and other disadvantages resulting from the ‘spatially asymmetrical distribution of political, material, economic, symbolic and other resources and capabilities’ (Golubchikov and O’Sullivan 2020, p. 4) within capitalist economies. Scholars that draw upon Geographical Political Economy and Political Ecology argue that the ongoing ‘green transition’ is a politically driven ‘temporary solution’ that serves the priorities of capitalist accumulation (McCarthy 2015). As such, it is an attempt to maintain the political legitimacy of the socio-ecological status quo (Eckersley 2021). The green transition can be understood as a new socio-ecological fix, a concept that in turn draws on the notion of ‘spatial fix’ articulated by David Harvey (1982; Krommyda et al. 2022). The term ‘fix’ serves as an emblematic metaphor used primarily by critical geographers to analyse capitalism effectively (Bok 2018). Understanding the energy transition through socio-ecological fixes opens up new ontological and analytical perspectives, as argued below. In particular, fixes can enhance our conceptualisation of how capital endeavours to (re)organise socio-economic conditions, spaces, and modes of production, thereby securing the hegemony of particular social hierarchies, power relations, and institutions (Ekers and Prudham 2017); in other words, how capitalist structures and priorities are secured while mitigating (or postponing) the impacts of climate crisis through environmentally friendly, technology-enabled ‘regimes of accumulation’ (Eckersley 2021; Ekers and Prudham 2017; Ekers and Prudham 2015; McCarthy 2015). In order to facilitate the development of these new regimes, most governments and market-oriented actors are doing their best to depoliticise the public debate on climate change (Swyngedouw 2022). As Swyngedouw (2011, p. 80) points out, ‘the ecological problem does not invite a transformation of the existing socio-ecological order but calls on the elites to undertake action such that nothing really has to change, so that life can basically go on as before’. This quote encapsulates the main pillars of the emerging socio-ecological fix; namely, its depoliticised climate crisis discourse, the fact that it downplays the energy transition to a simple technological shift, its need to preserve the legitimacy of capitalist states as ‘guarantors’ of climate stability, and, last but not least, the need for consistent profitability through capital switching towards ‘green activities’.
542 Research handbook on inequalities and work The deconstruction of the above-mentioned mainstream discourse requires new politicised socio-ecological approaches. This is especially true for coal regions facing declining regional resilience and shrinking development (Xiao et al. 2021). Under certain socio-economic circumstances, energy transitions can lead to revolutionary changes and other more progressive forms of socio-productive organisation (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl 2007). Nevertheless, the recent transitional steps that certain energy peripheries have taken appear to be rather conservative and suffer from the weak (counter-)agency of local communities and social movements demanding accountability and justice (Chambers 2020). Many of these energy peripheries (e.g. the case of South Wales in the UK studied by Golubchikov and O’Sullivan (2020)) face a further worsening of existing inequalities and increasing vulnerabilities (Sovacool 2021). Despite its merits, examining the low-carbon transition through the lens of socio-ecological fixes is not without its problems. First, the concept of fixes seems to emphasise how capitalism survives rather than how it can be dismantled (Bok 2018, Chambers 2020). Second, studies based on the concept of fixes may prioritise the importance of fixity rather than the relevance of fluidity and underestimate the dynamics of place change (Massey 1991, cited in Bok 2018). Despite these shortcomings, the concept enables the study of capitalist restructuring vis-à-vis space and the political and ecological conditions that determine such restructuring and points to potential for (regionally bounded) labour agency that can be leveraged by social and political movements (Ekers and Prudham 2015). These latter advantages make socio-ecological fixes an analytically useful and theoretically relevant concept for studying the relationship between energy transition and labour market inequalities. Employment Crisis and Increasing Inequalities in Greece Greece’s transition to a low-carbon energy system is unfolding in a period of high labour market segmentation and increasing levels of precariousness (Tourtouri et al. 2020). According to the OECD (2018), Greece performs relatively poorly among OECD countries in terms of employment rates (57.8% and 72.1%, respectively), labour market insecurity (22.7% and 4.9%), and the gender pay gap (49.1% and 38.1%). The long-term recession has led to persistent unemployment (in 2020, the rate in Greece was 16.3%, compared to 7.1% in the EU) and high labour underutilisation. Poverty has increased, while the labour market is not inclusive for thousands of women and disadvantaged groups (OECD 2018). The ‘structural reforms’ and austerity measures imposed by the memoranda since 2010 in the context of the Eurozone crisis have dismantled the Greek labour market (Kennedy 2018). Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased precarity and uncertainty, with many discouraged job-seekers leaving the labour force and many young and educated people migrating (Avagianou et al. 2022; Kousta 2021; OECD 2020). Under these harmful circumstances, the Greek government has adopted dubious labour reforms (e.g., Law 4808/2021), which promote the liberalisation of working hours and individual employment contracts. Based on the ILO’s (2017) study on decent work, the Greek labour market does not generate enough jobs (in 2019, labour underutilisation in Greece was 39.7% while the same index in OECD countries was 26.3%) and adaptability to future challenges is low (Bulman 2020). Moreover, the at-risk-of-poverty rate in Greece in 2020 was 17.7% and the severe material deprivation rate was 16.5%, with rural and coal regions presenting the highest corresponding rates (Eurostat 2022a; 2022b). Precarity is also linked to high unemployment rates, low unionisation rates and increasing flexibilisation and is the result of reduced workers’ bargaining
Climate crisis and labour market inequalities 543 power (Vancea and Utzet 2016, Vives et al. 2015). These conditions, due to the long-lasting political effects of austerity measures and the new liberalised legislation, have led to an employment crisis in Greece that reinforces labour market segmentation. Furthermore, the traditional lack of an effective welfare state facilitates the devaluation of labour in Greece and affects social cohesion immensely (Papadakis et al. 2020; Hadjimichalis 2018; Hadjimichalis 2017). Conceptualisation Against this background, a framework is proposed that conceptualises the link between contemporary energy transition policies and structural changes in the labour market. These policies are associated with uneven spatial and employment rearrangements and increased labour precarity. A low-carbon transition, often driven by technological advances and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading schemes, requires new landscapes of energy production. These new landscapes are in turn the result of the restructuring of existing coal mining sites and new infrastructures aimed at creating new ‘green’ energy geographies. These landscapes are filled with solar panels and wind farms and involve a less typical and industrialised workforce that represents only a fraction of the full-time workers required for coal mining under the Fordist-type industrial capitalism. As a result, energy production is essentially more capital-intensive than it was a few decades ago. Conversely, the employment crisis, manifested through labour deregulation practices, reproduces precarity, creates new forms of segmentation, and exacerbates unemployment (see Sovacool 2021; Sovacool et al. 2021). Moreover, the devaluation of labour seems to be a general trend that is being reinforced by the ‘digital transition’.1 Overall, new socio-ecological fixes related to energy production emerge from spatial formations of innovative technology, new forms of regulation, technocratic practices, and increasing appropriation of nature, creating landscapes of further labour devaluation that sustain power asymmetries and capital accumulation (see Ekers and Prudham 2015; Ekers and Prudham 2017) (for detailed information, see Figure A1 in the online supplementary material).2
METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK In the first stage of the study, the most important legal frameworks in the international, European, and Greek contexts are analysed in order to outline the top-down political efforts and their implications. In the second stage, the WM region is examined by studying its historical background and analysing secondary data. Employment and economic data by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) are used; e.g. Gross Value Added (GVA), Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF). In addition, comparisons are made between several spatial levels and between specific unevenness indices, such as the Location Quotient (LQ), which enables the identification of sectoral specialisation, and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of regional GVA, which indicates unequal regional distribution. Their combination makes it possible to decipher the long-term lock-in and segmentation of the labour market in the study area compared to the rest of the Greek regions. The secondary data analysis mainly refers to the 2010–2020 period and does not take into account the recent political shifts due to the energy crisis. Finally, the third stage offers a literature review of previous studies on the prospects of the regional labour market.
544 Research handbook on inequalities and work Additionally, ongoing territorial reorganisation practices are briefly examined and the lack of sufficient spatial planning mechanisms for the construction and geographical distribution of RE infrastructure is highlighted.
REGULATORY FRAMEWORK OF ENERGY TRANSITION At the international level, the Kyoto Protocol (1997) is one of the first actions that committed countries to reducing GHGs through various mechanisms, such as the International Emissions Trading, which deals with GHGs through a stock market approach (United Nations n.d.). Furthermore, the 2015 Paris Agreement is a significant milestone that manifests the need for a low-carbon transition by setting specific goals on reducing GHGs (United Nations n.d.). Additionally, the recent Glasgow Climate Pact, derived from the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), completes the commitments of the Paris Agreement and urges nations to phase out coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies (UNFCCC 2022). At the European level, these international climate targets are being pursued through the EGD (European Commission 2019), which promotes regulations regarding energy planning, green technologies, decarbonisation, etc. The overarching goal is a climate-neutral Europe by 2050; i.e. a net zero GHG continent (European Commission 2019). The EGD is legally manifested through the European Climate Law (2020) and supported by the ‘Fit for 55’ package (2021), a set of proposals to revise and update EU legislation to achieve the target of at least 55% emissions reduction by 2030. However, Covid-19 has led to new investments in the energy sector being delayed or frozen, which, combined with a global recovery in demand for these energy products and geopolitical tensions, has led to high prices for energy products (oil, natural gas) and a subsequent energy crisis (Public Power Corporation 2022). Concurrently, the problem of energy poverty is becoming more apparent, especially in Greece, where electricity prices on the Hellenic Energy Exchange are skyrocketing and leading to precarious living conditions (Ioannidis 2022; Kolonas 2021; Michalopoulos 2022). At the national level, the Greek government announced in 2019 the decision to phase out most lignite energy production between 2023 and 2028 and to use fossil gas as a transitional fuel until the shift to RE reaches a critical point. The National Energy Climate Plan (2019) and the Long-Term Strategy for 2050 (2020) introduced this goal, while the Plan for a Just Development Transition (SDAM) (2020) sets out the lignite phase-out strategy. In 2021, the SDAM was introduced as Law 4872/2021 entitled ‘Just Development Transition and Regulation of Specific Lignite Phase-out Issues’ (Official Government Gazette 2021), while the Territorial Just Transition Plan, specifically for WM, was adopted by the European Commission in 2022 (European Commission 2022). Based on the comments from the public consultation on the aforementioned law,3 one of the main problems is the lack of local communities’ representation in the decision-making processes. Another issue is the ambiguities related to the creation of the new Société Anonyme (SA) called ‘Metavasi SA’ as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which will take responsibility for all actions related to land restoration in energy transition areas. As a result, in addition to the lack of adequate measures to address socio-spatial inequalities, the adopted centralised governance model illustrates the top-down, technocratic, and time-constrained procedures that characterise the energy transition in Greece.
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THE CASE OF THE WESTERN MACEDONIA REGION Historical Background WM is located along the northwestern borders of Greece. The area is marked by peripherality due to its mountainous morphology and poor transport accessibility. At the same time, it holds a prominent position in the Greek energy-production complex as it is one of the most important energy hubs in Greece. WM consists of four Regional Units (RUs); namely, Grevena, Kastoria, Kozani and Florina, the last two of which are heavily involved in electricity production (for detailed information, see Figure A2 in the online supplementary material). During the 1950s and 1960s, the construction of the first lignite power plant in WM, which covered the energy needs of industry and households, signaled the acceleration of national development. In 1956, Ptolemaida Lignite Mines Mineral and Industrial SA (LIPTOL) was founded and began exploiting lignite reserves discovered in the Ptolemaida, Amynteo, and Florina basin (Public Power Corporation 2010; Public Power Corporation n.d.). In 1959, 90% of LIPTOL shares were transferred to the Public Power Corporation (PPC), and in 1975, they were fully merged (Public Power Corporation n.d.). After 1970, WM followed an intense industrialisation pattern, and lignite became even more important due to the oil crisis in the same era. Alongside lignite mining and power production activities, numerous industrial companies operated in the region. The dominance of industrial employment and the expanding public sector led to a decline in livestock and farming activities. As a result, the agricultural sector declined and lost its primacy (Vaiou and Hadjimichalis 1997). In the post-1990 era severe deindustrialisation led to the closure of many manufacturing plants and to a greater dependence upon PPC jobs in the region (Vetta 2020; Ifanti 2018; Vaiou and Hadjimichalis 1997).
AN ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY INEQUALITIES The lignite phase-out period of WM officially started in 2019, a process that took place in a strained socio-economic environment due to the lingering effects of the 2008 recession, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the ongoing energy crisis. Among the most challenging facts about WM’s labour market today are the ‘large outmigration rates’, ‘the confined local employment opportunities’, and the ‘even more limited opportunities for young people’ (Christiaensen and Ferré 2020, p. 25). The following analysis shows the existing multi-scalar inequalities. Economic Inequalities First, analysis of the sectoral distribution of GVA using the HHI shows that 3 out of the 13 Greek regions display unequal distribution (ELSTAT 2020a; for detailed information, see Figure A3 in the online supplementary material). These are the South Aegean, the Ionian Islands, and WM. The first two regions are related to tourism activities, while WM relies on sectors4 related to mining and power production activities. This disparity widened between 2000 and 2018, highlighting WM’s economic lock-in with lignite activities. The GDP per capita growth in the period 2008–2018 in Greece, WM, and WM’s RUs illustrates the significant differences between these levels (ELSTAT 2020b; for detailed
546 Research handbook on inequalities and work information, see Figure A4 in the online supplementary material). More specifically, WM was able to maintain and even increase its GDP per capita beyond 2008 due to the economic performance of the Kozani and Florina RUs; i.e. the two RUs that are heavily dependent on the lignite industry. Kastoria and Grevena followed the national trend. However, after 2012, the regional economy was severely affected, leading to a rapid decline in GDP. As a result, the regional GDP fell below the 2008 level after 2015. Another interesting index is GFCF, which shows the trajectory of investment in fixed assets at national and regional levels. Based on ELSTAT (2021), WM followed the national disinvestment trend after the 2008 crisis and lost more than 70% of the total value of investments from 2009 to 2018. After 2012, the sectors with the highest investment value were mining, power production activities, manufacturing, and the public sector. Uneven Regional Labour Market Structure The structure of the regional labour market has had worrying characteristics for years. Since 2005, energy production from lignite in Greece has been gradually declining (European Commission 2022; Vatikiotis 2020; Technical Chamber of Greece – WM Department 2018), a trend that has affected job creation and led to a reduction in PPC’s core workforce (Vetta 2020). The destabilisation of the regional economy was exacerbated by the impacts of the 2008 crisis, which were delayed in WM due to the resilience of power production activities but nevertheless had long-lasting negative effects. Greece still suffers from very high regional disparities in unemployment rates and labour precarity (OECD 2018). According to Eurostat (2021a), the number of economically inactive people in WM is very high, reaching 45% in 2013 and almost 42% in 2019. From 2011 to 2016, it was even higher than the labour force, which accounted for only 37% of the regional population in 2013. In 2019, this share rose to 44%, meaning that WM has a meager share of working individuals to support the entire region economically. The dominance of self-employment seems to further increase the imbalance in the labour market. The share of regional wage labour in total employment was 59% in 2019, while it was almost 10% higher in Greece as a whole (ELSTAT 2020c). Even though this is a well-known feature of the Greek labour market, the employment pattern in WM indicates higher job insecurity (Christiaensen and Ferré 2020) (for detailed information, see Figure A5 in the online supplementary material). In WM, self-employment without employees and temporary/ fixed-term contracts (wage labour) are the two most prevalent forms of precarity, with shares well above national levels. Even if self-employment without employees has declined since the 2008 crisis, it still accounted for 34% of total employment in WM in 2019 compared to 21% in Greece. Temporary/fixed-term contracts follow an irregular trend, but this type of wage labour in WM is almost consistently 10% higher than the corresponding national share. In addition, part-time employment in WM follows an increasing trend alongside the national share. In contrast, the number of contributing family workers has decreased significantly since 1990 both in WM and in Greece, indicating the shrinking of small enterprises specialising mainly in agricultural activities (Vaiou and Hadjimichalis 1997). The precarious regional employment pattern is related to the dominant economic sectors. The LQ shows that WM is mainly specialised in activities of power production (sectors D–E), mining and manufacturing (sectors B–C), and agriculture (sector A) (for detailed information, see Figure A6 in the online supplementary material). Hence those types of regional
Climate crisis and labour market inequalities 547 specialisation are intertwined with the spatial characteristics of the area since activities of nature exploitation (lignite mining and land cultivation) support the employment profile of the region. Moreover, when examining the sub-regional level, the most notable contribution to employment is attributed to mining and power activities in the municipalities of the RUs of Kozani and Florina. A striking finding regarding labour market inequalities in WM is the difference between permanent and temporary jobs. The share of temporary workers in WM is higher than the national share in almost all economic sectors. Specifically, in 2019, temporary employment in agriculture (sector A) and power production (sector D) was 37.4% and 23.6% higher than at the national level (ELSTAT 2020d). Overall, the number of temporary workers in WM rose between 2011 and 2015, then fell until 2018 and increased again in 2019, accounting for one in five employees. In terms of sectoral specialisation in WM, more than three in ten temporary workers in 2019 worked in power production activities (sector D) and seven in ten in agriculture (sector A). In addition, the average monthly salary in WM shows a remarkable gap between permanent and temporary workers. In the period 2015–2018, the difference was EUR 400 and EUR 480, while in the predominant power-production activities the salary gap was EUR 900 and EUR 1,080 (ELSTAT 2020d). In terms of unemployment rates, WM has been a ‘champion’ of negative values over the last 20 years (for detailed information, see Figure A7 in the online supplementary material). Comparing the regional unemployment rate of WM with other European coal regions,5 as well as with the national rate, WM is one of the worst-performing regions. Unemployment is almost twice as high compared to other coal regions. Based on 2020 data (Eurostat 2021b), three out of five unemployed people in WM are long-term unemployed (LTU), which is higher than the European LTU share of 36%. Additionally, almost 47% of the 15–24 age group in WM were unemployed in 2020. This rate was higher than the national average (35%) and the EU’s share (17%). Moreover, one in four women were unemployed in WM in 2020 compared to one in ten in the EU (Eurostat 2021c). Emerging Regional Labour Market Perspectives The transition to low-carbon economies and the associated structural changes in production systems rearrange working conditions and jeopardise thousands of jobs. This is particularly true for lagging regional economies that are unable to absorb an excessive workforce (European Commission 2020). WM represents such a lagging peripheral economy. Having described the critical dimensions of current inequalities in WM’s labour market, estimates of the potential impact of the lignite phase-out are now examined. They all take into account the losses in jobs directly and indirectly linked to the energy sector. The inter- and intra-regional inequalities in WM have led to a polarised labour market and dependence on energy sectors with no apparent alternatives, while a significant part of the population is economically inactive. As a result, existing inequalities in this agro-industrial region are expected to worsen. In addition, the spatial implications shaping the new energy landscapes are studied in order to explore future perspectives. A recent study has shown that almost three out of four inhabitants of the affected Greek lignite areas have a negative view of the lignite phase-out (Doussi et al. 2020). They fear high unemployment, economic recession, impoverishment, and outmigration of young people. Establishing a close link between labour and economic development on the one hand and
548 Research handbook on inequalities and work lignite activities on the other, local communities are critical of lignite phase-out (Karasmanaki et al. 2020), especially because of its ‘violent’ nature (Vatikiotis 2020). The number of workers in the energy sector is more than 5,500 and the number of workers in indirectly related sectors is estimated at 6,000 (World Bank 2020, p. 43–44; Alves Dias et al. 2018, p. 165). As far as WM is concerned, the ‘main coping strategy for a post-coal world seems to be moving out of the region and finding employment opportunities elsewhere’ (Christiaensen and Ferré 2020, p. 25). This is corroborated by the report of the Technical Chamber of Greece – WM Department (2018), which estimates the loss of more than 10,000 jobs in WM since 2004, while almost 15,000 jobs will be lost in the next 15 years. In addition, no economic sector can replace the declining lignite sector in terms of employment and wealth production (Technical Chamber of Greece – WM Department 2018). As there are no solid measures to promote employment, the risk of destabilising the local production structure is high (Technical Chamber of Greece – WM Department 2018). The official narrative regarding the impact of the green transition on employment tends to overemphasise the gradual substitution of jobs lost to decarbonisation with new green jobs. However, green job strategies do not necessarily lead to decent jobs (well-paid, safe, and secure jobs) (Räthzel and Uzzell 2012). Energy transition policies, such as the SDAM in Greece, are indicative of a growth model that favours large, high-risk, and zero-diffusion investments rather than small and medium ones that have the potential to be intertwined with the local economy (Vatikiotis and Zervas 2021). In WM, conflicts are already arising from the expanded land use for photovoltaic (PV) installations, which are displacing the activities of farmers and livestock breeders. For example, pastures near the villages of Sidera and Livera in the Kozani RU have become one of the largest solar power plants in Greece, operated by the oil company named Hellenic Petroleum (Aposporis 2022). The construction activities create short-term jobs, but in the long term the main ‘green jobs’ will be maintaining PV panels and guarding the solar park premises. Land grabbing will divert agricultural workers away from primary production, leading to the disintegration of local communities that traditionally live from agriculture and livestock farming. The widespread proliferation of RE and especially of PV installations around the Western Macedonia Lignite Center (WMLC) and the lignite mine of Amynteo (for detailed information, see Figure A8 in the online supplementary material) is a very indicative example. The impact of land use regulations on the labour market is not straightforward, but there are causal links between changes in spatial structure and changes in the regional economies (Kim 2011). In WM, one of the main points of contention is the management and rehabilitation of the expropriated land by Metavasi SPV. Land restoration is an obvious necessity in the post-lignite era, but it has been significantly delayed, resulting in landslides that threaten communities and numerous spontaneous combustions of exposed lignite, creating a suffocating atmosphere from carbon monoxide (ERT 2021). As the required land use planning has not yet been completed, all licences for RE projects are approved without assessing the impact on other land uses and economic activities. Furthermore, Greece has not updated its Special Framework for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development for RE sources (Coordinating Committee of Government Policy on Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development, 2008), which regulates the strategic siting of RE projects. Another critical aspect is that Law 4872/2021 allows the PPC (currently a private company) to determine land uses in lignite areas while being exempt from existing contractual obligations to restore land used for mining. In addition, local authorities and representatives of workers and citizens are excluded from the
Climate crisis and labour market inequalities 549 planning processes. Ultimately, the PPC will not only be a major employer but also a prominent landowner in WM for years to come.
DISCUSSION The following points aim to combine the empirical findings of the case study with the theoretical framework in order to conceptualise the lignite phase-out in Greece as a socio-ecological fix. First, the socio-spatial organisation of the Greek energy system has contributed to uneven regional development and high inequalities within the study area. As a result, even in times of economic growth, WM faced profound labour market constraints. The myopic dependence on power production activities (see the LQ index) and the gigantism of the public sector, while offering no alternative economic activities, resemble a polarised labour market. The division of labour in the region is highly segmented between a core of workers employed by the PPC and a second larger group of precarious workers. The former workers have good working conditions and receive higher salaries, while the PPC’s private subcontractors usually hire the latter on temporary and precarious contracts. Moreover, the adjustments of the regional economy (i.e. previous spatial fixes) to events such as the industrial crisis in the 1990s and the long-term disinvestment of PPC after the 2000s and the 2008 crisis have exacerbated inequalities. They have led to low labour force participation, high unemployment (especially among women and young people), increasing precarity (more temporary jobs with significant income disparities), and outmigration. Second, labour market unevenness is increasing as the repercussions of the energy transition are exacerbated by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global energy crisis. A new fix is needed to establish a new equilibrium point for capital accumulation processes. Under these circumstances, WM as an energy periphery has minimum power to influence decisions on resource access and allocation (see O’Sullivan et al. 2020; Golubchikov and O’Sullivan 2020). As a result, it is being transformed according to the priorities of the central government and the PPC and the needs of the energy markets. More than 15,000 jobs may be lost in the restructuring of the power production value chain without an adequate plan for viable employment strategies. A critical aspect that needs to be scrutinised in future research is the agency that workers and local communities will develop in response to increasingly uneven power relations – and to tackle the impact of these relations on socio-economic relations and nature. In WM, no participatory practices have been implemented in the planning of the lignite phase-out. The local population and regional authorities are excluded from the central government’s decision-making processes. This is so despite the fact that local energy communities could contribute to more egalitarian energy landscapes. Labour agency in response to the unregulated expansion of RE projects could play a significant role in transforming uneven socio-spatial structures (Massey 1995).
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NOTES 1. The EU promotes a double strategy based on digital transformation and climate neutrality, defining technology as a driver and means of economic development in the EGD and Digital Europe Program. 2. The figures referred to throughout this chapter can be found at the companion website to this book here: https://www.e-elgar.com/textbooks/forson. 3. The public consultation on the draft law lasted only seven days (12 October to 19 October 2021) and the relevant comments amounted to 89. All the relevant information is available at the Ministry of Development and Investments consultation website: http://www.opengov.gr/ypoian/?p=12770. 4. The sectoral classification is based on NACE Rev.2, the European statistical classification of economic activities (Eurostat 2008). The most significant sectors in this study are agriculture, forestry, and fishing (sector A); mining and quarrying (sector B); manufacturing (sector C); electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply (sector D); water supply, sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities (sector E); and public administration, defence, education, human health, and social work activities (sectors O-Q). 5. The European coal regions under consideration were selected based on the Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition (European Commission 2017). They include regions from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
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Index
Abba, Shettima Bukar 110 ableism 291 academic discipline 159, 162, 163, 168, 173, 175 academic pay gap 158–60 academic rank 161 non-professors 164, 165, 168, 171, 172 professors 164, 165, 168, 171, 172 activist/activism 242, 245, 247 Adeleye, Ifedapo 8 African American 143, 243, 253, 301, 303, 307, 363 African leadership 260–64 Ahmed, Nadia 15 Ajai, Olawale 8 Ajunwa, Ifeoma 363 American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) 242, 243, 253 Amores, Javier J. 9 Angola colonisation 24 diversity ideologies 26–7 Anibaba, Yetunde 5 antisemitism 319, 322, 324, 330 aporophobia 223 Arcila-Calderón, Carlos 9 asset economy 356 assimilation 321 Atkinson, Carol 13 auditing/auditors 480–88 Covid-19 483–7 homeworking advantages/perceptions 485–6 remote work perceptions/limitations 486–7 remote work possibilities 484–5 inequality of opportunity 481–3 marginalisation 481–3 overview of 480–81 Australia social procurement 182–3 autoethnography 6, 74–83 analytic writings 76–7 crisis of representation 76 definition of 76 evocative 77, 82 inequality 81–2 microaggression 78 multi-authored 77 self-reflection/self-participation 469–70
transgender and gender-nonconforming folk 81 Automation and the Future of Work (Benavav) 357 Ayaz, Özlem 10 Bain, Vick 13 Baldwin, James 17 Barbrook, Richard 361 behavioural leadership emergence 234–5 belief(s) see religion/belief belongingness 409–11 Benavav, Aaron 357 benevolence 69 Bergfeld, Mark 13 Bernal, Delgado 308 bisexual community 273–80 Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups 456 COVID-19 457–9 economic deprivation 461 household worth 461–2 lack of pre-existing savings 463–4 low pay 463–4 overcrowded housing 461–2 overrepresentation 462–3 pre-COVID-19 statistics 458 pre-existing socio-economic conditions 459–60 role of gender 463–4 Black feminism 10, 299–300 Black Lives Matter (#BLM) movement 1, 328, 523, 526 Black women 299–314 blackness in context 301 colourism 303 critical racial autobiographical case study 312–13 double consciousness 306 feminism 299–301 identity 301–3, 308–10 intersectionality 308 leadership 311–13 neoliberalism 309–10 professional beauty qualification 306 skin tone 301–2 sophisticated racism 302 stereotyping 309 theoretical framework 299–300 unemployment 307–8
555
556 Research handbook on inequalities and work in workforce 303–4 workplace 304–7 Blair, Tony 54 Blanco-Herrero, David 9 boundaryless career theory 380 Brazilian diversity 272–81 conservatism 277–80 depoliticization 277–80 ghettos 276–7 heteronormative societies 276–7 historically conservative country 272–3 invisibility 276–7 LGBT community 273–80 normality 274–5 persecution 276–7 pink money 276–80 sexuality 274–6 social tolerance 277–80 subalternization 274 British colonisation 30 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act 27, 182, 261 Bullard, Robert 524 Burton, Michael 127 business schools 157–61, 165–73 Butler, Judith 279 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) 527 Carby, Hazel 66 Carrim, Nasima M. H. 5 Casamitjana Costa v The League Against Cruel Sports [2020] 135 Chakraborty, Shreyashi 14 Charles, Naolo 16 Chavis, Benjamin 524 Chinese labour market inequalities 89–99 COVID-19 policies 97–8 developmental state 89 dual-track employment and remuneration system 92–3 employment-related inequalities/effects 91 employment-related laws 94–5 gender inequality, government organisations 92 ineffective enforcement regulations 95–6 labour laws consequences 96–7 labour laws/intentions 93–5 non-employment-related (social) policies 97–8 Chong, Patricia 16 Christian beliefs 131–2 cisnormativity 5, 44–5 civil society 189–90 Clarke, Linda 17
Cleaver, Kathleen 300 client-facing work see auditing/auditors Clifford, James 74 climate adaptation 507–11 climate change 507–18 climate crisis 540, 541 climate emergency 16–19 Clinton, Hillary 252 Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) 242, 252, 253 collaborative and video conferencing software (CVCS) 442–5 collective bargaining 160–61 Collins, Patricia Hill 17 colonisation of Angola 24 British 30 of East Africa 29 Germans 30 of Namibia 24–5 of Omani Arabs 30 Portuguese 30 of South Africa 23–4 colourism 10 Black women 303 community benefit agreements (CBAs) 530–32 compulsory heterosexuality 41 Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) 190 Conisbee v Crossley Farm Ltd & Others [2019] 135 Conley, Hazel 9 Connolly, Tyjana 16 construction industry see green transition contemporary energy transition 543 contemporary inequalities economic inequalities 545–6 historical background 545 regional labour market perspectives 547–9 structures 546–7 contractual citizenship 56 Cooke, Fang Lee 8 Corbyn, Jeremy 319 Cornelius, Nelarine 12 Coronavirus Act (2020) 480 COVID-19 pandemic 14–16 auditing/auditors 483–7 homeworking advantages/perceptions 485–6 remote work perceptions/limitations 486–7 remote work possibilities 484–5 BME groups 457–9 equal impact of 458–9
Index 557 pre-COVID-19 statistics 458 pre-existing socio-economic conditions 459–60 Chinese labour market inequalities 97–8 disability 294 inequality during 472–4 financial wellbeing 339–41 credit 341 debt advice 341 pensions 340–41 savings 340 home-based working impact on women 450–52 pandemic-enforced 438–40 pandemic/post-pandemic 445–50 Istanbul employers’ discretionary power 499–500 government’s discretionary power 498–9 social protection gaps, formal workers 498 thematic analysis approach 497–8 weak labour protections 500–501 self-reflection/self-participation 472–4 social protection 494–6 Cox, Harold 440 Crenshaw, Kimberlé 68, 308 crisis of representation 76 critical Black feminism 299–300 critical whiteness studies 66 cross-communalism 325–8 Davis, Angela 10, 300 decent work 507 decision-making 427–30 developmental state 89 digitalisation 13, 355–66 algorithmic work regimes 361–4 crisis of work 355, 357–61 displacement of workers 364–5 edge case scenarios 365 platform work regimes 361–4 productivity 357–61 Digital Taylorism 358 disability 286–95 COVID-19 294 employment 289–92 gender 292–3 legal definition of 287–9 medical model of 286, 287, 289 menopause case study 293 regional definition of 288 social model of 286–9 social relational model of 287, 290, 292
theories/models of 286–7 trade unions 293–4 underemployment 290 unemployment 290 vertical/horizontal segregation 396–7 workplace discrimination 290–92 discretion 148 discrimination women’s career in music 379 workplace 290–92 discursive politics 321 dispatched workers 97 diversity across political boundaries 324 Brazil see Brazilian diversity discourse beneficiaries 328–30 marginalisation 326–8 ideologies 22–34 definition of 22–3 East Africa 29–31 Southern Africa 26–9 West Africa 32–4 managing political 323–4 organisational statements 324–31 beneficiaries 328–30 cross-communalism 325–8 equality 330–31 inclusion 330–31 legitimising/de-legitimising 329 marginalisation 326–8 relevant differences 325–6 political case for 322–3 politics for 321–2 double consciousness 306 dress codes 128–30 dual burden work 371 Dunn v University of Lincoln [2019] 135 Durkheim, Émile 274 East Africa 29–31 colonisation 29 diversity ideologies 30–31 ethnic group categories 29 gender relations 31 Human Development Index 31 religion 31 economic citizenship 56–7 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 57 economic deprivation 461 employment Turkey 496–7 women’s career in music 374–5 energy peripheries 541
558 Research handbook on inequalities and work energy transition contemporary 543 policies 548 regulatory framework 544 repercussions of 549 socio-ecological fix approach 541, 542, 544 enforcement ineffective regulations 95–6 public procurement 187–8 England social procurement 187 entrepreneurship see women’s practice of entrepreneurship envelope wages 501 environmental justice 529–30 environmental racism definition of 524–6 workplace and 526–8 environmental racism bill 533–4 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) 147 equality 330–31 Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) 143 Equal Pay Day 142–3 equitable distribution public sector positions 107–8 socio-economic expenditure 108–9 equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)-led transformation 10, 228–38 definition of 235 leadership emergence 235–7 negative consequences 229 ethnicity East Africa 29 gender intersection 163 horizontal segregation 391–3 Nigerian context 104 vertical segregation 391–3 West Africa 32–3 ethnic minority groups see financial exclusion; financial wellbeing ethnic pay gap 159, 163, 172 ethnography 74–6 autoethnography 6, 74–83 workplace 75 EU equality law 196–207 complexity of 196–7 constitutionalisation process 201–5 ECJ 197–8 intervention 201–5 Kücükdeveci effect 204 national orders 199–201 non-discrimination principle 202–5 principle of equality 196, 198, 206 rule of law 206–7
subsidiarity principle 199 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 126 European Court of Human Rights 200 European Court of Justice (ECJ) 197–8 European Economic Community (EEC) 196 evocative autoethnography 77, 82 explicit leadership emergence 235 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) 149 false self-employees 500 Federal Character Commission (FCC) 33, 107–10 Federal Character Principle 8, 103–11 limitations 109–10 lack of political independence 110 talent pipeline problem strategy 109–10 Nigerian context 104–7 ethnicity and ethnic inequality 104 historical inequality roots 105–6 horizontal inequalities 105 intervention/non-intervention 106–7 politics of inequality 106–7 policy recommendations 110–11 promises 107–9 public sector positions 107–8 socio-economic expenditure 108–9 feminism Black 10, 299–300 Black women 299–301 white see white feminism feminist career theories 371–3 development of 371 intersectional 372 nonlinear careers 372–3 social role theory 371–2 sociopsychological model 371 feminist standpoint epistemology (FSE) 408 financial exclusion credit 344 debt advice 344–5 pensions 343–4 savings 342–3 financial resilience 342 financial wellbeing 335–47 COVID-19 339–41 implications 345–7 self-employment 340 socio-demographic factors 336–9 credit 338 debt advice 339 pensions 338 savings 337 Fjellvær, Hilde 9 Floyd, George 1, 456–7 formal leadership emergence 231, 234
Index 559 formal workers 492–503 Forstater v CGD Europe and Others [2020] 135 Fourth Industrial Revolution 356 fragmented labour process 512 frayed careers 373 freedom of expression Christian beliefs 131–2 same-sex relationship opposition 130–31 freelance careers 380 Friedreich, Nikolaus 471 Friedreich’s ataxia 471 gamification 358 gay community 273–80 gender BME groups 463–4 disability 292–3 East Africa 31 gig economy 380–81 horizontal segregation 390–97 vertical segregation 390–97 West Africa 32–3 Gender Development Index (GDI) 25–6 gender pay gap (GPG) 8–9 multi-faceted framework 158–64 academic rank 161 business disciplines 162 ethnicity and gender intersection 163 university type 161–2 UK business school 165–73 gender quotas 9, 114–24 antecedents 119–20 chronological developments 115–18 corporate boards 118 design variation 120–22 hardness 121 institutional domains 119 liberal equal opportunity approach 114 progressiveness 121 public limited companies 114 push factors 119–20 Gender, Work, and Organization (Jones and Tedmason) 66 gentrification 525 Germans colonisation 30 Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass (Gray and Suri) 361 Gialis, Stelios 17 gig economy 18, 370, 375, 379, 380 Glaveski, Steve 441 Gray, Mary L. 361 Greek energy system see socio-ecological fix approach green economy 529–30
green transition Global North construction sector structure 512–13 construction workforce and employment 510–11 energy efficiency drive 509–10 fragmented labour process 512–13 irregular/insecure employment 510–11 lack of diversity 510–11 low-energy construction 511–12 small firms 512–13 sub-contracting chains 512–13 VET model 511–12 working and employment conditions 510–11 Global South challenges and efforts 513–15 child labour 516 flexibility 515 inequalities 515–18 labour 515–18 non-standard employment 515 one-person enterprise 515, 517 overwork 516 voluntary certification schemes 514–15 zero-hours contracts 515, 517 group solidarity 266–7 Hampden, Denise 16 Harford, Tim 359 Harvey, David 541 Harvey v The City of Oxford Bus Services Ltd T/a Oxford Bus Company [2017] 133 hate crimes 211 hate speech 211–23 aporophobia 223 definition of 212 immigrants vs. 213 literature review 212–14 media and immigrants vs. 214 racist/xenophobic 215–22 findings and interpretation 215–22 methodological explanation 215 Healy, Geraldine 8, 11 Henderson v General Municipal and Boilermakers Union [2015] 135 heteronormativity 5, 41–4 Higher Education Statistical Agency UK (HESA) 8 Hofstede’s leadership model 259–60 Holvino, Evangelina 68 home-based working 436–53 changing work location 436–7 collaborative software 442–5 future of 452–3
560 Research handbook on inequalities and work overwork 440–42 pandemic-enforced 438–40 pandemic impact on women 450–52 pandemic/post-pandemic 445–50 video conferencing technology 442–5 working hours 440–42 homonormativity 5, 41–4 hooks, bell 10, 18 horizontal segregation disability 396–7 ethnicity 391–3 gender 390–97 measures 389–90 nationality 393–5 patterns 386–7 religion 395 sexuality 395–6 see also vertical segregation Human Development Index (HDI) East Africa 31 Southern Africa 25–6 human-fuelled automation 361, 364 Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) 126 hybridity 503 ideal worker 428, 430 immigrants vs. hate speech 213–14 implicit leadership emergence 235 inclusion 330–31 Indian software industry 420–32 literature review 421–2 methodology 422–3 NASSCOM 420 organisational practices/processes 420–21 outcomes/results 423–30 decision-making 427–30 interviewing 425–7 shortlisting 424–5 sourcing of applicants 423–4 supply and demand-related challenges 420 vertical segregation 420 Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized communities 523–34 environmental racism 524–6 environmental racism bill 533–4 green economy 529–30 impact of 524–6 socio-economic barriers 530–32 workplace and environmental racism 526–8 Indigenous population 539 individual pay determination 160, 163 individual pay transparency 147–9 Industrial Revolution 437 informality 492–503 informal leadership emergence 234
institutional racism 456–7 International Labour Office 17 International Labour Organization (ILO) 211, 492, 507 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 530 internships 374 intersectional career theories 372 intersectional gender pay gap 159, 163, 172 intersectionality 68, 308, 376–7 intersex community 273–80 interviewing 425–7 Istanbul employers’ discretionary power 499–500 government’s discretionary power 498–9 social protection gaps, formal workers 498 thematic analysis approach 497–8 weak labour protections 500–501 Jewish diaspora organisations 319–32 antisemitism 319, 322, 324, 330 definition of 320 diversity across political boundaries 324 managing political 323–4 political case for 322–3 politics for 321–2 diversity in organisational statements 324–31 beneficiaries 328–30 cross-communalism 325–8 equality 330–31 inclusion 330–31 marginalisation 326–8 relevant differences 325–6 homeland 331–2 Jones, Claudia 300 Jones, Deborah 66 Jonsson, Terese 67 kaleidoscope career model 379 Kanai, Akane 68, 69 Kessler, Sarah 362 Khosrowshahi, Dara 365 Kirton, Gill 11 Krommyda, Vasiliki 17 Kwesiga, Eileen 5 Kyoto Protocol 544 labour market inequalities 89–99 developmental state 89 dual-track employment and remuneration system 92–3 employment-related inequalities and effects 91 employment-related laws 94–5
Index 561 gender inequality, government organisations 92 ineffective enforcement regulations 95–6 labour laws and intentions 93–5 labour laws consequences 96–7 non-employment-related (social) policies 97–8 labour union 242 leadership 257–68 African context 260–64 Afrocentric vs. Eurocentric culture 265 Black women 311–13 cross-cultural studies 258 cultural context of 259–60 overview of 257–9 selflessness 266–7 South African context 261–4 theories 258 Ubuntu philosophy 257, 259–60, 263–4, 266–7 leadership emergence (LE) 10–11, 228–38 behavioural 234–5 behavioural and cognitive mechanisms 230 crisis of 229 EDI-led transformation 235–7 explicit 235 formal 231, 234 implicit 235 informal 234 perceptual 234 typologies of 232–3 lesbian community 273–80 life history interviews (LHIs) 408–9 Lingayah, Sanjiv 457 Liu, Anna 16 Lorde, Audre 18 Maharaj, Anita 11 Maistry v BBC [2011] 135 male unionists 249 Mallett, Oliver 15 Mann, Tom 440 Marcus, George 74 marginalisation auditing/auditors 481–3 diversity discourse 326–8 Marks, Abigail 15 McEleny v Ministry of Defence [2018] 135 McFadden, Caroline 67 McKibben, Bill 358 medical careers 385–99 medical model of disability 286, 287, 289 MeToo (#MeToo) movement 1, 114, 251, 253 microaggression 78, 311 middle-class white femininity 69
migrant workers 52–61 divide-and-rule tactics 53 self-organized 60–61 Mirza, Heidi 67 model minority 304 Moody, Kim 357 Moreton-Robinson, Aileen 67 motherhood penalty 378 multi-authored autoethnography 77 multi-faceted framework 158–64 Musk, Elon 362 Namibia colonisation 24–5 diversity ideologies 28–9 National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) 420 National Health Service (NHS) 385–6 data and measures 389–90 segregation horizontal see horizontal segragation medical workforce 387–9 patterns 386–7 vertical see vertical segragation National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) 148 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) 148 national level pay transparency 142–3 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) 514 National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) 147 neoliberalization 52–61 Black women 309–10 divide-and-rule tactics 53 hypermobility of capital 57 precarity 56–7 self-organized migrant labour 60–61 social dumping 54–5 transnational labour migration 58–60 unequal mobility regimes 52–6 Neo-Taylorism 357, 358 Neville-Shepard, Meredith 69 Nguyen, Ahiya 363 Nigeria 32–4, 104–7 ethnicity and ethnic inequality 33, 104 historical inequality roots 105–6 horizontal inequalities 105 politics of inequality 106–7 private sector 34 Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) 109 Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act 34 Nkomo, Stella M. 5, 65, 70 non-discrimination principle 202–5 nonlinear careers 372–3 normativities 5, 39–47
562 Research handbook on inequalities and work Northern Ireland social procurement 185 Nwokoroku, Nkiru 8 Obama, Barack 242, 252 occupational segregation 157–8 Olivier v Department for Work and Pensions [2013] 135 Omani Arabs colonisation 30 one-person enterprise 515, 517 opting out of work duties 134–5 organisational level pay transparency 145–7 O’Shea, Saoirse Caitlin 6 overcrowded housing 461–2 overrepresentation 462–3 overwork 516 Özbilgin, Mustafa 10 Öztürk, Mustafa B. 5 Parks, Rosa 300 Parnerkar, Ira 13 patchwork career theory 372 Paycheck Fairness Act 149 pay determination 160, 163 pay discretion 148 pay gap see gender pay gap (GPG) pay transparency 141–50 agenda 142 Equal Pay Day 142–3 government statistics 142–3 individual 147–9 national level 142–3 organisational level 145–7 regulative and voluntary pressure 143–5 salary history bans 149–50 voluntarism 145–7 Peiris, Manesha 14 perceptual leadership emergence 234 Perfect, David 9 Peruzzi, Marco 9 pervasiveness 1–19 Peterson, William 304 Pfefer, Emily 8 philosophical beliefs 135 Pick, Edith 12 pink money 276–80 political beliefs 135 political diversity across boundaries 324 managing 323–4 organisational statements 324–31 beneficiaries 328–30 cross-communalism 325–8 equality 330–31 inclusion 330–31 legitimising/de-legitimising 329
marginalisation 326–8 relevant differences 325–6 political leadership 188 Portuguese colonisation 30 Powell, Rosemarie 16 power resources 245, 253 precarious working 370–81 precarity 56–7 Preventing Hate Against Refugees and Migrants (PHARM) 214, 215 principle of equality 196, 198, 206 problematisation 5 professional beauty qualification (PBQ) 306 professorial pay gap 165, 171 promotion of beliefs 131–2 Proudford, Karen 70 Puar, Jasbir 68 public procurement 9, 180–92 civil society involvement 189–90 enabling legislation 187–8 enforcement 187–8 monitoring 189 political leadership 188 training opportunities 190–91 see also social procurement public purchasing power 180 Puwar, Nirmal 70 Queen Bee Syndrome 305 queer community 79, 273–80, 376 Quental, Camilla 11 Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000) 303 racialized population 539 racism 456–7 environmental 524–8 racist hate speech 215–22 findings and interpretation 215–22 methodological explanation 215 Rama, Ángel 272 Razack, Sherene 69 Redmond, Fred 243 regional labour market perspectives 547–9 structures 546–7 Regis-Wilkins, Shanice 16 religion East Africa 31 vertical/horizontal segregation 395 West Africa 32–3 religion/belief 126–36 criteria 127 dress codes 128–30 freedom of expression 130–32 Christian beliefs 131–2
Index 563 same-sex relationship opposition 130–31 future legal developments and research 136 legal framework 126–8 opting out of work duties 134–5 philosophical beliefs 135 political beliefs 135 religious symbols 128–30 work patterns 132–4 religious symbols 128–30 Remnant, Jennifer 11 representation ethnicity 163, 164 gender 163, 164 gender and ethnicity 163, 164 numerical 157, 159, 173, 174 research intensity 157, 158, 161, 164, 165, 168, 173, 174 Riley, Boots 358 Rodriguez, María de los Angeles Zapata 11 Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) 387 rule of law 206–7 Sahin-Dikmen, Melahat 17 salary history bans (SHBs) 149–50 Samaluk, Barbara 6 same-sex relationships 130–31 Sang, Katherine J. C. 11 Saraiva, Luiz Alex Silva 11 Sarter, E.K. 9 Schroeder, Gerhard 54 Schumpeterian trait approach 405 Scotland social procurement 185–6 segregation 279 empirical evaluations 386 female-dominated 157–8 horizontal see horizontal segregation integrated occupation 157–8 male-dominated 157–8 NHS medical workforce 387–9 occupational 157–8 patterns 386–7 vertical see vertical segregation Seierstad, Cathrine 9 self-employment financial wellbeing 340 women’s career in music 375 selflessness 266–7 self-organized migrant labour 60–61 self-reflection/self-participation 469–77 autoethnographic style 469–70 disability inequality during pandemic 472–4 outcomes
disability awareness among gatekeepers 475 disabled peoples’ employment capabilities 475–6 emergency income funding 475 inadequate bureaucratic procedures 474–5 policy implications 476 training of officials 476 service to others 266–7 Sevilla, Almudena 8 sex bias 431 Sex Discrimination Act 388 sexual-and gender-identity normativities 5, 39–47 cisnormativity 5, 44–5 heteronormativity 5, 41–4 homonormativity 5, 41–4 transnormativity 5, 44–5 sexual harassment 251, 253 women’s career in music 379 women’s social movement 251 sexuality Brazilian diversity 274–6 vertical/horizontal segregation 395–6 Shakur, Assata 300 Showunmi, Victoria 10 Shuler, Elizabeth H. 243 Sian, Suki 15 Silicon Valley 355–62, 365–6 Skountridaki, Lila 15 Smith, Adam 74 social acceptance 409–11 social assistance 493 social capital 378–9 social dumping 54–5 social identity theory 213 social insurance 493 social media 9–10 social model of disability 286–9 social movement see women’s social movement social movement participation 242–55 social movement theory 246 social procurement 181–7 definition of 180 policy and legal framework Australia 182–3 England 187 Northern Ireland 185 Scotland 185–6 South Africa 182 United Kingdom 183–5 Wales 186 see also public procurement social protection COVID-19 pandemic 494–6
564 Research handbook on inequalities and work ILO definition of 492–3 income fluctuations vs. 492–4 income loss vs. 492–4 Istanbul 498 social relational model of disability 287, 290, 292 social role theory 371–2 social security 496–7 socio-demographic factors, financial wellbeing 336–9 credit 338 debt advice 339 pensions 338 savings 337 socio-ecological fix approach 17, 540–49 in coal regions 541–2 conceptualisation 543 employment crisis 542–3 energy transition 541, 542, 544 inequalities 542–3 methodological framework 543–4 Western Macedonia region 545–9 economic inequalities 545–6 historical background 545 regional labour market perspectives 547–9 regional labour market structure 546–7 sociopsychological career model 371 socio-spatial phenomenon 541 solidarity 279 sophisticated racism 302 South Africa colonisation 23–4 diversity ideologies 27–8 leadership 261–4 social procurement 182 Southern Africa 23–9 colonisation 23–5 diversity ideologies 26–9 Angola 26–7 Namibia 28–9 South Africa 27–8 Gender Development Index 25–6 Human Development Index 25–6 Sri lankan women see women’s practice of entrepreneurship stereotyping 309 Stratigea, Anastasia 17 subsidiarity principle 199 Sullivan, Shannon 69 supranational organisation 9 Suri, Siddarth 361 Swan, Elaine 7 teamwork 266–7 Tedmason, Deirdre 66
Third Country Nationals (TCNs) 55–6 Thomas v Surrey and Borders NHS Partnership Foundation Trust and Brett [2020] 135 time off work 132, 134, 136 Tinay, Dilek Torunoğlu 10 Trades Union Congress (TUC) 242 trade unions 189, 293–4 transgender and gender-nonconforming (TNGC) folk 81 transgender community 273–80 transnational labour migration intermediary industry 58–60 transnormativity 5, 44–5 transparency agenda 8 transsexual community 273–80 transvestite community 273–80 Treaty of Amsterdam 197 Treaty of Lisbon 196 Treloar, Nicolas 15 Truth, Sojourner 10, 300 Tubman, Harriet 300 Turkey employment 496–7 social security 496–7 Ubuntu philosophy 257, 259–60, 263–4, 266–7 UK business schools 157–61, 165–73 UK Equality Act (2010) 75, 81, 127, 144, 292, 323 UK music industry see women’s career in music UK National Health Service (NHS) 13 UK social procurement 183–5 Umeh, Chidozie 12 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 201 underemployment 290 unemployment Black women 307–8 disability 290 union organizing commitment 246 instrumentalism 246 joining reasons 245 networks 245 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 529 United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 200 universities research 159, 161–2, 166, 168, 171, 173, 174 type 161–2 unregistered wage income 501 UN Sustainable Development 507
Index 565 vertical segregation disability 396–7 ethnicity 391–3 gender 390–97 Indian software industry 420 measures 389–90 nationality 393–5 patterns 386–7 religion 395 sexuality 395–6 see also horizontal segregation vocational education and training (VET) model 508, 509, 511–13 voluntarism 145–7 voluntary informal employment 502 Waldron, Ingrid 524, 533 Wales social procurement 186 Walker, Alice 300 Webb, Sidney 440 Werna, Edmundo 17 West Africa 32–4 colonisation 32 decoupling in private sector 34 ethnic ideology 33 ethnicity 32–3 gender 32–3 religion 32–3 Western Macedonia region 545–9 economic inequalities 545–6 historical background 545 regional labour market perspectives 547–9 regional labour market structure 546–7 white feminism 65–71 benevolence 69 complicity of 69–70 critical whiteness studies 66 definition of 66–7 intersectionality 68 middle-class femininity 69 organisation studies 67–8 overview of 65–6 White Women Syndrome (WWS) 305 Wilson, Christopher 16 Wolf, Naomi 306 women Asian 8, 159, 171–4, 397, 406, 407, 460 Black 9, 10, 27, 159, 160, 163, 171, 172, 174, 175, 180, 182, 299–314, 336, 379, 393, 458 white 65–71, 160, 163, 171–4, 299, 300, 304–5, 307, 310, 311, 313 Women in Leadership Development (WILD) 242, 247–9, 253 women’s career in music 370–81
boundaryless career theory 380 career theories 371–3 development of 371 intersectional 372 nonlinear careers 372–3 social role theory 371–2 sociopsychological model 371 discrimination 379 education pathways 373–4 employment structures 374–5 as entrepreneurs 377 entry routes 374 financial remuneration 377–8 freelance careers 380 gendered barriers 380 gig economy 370, 375, 379, 380 intersectionality 376–7 kaleidoscope career model 379 motherhood 378 participation 375–6 recommendations 381 self-employment 375 sexual harassment 379 social capital 378–9 women’s practice of entrepreneurship 405–16 belongingness 409–11 doing entrepreneurship 413–14 feminist standpoint epistemology 408 growth 412–13 life history interviews 408–9 managing roles 414–15 method of inquiry 408–9 research findings 409 Schumpeterian trait approach 405 social acceptance 409–11 Western/non-Western context 406–8 women’s representation 157–75 multi-faceted framework 158–64 academic rank 161 business disciplines 162 ethnicity and gender intersection 163 UK business schools 159–61 university type 161–2 research method 164 sectoral studies 158 women’s social movement 242–55 2008–10 comparative study 243 2008 study findings 243–6 2018 study findings 246–7 last ten years outcomes 250–54 old guard vs. young members 254 paid maternity leave 253–4 representation 252–3 sexual harassment 253 male unionists 249
566 Research handbook on inequalities and work research objectives 243 sexual harassment 251 union roles and progression 252 WILD Conference 247–9 Woodhams, Carol 13 work patterns 132–4 workplace Black women 304–7 workplace discrimination 290–92 workplace ethnography 75 World Economic Forum (WEF) 3, 111 World Health Organization (WHO) 14, 286 World Inequality Report (2022) 2–3 worries about leadership (WAL) 235 Wright, Tessa 9 Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus) 74
xenophobic hate speech 215–22 findings and interpretation 215–22 methodological explanation 215 Xiao, Qijie 8 Yearwood, Mark 525 Yılmaz, Volkan 16 zero-hours contracts 515, 517 Zionism 319, 322, 327, 329 Zlolniski, Christian 362 Zschomler, Danny 15