Women as Change Agents

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Most business leaders and employers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of workplace flexibility with the increasing number of jobseekers who would prefer to work on a flexible schedule rather than work in a highly paying job with a tight schedule. Therefore, more and more employers are seeking options and programs to implement workplace flexibility in their organizations.

However, there is a notable gap in workplace flexibility between men and women. In fact, some business leaders such as Kathleen Christensen believe that flexibility for women in the workplace is a social and structural issue.

This is a fact considering that the traditional workplace was designed to fit the male workers because they could afford to work full-time without taking breaks to attend to other social imperatives such as care-giving responsibilities (Richard Heffiner’s Open Mind, 2005, para. 3).

Furthermore, most career paths were designed in such a way that people got employed in their early twenties, advanced through ranks, and retired in their sixties. This type of career path does not fit the needs of parents especially women who are currently contributing to almost half of the workforce.

In the long run, people end up working for 80 hours and over while neglecting important social responsibilities such as child rearing, cooking, and cleaning. Therefore, it is obvious that this workplace structure does not fit the working parents, and hence, it is important to allow more flexibility in jobs in order to enable parents attend to other equally important matters (Richard Heffner’s Open Mind, 2005, para. 2-6).

On the other hand, various factors underlie the historical trends in women’s flexibility in the workplace. According to Domenico and Jones (2006, p. 1), women have been subjects of criticism throughout history with some critics viewing working women as immoral, unfeminine, objects of pity, and negligent mothers.

Therefore, for a woman, having a career was a challenge considering their responsibilities and duties as mothers and wives, which could compromise their professional responsibilities. Because of these simultaneous work-family demands, it was difficult for most women to put their career aspirations first, and thus, their careers were significantly affected (Domenico & Jones, 2006, p. 1).

Furthermore, despite most women joining the workforce in large numbers over the years, their success in achieving career goals and objectives have been dwarfed by different factors including working in low-paying and less flexible jobs such as sales, nursing, social work, and teaching; or remaining in some conventional careers that could only afford them inflexible job opportunities.

These factors are also closely related to stereotypical occupational roles designated to the male and female genders, which subsequently cause discrepancies in income, opportunities for growth, and career advancements between the two genders (Domenico & Jones, 2006, pp. 2-7).

Accordingly, two schools of thought have arose in an attempt to highlight the factors affecting women’s pay (gender wage gap) in the workforce while taking note that women are likely to earn about two-thirds of what is paid to males with comparable qualifications and experience (Domenico & Jones, 2006, p. 1).

According to the human capital explanation, women are bound to earn less because their labor and hence productivity are divided between the family and work in comparison to men. Thus, the family responsibilities influence the working woman’s decisions when it comes to investing in education and devoting time to professional work.

For example, since women are expected to remain in the workforce for fewer years compared to men, it is obvious that they will invest less in obtaining work-related skills. Overall, less investment in work-related skills, lower productivity, discontinuous work history, and skill depreciation among most working women are the main factors driving the discrepancies in wages between women and men (Levine, 2003, p. 9).

On the other hand, the discrimination school of thought holds that the work-related variables and sex segregation determine the gender wage gap. For example, men and women are bound to be clustered into different occupational groups whose pay grades are different. Hence, since most women are excluded from well-paying jobs through occupational segregation, their pay is also low compared to men (Levine, 2003, p. 11).

The underlying factors affecting women’s workplace flexibility and income notwithstanding, the number of working women is projected to increase in the next 10 years considering that most women are venturing into the once male-dominated careers such as finance, construction, and engineering. The same trend can also be noted from the rising number of women-owned firms and businesses most of which are non-farm businesses.

These businesses have been contributing a significant percentage of revenues generated from non-farm businesses in America while employing more than 7 million workers.

Therefore, it is hereby hypothesized that as more and more employers fail to meet the flexibility requirements of most working women, more and more career women will turn to women-owned businesses, which have shown a solid growth according to statistics taken in 1997-2002.

Therefore, most employer firms are challenged to embrace workplace flexibility in their organizations if at all they are to recruit and retain talented and experienced workers especially the career women in the contemporary society (Levine, 2003, pp. 13-19).

References

Domenico, D.M., & Jones, K.H. (2006). Career aspirations of women in the 20^th Century. Journal of Career and Technical Education, 22(2), 1-7.

Levine, L. (2003). The gender wage gap and pay equity: Is comparable worth the next step? USA: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service.

Richard Heffner’s Open Mind. (2005). Women as change agents in America, Part I. The Thirteen Editorial Services. Web.

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Women as Change Agents

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