Quantitative Methods and Gender Inequalities

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Quantitative Methods and Gender Inequalities

• Jacqueline Scott
• University of Cambridge

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Outline

• Consider whether early feminist opposition to
  quantitative research makes sense
• Introduce the ESRC Research Priority Network on
  Gender Inequalities (GeNet) as an exemplar
• Discuss the diverse methodologies of GeNet
  against a fit for purpose evaluative framework
• Consider challenges posed by understanding
  intersectionalities in gender research
• Identify how qualitative methods used to inform
  and sharpen the ways quantitative researchers
  count

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Feminism in 1970s /1980s

• Emphasis on making women visible in social
  sciences and giving voice
• Concern about objectivity impersonal
  knowledge being all too biased
• Challenge to essentialist arguments about
  natural differences between men and women
• Championing of qualitative over quantitative

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The difference gender makes

• Shift from women to gender
• Gender as analytical category gendered
  processes..inclusive of male and females..
• Inequalities both between men and woman and also
  within men and women
• Intersectionalities gender, race, class, age..
  More nuanced understanding

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ESRC Gender Equality Network

• Research Priority Network on Gender Inequalities
  in Production Reproduction
• www.genet.ac.uk

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Background

• Demise of male breadwinner family - labour market
  changes/changes in parenting partnership
• Paradigm shift in gender relations
• Greater policy recognition of equality although
  policies ambiguous
• Some human capital convergence but inequalities
  persistent

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9 Linked Projects3 Inter-related themes

• Pathways to Adult Attainment Life Course
  Processes
• Changing occupations and careers of women and men
• Biographical agency and developmental outcomes
• Gendered pathways from childhood disadvantage to
  adulthood
• Gender, time allocation in paid and unpaid work
  the wage gap
• Resources, Gender, Ethnic Class Inequalities
• Within-household inequalities in income and power
• Gender, ethnicity, migration and service
  employment
• Class gender, employment and family
• Policy Responses to Gender Inequalities
• Addressing gender inequality through corporate
  governance
• Policy initiatives tackling inequalities in work
  and care in UK EU

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3 different methodologies

• Pathways to Adult Attainment Life Course
  Processes
• QUANTITATIVE LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS - unpacking
  gendered processes and changes across time
• Longitudinal analysis of cohort differences in
  occupations and careers (Shirley Dex and Heather
  Joshi)
• Childhood and adolescent transitions to adulthood
  across cohorts (Ingrid Schoon)
• Gendered pathways from childhood disadvantage to
  adulthood across cohorts (Wendy Sigle-Ruston and
  John Hobcraft)
• Gender, time allocation in paid and unpaid work
  the wage gap using the BHPS (Gershuny)
• Resources, Gender, Ethnic Class Inequalities
• MIXED METHODS (qualitative unpacking the
  specific context quantitative providing
  estimates of sub-group differences within the
  population)
• Within-household inequalities in income and power
  (Himmelweit, Sutherland and Bennett)
• Gender, ethnicity, migration and service
  employment (McDowell)
• Class gender, employment and family (Crompton)
  
• Policy Responses to Gender Inequalities
• QUALITATIVE semi-structured interviewing
  documentary analysis
• Addressing gender inequality through corporate
  governance (Deakin)

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Inter-twining of theory, empirical research and
methodology

• GeNet has explicit goal of promoting highest
  possible methodological standards in its own
  gender research and contributing to ESRCs
  various methodological and training initiatives
  that are concerned to raise standards of social
  science generally
• Is there a feminist method? No what matters
  for feminist research is fit for purpose and
  feminist research is sufficiently broad-ranging
  that it spans quantitative and qualitative
  divides

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Questions requiring quantitative analysis
(Source Joshi and Pacci 1998)

• Pay gap narrowing for those aged 26 (enhanced
  human capital and labour market experience
  Equal Pay Act 1970 75)

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Masculinization of Female Life Course (UK Cohort
effects Participation- Joshi et al 2005)
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The combined effects of various factors on the
gender difference in annual earnings of 1995
graduates seven years after graduation
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Time-use investigation (Gershuny et al)

• Hypothesis substantial part of gender gap in
  wages that persists beyond operation of
  work-place equal opportunities can be explained
  in terms of day-to-day practices of unequal
  division of production and caring activities in
  household.
• Data British Household Panel and Harmonised
  European Time Use

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Time use by family change Women aged 20- 40
(Gershuny 2004)
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Time use by family changeMen aged 20-40
(Gershuny 2004)
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Lagged adaptation

• Over the long term women who carry dual burden
  have choices suffer, argue, quit
• Not much of real choice so what happens?
• Over time, women and mens share of domestic
  division of labour becomes more equal, with women
  reducing unpaid work immediately, but mens take
  up of home chores taking longer and being less
  reliable

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time on work (mins of day)
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Range of models of work-family balance