Special Interest Stream: Representations and Realities of Women’s Work

Citation

McIntosh B (2010) Special Interest Stream: Representations and Realities of Women’s Work. 28th International Labour Process Conference, 15.03.2010-17.03.2010.

Abstract
This paper represents part of a wider research project which set out to examine the gender patterns within nursing careers in Scotland and to explore the importance of various factors in explaining the influence of gender on the career paths of nurses. It has been influenced by the fact that within Scotland while women constitute 88.9% of the nursing workforce, men represent 27.6% of the senior management positions (ISD, 2005). It was therefore evident that men attained a disproportionately higher percentage of senior posts relative to their numerical presence and it was this that provided a unique opportunity to examine the impact and extent of gender and associated stereotypes upon the career outcomes of women. This paper is therefore concerned with the intersection of two realms of stereotypical attributes: that nursing is predominately female while nursing management is disproportionately male. The research was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved a rigorous quantitative analysis of the gender patterns within the entire nursing workforce in Scotland comprising 65,781 employees. This quantitative analysis sought to discern the factors and variables that influence women’s career outcomes. The second phase of the research utilised qualitative methods in order to explore the possibility that within certain areas of nursing career outcomes are not only a product of personal circumstances but cultural and environmental perceptions, gender related values and stereotypes. This second phase of the research involved in-depth interviews with 32 registered nurses in hospital ‘acute’ nursing from grades ‘D’ to senior nurse manager. Both phases of the research yielded a number of important findings and this paper will focus on only a few of these. The quantitative study found that the influence of career breaks on career outcomes differed between female and male nurses. While career breaks had a significant detrimental impact on women’s career outcomes, in the case of men, the findings revealed that while men did not, in general, work on reduced hours, career breaks positively impacted upon their career outcomes. The findings also revealed that women with children of a school age gained less post-registration nursing qualifications and this had a negative impact on their career outcomes. The qualitative study found that perceptions concerning parenthood actively informed women’s access to and receipt of training and that gender stereotypes played a significant part in women’s career outcomes. Professional values appeared to compound the agency and importance of the gender perceptions with their weighting of full-time working and professional flexibility and commitment at the expense of individual requirements. The active fusion of these factors combined to reduce the career outcomes of women with children of a school age in comparison to women without childcare responsibilities and men regardless of their circumstances.