Gender Inequality in Workplace and Its Drivers
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Paper: Gender Inequality in the Workplace and its Drivers
Group 7
San Jose State University
BUS 200W-09
Abstract
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The main objective of this report is to examine four factors: Age, Gender Stereotypes, Race and
Equal Accessibility HR Policies that possibly drive Gender Inequality in the workplace. After
analyzing data collected from a convenience sample survey of 90 working individuals from
North America, Asia, and Australia we arrived at the result that Age, Gender Stereotypes and
Race were not Gender Inequality promoting factors but Equal Accessibility HR Policies
negatively predicted Gender Inequality. Our results confirm the need for a more thorough survey
to be conducted on a wider population with focused questions about these four factors.
Executive Summary
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Objectives: Gender inequality exists in the workplace for women despite great advancements in
women’s education and equal accessibility HR policies. The main objective of this report is to
examine four key factors that may drive gender inequality in the workplace. The factors
examined here are: Age, Gender stereotypes, Race and equal accessibility HR Policies. The
Hypotheses that were tested are:
H1: There is a negative correlation between Age and Gender Inequality.
H2: Negative Stereotypes against women are directly associated with Gender Inequality.
H3: White population faces less Gender Inequality as compared to the non-White population.
H4: Equal Accessibility HR Policies negatively predict Gender Inequality.
Results: An online survey using convenience sampling was done on Qualtrics to evaluate the
key factors driving gender inequality. A correlation analysis was conducted to test Hypothesis 1,
Age against Gender Inequality. The results showed that Hypothesis 1 was not supported. A
correlation analysis was conducted to test Hypothesis 2, Negative Stereotypes against Gender
Inequality. The results showed that Hypothesis 2 was not supported. An independent-sample T-
test was conducted to test Hypothesis 3 to compare the Gender Inequality for white population
against non-white population. Once again, it was not supported. A linear regression analysis was
employed to examine the factor Equal accessibility HR Policies for Gender Inequality. The
results showed that Hypothesis 4 was supported.
Conclusions: According to our data analysis, Age, Gender Stereotypes and Race were not
Gender Inequality promoting factors but equal accessibility HR Policies negatively predicted
Gender Inequality.
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Hypothesis 1: Hypothesis 1 was not supported so we performed an additional correlation
analysis for the Ages of all females against Gender Inequality. That was somewhat supported.
This may be due to the gender inequality survey questions being a bit too broad to be used
effectively for Age comparison.
Hypothesis 2: Although the hypothesis was not supported we performed additional testing by
introducing a third variable: Gender. We did a t-test for Gender vs Gender Stereotypes and
Gender vs Gender Inequality. It was determined that women were discriminated significantly
more than men and men have somewhat more gender stereotypes than women. Based on these
findings, we can indirectly link the independent variable Gender Stereotype with the dependent
variable Gender Inequality.
Hypothesis 3: Although hypothesis 3 was not supported, a t-test for white men vs everybody else
showed that everybody else faced somewhat significant discrimination as compared to White
men. This partially supports H3.
Hypothesis 4: Regression analysis showed significant but low relationship between equal
accessibility HR Policies and Gender Inequality so the hypothesis was supported.
Recommendation: In future we recommend a sample population with a good representation of
men and women from different racial and geographical backgrounds. We recommend additional
testing for age in relation to gender inequality and better questions around gender inequality and
gender stereotype. In addition to correlation analysis, we recommend mediation analysis that
finds the relation between independent variable and dependent variable in relation to a third
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variable. Also, we recommend a better way to collect race data so we can get a good
representation of data from multiple races.
Introduction
It is an undisputed fact that women have been experiencing gender discrimination in
every aspect of work life since ages. Despite the women’s movement and the positive changes
that came with it, there is a lot of room for improvement at the workplace for women. Even
though more women are becoming university educated, their qualifications don’t help their
relative unemployment or underpayment as compared to men. Negative social and cultural
norms that portray women as unequal to men are very powerful and job stereotyping by gender
has created a staggering disproportion of jobs in most industries. Most countries have laws that
promote equal employment of women but such laws have only served to portray women as
incompetent.
Haberfeld (1992) showed that gender inequality is a self-reinforcing system that can
perpetuate discrimination. It has a “feedback effect” where women may not even be able to get
to an even playing field due to their perceived low return on investment. This leads to less
productivity and missed opportunities for women. Natural abilities are a cause of inequality at
work since physical advantages can lead to occupational success (Blackburn, 2008). So even if
women are born with certain physical, mental or artistic advantage, the barriers they face may
not make them as successful as men with those skills (Adriaanse, 2016).
What is Gender Equality and Inequality?
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Gender equality is a state in which women and men have the same rights in every field in
life. Gender inequality is the unequal treatment of men and women due to their gender.
Perception of inequalities is different for different people. Inequality can have varied definitions
based on race, culture, work ethics, and economic prosperity (Jayachandran, 2015).
History: Women in workplace
Women in the workplace is a fairly new concept (Blau, Brummund, & Liu, 2013). A
hundred years ago, women were not an integral part of the workplace but by the twenty first
century, women rose to managerial positions and were challenging all preconceived notions
(Yasin & Helms, 2007). This rise of women in the workplace has helped fill the gap and uplift
the standards of women everywhere.
Causes and Indicators of Gender Discrimination:
There are internal and external causes of gender inequality in employment (Durbin and
Fleetwood, 2010). Internal causes include preferential treatment towards men and looking down
on women, while external causes include negative gender stereotyping, and unequal occupational
distribution. Even in countries that have the most Gender Development Index (GDI), the ratio of
earnings for men to women is not equal.
A study of gender in the workplace can have positive and negative indicators. Positive
indicators are increases in women’s levels of empowerment whereas negative indicators are
wage gap, rank discrimination, negative assessments, “glass ceiling”, stereotypical male
behavior, and psychological distress (Elwer et al., 2013).
Improvements and push backs:
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One of the main reasons for the improvements for women in the workplace is education
but the whole path has been fraught with challenges. For instance, during India’s colonial days,
schools were exclusively for boys but as time progressed, the challenge of inclusiveness of girls
in schools was replaced by low gender ratios (Sahni & Kalyan Shankar, 2012). In recent years,
the majority of the world’s college student demographic has moved from men to women. In an
attempt to have better job prospects, women generally outperform men in most educational
benchmarks (DiPrete and Buchmann, 2011).
In Gender neutrality, the emphasis is on removing the perspective of gender altogether
rather than focusing on the rights of specific genders. Gender neutrality is a concept that negates
all efforts made towards achieving equality. When workplaces are constructed as gender neutral,
