Women and Work

Introduction

            This literature review introduces the literature work on women in work force with focus on women working at managerial level from lower level to top management. This literature review describes the present position of women which is important of women working at managerial level which is important for starting an in depth research on the topic. The review focuses on the opinion of organizations on women managers. In the section selection of review that takes an insight into the women in hospitality industry. The review also takes a look into the barriers that women faces while at work. This section introduces the various problems that women face due to the typical working pattern which becomes a barrier in their career and many opt to leave their job. The problems and constrains that are studied are Time related, job environment, nature of job, family related problems. After analyzing the problems review has been collected on their retention. The Hotel policies that presently are designed for employee retention and the reason factors that need to be looked into for their retention. The final section summarizes the work on retention of women employee.

2.1       Women and Work

          Recommendation by ILO for Women Progression mentions that the overall employment situation of women has not evolved significantly since 2001. The ILO’s Global Employment Trends (2003) reported that women continue to have lower labor market participation rates, higher unemployment rates and significant pay differences compared to men. Women represent over 40 per cent of the global labor force, approximately 70 per cent of women in developed countries and 60 per cent in developing countries. There has also been little change in their share of professional jobs in the last few years. Women occupy around 30 to 60 per cent of professional jobs in the sample of countries from which new data were available. This represents an increase of 0.7 per cent between 1996-99 and 2000-02. However, considerable variations remain between women’s share in different types of professional jobs.

2.2       Women at Management Level

The report by ILO for Women Progression 2002 further states that As far as women’s share of managerial positions is concerned, the rate of progress is slow and uneven. Their share ranged between 20 and 40 per cent in 48 out of the 63 countries in the sample in 2000-02. This represents an increase in the three to five years covering 1996-99 and 2000-02 of between 1 and 5 per cent.

In spite of the slow but steady increase being seen in the share of professional women in the workplace, the nature of women’s career paths continues to block them from making progress in the organizational hierarchies in which they work. On recruitment, qualified women tend to be placed in jobs that have a lower value in terms of skill requirements and remuneration. They find themselves in what are considered “non-strategic” jobs, rather than in line and management jobs leading to higher positions. Thus, they effectively become support staff for their more strategically positioned male colleagues.

The reason for the slow increase in women working in male-dominated professions can to a certain extent be attributed to the different constraints they face compared to women who work in traditionally female professions. Workplace discrimination, such as a lack of acceptance by male supervisors or colleagues, lack of proper training, isolation, and limited access to mentoring and female role models, is more likely to make them leave their jobs. Sexual harassment also tends to occur more frequently in non-traditional work environments.