Women In Public Service Changing The Opportunity Structure For Women In The Public Sector

This book tackles the challenges that women face in the workplace generally and in the public sector particularly. While Women and Public Service spends time identifying and describing the problems that women faced in the past, it pays special attention to identifying possible remedies to these problems, and also surveys progress made in recent decades. The authors present the challenge of accommodating women in public sector organisations as both a fairness issue and also a human resources matter, as a fundamental prerequisite for recruiting the best and brightest talent. Key content coverage: The representation of women in public organisations, including occupational, agency and position level segregation Issues of pay equity--legislation, equal worth measures, and the serious links between the issue of representation and equal pay Special issues facing women in their workplace, including institutional climate, workplace violence, sexual harassment, social costs of career progression, and family-friendly policies.

This new book is the result of an international research project that spanned nearly a decade. Authors from a half-dozen countries discuss women's roles in public administration in the context of their overall participation in the labor force. Women and Public Administration presents some astounding results derived from the authors’research into a particular country's government, politics, and the role of women in that country. The authors, women born and currently living in India, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, and the United States, discuss four main topics: the number and level of female civil servants in the highest ranks of at least two bureaucracies, one concerned with traditionally female roles and one concerned with traditionally male roles; the career histories of these women; an institutional description of women in public bureaucracies; and the perceptions of women in public administration concerning discrimination and equality policies. This important book also describes historical, demographic, economic, and governmental information and women's views of barriers, access to training and advancement, and the general social climate for women employees at various levels within the bureaucracies. Researchers, aware of cultural and language differences and the dangers of imposing a Western model on non-Western cultures, used questionnaires and interviews to obtain much of the information for this study. Each country has its own unique story involving history, the structure of the labor market, the organization of government, and the socialization patterns of the culture, as well as the current patterns of interaction between men and women and current public policies affecting these matters. Women and Public Administration contains much valuable information for everyone interested in women's roles in bureaucracies around the world.

The provision of state funded and democratically accountable care services represents one of the most potentially transformative advances in gendered social relations and equality for women by ‘defamilizing’ care and providing paid work. But the cost of providing these services, which women have access to them and how they should be provided are always at the forefront of debate, especially during economic crises. Socially funded and publicly accountable care services are therefore a key site of feminist activity, but also the frontline for spending cuts and 'reform' during times of austerity. Gender Equality in Public Services analyses how gender equality work in British public services is changing in response to factors including: equality legislation; the erosion of local democracy, privatisation of public services and new forms of feminist activism and leadership. It also assesses the challenges and opportunities for promoting women’s equality in producing and using public services. Impacting upon developed and developing economies, the arguments in this challenging book explore the potential of equality and feminist activism and leadership for radical and transformational change. It will appeal to advanced students, researchers and practitioners interested in social policy, feminist organization theory, equal opportunities and gender mainstreaming practice.

Explore the gender dimension and expand the dialogue in your classroom through this collection of case studies, empirical studies, and theoretical essays on women's issues in public administration. This is the first book of its kind written about the female endeavor in public administration from the perspective of female public administrators and academics. Women in Public Administration illuminates women's past and emerging challenges, in a predominantly male based public sector. Your students will gain a clear understanding of how women administrators have been affected by male dominated labor markets, ethics and law, management, financial institutions, and public service. This book extends beyond the existing works in the field by furthering the discussion and bridging the gender gap in public administration theory. It is a must have addition to Introduction to Public Administration, Ethics, Women in Politics, Gender Studies or Diversity classes.

Based on focus groups and interviews with nearly 4,000 women, men, girls, and boys from 20 countries, this book explores areas that are less often studied in gender and development: gender norms and agency. It reveals how little gender norms have changed, how similar they are across countries, and how they are being challenged and contested.