Women In The Higher Public Service

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.

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.

Women in Public Administration: Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive exploration of the gender dimension in public administration through a unique collection of writings by women in the field.

This history of professional women in positions of administrative responsibility illuminates women's changing relationship to the public sphere in France since the Revolution of 1789. Linda L. Clark traces several generations of French women in public administration, examining public policy and politics, attitudes towards gender, and women's work and education. Women's own perceptions and assessments of their positions illustrate changes in gender roles and women's relationship to the state. With seniority-based promotion, maternity leaves and the absence of the marriage bar, the situation of French women administrators invites comparison with their counterparts in other countries. Why has the profile of women's employment in France differed from that in the USA and the UK? This study gives unique insights into French social, political and cultural history, and the history of women during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will interest scholars of European history and also specialists in women's studies.