4.1.
Quality of labour and its impact on quality of life
Women workers lifes are sometimes more
stressed than lifes of men workers, due to the problems to conceal family life
and labour hours. The consequence is that women workers usually have fewer
hours of leisury activities per week. In spite of that, the majority of women
are happy to find a job, with quality of labour, not only because paid work
provides some degree of income and independence, but also because it allows to
develop social and personal values and, in many cases, also vocational jobs.
Quality of labour is an important part of
quality of life. It is interesting to know the evolution for the period
2007-2019. Besides the diminution of average
wage for the period 2009-2019 some indicators show that other aspects of
quality of labor (stability, opportunities, good environment, flexibility of
hours, etc.) seem to have diminished. There has been an increase of
presentialism and a diminution of opportunities for tele work in many public
and private employments. In year 2020 with the pandemia, there has been an
important increase of tele work, which diminishes the travel time to work,
increases flexibility and helps to conceal family and labor lifes.
The problems
of conciliation of family life and working life is common in many countries,
particularly for women with little children. Availability of public services
for children care, family help (from husband, parents or other relatives) or
the affordability to pay for private services are of great help but not always
are easy to find for many women.
Indicators in EU28: Perez-Ortiz et al
(2020b) present an interesting graph for Female Global Index (horizontal axis)
and Male Global Index (vertical axis) and draw the bisector in the first
quadrant in 23 European Union countries. We highlight the following results od
the Global Index of quality of labour by gender:
1) At the bottom, with Index
below 50 for Female and below 55 for Male Employment: Greece, Poland, Latvia,
Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, Spain and Italy.
2) A second group with Index
highet than 50 and below 60 for women and below 65 for men: Czech R, Portugal,
Germany, France, Ireland, UK, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Belgium.
3) A third
group, with the highest values of the Global Index of quality of labour
includes 5 countries with both Female and Male Indexes between 60 and 70:
Belgium, Austria, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. 4) The coordinates of most of
countries are over the bisector of the first quadrant, as to say the quality of
labor is usually higher for men than for women.
4.2 Social visibility
of notable women
As seen in Guisan, Aguayo and Exposito (2011), and other studies, there
are several interesting articles on the Female difficulties to reach
opportunities of promotion and visibility particularly in several environments
of traditional Male power. Here we can add information about several problems
and some interesting initiatives.
1)
Newspapers, radios and televisions.
In year 2008 only 6% of women in interviews to
professional experts and 10% to political members. Only 21% of opinion
journalists, accordingly to the II report ColumnistAs, by Plann. In the ColumnistA study, prepared by the consulting firm Planner Media with
the support of the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain (FAPE),
where it analyzes more than 3,000 pieces of opinion with about 1,500 different
columnists, from 26 media outlets, it shows that Only 21% of the opinion
columns published by the Spanish media are signed by women and, in the case of
opinion columns dedicated to scientific issues, the percentage signed by women
drops to 7%.
A study financed by the Women´s Departament of the
Autonomuys Community of Madrid, Mateos de Cobo et al (2007) published an analysis
of digital press in Spain regarding gender stereotips.
For the last decades, a greater number of women
journalists interested on Female visibility, as well as an increasing number of men, has contributed to changes in the contents of newspapers and other means of
communication, with more interviews or news on outstanding women in fields of
science, literature, economy, politics, and other ones. But already there is
the feeling of "being invisible" for many notable women.
2) Associations that support Women in Science,
Tecnology, and Executive positions.
The visibility of women in any area of society and
particularly in those of research and technology is an aspect of great
importance to refute the false argument that "there are no women" or
"there are no brilliant women" in the different fields of knowledge
(Lopez et al, 2020). .
3) Encyclopedias and texbooks.
The
presence of women in Encyclopedias and Bibliographic Dictionaries is usually
very low, with percentages of 6% or below in many fields, where they have had a
remarkable higher activity. Although there are a few publications that collect
biographies of some relevant women they usually are not available in internet
at a low cost or free.
The scarce
inclusion of relevant women in Wikipedia is analyzed in the interesting
academic article by Li(2020) and in outstanding articles in newspapers and
blogs.
Noan
Cohen(2011) have
published an interesting article in the New York Times (NYT) about the gender
gap in contributors lists of Wikipedia:
Define Gender
Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List. "According
to the OpEd
Project, an organization based in New York
that monitors the gender breakdown of contributors to “public
thought-leadership forums,” a participation rate of roughly 85-to-15 percent,
men to women, is common — whether members of Congress, or writers on The New
York Times and Washington Post Op-Ed pages. It would seem to be an irony that
Wikipedia, where the amateur contributor is celebrated, is experiencing the
same problem as forums that require expertise."
Sue
Gardner(2011).She was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation from December
2007 until May 2014, and has written the interesting article at her Blog
related with the publication by Norma Cohen:
Nine Reasons
Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia (in their own words).
We list the 9 reasons in the Annex, and we highlight
reason 4 and 9 as important not only for explain the gender gap in
contributions to the Encyclopedia but also the gender gap in the biographical
contents of notable women. Reason 4) is "Some women don’t edit Wikipedia because
they are conflict-averse and don’t like Wikipedia’s sometimes-fighty culture". Reason 9) is "Some
women don’t edit Wikipedia because social relationships and a welcoming tone
are important to them, and Wikipedia offers fewer opportunities for that than
other sites".
Shlomit Lir (2020), also points to the unfriendly environment
that many women find when they wish to include, in Wikipedia, contents related
with women, in the article:
Strangers
in a seemingly open-to-all website: the gender bias in Wikipedia Equality,
Diversity and Inclusion: "Findings – The findings show that having
the will to edit and the knowledge of how to edit are necessary but
insufficient conditions for women to participate in Wikipedia. The finding
reveals two categories: pre-editing barriers of negative reputation, lack of
recognition, anonymity and fear of being erased; and post-editing barriers of
experiences of rejection, alienation, lack of time and profit and ownership of
knowledge. The research suggests a “Vicious Circle” model, displaying how the
five layers of negative reputation, anonymity, fear, alienation and rejection –
enhance each other, in a manner that deters women from contributing to the
website"
Although Wikipedia has very good
contributors, male and female, in many topics, the question is that the rules for
contributors are not all good, and they should be improved in order to avoid
lack of protection for women, or other contributors, when they find hostility
barriers to publish qualified and interesting contents.
In biographic
Encyclopedias and textbooks, the presence of women is usually very scarce and
clearly below their professional, artistic or scientific activity. Accordingly.
An study by
López-Navajas(2014) from the University of Valencia, presents data of female
protagonism by subject of study in Secondary Education textbooks in Spain and show that
only 7.5% of the referents in those text book are women.
3) Blogs and twitter: initiatives for women visibility.
An interesting initiative from Lydia Gil is her Blog of social media
investigation : https://socialmediaeninvestigacion.com/mujeresdivulgadoras-edicion3
It
is an interesting initiative for visibiligy of women communicators in Sciences
(natural Sciences, Social sciencias and other fields). She also contributes to
the women visibility on radio program "Ones of science". In the Annex
we will include other Blogs.
It is worth highlighting initiatives such as the Women
with Science blog, from the Chair of Scientific Culture of the University of
the Basque Country, which tries to give greater visibility to women who
contributed and contribute to progress in different scientific and
technological fields, linked to STEM disciplines (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics).
In the field of social sciences, the Women in Economics
network formed in 2019 from the twitter account @mujereseneco addresses the
objective of promoting presence in the public debate (conferences, talks,
discussion tables, courses, media or discussion forums) of experts from
different professional areas of the economic world. With initiatives in social
networks such as #unaeconomistapordia with which, a relevant woman in the area
of Economics is presented with a brief description of her area of
specialization or some of her most relevant works.
In May 2018 @siconmujeres was born as an initiative
promoted by male economists to end the discussion round tables where male
representatives are often exclusive. In the same line of avoiding expert panels
with none women, or little female presence, the Office of the European
Parliament in Spain launched the initiative # DondeEstánEllas, which has been
signed by several entities.
4) Leadership in Universities, Scientific Academics and Prizes:
In the study
of EUA(2017) on women in leadership positions in European universities. The
results show that in 47 countries with EUA members, only 12% of all rectors are
female. The maximum is a third of Rectors in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and the
minimum below 11% Spain, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Czec Republic, Turkey and Italy.
Women economists in Prizes: the presence of women is below the
percentage of their contributions to Economics. Not only the Nobel Prize
organization has shown a Male preference, but also in national prizes, as in the case of Spain, as
follows:
Prize of General Council of
Economists (Consejo General de Economistas, CGE, in Spanish): In 20 Prizes for
years 2001-2018 only 1 was for a female economist (5%): Josefa Fernandez Arufe, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Valladolid (Spain) and one of the Notable Women Pioneers in Economics research and Doctoral supervision in Spain, as it appears in the article by Guisan(2018) in the journal RSES.
Prize Queen Juan Carlos: In 20
years, 1986-2006, all Prizes for men (0% women)
Prize Rey Jaime: In 20 years
1997-2016 all Prizes for men (0% for women)
Acccordingly to Ideas-Repec, an important international net of Economics
research, theres is a percentage around 25% of Female economists (more than
14000 women out of more than 55000 total economists). Among the top 100 Spanish
members of this academid net, there are 21 women economists. A list of names
may be seen in Guisan(2018). Women economists at Spanish Universities currently
they represent around 40% of intermediate teachers and researchers and 20% of
Full Professors. Given this women activity in Economics research it seems that
they should appear at least in 20% of Economic Prizes.
4) Businesswoman and executives. There is an increase of initiatives,
from Associations, to increase female visibility in the business and
professional firms, in engineering, architecture, art and other fields.
5) Women in political positions.
In year 2007, Spanish socialist
government approved a Law named "Organic Law of effective equality of
women and men" ruling a minimun of 40% of each gender in electoral lists. Thanks
to this law the percentage of Women in National and Regional Assemblies varies
in Spain usually between 40 and 50, which is higher than in Italy (between 0
and 29), close to France (44 and 51), higher than in Germany (between 24 and
40) and the United Kingdom (28 and 42), as seen in EAGLE(2019). In local political representations in Spain, the
newspaper El Mundo indicates 30% majors of cities and villages 35% local
councillors.
The question in Spanish
politics is not only the percentage of women in national or regional
Parliaments, but a low level of internal democracy in many political parties,
and excess of Male power concentration in decision making at the top of the
parties. The usual voting discipline in Parliaments, following the
orders of the political leader, without internal democracy in the party,
indicates a low level of democracy and gives to the majority of representatives
(male of female) scarce power in decision making of their votes. Women at the
top of political parties are very often chosen because they are supporters of
the male leaders,
4.3. Subjetive indexes of life satisfaction
When asked to rate their general
satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, people on average across
the OECD gave it a 6.5. Life satisfaction is not evenly shared across the OECD
however. Some countries – Greece, Hungary, Portugal and Turkey –
have a relatively low level of overall life satisfaction, with average
scores of 5.5 or less. At the other end of the scale, scores reach 7.5 in
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
Quality of
life it is very much related with employment, real wage, real production per
capita, quality of labor conditions but also with female participation in
economic and social life, quality of Government and other variables. Generally,
the educational level of population has a positive impact on the quality of
many of these factors.
Eurostat
(2019) points: "When looking at low, medium and high shares of overall
life satisfaction, the differences between men and women remain low.
15.3 % of male respondents stated that they have a low level of life
satisfaction, in comparison to 17.0 % of females. On the other hand,
25.6 % of males and 25.2 % of females had a high rating of life
satisfaction in 2018".
OWID(2020)
presents a graph, not by gender, of life satisfaction in several countries with
data from Eurobarometer(2017).
The top positions of this group of 5 European coutnries correspond
to the United Kingdom and Germany, while
France is an intermediate position between both countries and the lower values are those of Italy and Spain.
More information, in the article
Guisan, M.C., Aguayo, E. (2020). Employment and
Quality of Life of Women in Spain: Evolution 1970-2020 and International
Comparisons, Applied Econometrics and International Development Vol. 20-2. Abstract
Notable Spanish Women Economists: Pioneers, Doctoral Supervisors of Applied Economics and Top Researchers, 1975-2018, GUISAN, Maria-Carmen Abstract
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