Search results

The purpose of this article is to critically examine Joan Acker's notion of inequality regimes by applying it to the case of global nurse care chains (GNCCs). The article examines the organisational practices of GNCCs and how inequality barriers are practiced and legitimised.

The article is based on qualitative interviews with different institutional representatives involved in Filipino nurse recruitment to Finland (N = 25), recruited Filipino nurses (N = 20) and Filipino nurses working in Finland (N = 9).

The article demonstrates different organisational practices through which inequality regimes are created and sustained. These include the racialised construction of the Philippines as situated in the global periphery and functioning as a resource of labour for the global core and the Filipino nurse as innately more caring. The inequalities are legitimised through deskilling in which the nurses' command of Finnish language is a key form of justification. Filipino nurses' precarious legal status renders them compliant workers from an organisational perspective and vulnerable workers who fear to claim their rights as workers.

By discussing barriers to inequality, the article illustrates how inequalities in diverse workplaces and the undervaluing of nurse work could be addressed.

The article uniquely applies Acker's inequality regimes to the study of GNCCs. It argues that the concept of inequality regimes would benefit from developing it towards a global context.

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale that can be used to assess inequality at work based on gender, age and ethnicity that is grounded in Acker’s (2006) inequality regimes.

The authors used three representative samples (total N = 1,806) of Swedish teachers, nurses and social workers to develop and validate the scale. The validation process included the assessment of content validity, confirmatory factor analysis for factorial validity, internal consistency and associations with theoretically warranted outcomes and related constructs to assess criterion-related validity and convergent validity.

The authors found evidence supporting the content, factorial, criterion-related and convergent validity of the InEquality in organisations Scale (InE-S). Furthermore, the scale demonstrated high internal consistency.

The newly developed scale InE-S may be used to further the understanding of how inequality at work influences employees. This study makes a contribution to the current literature by providing a scale that, for the first time, can test Acker’s hypotheses using quantitative methods to demonstrate the consequences of inequality at work.

This paper seeks to explore the difficult territory of intersectionality as it relates to inequality and disadvantage in the labour market of the arts and cultural sector. It aims to first examine the way Acker's concept of inequality regimes is located in the extant literature. Then, it aims to study the dynamics of intersectionality in the arts and cultural sector, which offers an ideal setting with interesting and counter‐intuitive outcomes of intersectionality.

The paper draws on a qualitative study which generated interviews with students, employers and higher education institutions which are involved in industrial placements (internships) in the arts and cultural sector in Britain.

In line with Acker, the paper also disputes a‐contextual and cumulative formulations of intersecting inequalities that rely on multiplying the unequal outcomes on the basis of traditional categories of disadvantage. Instead, it argues that multiplicity of identities and forms of disadvantage introduce complexity and contextual depth into the analysis of inequality if we are to understand interplay between different forms of disadvantage. In addition, the paper maintains that intersectionality produces surprising outcomes which vary across industrial contexts, in particular across different sectors of employment. It uses the case of work undergraduate and postgraduate placement practices in the arts and cultural sector, in order to demonstrate the unexpected nature of intersectionality in producing disadvantage.

The study draws on a selection of students, employers and higher education staff from London. A larger selection of institutions outside London could reveal differences between London and other cities and regions in Britain.

Intersectionality is an important concern for diversity and human resources management professionals. This paper provides an assessment of it in an unusual sectoral context.

There is need to develop an emic understanding of intersectionality in each sector.

In the literature, intersectionality is problematised at workplace and individual levels. This paper's view of intersectionality is original in the sense that it explores how intersectionality operates at a sectoral level. In doing so, it demonstrates that salience of a strand of inequality in terms of producing intersectional disadvantage depends on the context.

This study examines the non-linear impact of financial development on income inequality and analyses the mediators through which financial development affects income inequality.

The study uses a dynamic panel threshold method with an endogeneous threshold variable on a comprehensive sample of 85 countries over the period of 1996-2015.

The author finds that financial development activities increase income inequality in developed countries. However, financial development promotes income equality in developing countries. Further, the study finds that education and institutional quality are the channels through which financial development has non-linear impacts on income inequality.

The study explores relatively new method to examine the nonlinear impact of financial development and also considers new dataset for the main explanatory variable.

This study aims to explore the individual lived crucible experiences of women leaders in higher education (HE) and business as the catalyst to investigate organisational inequality regimes that prevent women leaders from fully participating, contributing and flourishing at work. Drawing upon Bolman and Deal’s four-frame theoretical organisational model, this study analyses women’s lived crucible leadership experiences to better understand the organising processes and practices that render intersectionality invisible that reinforce and perpetuate inequality regimes.

A collaborative autoethnographic research method was selected for data collection. The research team members each selected one significant crucible moment from their professional career and used the Gibb’s six-part reflective cycle to document their narrative and reflect on their leadership experience. A reflexive thematic analysis was used based on Braun and Clarke’s six phases.

The study features the importance of creating a climate in organisations that acknowledges the need for greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to support women leaders. Four global themes emerged from the analysis of the leadership narratives: organisation, power dynamics, emotional distress and perseverance and intersectionality. These themes illuminate a greater understanding of organisational life for women and confirm the presence of inequality regimes of gender and race.

This is the first study to explore the impact of women leaders’ crucible experiences through the lens of the Bolman and Deal’s model that highlights the need to consider an EDI lens as the fifth frame.

This study aims to deepen the understanding of inequality regimes in male-dominated industries, specifically in Swedish forestry and mining, by exploring how conceptions of gender, class and place are articulated and intertwined when doing gender equality in these organizations.

The article draws on empirical material from four research and development projects inspired by a feminist action research methodology.

This paper shows how gender equality works in these male-dominated organizations simultaneously constructing gender, class and place. When men are at the focal point of gender equality, our empirical findings suggest that blue-collar workers in rural areas are described as “being the problem” for gender inequality in these organizations. Addressing specific groups such as women or blue-collar workers in rural areas is not enough to challenge the inequality regimes that exist in these organizations, since a unilateral focus on certain groups leads to skewed problem formulations.

Research on gender equality work and its relation to intersectionality in male-dominated industries is limited, and by focusing on men and masculinities, this paper contributes to knowledge concerning gender equality in male-dominated industrial organizations.

Theorizing that was conceived in the 1970s about gendered processes in organizations helped explain gender inequalities in organizations. This article aims to take the opportunity to re‐examine these processes – including the gendered substructure of organizations, gendered subtext, the gendered logic of organization and the abstract worker from the perspective of the original author in a present‐day context.

A reflexive approach was used to consider how gender theorizing itself has become more complex as captured in the notion of intersectionality when gender process interacts with other forms of inequality.

The key finding is the persistence of inequality regimes despite organizational changes, which still make developments in theorizing gender processes relevant.

This article is an opportunity to reflect on the conceptualization and development of one's theorizing over three decades, which has suggested that there are still key questions that demand answers from academics and practitioners who want to challenge these inequality regimes.

The recent UK Diversity in Sport Governance report (Sport England & UK Sport, 2019) highlighted that two-thirds of boards have no Black, Asian and minority ethnic members and that board diversity is an ongoing problem. In the report, Sport England and UK Sport (2019, p. 5) acknowledged that ‘the sports sector is falling behind other sectors in terms of minority ethic members’. While this is an important acknowledgement, it reflects trends in both research and policy on diversity in UK sport governance that continue to focus on single forms of discrimination (e.g., gender, ethnicity, age or sexuality). In this chapter we move beyond this approach to consider how Black women experience sport leadership and governance through an intersectional lens. The key findings in this paper outline Black women's positionality at the intersections of race and gender and how these influence their sport leadership opportunities and experiences based on (1) their outsider within status, (2) inequities in their salaries, marginalising promotions and occupational stereotyping, (3) their identity negotiation and (4) their experiences with womanism. We conclude by arguing for more research that explores the intersection of race and gender within UK sport leadership and governance, which should be positioned within the context of long-standing and deep-rooted racialised and gendered ideology and beliefs within UK society.

This paper aims to describe and explain women's labor participation in the public sector, particularly at the local level. The paper analyses the representation of women employees in the public sector through a case study of a city council in a mid-sized Spanish city. The authors delve into the extent of gender labor discrimination in public administration, exploring a diversity of situations, experiences, and perceptions of women workers in female, neutral, and male-dominated areas in the local administration.

The authors have applied a combined methodology of quantitative analysis based on an exhaustive analysis of the list of job posts, and qualitative analysis from the narratives of women workers in biographical interviews, in women-dominated, neutral and male-dominated areas.

The authors conclude by providing a clear description of women's representation in local administration. Despite the institutional efforts in applying gender equality norms and public policies in administration, employment and labor market, this article shows the persistent inequality in employment within the administration. The paper demonstrates that public administrations can be seen as gender regimes that tend to reproduce inequality by formal and informal dynamics. This inequality gender reproduction in a supposedly gender-neutral administration reflects discrimination in a labor market. The paper details phenomena relating to horizontal occupational segregation, glass ceilings, sticky floors, and the undervaluing of women's work, among other phenomena.

The administration should consider two essential factors that endanger gender equality: (1) the demonstrated regression of gender mainstreaming and the effects on women's employment as a consequence of the crisis, and (2) neoliberal governments and extreme right-wing parties (or neoliberal governments and extreme right-wing parties' support, as is the case with the current Andalusian regional government), whose agenda includes the fight against what neoliberal governments and extreme right-wing parties call “gender ideology”.

The gap between the effectiveness of gender legislation and actual working practices within the administration has been highlighted. This fact should be a wake-up call for the administrations to strictly comply with gender legislation, given that local administrations are the closest to the citizens. Future research should focus on changes to detect any regression and to prevent losing the improvements already achieved, which can still be very much strengthened.

This article helps to fill the gap in the literature on gender discrimination in the labor market, which often omits the public sector, especially in local administration, which is the closest administrative structure to citizenship respecting public policies. The article contributes to highlighting the need for an egalitarian labor market in order to achieve optimal performance, commitment and efficiency in egalitarian labor relations in local administration.

Purpose and approach – This introduction sets forth the main themes of the volume showing how its 13 chapters advance the themes and how they relate to each other and other recent relevant recent research and theory.

Research implications – Discussions by volume authors outlining the strengths and limitations of current theories and methods and offering new or modified paradigms for future work are previewed here.

Practical and social implications – Each of the chapters describes one or more situations in which regimes of inequality play a role and several offer policy analyses.

Value of chapter – This chapter by the editors serves as an introduction to the volume.