Global Perspectives on Women and Work

Abstract

The vast majority of psychological research on gender and work focuses on WEIRD (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) women, which impedes global efforts to promote gender equality and devalues the experiences of the majority of working women across the world. In this article, I first review cross-cultural psychological research on gender and work in three general domains: stereotyping and gender roles, discrimination, harassment, and women's efforts to effect change, and the effects of public and organizational policies on women's work lives. I then highlight how contributions to the present issue of the Journal of Social Issues expand our understanding of working women in non-WEIRD contexts. I conclude with recommendations for future study and a call for more work that recognizes the experiences and perspectives of women in the global majority. Gender inequality in the workplace is a global issue. For example, the availability of paid parental leave may impede women's ability to work, as women are disproportionately responsible for unpaid care work (Addati, Cattaneo, Esquivel, & Valarino, 2018). Globally, many women are employed in low-wage, precarious labor, such as garment work (Borino, 2018), which is rife with worker abuse (Toosi, Voegeli, Antolin, Babbit, & Brown, 2020). In addition, in some parts of the world, women lack workplace protections, may be legally barred from certain professions, and have to ask the permission of their spouse or other family members to engage in paid work (World Bank, 2018b). Promoting gender equality, therefore, requires an understanding of the systemic barriers that women face, which differ due to the intersection of different identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and national origin (Cole, 2009).

The Primacy of Nurturance and Dominance/Assertiveness: Unidimensional Measures of the Big Two Mask Gender Differences in Subdimensions

“…Future work might examine this hypothesis with a larger sample so that analysis by participant gender, participant race/ethnicity, and their interaction is possible. Further, our findings may be specific to the US (Folberg, 2020). Whether and how findings vary across cultural contexts is an important avenue for future research.…”

Routes into the homeopathic profession: Witnessing, gender and subaltern therapeutics

“…Homeopathy and other CAM practices provide opportunities to have some control over the hours and timing of work, as practitioners are often self‐employed. This aligns with the structural position of women in contemporary society who may still have the responsibility and duty of mothering that limits opportunities in many spheres of work (Folberg, 2020).…”

“…It is also achievable, in that homeopathic training can be done in a way that allows caregivers and others with competing responsibilities to undertake the training. So, it can be a fit for women making the most of options in a societal formation that does not facilitate the career paths of carers (Folberg, 2020).…”

Viewing entrepreneurship through a goal congruity lens: The roles of dominance and communal goal orientations in women’s and men’s venture interests

“…Neither global competence goals nor self-direction goals predicted venture interests, which may be surprising, as many individuals pursue entrepreneurial careers to have independence ( Cromie, 1987 ; Wilhau and Karau, 2021 ). However, the U.S. is a highly individualistic culture that strongly values independence ( Stephens et al, 2017 ), perhaps making self-direction a less useful predictor of venture interests in the U.S. than in other cultures ( Folberg, 2020 ).…”

“…Our sample was also largely White, potentially limiting generalizability to other U.S. racial/ethnic groups. Both goal orientations and perceptions of STEM vary across cultures ( Brown et al, 2018 ; Folberg, 2020 ; Folberg and Kaboli-Nejad, 2020 ). The effects of goal orientations among people of color, and whether a goal congruity framework might benefit marginalized groups underrepresented in entrepreneurship, remain important avenues for future research.…”