Individuation in job offers as a function of the status of the occupation

Abstract

A sample of job offers (n = 4727) from French-language daily newspapers were content analyzed for their gender stereotypicality. It was first predicted that role names, as well as descriptions of the job and the applicant, would be predominantly non-sex-typed (Hypothesis 1). Hypothesis 2 predicted that generic role names would contain more masculine than feminine stereotypes compared to gender-fair role names. It was further predicted that the sex-typing of the role names would decrease as a function of the status of the job (Hypothesis 3) and that the amount of individuating information provided about the occupation and the applicant would increase as a function of status (Hypothesis 4). The findings provided overall support for the hypotheses, showing that gender stereotypes still pervade job advertising, but mostly at the lower levels of the occupational hierarchy. Résumé. Un échantillon d'offres d'emploi (n = 4727) provenant de la presse quotidiennefrancophone a été soumis à une analyse de contenu centrée sur la stéréotypie de genre. La première hypothèse prédit que la dénomination du poste, ainsi que les descriptions du poste et du candidat potentiel sont majoritairement non typées sexuellement. L'Hypothèse 2 prédit que les dénominations épicènes du poste, par opposition aux dénominations génériques, sont accompagnées de descriptions qui accordent une plus large place aux stéréotypes féminins. Les deux hypothèses principales concernent le rôle du statut social du poste. Elles prédisent que les postes de statut social élevé sont moins typés sexuellement dans leur dénomination que les postes de bas statut social (Hypothèse 3), et que les premiers contiennent davantage d'informations individualisantes concernant les exigences du poste et les caractéristiques souhaitées des candidats (Hypothèse 4). Les résultats apportent une confirmation de ces

A star is born? The German gender star and its effects on mental representation

“…In relation to this, generic use of masculine forms is criticized for perpetuating stereotypes about masculinity, most notably in the context of occupational titles. This connection between gender stereotypes and the use of generic masculine job titles has been confirmed for several languages such as English and Spanish (Carreiras et al, 1996), French (Lorenzi-Cioldi et al, 2010), and Dutch and German (Vervecken & Hannover, 2015). This entails that, for grammatical gender and natural gender languages alike, generic use of the masculine form affects people, potentially working to withhold opportunities from those who do not identify as men (e.g., generic use of the masculine form in job advertisements has been found to discourage women from applying, see Stout and Dasgupta, 2011).…”