Ilona Kiaušienė

Department of Business Economics and Management
Kaunas Faculty of Humanities

ON GENDER STEREOTYPING AND EMPLOYMENT ASSIMETRIES

E-mail: ilona.kiausiene@vukhf.lt

Dalia Štreimikienė

Department of Business Economics and Management
Kaunas Faculty of Humanities

Vilnius University

E-mail: dalia@mail.lei.lt

Dainora Grundey

Department of Management

Faculty of Politics and Management

Mykolas Romeris University

E-mail: dainora.grundey@mruni.eu

ABSTRACT. Every day women face obstacles which do not allow them to reveal their possibilities in payable workplaces. There exists a preconception and women’s discrimination that defines and activities different and most frequently narrower possibilities for their existence related to their participation in labour market. Women are most often valued not according to their personal abilities, but following the settled stereotypes that they possess poorer abilities and they are not able to perform work that requires responsibility or that women are less creative, etc. In the scientific literature, stereotypes of gender roles are defined as a cultural and social approach towards the very thing that is traditionally considered being ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ roles and functions. It is stated in the article that the stereotypes, formed in the society might influence women’s and men’s work choice as well as create the labour market that is divided under genders, and ‘what is more the stability’ of woman’s social status iniquity necessarily fosters addressing to the culture as one of the most significant reasons, those restrict the confirmation of woman’s and man’s equality in the society. The purpose of the article is to review the gender stereotypes and their impact on women and men in the labour market. Women experience pressure due to the necessity of their social and economic status; women’s career development is more complicated and problematic than men’s. The analysis of statistic data, performed in the article revealed that the formed level of women’s employment is lower than men’s. There is noticed powerful segregation of labour market and undervaluation of women’s work. Men and women are spread in different professional groups, and there are delegated less responsible and lower qualification works for women. Thus in order to perform the implementation of gender equality in labour market, it is needed to change traditional gender roles, despite the fact that their change or elimination is always related to the change of collective beliefs and that is a result of collective actions determining qualitative changes of the entire social life.

Received: June, 2011

1st Revision: September, 2011

Accepted: October, 2011

JEL Classification: D63, J16, J21, J24

Keywords: gender stereotypes, employment, gender, culture, gender equality.