Effects of Social Construction of Gender on Social Institutions 

May the fact that several years ago, women were known to be settled in the household and take on household and family responsibilities, time in society has only changed that. Overtime, through many movements socially, politically and economically, the connection between gender and labour has reshaped to more fair and consideration. In the past years, society has witnessed many improvements to women’s workforce positions. One of the major factors to gender equality has been the mainstream idea of the difference of capability between men and women. Women entry into the workplace, has significantly changed the responsibilities for domestic duties and child care in the household. Women continue to doubt society today, by surpassing the belief of their ability compared to men. One great prominent social and economic development in modern society is the entry of women into the labour market. The growing rate of women in the workforce has been one of the main movements in basically all regions over the last half of this century. In the early 1960s, women, especially wives with dependent children, were still more likely to remain at home and pursue domestic duties, while men, particularly husbands and fathers, were occupied in the paid workforce. Several factors had an affect on rapid expansion of female employment. These included demographic changes, such as lower birthrates, rising divorce rates, and delays in marriage and child-raising, as well as women’s rising education levels. While self-employment impacts women greatly, to improve their economic situation, it can also lead into many offers and future opportunities. In recent years, the focus has also shifted from women’s equality to gender equality.

Gender refers not to specifically men and women but to the relationship between them and the way each role are socially constructed. The concept of gender equality implies a greater understanding that social arrangements leads to inequality and that these issues can be changed over time. Most countries had recently recognize women entitlement to equal rights with men. According to international conventions and as a matter of social justice, it is important to note that the concept of equality has evolved over time. Usually, the main focus and debates on women rights would involve issues receiving equal treatment. Recognition of the fact that treating men and women similarly, that will eventually lead to equal outcomes in many cases is slowly increasing. Trends associated with limiting proposals for women labour market position are expansion of the service division; meaning growing wage standards and increasing not-average work.

Along with another important development associated with restriction is the decline of the public sector. Through the few years, increasing growth of the public sector has been an important factor in women integration into the labour market in industrialized countries. This proves that women are now over presented in employee companies. Another huge impact is the expansion of self-employment and the amount has expanded greatly as big companies. The government system has eliminated many jobs overall; increasing self-employment, which is also associated with the overall growth of the service sector and the labour market. A popular solution to women with lack of successful performance in the workforce is business creation. Difficulty in obtaining financial activity is the obstacle women state to be the most frequent. To start-up a business and expansion was a trend that gave out additional opportunities to many there women and people overall. Gender gaps are one of the major factors that put out challenges for the world of work today. Generally, women are substantially less likely than men to participate in the labour market. As expected, their access to quality employment opportunities remains restricted. Overall, for example, men are more likely to work longer hours than women and obtain the more hands-on so called “harder” jobs to be done. On average, women work fewer hours either because they can only work part-time or because part-time work is the only option available to them. This issue of sex discrimination referring to gender inequality results in a particular individual being mistreated and disadvantaged. This occurs simply just because of their gender. This is something that has affected women in the workplace for a long time now, and still has an impact on women’s rights and movements these days. It must also be known that while gender inequality is something that mainly women have to deal with, there are some men who have had to deal with this issue too. This is an overall affect that has an impact to both genders and workforces overall. Gender inequality is something that has appeared to be a part of social roles for each gender.

In the workplace, it is common for most women to encounter some form of gender bias. This problem was noticed way back when the bigger issue for women was them not being allowed to work, them being fully denied in any workforce other then for the family and household. Despite the fact that women has numerous steps towards greater equality in the past many years. In addition, many companies also made certain strategic pointed efforts to encourage diversity and equality. None of that changes the fact that women still occupy lower paying positions and not have as many opportunities available to them as men do. Women continue to push through gender barriers and yet, for all of their efforts, women still get recognized and rewarded less than men. This gender bias is not only unfair; it’s ultimately detrimental to overall corporate performance as well. Reasons that are prone to this issue is not just the capability of women themselves. This has no aspect on women on a personal level whatsoever. It is mostly the overall aspect of how society itself compares gender, women and men to each other and who is capable of doing what. It just so happened to be believed that all men are perfectly suited for the heavy work. Women were known to be at home, although, if they were to be included in the workforce, it would be either part-time or “behind the desk” jobs, nothing with physical needs. A few pointed reasons to prove this fact generally is that in most places around the world, men tend to participate in labour markets more than women overall. This would obviously bring more opportunities to men rather then women.

Another reason is that all over the world, women would change their personal habits, leading them to become more available or more knowledgeable to certain jobs, meeting the needs to some unusual kind of work. Some proven statistics about this situation, has shown the unfairness side of society and what it has towards gender inequality. Across countries around the world, most percentages and results are a great way to prove this point. In Canada, a percentage of 61.5% of women has been a part of labour in 2017. Ever since 1980, women’s workforce participation rates have been above 50%, showing that this issue has improved and is stabilizing fair-well in this region. On the other hand a place like India, women’s participation in work places has decreased. The average rate in percentage in 1990 is 35.1% compared to 27.2% in 2017. We can see that some regions are well stabled for the most part, fairness wise, others are still struggling. A region that is actually over the peak is the United States of America. With the total percent of women today, in the workforce, is 57.0%, which shows that the participation has increased. For the most part, with this being a global issue, compared to today from back a hundred years ago, this issue is slowly improving through society.

Sociologists themselves have been debating for a long period of time over the causes of unfair sexual divisions of labour. Some have broadly explained through biological factors. Many factors contributed an impact to this gender gap. Factors such as, more women getting an education, lack of employment opportunities, mostly for young women. (For example, young men being able to go into construction but women no normally going into this field).

An overall issue we have in society is that women use to face such tragic unequal situations at work in many different areas and across industries on a regular basis. Till this day, it is fair to say that equality is a factor being worked on throughout many places around the world but still not one hundred percent. While women earn less, on average, than men in all advanced industrialized countries, countries vary in the size of the gender earnings gap. Sex is what distinguishes men and women biologically, where it is assumed that the qualities, one being physical, are not equal. As A result of social construction of gender, it refers to a set of characteristics which determine society’s view of people as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. This has impacted others not only in the labour market, but in many other areas as well. Society’s view-point of gender is no where near equal. This gets in between ones ability to proceed their personal tasks and goals. As results change over time, from year to year, this issue will never be fully fixed upon due to the stereotypes that will always have a place in society.