Gender Discrimination Essay

Gender discrimination is an important issue in the workplace in today’s world. Female employees are facing gender discrimination in the form of different dimensions. This discrimination is disturbing their performance. The main aim of this study is to see the effect of these gender discrimination dimensions which include glass ceiling, salary gap and discrimination in facilities on the productivity of female employees with the mediating effect of job commitment and job satisfaction. The research is focused on the private education sector. The population frame is the female teachers in the private education institutes. A sample of 130 female teachers is collected for this study. The framework is developed for our study for checking the impact of glass ceiling, salary gap and discrimination in facilities on the productivity of female employees. The hypotheses are developed and after the data analysis some of the hypothesis are rejected and some of the hypothesis are not rejected. The hypotheses that the glass ceiling, discrimination in facilities and salary gap has negative impact on employee productivity is accepted which made us to conclude that these discrimination has a big impact on employee productivity and ultimately organizational performance. This study will give some guidelines to the managers and policy makers in any organization that how to reduce these discriminations. Key words: Gender discrimination, Glass ceiling, Employee productivity, salary gap, discrimination in facilities, job satisfaction, job commitment, Paper type: Research Paper 1. Introduction 1.1 Significance/Rationales of study The study came up with the solutions to the problem of gender discrimination at work place. This study will help the people to be aware of this dominating problem of gender discrimination and its reasons. This study can also identify the positive and negative effects of discrimination on the world of business and personal lives of people. Gender discrimination is a wide phenomenon which is affecting every political, social and economic life. In this era where everyone think that there should be equal rights for men and women, there are some occurrences of people who are being discriminated because of their gender. It is not an issue, which one can easily tolerate or ignore. Gender discrimination is understood as the unequal treatment against people of either sex, but statistics shows that women are the one who are more discriminated just being a female (Lila Adhikari, 2008). Gender issues were first pointed out in 1950s, but it’s been highlighted in organization and management studies in between 1980s and 1990s. In this duration many studies on effect of gender discrimination on employees were conducted. One study shows that gender discrimination is inversely proportional to job commitment and satisfaction which means it reduces the employee’s productivity which ultimately affects the organizational productivity (Zahid Ali Channar, 2011). Many factors have been identified which are responsible for gender discrimination in work place, which are education, promotion, marriage and child bearing and environment. If we look in context of promotion, a wide practice used is glass ceiling, a process by which women are not promoted to high level of jobs (Bell, 2002). Last year report issued by a commission of glass ceiling that shows that there are only 7 to 9 percent of managers that are in senior positions are women at fortune 1000 (kom and catalyst, 2012). 81 % employers dislike to hire a female. 49 % not carefully planning their careers to benefit women and above of all a survey tells that only 1 percent CEOs or even less than 1 percent take it as first concern, the development of women (Mauricio, 2012). 1.2 Problem Statement HRM in any organization is related to staffing, motivating and maintaining the organization (Decenzo, 1998). 50 years ago, due to homogeneity of work force the HRM was very simple, but now-a-days the workforce is heterogeneous. Managing this heterogeneity required such a staff that can create an equitable environment so that no group has any kind of advantage or disadvantage on other group (Wayne, 1995). Heterogeneity in workplace gave birth to gender discrimination, which has become an intense situation in Pakistan and affecting the employee’s productivity (Qaiser Abbas, 2011). An employee perform difficult tasks for the survival and improvement of organization but gender discrimination reduces the employee’s satisfaction, commitment and enthusiasm and increases the stress level which ultimately affects the productivity of an employee (Zahid Ali Channar, 2011). These studies did not discuss that how dimensions of gender discrimination effect the productivity of employee. The dimensions of gender discrimination include discrimination in promotions, discrimination in salary and discrimination in facilities provided. So there is a need to explore the effect of different dimensions of gender discrimination on the productivity of employee. 1.3 Aim of the study This study investigates that how different dimensions of gender discrimination effect the employee productivity. It would be helpful for any organization in the process of policy making which will ultimately increase the productivity of an organization. 1.4 Research Objectives 1) To identify that whether gender discrimination has an effect on productivity of employees in private educational institutes. 2) To explore how the productivity of employees is affected by gender discrimination in promotion, salary and facilities provided in private educational institutes. 3) To examine the results of the survey. 4) To recommend some reformed measures to the policy makers for the future. 1.5 Research Questions 1) What is relation between the employee productivity and gender discrimination? 2) What is effect of gender discrimination in promotion, salary and facilities on the performance of an employee? 2. Literature Review This literature view is based on the evaluation of gender discrimination on employee’s productivity. The gender discrimination now exist most of the organization around the world. Gender discrimination may exist in different dimensions like discrimination in promotions, facilities and Salaries. In simple words gender discrimination can be defined as the unfair treatment or behavior based on gender. It is said to occur when an individual’s decision is based on gender. Gender discrimination was attempted to define by no law. If we look in the perspective of employment, it is giving more advantage to a particular group (Wayne, 1995). This thing results in the decreased productivity of employees. 2.1 Gender Discrimination in Global Perspective The first form of discrimination was found by the universal declaration of human rights (1948). Gender discrimination is now a social disease which is destroying the lives of women around the world. Sen (1991) shows us that if equal treatment and opportunities were given then there should be more 100 million females than are presently alive. Many steps were taken to eliminate the gender discrimination but none of them was proved to be effective. The Beijing conference that documented 12 most prominent areas of discrimination was a big step in eliminating the gender discrimination (UNFPA, 2005). It is proved from the studies that gender discrimination has an influence on the employee productivity. A study shows that if there is a proper policy of gender discrimination there will be a change in employee’s productivity (Naqi Abbas, 2010). 2.2 Glass Ceiling Women in workplace face a wide practice called glass ceiling. This is a practice in which women are ignored when making a promotion policy or promoting an employee. We can see that in every organization the executive posts are held by males. According to a study only 3 percent of the most paid executives are female and these posts are disproportionately held by men (Healy and Zukka, 2004). Women are mostly entrusted in small projects not the big one. They are being kept deprived from international assignment which is keeping away from their promotions. Nick (1991) had conducted the study on international careers of women. His study clearly shows that there is a glass ceiling effect. Women are not being encouraged to do new projects on new markets and they are being kept at junior manager positions. Gender discrimination is not directly related to productivity. The relation of employee productivity and gender discrimination is mediated by job satisfaction and job commitment. Employees who faces policies and practices of gender discrimination show less satisfaction with their job (Ensher et al, 2001). When individuals’ face gender discrimination in workplace they show a low level of job commitment so gender discrimination has a negative relation with job commitment and job satisfaction (Sharon Foley, 2005). Gender discrimination creates tension and reduces the satisfaction of people and it is the study of 139 Hispanic male and female (Sanchez, 1996). The productivity of a happy worker is higher than an unhappy worker (Rabins, 1999,). Employee satisfaction plays a vital role in its productivity and there is a significant relation of job satisfaction with employee productivity (Pushpakumari, 2008). Job satisfaction lead to organizational responsibility, mental health and finally employee productivity (Coomber, 2007). Another study shows us that the organizations who perceive greater gender discrimination report less satisfaction and commitment (Ellen A. Ensher, 2001). The hypotheses are given below: 1) Glass ceiling has negative impact on employee productivity. 2) Glass ceiling is negatively related with employee productivity. 3) Job Satisfaction is positively related with employee productivity. 4) Job satisfaction mediates the relation between gender discrimination in promotions and employee productivity. 2.3 Discrimination in facilities In a workplace an employee is provided with many facilities which helps them to complete their task which include computers, air conditioners, assistant and transport facilities etc. If on a work place if such kind of facilities are provided to a male employee and not provided to a female employee of a same post. The female employee will start to think that the upper management don’t care about them which will increase their stress level and the satisfaction level of that employee cold be decreased which will affect the employee’s productivity. The hypotheses are given below: 1) Gender discrimination in facilities has negative impact on employee productivity. 2) Gender discrimination in facilities is negatively related with job satisfaction. 3) Job Satisfaction mediates the relationship between gender discrimination in facilities and employee productivity. 2.4 Salary Gap Another dimension of discrimination is the Salary gap. Women usually get low pay then men in any job they are appointed. Ashraf and Ashraf (1993) study shows that there is a gap of 63.27 percent in salary in 1979, and in 1986 it decreases to 33.09 percent. This was the decline in every province. Discrimination is not the phenomenon of one or two countries, it exist in most of the developed countries like USA. A study showed that women dietitians in USA earn 45,258 dollars per year while men earn 50,250 dollars per year (Pollard, 2007). Managers at top level in organization mostly prefer their own interest rather than others. They think that superiors who have power on their careers will support them. According to Susan et al (1998) mostly top managers in any organization are the people who are more biased against females and these people save interest of their own. The study shows that job commitment is significant related with productivity, there exist high degree of correlation between commitment and productivity. Individuals that are highly committed proved to be more productive and have higher satisfaction and have no intention to leave the job rather than employee with low job commitment (Varsha, 2012). The hypotheses are given below: 1) Salary gap has negative impact on employee productivity. 2) Salary gap is negatively related with job commitment 3) Job Commitment is positively related with employee productivity 4) Job Commitment mediates the relation between salary gap and employee productivity. 2.5 Gender discrimination in Pakistan Pakistan is also one of the countries where gender discrimination is seen in most of the organizations. We all know Pakistan is a male dominating society and women are being treated unfairly in every field of profession. Gender discrimination has spread its root from public organizations to private organizations. Women are being kept at low level jobs and they are not promoted to high posts due to biasness of top level managers and policy makers. A study by Ghizala Kazi (2011) shows us that no women in the public organizations are in the scale of 20 or more. There are very few women above scale 15. Most of the women are under 15th scale, which shows the situation of discrimination in Pakistan. Many factors for this situation were identified like education, promotion, environment, child bearing and discrimination. If such kinds of discrimination is eliminated than the productivity of these women employees could be increased. There are evidences that the promotion of gender equality leads to a better performance and improved economy of concerned society. The societies who have greater female employment opportunities are less corrupt and have better governance (Klasen, 2006). This is not the end of discriminations in Pakistan. A women employee is also discriminated in Salary, which is a basic right of an employee that he should get compensated according to his work and post. In Pakistan you will see men and women working on same job level but different pay. In the report of poverty in Pakistan it is clearly proved that majority of women are concentrated in low paid jobs with very few opportunity for moving upward (Shah et al, 2004). If we look in the export industries of Pakistan which is a backbone in measurement of economy of Pakistan we will see the similar situation of discrimination. The study of Siddique (2006) surveyed the industries of export that are in Karachi, Sialkot and Faisalabad. The results from this study confirms the gender discrimination and shows that men were getting 20 percent more than then women working at the same post. It was also concluded that adjustment policies and change in labor market has a negative impact on females. To have maximum output from women employee the organizational culture of discrimination should be changed. Organizational culture affects the performance of employee. Organizational environment and culture can make the workplace attractive and supportive for a female employee. Attitudes of peers and support from family are also very significant for the female employee (Irfan, 2009). Many studies have discussed the gender discrimination as a general term but there is need to explore the discrimination in different dimensions and how these dimensions affect the productivity of employees. Gender discrimination has three dimensions which include discrimination in promotions, salary and facilities provided. So this study will be based on exploring the effect of dimensions of gender discrimination on productivity of employees. 3. Conceptual framework In the literature review of this topic the framework has been defined which show the relationship between the variables. Correlation is basically run to analyze the relationship between two or more variable. It also measure that how two variables move in relation to each other. It measures the strength and direction of linear relationship between two variables with respect to each other. The sign of the value shows the direction that whether it is negative or positive. Positive sign shows that the variables are moving in same direction means if one variable is increasing the other variable is also increasing and negative sign shows that if one variable is increasing then other variable is decreasing. The magnitude shows the intensity between variable. If the value is between 0.1 and 0.5 then the variables are weakly correlated. If the value is between 0.5 and 0.7 then the variables are moderately correlated. If the value is between 0.7 and 0.99 then the variables are strongly correlated. The value 1 shows the perfect correlation between variables. Table 5 shows the intensity and the direction of any two variables. Highest value of correlation is 0.753 which is between gender discrimination in facilities and glass ceiling. So the correlation between discrimination in facilities and glass ceiling is positive and strongly correlated. The relationship between DF and EP, and DF and JS, and JC and SG is negative. So it means that if you have more salary gap than your commitment to job will be less but its value is less than any else two variables, so we can say that job commitment will be less but with very small value, and if you have more discrimination in facilities then your productivity will be less. The remaining variables have positive relation with each other. The relationship is significant at 1% which means there are 99% chances that the relationship between all two variables will remain the same if the sample is changes and sample size and population remains same as shown in the table given below. 5.7 Regression This research is to check the effect of gender discrimination dimensions which are glass ceiling, salary gap and discrimination in facilities on the employee productivity. This research also includes two mediating variables job satisfaction and job commitment. Job satisfaction is mediating between glass ceiling and employee productivity and also discrimination in facilities and employee productivity. Job commitment is mediating between salary gap and employee productivity. For this 9 hypothesis were developed. For the purpose of checking the impact regression has been applied. The model has only one dependent variable so there will be one model of regression equation. There will be separate equation for mediating variable to check the mediating effect of variables between independent and dependent variable. In first model we run the regression equation between EP, GC, DF, SG, JC and Job satisfaction. 5.7.1 Regression Equation EP = 4.66 – 0.38GC – 0.86DF – 0.26SG + 0.017JC + 0.167JS The Above equation shows that if all the other variables remain unchanged or have value of zero then the productivity of employee remains at 14.66. It is the fixed value of employee productivity. The coefficient values tell the per unit change in the employee productivity so if we increase the value of GC, SG and DF then the value of employee productivity will decrease by 0.38, 0.86 and 0.26 respectively. If the value of job commitment increases by one then the value of employee productivity will increase by 0.017. The hypotheses of glass ceiling, discrimination in facilities and job satisfaction are accepted. If the value of job satisfaction is increased then the value of employee productivity will increase by 5.10 Kruskal Wallis Test The non-parametric test will be used that is kruskal-Wallis test. Whenever the assumption of levene test is not fulfilled the non-parametric test i.e. kruskal-Wallis test is used. So kruskal-Wallis test is applied to check the level of job commitment in the females who are earning less than 30,000 between 30,000 and 40,000 and more than 40,000. The table given below shows that the asymptotic value is greater than 0.05so test is insignificant. So there is no difference in the average of glass ceiling in all three populations. So we can conclude that there is no significant difference between the mean of all three population p = 0.509, with a mean rank of 73.45 for below 30,000, 65.20 for 30,000 to 40,000 and 73.00 for above 40,000. 6. Discussion This study is conducted to check the impact of gender discrimination on the productivity of employees. The study included three dimensions of gender discrimination that is discrimination in promotions, discrimination in facilities and discrimination in salary. With the help of previous studies it is found that all these discriminations have negative impact on employee productivity which is mention in literature view. The hypotheses were developed for this study. There are 12 hypotheses that are developed. First hypothesis is that glass ceiling has negative impact on employee productivity. This hypothesis is checked after entering the data into SPSS. He results show that glass ceiling does have negative impact on employee productivity. If women are not being promoted to higher job positions and if there is no such policies related to gender discrimination then the productivity of female employee decreases. Second hypothesis was that the glass ceiling is negatively related with job satisfaction. this hypothesis is checked through the correlation. The table 5 of correlation clearly shows that glass ceiling is negatively related with the job satisfaction and result is also significant so this hypothesis is supported. Third hypothesis is that the job satisfaction is positively related with the employee productivity. The table of correlation shows the positive relation between the two variables. So employee productivity increases as the job satisfactions continues to increase and if job satisfaction decreases the employee productivity also decreases. Fourth hypothesis is that the job satisfaction is mediating between glass ceiling and employee productivity. This hypothesis is checked through the mediation test which consists of four steps. This test did not support the hypothesis so this hypothesis is rejected. Fifth hypothesis is that the discrimination in facilities has negative impact on the employee productivity. This hypothesis is checked by regression. Discrimination in facilities has the negative impact on the employee productivity and it is also significant. So this hypothesis is also supported. The sixth hypothesis is that discrimination in facilities is negatively related with the job satisfaction. This hypothesis is supported because the correlation between them is negative in the table 5. So the discrimination in facilities increases then the satisfaction with the job decreases. The next hypothesis is that the job satisfaction plays the mediating role between the discrimination in facilities and employee productivity. This hypothesis is also checked by the mediation test the result is shown in the table 8 which shows that this hypothesis is not supported. It means that job satisfaction is not mediating between discrimination in facilities and employee productivity. The eights hypothesis that was developed is that salary gap has negative impact on the employee productivity. The hypothesis is not supported as it is checked by regression test which is shown in the table 6. It has negative impact but it is not significant means that if gap is more in salary then employee productivity decreases but not significantly. The ninth hypothesis is that salary gap is negatively related with job commitment. The hypothesis is checked with the correlation which is shown in the table 5 of correlation which shows that the relation between these two variables is negative. So salary gap reduces the job commitment of female employees. The next hypothesis that is developed is that the job commitment is positively related with the employee productivity. The relation is checked with the correlation and hypothesis is supported because results show that there is positive relation between salary gap and job commitment and it is significant. It means more job commitment the more employee productivity. The next hypothesis is that job commitment mediated the relation between the salary gap and employee productivity. This hypothesis is checked by the mediation test and it is not supported. The results show that job commitment does not play a mediating role between salary gap and employee productivity. The t test is also applied to check that whether the level of variables is also applicable on the population. The results are shown in the table 9. This table shows that all the values of p are significant so the level is also the same as the population. The level of job commitment is also checked in the three population related to different income groups that is below 30,000, 30,000-40,000 and more than 40,000. For this purpose the ANOVA is applied but for ANOVA the assumption of levene test should be fulfilled that is its value should be insignificant. The table 10 shows that levene test assumption is not fulfilled so the non-parametric test is used. The non-parametric test is the Kruskal-Willis test. This test is applied and the hypothesis is rejected as its asymptotic value is not significant. So it means that the there is no significant difference between the job commitment of females who are earning less than 30000, 30000-40000 and more than 40000. 7. Implication Through this study the impact of gender discrimination is checked on the employee productivity. The productivity of an employee is much important for an organization. So the management should consider the issue of gender discrimination as it is shown that the gender discrimination has negative impact on the employee productivity. As our sector for this research is the private education institutes which are very important sector for a developing countries so the management should consider reforming its policies. The management should make transparent, merit based recruitment and selection, it should also provide the training for better performance of female employee so that they can be promoted, they could be provided similarly facilities and different incentive so that they compete economically with the men as all these discriminations are effecting their productivity. 8. Limitation This study was only focused to the three dimensions of gender discrimination and employee productivity is the only variable that is measured that effect the productivity of organization. This research was only examining the education sector and the data was collected only from private institutions. The data was also 140 and it was collected only from the schools that are in the city area the educations institutes in the village was not collected so therefore the ability of generalizability of our findings were restricted and this can lead us to the biasness of respondents (Paul et al., 2003). 9. Conclusion This study provided an insight that how the dimensions of gender discrimination affect the productivity of employee. The data has been collected from different private education institutes through questionnaire. After the analysis that we have done on SPSS we can conclude that gender discrimination has a negative impact on the employee productivity which ultimately affect the performance of employee. The result of impact of salary gap on the employee productivity is not significant. So if the organizations want to perform well then they should keep the gender discrimination out of their organizations in order to make their female employees perform well which will be beneficial for the organization. 10. References Channar, Z. A. (2011). Gender Discrimination in Workforce and its Impact. Pak. J. Commer. Soc. Sci, Vol. 5, pp. 177-191. Dixit, V. (2012). A Study about Employee Commitment and its impact. European Journal of Business and Social Sciences, Vol. 1, pp. 34-51. Abbas, S. M. (2010). Gender Based Wage Discrimination and Its Impact on Performance of Blue Collar Workers: Evidence. KASBIT Business Journal, Vol. 3, pp. 45-63. Hiau, Joo. Kee. (2008) Glass ceiling or sticky floor exploring the Australian gender pay gap. The Economic Record, Vol. 82, No.59, pp. 408-427. Foley, S. (2005). Perceptions of Discrimination and Justice: Are there Gender Differences in Outcomes? Group & Organization Management, Vol. 30, pp. 421-452. Ashraf, J, and B. Ashraf (1993) Estimating the Gender Wage Gap in Rawalpindi City. Journal of Development Studies 29:2. Ensher, E. A., Grant-Vallone, E. J., & Donalson, S. I. (2001). Effects of perceived discrimination on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and grievances. Human Resource Development Quarterly, Vol. 12, pp. 53-72. Prudence Pollard, Maxine Taylor and Noba Daher, Health Care Manager; Jan-Mar2007, Vol. 26 Issue 1, p52-63, 12p, 4 charts Ensher, E. A. (2011). Effects of Perceived discrimination on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour and grievances. Human resource development quarterly, Vol. 1. Coomber B, Barriball KL. 2007†Impact of job satisfactions on intent to leave and turnover for hospital based nurses: a review of the research literature†, International Journal of Nursing Studies, Vol. 44, pp. 297-314. Joanne Healy and Zucca J. Linda Mid-American Journal of Business; Spring2004, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp. 55-62. Sen, Amartya, 1999, â€Å"Assessing Human Development Special Contribution† Human Development Report 1999 (New York: UNDP). Shah, Parveen. Memon, Rajab. A. (2004). Socio-economic and demographic status of rural women in Sindh. Proceedings of the international conference on social sciences: endangered and engendered, Fatima Jinnah women university, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, pp. 98-113. Nick, Foster. (1999) another ‘glass ceiling’? The experiences of women professionals and managers on international assignments, Gender, Work and Organization, Blackwell publisher’s ltd., Vol. 6, no. 2, pp.79-89. United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), 2004, Programme of Action: Adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo 1994 Wayne, F. Casico, (1995) Managing Human Resource, Productivity, Quality of work life, Profits, McGraw hill Internationals, 4th ed. pp. 61-116. Susan, Trentham. Laurie, Larwood, (1998) Gender discrimination and the workplace: an examination of rational bias theory, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Jan, 1998, pp. 1-22. Sanchez, J. I., & Brock, P. (1996). Outcomes of perceived discrimination among Hispanic employees: Is diversity management a luxury or a necessity? Academy of Management Journal, 39 (3), 704–719. 11. Appendices Questionnaire We are students of B.sc (Hons) Accounting & Finance, currently doing a research project on gender discrimination and its Impact on employee’s performance for which the questionnaire is being distributed to collect empirical data. Therefore you are kindly requested to fill this questionnaire. The information will be kept confidential and will be used for only academic Purpose it will take 15-20 min to complete the data. Thank you in anticipation (Strongly Disagree = 1, Strongly Agree = 5) Employee Productivity