Ethnic Minority Women in the Scottish Labour Market: Employers' Perceptions

Abstract

This paper contributes to an under-researched area through investigating employers' perceptions of ethnic minority women in the Scottish labour market. Adopting a social constructionist approach which acknowledges agency and structure and incorporates insights relating to organizational and social group culture, the study highlights the influence of individual (micro), organizational (meso) and contextual (macro) factors on ethnic minority women's participation in the labour market. The paper is based on qualitative research involving Scottish employers in the public and private sectors to examine perceptions and practices related to the employment of ethnic minority women. Institutional commitment to equality issues is questioned, although individual instances of engagement with key equality issues were sometimes evident. Proactive recruitment strategies and career support for ethnic minority women and men were not in evidence, and there was low awareness of the unique position of ethnic minority women in employment and society. We argue that these findings call for a multi-level approach to advancing human resources management policy, practice and research within a wider socio-political environment in which the responsibilities and duties of public sector organizations are clarified and more support is provided for organizational promotion of equal opportunities.

Agency and coping strategies for ethnic and gendered minorities at work

“…Similarly, a study by Hutchings et al (2010) of Arab Middle Eastern women working on international assignments found that non-Muslim countries' citizens were prejudiced against female Arabian (that is generally Muslim women), who had more difficulty in coping with aggressive work environments. Kamenou, Netto, and Fearfull (2013) found that organisational commitment to equal employment opportunities in the Scottish labour market is questionable and that there is low awareness on the unique socio-cultural position of ethnic minority women. Similarly, Syed and Pio (2010: p. 130) found in a study of Muslim migrant women in Australia that given multi-level frameworks of diversity e.g., at the macro-societal, meso-organisational and micro-individual, policy planners should be cognisant of ethnic and religious bargains and the context from which these are formed.…”

Ethnic gatekeeping on the shopfloor: a study of bases, motives and approaches

“…Kamenou and Fearfull, 2006;Ogbonna and Harris, 2006) or at institutional/organizational level (see Kamenou et al, 2013;McGinnity and Lunn, 2011), with limited attention paid to the interactions and combined impacts across the levels. Through incorporating the managerial and organizational context, this study finds that what is seemingly discrimination at a single level of individuals and groups reveals more sinister managerial and organizational level discrimination.…”

Guest Editors' Introduction: Diversity and Inclusion in Different Work Settings: Emerging Patterns, Challenges, and Research Agenda

“…Motivated by the passage of the Civil Rights/Equality Acts in the United States and Europe, earlier research (1960s–1980s) focused mainly on the extent of discrimination in the human resource functions, such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal and rewards (Shore et al, ). There has also been considerable research in differences between ethnic and racial groups in terms of job satisfaction, commitment, motivation, leadership, and performance (Kamenou, Netto, & Fearfull, ; McKay & McDaniel, ; Williams & O'Reilly, ). By the 1990s, research on this dimension of diversity began to focus on work teams and the business case for managing an increasingly diverse workforce (S. E. Jackson, Joshi, & Erhardt, ; Mannix & Neale, ).…”