‘Race’ and ‘culture’ in the gendering of labour markets: South Asian young Muslim women and the labour market

Racialized gendering of the accountancy profession: toward an understanding of Chinese women’s experiences in accountancy in New Zealand

“…The most important ethnic group amongst those previously ignored ethnic minority women are the Chinese women. Studies on the labour market experiences of Chinese women accountants are almost non-existent although some attention has been paid to the career developments of Asian women in the labour market (Almquist, 1979;Knocke, 1989Knocke, , 1991Phizacklea, 1983Phizacklea, , 1994Brah, 1994;Woollett et al, 1994). This paper examined the experiences of Chinese women who participate in the accountancy profession in New Zealand so as to gain insights into the experiences and concerns of non-white, non-black and non-indigenous ethnic minority women accountants in a western accountancy profession, whose experiences have been overlooked in the current accounting literature.…”

“…The erroneous stereotyped images of Chinese/Asian women as subservient, submissive, passive, helpless, male-dependent, uneducated and socially isolated are the reflection of the threefold structural subordination the Chinese/Asian women suffer as workers, as women and as members of ethnic minority groups within the mainstream society. Brah (1994) have created the notion of 'Oriental female' which occupies a position of the quintessential "Other" -as woman and ethnic minority -in this discursive space (Said, 1978;Kabbani, 1986). Whether she is exoticized, represented as ruthlessly oppressed and in need of liberation, or read as a mysterious representation of religious fundamentalism, she is often perceived as the bearer of 'races' and cultures that are constructed as inherently threatening to the presumed superiority of western civilizations.…”

“…Those discriminatory practices employed to exclude women and ethnic minorities from particular tasks such as management consulting or audit supervisory roles, because they are "inappropriate" areas or industries for them, are commonly found in western male dominated corporate culture (Lehman, 1990;Stivers and Campbell, 1995). These ideological practices, rooted in the beliefs and impressions of accounting as a techno-rational discipline, have been employed to exclude and obstruct women and ethnic minorities already socialized into accepting the suitability of employment (Lehman, 1990, 149 This social stereotyping of these minority groups has also contributed to the feminization and/or racialization of accounting tasks reflecting the subordinated position of these groups within the society (Bamber and Bylinksi, 1982;Benke and Rhode, 1984;Cushing and Loebbecke, 1986;Tomkins, 1986;Lehman, 1990;Loft, 1992;Pratt and Beaulieu, 1992;Roberts and Coutts, 1992;Kirkham and Loft, 1993;McKeen and Bujaki, 1994;Gammie and Gammie, 1995;Stivers et ai., 1995;Khan et ai., 199617;Larkin, 1997;Flynn et ai., 1996;Kim, 2001; also see, Hill et ai., 1984, Brah, 1994, Phizacklea, 1994 for the racialization of labour market in general). There is a wide-spread misperception that among three recognized specific functional areas in accounting -that is, audit, taxation and management consulting -certain areas in accounting might not be suitable for women and ethnic minorities due to the different personality types of these minority groups.…”

Mental and physical health: re-assessing the relationship with employment propensity

“…Such underemployment has been shown to consistently harm the health of the general population (Bartley, 1994). Brah (1993) emphasises that labour market inequality in terms of occupational status and income are mediated through both gender and ethnicity. Labour market discrimination may act to restrict access to high skilled/high paid employment for ethnic minority workers, thereby confining individual's to certain types of low paid and low status occupations associated with poor working conditions.…”

Labour market entries and exits of women from different origin countries in the UK

“…Existing research has tended to identify unexplained differences between groups in their LFP, even after taking account of individual characteristics and structural context, with a particular focus on the low participation of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women. Qualitative and quantitative accounts have emphasised the potential role of life-course events as well as different orientations to family and gender roles and religiosity (Brah 1993;Dale et al 2006;Holdsworth and Dale 1997), at the same time as some convergence across generations (Ahmad 2001;Georgiadis and Manning 2011). Hence, we hypothesize that, for the first time in a UK study, we can explain ethnic difference in women's labour market entry and exit rates by adding to relevant individual characteristics direct compositional differences between ethnic groups in gender role attitudes, religiosity and specified life-course events.…”