Women in the workforce

Abstract

Purpose While women perform as well as their male counterparts at work, women are drastically underrepresented in the onboarding process to senior leadership. The link between occupational self-efficacy and the role it may play in how men and women make decisions about work has not been done. The purpose of this study is to examine potential differences of occupational self-efficacy, career aspirations and work engagement between women and men. Design/methodology/approach Online surveys were created and sent out as emails and on social network sites including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Findings Findings indicate that occupational self-efficacy has positive effect on career aspirations of women in the workplace. Further, there was no statistically significant difference between occupational self-efficacy and work engagement between men and women. However, men were found to have statistically significantly higher career aspirations than women do. Research limitations/implications While men and women do not differ in occupational self-efficacy or work engagement, men do have higher career aspirations than women do. Although women may believe they can accomplish challenging tasks in the workplace, it does not mean this belief is acted upon. Practical implications The study highlights the importance of occupational self-efficacy and its relation to career aspirations. Individuals who are high in occupational self-efficacy may set their own path in advancing within their career. However, individuals who are low or moderate in occupational self-efficacy may require further encouragement and development using additional resources as a catalyst for advancement guidance. While no differences were found between men and women in occupational self-efficacy, human resource practitioners should develop those individuals who are low or moderate in occupational self-efficacy with coaching, training and/or mentoring to build leadership capacity, increase self-efficacy and career-planning acumen. Social implications Men and women behave differently when seeking career advancement and in their career aspirations. For men, advancement is linked to performance whereas women use a multi-pronged approach focusing on preparing for career success and building role competency. Differences in strategy for advancement mean men will actively engage in behaviors to advance even when they do not have the knowledge or experience to perform in the new role. Conversely, women seek to feel competent in a work role prior to seeking it out. Finding ways to mentor women toward higher self-efficacy for their next career advancement will benefit organizations overall. Originality/value Research examining the role of occupational self-efficacy and its relation to career aspirations does not exist in comparing men and women.

Beliefs about Gender

“…Following Coffman (2014), we ask participants to use a slider scale to indicate which gender, on average, knows more about each category in general. 7 This 4 At Ohio State, participants earned a $5 show-up fee plus an additional $1 for every point earned in the selected part. At Harvard, they earned a $10 show-up fee, $15 for completing the experiment, and an additional $0.25 for every point earned in the selected part.…”

“…We follow this quiz and code one answer as being objectively "correct," though we note that this may be seen as a more subjective category than the others. 7 They use a sliding scale ranging from −1 to 1, where −1 means "women know more" and 1 means "men know more." Participants report Kardashians, Disney, art, cooking, emotion, and verbal as areas of female advantage measure offers a direct measurement of stereotypes that can be compared to the kernel of truth hypothesis.…”

Career Advancement and Gender Equity in Academia

“…Meanwhile, to move career-wise, a candidate must demonstrate aspiration, be intentional, be open to new opportunities, and be 'visible' to get a 'seat at the table of leadership' (Selzer & Robles, 2019, p.120). Hartman & Barber (2020) in their research found no significant difference between men and women in terms of professional self-efficacy which is the indicator of career aspiration; still, men were found to be more career-oriented.…”

“…It can happen, as an educator is a woman's job but a man's career (Limerick, 1999). While women climb the organizational ladder in femaledominated fields, men go to the top by 'glass elevator': once a man occupies a lower position, there is a mentor of the same gender who supervises the man (Williams, 1992;Hartman & Barber, 2020). The study conducted since 1996 across the continents in 48 female-dominated professions, e.g., preschool teacher (proportional rate 0.94), nurses (0.91), receptionist (0.81), males on average are reported to have exactly the same callback rate as female do (Birkelund, 2019).…”

Solutions for tackling workplace gender inequality

“…Despite equal rights and increased openness in the workplace over the preceding decades, issues surrounding women in the workplace and how they perform compared to their male counterparts continue to generate much discussion. A research paper by Hartman and Barber (2020) explores the differences between men and women in the workplace in relation to their self-efficacy, career aspirations, and engagement. The paper aims to uncover how men and women differ in these occupational characteristics, and more specifically whether self-efficacy has an impact on the career goals of women.…”