Precarious Professionals: Layoffs and Gender Inequality in the Oil and Gas Industry.
As mass layoffs, downsizing, and corporate restructuring have become standard organizational practices, professional work is becoming less stable. We examine the effects of this turbulence on gender inequality through a case study of layoffs in the oil and gas industry. Using a longitudinal survey t...
| Publicado en: | Social Forces Vol. 101; no. 2; pp. 774 - 803 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Dec2022
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=159695825&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 159695825 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00377732 SFR jtl: Social Forces issn: 00377732 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2022 vid: 101 iid: 2 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 159695825 10.1093/sf/soab169 ppf: 774 ppct: 29 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.9MB tig: atl: Precarious Professionals: Layoffs and Gender Inequality in the Oil and Gas Industry. aug: au: Bosky, Amanda Muller, Chandra Williams, Christine L affil: Department of Sociology , University of Texas at Austin su: Gender inequality Layoffs Gender differences (Sociology) Gender Petroleum industry Gas industry sug: subj: Gender inequality Layoffs Gender differences (Sociology) Gender Pipeline Transportation of Natural Gas Conventional oil and gas extraction Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas Extraction Natural Gas Distribution Petroleum and Petroleum Products Merchant Wholesalers (except Bulk Stations and Terminals) Heating oil dealers Pipeline Transportation of Crude Oil Petroleum Bulk Stations and Terminals Petroleum and petroleum products merchant wholesalers Petroleum Lubricating Oil and Grease Manufacturing All Other Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing Petroleum industry Gas industry ab: As mass layoffs, downsizing, and corporate restructuring have become standard organizational practices, professional work is becoming less stable. We examine the effects of this turbulence on gender inequality through a case study of layoffs in the oil and gas industry. Using a longitudinal survey that followed a cohort of recently hired scientists and engineers at a multinational oil and gas company from 2012–2016, we find that a major reduction-in-force during our study resulted in significant gender disparities in firm departures. Results indicate that about seventy percent of the gender gap in departures can be explained by underlying gender differences in the formal layoff criteria and workers' experiences in the firm prior to layoffs, pointing to formal organizational processes as insidious mechanisms driving inequality. The firm stated that layoffs were determined by performance and skill set, but the actual attributes for surviving layoffs turned out to be more malleable and open to bias. Results suggest that the firm's performance rating system may provide a pathway through which women's relational disadvantages became formalized in seemingly bureaucratically neutral ways. Our findings illustrate how increasing insecurity in professional careers may disadvantage women and shed light on the organizational mechanisms that reproduce gender inequality in professional work today. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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