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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a first impact assessment of the Italian quota law in order to explore whether “gender equality by law” contributes to redefining, albeit in part, consolidating and establishing positions of power and decision making. The paper analyses these dynamics by focusing on a specific economic sector, the banking sector. The analysis strives to determine: whether binding quotas are giving rise to an apparent enforcement by building up new distortionary equilibria (such as new forms of horizontal segregation); what extent the financial crisis has impacted on the rhetoric of female representation, and whether it has pushed towards a “regenerative” organizational change aimed at achieving a more inclusive and egalitarian image.Design/methodology/approach The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 reviews the theoretical and empirical debate on gender diversity and quota impact. Section 2 illustrates the recent EBA Survey’s outcome on gender diversity in the European banking system and focuses on the Italian scenario; Section 3 describes the Italian banking system and gives a first impact assessment on Italian banks of the mandatory gender quotas in Italy (the so-called “Golfo-Mosca law,” named after MPs who proposed the law); some qualitative considerations are carried out on the reactions of Italian banks to the financial crisis in terms of “bridge policies” aimed at corresponding to a higher demand of customer satisfaction and fairness. Section 4 concludes and summarizes the finding of the study.Findings The Italian banking system is not so dramatically ranked among the EU countries as in the recent past. The gender rebalance in management bodies could be considered rather satisfying (the number of female directorships grew by 7 p.p. from 2013 to March 2016). If we compare ten-year-old findings, the number of women on board of directors has tripled. But data clearly show a dichotomy due to significant differences between listed and non-listed banks. In non-listed banks, women are still relegated to an under-represented position, reaching only 11 percent on boards of directors (as against 26 percent in listed banks). The data confirm the results found in non-financial sector that women are significantly better represented on audit boards. In accordance with all previous studies, no relevant changes can be noticed on key-decision roles: no CEOs or Directors general are women in listed banks, and women are always more represented in non-executive functions.Originality/value The paper analyses the law experience in Italy (law that is considered a best practice by the European Commission also because it is a unique case in Europe) as a significant case study by proving that rules such as temporary binding gender quotas (introduced by law in 2011) can be useful, but not always enough to remove blocking or distortive factors in organizational ladders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The aim of this paper is to describe the use of sequence analysis to model trajectories of life-course economic activity status, within a broader research agenda aimed at improving understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic position and health. Design/methodology/approach — The analysis used data on 288 participants of the Boyd Orr Stratified Sub-Sample, comprising a combination of prospective and retrospective information on economic activity status, as well as health in early old age. Economic activity was coded as a time-based sequence of states for each participant based on six-month periods throughout their lives. Economic activity was classified as: pre-labour market; full-time employment; part-time employment; housewife; made redundant; stopped work due to illness; retired; other unemployed; or not applicable. Optimal matching analysis was carried out to produce a matrix of distances between each sequence, which was then used as the basis for cluster analysis. Findings — The optimal matching analysis resulted in the classification of individuals into five economic activity status trajectories: full-time workers (transitional exit), part-time housewives, career breakers, full-time workers (late entry, early exit), and full-time housewives. Originality/value — The paper presents the case for using sequence analysis as a methodological tool to facilitate a more interdisciplinary approach to the measurement of the life-course socioeconomic position, in particular attempting to integrate the empirical emphasis of epidemiological research with the more theoretical contributions of sociology. This may in turn help generate a framework within which to examine the relationships between life-course socioeconomic position and outcomes such as health in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the inequality in career constructions among freshmen in an elite university in Shanghai, China. The authors first investigated whether rural students and those from municipalities (zhi xia shi) and provincial capitals differ in their career awareness when arriving at college. After finding the difference, the authors explored how this initial difference in career awareness evolves and influences the career construction process in the freshman year.Design/methodology/approach This study used a complementary mixed-methods approach to monitor a cohort of students’ career construction process and the evolvement of their career awareness throughout the freshman year (n=210). Data collection included two surveys: students’ self-reflections and in-depth interviews to capture a holistic story.Findings The findings revealed that students differed in career awareness when arriving at college. This initial difference further evolved in the first year of college: students from municipalities and provincial capitals considered college a part of their career paths and began timely to construct their careers, whereas students from rural areas lagged behind. This study suggests that college maintains inequality, reinforcing the initial gap in career construction based on students’ family background.Originality/value College students differ in career prospects and associated skills when transitioning from school to work. Only a few studies have explored the role of college in shaping the career construction process during the college years. By exploring the process of career construction among freshmen, this study contributes to the growing literature on school-to-work transition and educational inequality in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of age, work experience and gender on individuals’ propensity (inclination or readiness) to trust others.Design/methodology/approach The authors gathered literature arguments and developed a basic theoretical model explored through an empirical study. The study uses a sample of 324 retail business owners/operators in the United Arab Emirates. The authors developed and tested three main hypotheses.Findings Age has a significant positive impact on the propensity to trust. Work experience has a similar effect, but to a lesser degree. Females are generally less predisposed to trust. However, the impact of age on trust was significant for both males and females.Research limitations/implications This study focuses on a small sample of individuals in a single country. A larger multi-context study would be beneficial in verifying the above findings. Also, the concept of trust used in this study is general and focuses mainly on general likelihood/aspirations to trust others. Future research could examine the relationship of age to different aspects of trust and in different circumstances.Practical implications The findings of this study have several practical benefits. They draw the attention of human resource management practitioners and policy makers to the importance of age, work experience and gender in shaping trust relationships in both societal and business contexts.Originality/value The impact of age (and aging) work and society in general is a growing concern. Despite the number of studies examining trust and the process of trust formation, the relationships between age, gender and trust have been largely overlooked in previous research. This study attempts to address this gap and provides useful evidence likely to inspire further/future research on this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine Emiratisation and its antecedents from the perspective of national policy impacting private sector organisations' cultures, working conditions and job specifications. Design/methodology/approach - The qualitative and quantitative survey covers a sample of 20 executives or their peers in human resource management of large enterprises and relevant authorities in the public sector. Findings - Barriers to Emiratisation were found to include low standards of education and skills of potential employees, inadequate English, and a lack of trust by employers in the work-readiness of United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals. From individuals' perspectives, it was reported that the nationals considered that the private sector offered little career opportunity and low wages in comparison to the public sector. Research limitations/implications - This analysis may be viewed as a preliminary step to identify and prioritise the issues affecting Emiratisation. The paper's findings should be assessed from two perspectives. First, the key informants were from one region only, the Emirate of Dubai; and second, that this regionalism reflected on the breadth of companies approached to join the study. Thus, the findings of the present paper may be seen as preliminary in nature, and are intended to stimulate further research interest in factors impeding Emiratisation: government policy, organisational effectiveness and applicant preparedness. Originality/value - To place Emiratisation in context, the literature on social capital predictors was examined to identify dimensions in the social fabric of the UAE and draw out parallel phenomena as themes for this study. With a paucity of Gulf literature on this theme, this paper augments social capital literature by analysis of opinion of business and public sector executives, illustrated by data drawn from the fields of banking and insurance in the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — This paper seeks to study the influence of industrialisation, urbanisation and means of communication on the association between father's and son's occupational status in all 117 municipalities in the province of Zeeland, The Netherlands from 1811 to 1890. Design/methodology/approach — Hypotheses from both the logic of industrialism thesis and reproduction theory are tested with multi-level analyses on data on the individual as well as the contextual level. First, the paper studies the influence of contextual factors on intergenerational occupational status attainment. Second, it uses relatively large-scale individual and contextual historical data over a long period of time. Findings — The paper adds to the current literature by showing that the association of father's and son's occupational status differs between municipalities and over time and that these differences are partly explained by industrialisation, urbanisation and means of communication. All findings point in one direction, that the province of Zeeland became a more closed society in the nineteenth century. This finding goes against claims that the increasing openness in Dutch society, found after the Second World War, is a trend that came about with the rise of industrialisation. Originality/value — The results provide support for the reproduction theory and they refute the logic of the industrialism thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — This paper aims to present reasons why social classifications which use occupations should seek to adopt "specific" approaches which are tailored to the country, time period and gender of the subjects under study. Design/methodology/approach — The relative motivations for adopting a specific approach to social classifications are discussed and theoretical perspectives on specificity and empirical evidence on the contribution of specific approaches are reviewed. Also the practical costs of implementing specific social classifications are evaluated, and the authors' development of the "GEODE" data service (grid-enabled occupational data environment), which seeks to assist this process, is discussed. Findings — Specific approaches make a non-trivial difference to the conclusions drawn from analyses of occupation-based social classifications. It is argued that the GEODE service has reduced the practical challenges of implementing specific measures. Research limitations/implications — There remain conceptual and pragmatic challenges in working with specific occupation-based social classifications. Non-specific ("universal') measures are adequate for many purposes. Practical implications — The paper argues that there are few excuses for ignoring specific occupation-based social classifications. Originality/value — The paper demonstrates that recent technological developments have shifted the balance in the long-standing debate between universal and specific approaches to occupation-based social classifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — This paper aims to conceptualise and measure the technical aspects of the division of labour (DoL) with a new survey indicator of technical complexity (ITC) at work. Design/methodology/approach — Two technical criteria skills and functions are used to distinguish positions in the DoL and to cluster and rank them into a 28-category ordinal survey ITC. The indicator's construct-validity is tested by assessing the correlation between these criteria and occupational activities' levels of substantive and organizational complexity as uncovered by categorical principal component analysis. Criterion-validity is assessed by testing the indicator's ability to predict occupational prestige, absolutely and relatively to other indicators. Findings — The indicator shows high levels of construct and criterion-validity. Originality/value — The paper contributes to a better understanding and measurement of technical constraints in the DoL, facilitating a future evaluation of their impact on class inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1960s, the health system has seen the professionalisation of a new occupation, carer of the elderly. The form and result of this process differs between countries according to their welfare systems. In this paper, the differences will be analysed in a comparison between two countries, Germany and Sweden, the representatives of two prototypical welfare systems. Sweden is renowned for its state-oriented universal welfare system, whereas Germany is considered to be an example of a conservative, family-oriented system. The process of professionalisation and its consequences for the carer and the care receivers will be looked at from the perspective of gender and social inequality. On a theoretical basis, this paper includes gendered and mainstream welfare state approaches and thus combines issues of gender and social inequality, as well as theories in the area of professionalisation. Empirically, the development of the new occupation is examined in two phases. In the first step, it looks at the time-period between the 60s and 80s, when the state-oriented vs. family-oriented principles of care for the elderly were established. The 90s brought about change in both countries. In Germany, with the introduction of the Long-term Care Insurance, a new mode of care has developed, shared between informal family care, and public or private providers. In Sweden, budget restrictions in the 90s in this area led to a reorganisation, restructuring and reduction of the role of the welfare state. The consequences of the different processes in both countries will be discussed from the perspective of the predominantly female employees and the receivers of care. The results reveal a complex interaction between patterns of gender and social inequality and welfare state policies for the carers and care receivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professions, as a special (privileged) category of service-sector occupations, are nowadays perceived as under threat from organizational, economic and political changes. Many of these threats concern the medical profession (and sometimes the legal profession). The use of the discourse of professionalism in other occupational contexts is seldom addressed, however, yet it is this, which is providing a much more interesting challenge to social scientists. In this paper the increased deployment of the concept 'professional' is critically discussed and the power of the discourse of professionalism is explored more closely. The increased use of 'professionalism' in new and existing occupational contexts is considered as a mechanism for facilitating and promoting social and occupational change. Many of these occupations provide services and often women constitute the bulk of the practitioners in these occupational groups. It is time to look again then at professionalism as a set of persuasive ideas or an ideology and to examine the power of these ideas and this discourse in terms of social order and control of occupational groups and individual 'professionalised' practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a well established fact that the entry of women into higher-level professional occupations has not resulted in their equal distribution within these occupations. Indeed, the emergence and persistence of horizontal and vertical gender segregation within the professions has been at the heart of the development of a range of alternative theoretical perspectives on both the 'feminisation process' and the future of the 'professions' more generally. Through an in-depth comparative analysis of the recent changes in the organisation and administration of the medical profession in Britain and France, this paper draws upon statistical data and biographical interviews with male and female general practitioners (GPs) in both countries in order to discuss and review a variety of approaches that have been adopted to explain and analyse the 'feminisation' process of higher-level professions. Our conclusions review the theoretical debates in the light of the evidence we have presented. It is argued that, despite important elements of continuity in respect of gendered occupational structuring in both countries, national variations in both professional and domestic gendered architectures lead to different outcomes as far as the extent and patterns of internal occupational segregation are concerned. Both female and male doctors are currently seeking-with some effect--to resist the pressures of medicine on family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter deals with a long and intense conflict between nurses and nursing assistants within the context of the Norwegian health care system. Caring work is culturally coded as female. A major issue embedded in the conflict concerns the definition of knowledge. The issue, it is argued, is not so much what constitutes knowledge, but what counts as professional expertise and theoretical knowledge when it comes to women's work, which is devalued. As a middle-class women's occupation, nurses have strong aspirations that their work be acknowledged as a full profession. Their knowledge base is a combination of practical and theoretical knowledge, profoundly different from medicine they themselves argue. Such a 'professionalisation' of care work is, however, threatened by the mere presence of nursing assistants and the overlapping work they do. For various reasons--not least strategic--the concept of basic care was introduced more than ten years ago. The term was rather vaguely defined, but seems to comprise all personal care for the patient and the patient's body, including intimate tasks such as washing, dealing with bodily waste products, feeding, etc. Making basic care the exclusive preserve of nurses and delegating the more 'housewifely' tasks to nursing assistants effectively excludes the latter from caring work and, not surprisingly, they strongly oppose existing working boundaries and the redistribution of tasks. We investigate the power relationship between the two occupational groups and examine dual closure strategies. Interestingly, nurses have invested in a precarious strategy by reclaiming the hands-on bodywork that is often labelled 'dirty work'. In Western societies these tasks are commonly left to working-class women. The conflict is thus about both gender and class in an androgynous professional world. The aim is to explore the occupational conflict and to trace some of its implications for theorising professions. Professional tasks, knowledge... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the newly enlarged European Union, the issue of internationalisation of systems of professional regulation is becoming significant. This article considers what these processes mean for nation-state models of professional self-regulation and governance. It is suggested that the professions are becoming very active in these processes: that the professions are internationalising. The first sections consider the differences between Anglo-American and European modes of production of professionalism and the historical role of professions in the development of social cohesion, integration and legitimacy in both federal and European nation-states. The article continues with a preliminary examination of some of the mechanisms and processes that promote professional integration at the international level. The article concludes by raising some critical questions about how internationalisation is re-working and re-defining that category of occupations called professions. It is argued that the models of state-professions relations, which are dominant in sociological theory, are in need of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]