This study seeks to identify the factors that influence young women to take up a career in the construction trades in Northern Ireland and to gain a better understanding of the perceptions that lead them to decide on a career in construction. The study focuses on the views, perceptions, understandings and experiences of young people and utilises a mixed methods approach, consisting of a large scale quantitative study of 14-16 year olds along with follow up qualitative interviews with young women and other key stakeholders in the construction industry. Within the context of this study, Roberts' notion of opportunity structures is used, and extended with Bourdieu's concepts of 'habitus' and 'field', as a way of exploring how young women have come to internalise taken-for-granted ways of thinking about occupations that reflect their wider experiences and relationships at home, school and in the world of work. The study found that the young women's attitudes and perspectives were influenced by the family and their peers. The study also identifies entrenched attitudes, where girls are discouraged, prevented and inhibited from accessing opportunities to explore particular career choices by careers officers and teachers. The study highlights how women on construction sites might be undermined but also highlights that young women are confident in their own abilities. This study is one of the first to consider a range of construction craft career choices for women to contemplate. The implications of this study include the need for schools and colleges to provide equality of opportunity for girls to participate in careers talks and vocational sampling programmes. It is suggested that sector bodies must also seek to promote and support women in construction apprenticeship programmes and that construction sector employers must implement improved monitoring and support mechanisms for female workers.

The objective of the research is to deepen the understanding on how social norms influence wives’s freedom to achieve well-being through their participation in salaried vs. reproductive and traditional self employment activities. The capability approach is used as a framework of thought and as a means to assess wives welfare. Thus the research site was based in two towns belonging to the Tehuacán region. Following the NAFTA treaty in 1994, Tehuacán experienced a surge of textile assembly plants. These offered salaried job opportunities for women in rural towns of the area where previously they where non existent. Information was gathered initially by applying in depth interviews followed by a representative survey. Social norms are defined as informal moral rules that are enforced by social approval and disapproval. Findings indicate that in both towns, three main moral arguments sustain the norm discouraging wives’ participation in assembly plants. The first indicates that wives are home makers. The second states that women working for assembly plants are promiscuous. The last refers to men’s obligation as breadwinners. Further, two mechanisms by which social norms influence individuals are recognized: internalization of the moral arguments and social sanctions (criticism and gossip) by different reference groups. Additionally, because wives live in households they bargain their participation in assembly plants with their husbands. Thus the influence of social norms on each, wives and husbands was investigated as well as on their decision making process. Biprobit regressions relating the extent to which each spouse disagrees with the prevailing moral arguments to the probability of wives’ participation in assembly plants were estimated. Further, the impact social sanctions of each identified reference group have on wives’ probability to work for assembly plants were calculated using Probit Regressions.

Literature on employment in tourism addresses a division between tourism workers in gender and race. Nevertheless, there has been little attention to these issues to date. This thesis contributes to the knowledge on gender issues in the Egyptian tourism workplace through a case study of women's employment in travel agencies and the factors influencing their career development depending on a sequential dominant-less dominant mixed method approach. The thesis explores the representation and departmental distribution of women in travel agencies and the organisational policies set in place to support their career development through a survey study. It further explores the different factors influencing women's career development through a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Quantitatively, women formed 26% of the workforce in the Egyptian travel agencies. Women occupied 35% of the managerial positions in the public agencies and 25% of these positions in the private ones. Women dominate both as employees or middle managers in the departments that practice office work and are less present in the operational and ground handling departments. Public travel agencies and 55% of private agencies have written policies for selection and recruitment. Public agencies and 75% of private agencies are committed to "equal pay for equal jobs". None of the public or private agencies have written policies for handling sex discrimination and sexual harassment. Both public and private agencies apply family-friendly arrangements to support women's careers. Such arrangements are more likely effective in the public than in the private agencies, however, both public and private agencies do not provide in-site or off-site childcare facilities. The major body of the work is a qualitative study of the factors influencing women's career development in the Egyptian travel agencies. Semi-structured interviews with women and men employers, managers, employees, consultants and tourism academics are supplemented with single sex and mixed focus group interviews with tourism undergraduates. These provide a rich picture of the factors promoting and constraining women's career development. The thesis concludes that women's career development in the Egyptian travel agencies is influenced by three groups of closely interrelated, overlapping and interacting factors: the personal; organisational; societal, which play an important role in shaping the extent and nature of women's involvement in employment. Force field analysis identified nine key forces working for and twelve key forces working against women's career development in the Egyptian travel business. The thesis makes a contribution to understanding women's lives and experiences in an Egyptian context and challenges the migration of Western approaches to women's issues to other contexts based on different value sets.

This thesis consists of three essays on career and family decisions of women over the life cycle. The trade-offs surrounding career and family are paramount. ‘Fertility dip’ or ‘honeymoon dip’ in employment rates has been present in Japan. The fall in employment rates coincides with the timing of marriage and fertility. The proportion of part-time workers increases in the marriage duration whereas the proportion of full-time workers is stably low among married women. Changes in family structure alter an individual’s tax liability. In particular, households with a low-income secondary earner are eligible for tax deduction and exemption. Therefore, the current tax system may be suspected to cause lower female employment, especially in full-time job. The goal of the thesis is to qualify conceivable policy impacts on career and family decisions of women. The first essay is ‘Labor Supply Responses to the 1990s Japanese Tax Reforms’. This essay extends a canonical labor supply model and estimates labor supply elasticity with respect to net-of-tax rates using a series of tax reforms in Japan during the 1990s. The second essay is ‘Heterogeneity in Return to Work Experience: A dynamic Model of Female Labor Force Participation.’ This essay considers a dynamic model of labor force participation and provides structural estimates of heterogeneous returns to work experience. The third essay is ‘Marital and Occupational Choices of Women: A Dynamic Model of Intra-household Allocations with Human Capital Accumulation’. This essay develops a dynamic discrete-choice model of marital and employment status and estimates occupational earnings equations. The share of household budget allocated to an individual is endogenously determined in the structural model. Occupational earning equations account for the effects of work experience on current earnings, future earnings, marital status, and intra-marital bargaining power.

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The areas relevant to the position of women in society were identified and examined in the context of the European Community. Community policy initiatives for women were based upon the founding Treaties. Article 119 of the European Economic Community Treaty covered equal pay and this Article constituted the framework for women's policy to encompass eventually the domains of employment, social security, and education and training. Three Directives were enacted in the fields of equal pay, employment and social security to form a core of Community equality legislation. This legislation was backed up by financial provisions enabling the European Social Fund to be used for the purposes of training women entering or re-entering the labour market. However, not all the initiatives led to legislative success. But, by the end of the period under review, a coherent policy for women was apparent when a comprehensive action programme for women was proposed. The impact of the European Community legislation for women upon the Member States was analysed. Progress was slow and variable. To monitor national developments, the Community devised a number of methods which included working parties, studies and reports, and meetings of experts. Eventually, infringement procedures were commenced to ensure compliance from the Member States. The success of infringement proceedings was demonstrated since a number of national governments were forced to enact legislation which they might not otherwise have considered. The existence of these Directives enabled women (and men) to institute equality cases before the national courts. A number of preliminary rulings before the Court of Justice clarified and extended the principle of equal pay.

This study examines three previously unconnected areas: authenticity, coaching and women. Despite the growing interest in coaching, it is still in its infancy in its academic credentials with a paucity of empirical research undertaken to date. In contrast to the extensive research that has been undertaken on the issues that women experience in the workplace, there is little research available that looks specifically at coaching this group. Using heuristic inquiry, nine women collaborated as co-researchers to explore the phenomenon of coaching women towards authenticity within the workplace; specifically within the context of higher education. Data was collected in three cycles during a period of thirteen months and took various forms. Informal conversational interviews lasting between 1.5 and 2 hours were held in each cycle with each co-researcher. Supplementary data such as e-mails and notes from meetings was also provided on a voluntary basis. Using morning pages as a means of journal data was an unusual approach but one that intrigued and absorbed many of the co-researchers. For the more creative, the option was given to consider music, film, art, poetry, metaphor or image that conjured up the essence of their experience. Thematic analysis was undertaken identifying patterns, clusters and categories. In establishing both the group depiction and the creative synthesis (that is essential to heuristic inquiry) a departure was made from the established recommendation where it is suggested that a few co-researchers are selected who typify the group. For this study, all the co-researchers were included in both the group depiction and creative synthesis which comprise two woven tapestries. The main findings from the study are that coaching can provide support and contribute to women’s development of authenticity and that there are three overall areas that can affect and influence women’s authenticity: working in a safe environment, raising one’s profile and having insight. These findings add to the theoretical knowledge of coaching and will inform future academic and practitioner studies into the exploration of coaching women towards authenticity.

The accuracy of the occupational enumeration of women in the Victorian censuses, and the potential for problems created by the under or mis-enumeration of women's work, has been a source of much debate and discussion over the last 25 years. The principle aim of this thesis has been to ascertain the extent of the under and mis-enumeration, and to question whether the census is as poorly enumerated as has been suggested. The accuracy of the argument that the Victorian Domestic Ideology negatively influenced the recording of women's work is also examined. This has been achieved through the examination of the Census Enumerator's Books in rural, provincial and urban communities, comparing the data contained within these with that held in other primary sources. These include such diverse documents as wage books, workhouse and county asylum admission and discharge registers, newspaper articles, court reports, local histories and contemporary surveys. Geographical coherence has been maintained by focusing on women living in East Anglia and London. Through the careful analysis of the documents available, and the innovative use of varying methodologies, it has been possible to compare and contrast the occupational enumeration of married women living in many different locales and working in diverse occupations across 60 years of history. Through this it has been possible to observe the ways in which the census, far from ignoring the work of married women, mirrors closely the working patterns described in other primary sources and histories. The thesis argues that, whilst it cannot be suggested that all work carried out by women will be found in the census, a far greater percentage is recorded than was previously suggested. Furthermore, the census offers an insight into women's working patterns and experiences, adding to our knowledge of women's work and the ebb and flow of working life.

In this thesis we look at labour market participation and well- being experiences of individuals employed in two gendered informal sector occupations: sex work and domestic work. I reflect on the similarities and the differences between the trades and analyse how that reflects on the labour market and well-being outcome for the two trades. Both the trades constitute work that is traditionally considered ‘woman’s work’ and are seen to replace the role that housewives are expected to play. Both the trades require little or no formal education and in much of the world including India, the trades are both largely unorganised which fall within the grey area of the legislative framework. However, we argue that the trades differ significantly because of the stigma attached in the trade. While there is some stigma attached to both the trades. The stigma associated with sex work is moral stigma as against the physical stigma associated with domestic work. This means that though domestic work is looked down upon as dirty, it is considered a ‘necessary dirt’ while sex work is tainted as morally degraded. The thesis is organised around four research questions which are structured within nine chapters. In the first chapter we introduce and briefly describe the structure of the thesis. In the second we describe the organisation of sex work and domestic work in India and review the recent literature of the two trades. In the third chapter we discuss the methodology including the collection of qualitative and quantitative data from 247 sex workers and 274 domestic workers (part time) living and working in two Indian cities- Delhi and Kolkata. In this thesis we attempt to answer four main research questions which are also laid out in the Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 we discuss the first question which corresponds to an ongoing debate in the literature as to why sex work pays more than other trades that require similar levels of skill. Using pooled data of the two occupations we look at the difference in the earning levels in the two occupations, the vulnerability to abuse and the subjective happiness of women in the two occupations. Using counterfactual analysis we find that women in sex work earn more than what they would have earned had they been domestic workers. They are also less likely to be happy in comparison to what would have been the case had they been domestic workers. We contend that to some extent the differences can be explained by the stigma attached to (the sex worker automatically is tainted if she enters the trade). We also look at the selection of the individuals into the two trades and find that abuse in the past (either at home or in past occupations) significantly increased the probability that the individual is a sex worker. We discuss institutional factors that determine the outcomes for individuals in these two occupations in Chapter 5. We also engage in a descriptive analysis of the two markets using the framework of institutional economics and provide descriptive models for the markets for sex work and domestic work. We additionally discuss the idea of bargaining power, a concept that we use in the subsequent chapters. In Chapter 6 we look at the process of contract formation in sex work. Sex workers often enter informal contracts with intermediaries that enable them to function in the market. Given the social and legal status of the trade, the formation and nature of contracts are usually characterised by incomplete information and cannot be legally enforced. In this paper we build a theoretical model of contract formation as a cooperative bargaining model based on Svejnar (1986). The model relaxes Nash’s axiom of symmetry to incorporate unequal bargaining power between the sex worker and the intermediary, which for the sake of the model is interpreted as the brothel. The model makes predictions on hours worked and how the earnings from the client are divided between the sex worker and the brothel. The theoretical model predicts that the higher the brothel’s relative bargaining power (interpreted as the brothel’s control and surveillance over the sex worker), the higher the number of hours the sex worker has to work. The share of income that the sex worker retains is determined by two factors: 1) the certainty from the brothel’s point of view that the agreement will be reached and the contract will be respected; and 2) the sex worker’s marginal disutility to additional hours worked. The empirical estimation is limited by our inability to observe the sex worker’s utility function. The empirical results indicate that brothels with high vigilance impose higher number of hours worked on the sex worker and retain higher proportions of what the client pays. Sex workers who indicate higher disutility from their occupation (those who believe their occupation is ‘bad’ or ‘unacceptable’) are likely to retain a lower proportion of what the client pays for their services. In Chapter 7 we investigate the relationship between the bargaining power of domestic workers and their labour market outcomes. We introduce the idea of ‘subjective bargaining power’ which is the individual’s perception of their own bargaining power and is used as a proxy for their actual bargaining power. We ask whether the bargaining power of the individual plays a role in determining labour market outcomes, in particular the number of hours worked and the notice period given (by either the worker or the employer) at the termination of the last employment. We build two indices of subjective bargaining power using principal component analysis. Since we expect some endogeneity, we instrument bargaining power with the domestic workers’ ‘availability of information regarding getting to the station’. We find bargaining power to significantly reduce both hours worked as well as notice period given, indicating that women with higher bargaining power work lower number of hours and prefer flexible contracts. In the Chapter 8 we look at the effect of the individual’s subjective bargaining power on their well-being outcomes, considering both sex workers and domestic workers. Well-being is defined in terms financial independence, decision making, trust, happiness and vulnerability to abuse for women involved in both the occupations, and additionally in terms of mobility for sex workers. Findings indicate that for both sex workers and domestic workers bargaining power does significantly impact well-being outcomes. We also discuss qualitative reflections on well-being in this chapter. In Chapter 9 we conclude and discuss the contributions and limitations of this thesis.