Suburban employment centres have increasingly become major workplaces for suburban women without consideration of the specific requirements of these workers. This thesis examines the ability of suburban employment centres to respond to the particular needs of women employees by analyzing the relationship between the Greater Vancouver Regional District's (GVRD) objectives for suburban centres and the needs of women office workers. This thesis includes case studies of female workers at suburban firms located in Burnaby and Richmond, British Columbia. The research points to the specific considerations that can contribute to providing women with employment opportunities in a quality working environment. The thesis stresses the necessity for including a gender perspective in urban research, such as the suburbanization of offices and employment. Background information on the GVRD's Livable Region Program and Regional Town Centres strategy is provided, including a description of their objectives, successes and weaknesses, particularly as they pertain to suburban office workers. The growth of suburban offices and employment, and specifically, the development and characteristics of the Burnaby and Richmond town centres are also presented. The empirical research involved interviews of women working in suburban offices in Burnaby and Richmond to establish their actions, perceptions and expectations regarding their office location. The interview responses indicated that there is as much similarity and difference between the women working in Burnaby and Richmond, as there is between those working in town centre and non-town centre locations. Many of the women placed greater emphasis on the type of work than on the location of the office and its relationship to transit, services and amenities. Generally, most women only wanted basic amenities (banking, postal services and a convenience store) and a pleasant, relaxing environment. The findings from the interviews are analyzed in accordance with the objectives of the GVRD's Livable Region Program and Regional Town Centres strategy. Recommendations are made for ensuring that the GVRD's objectives are more cognizant of the requirements of women office workers. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Corporate culture does not allow for talented women to return to the workplace or continue to operate effectively in the workplace whilst managing their domestic responsibilities. This is directly influencing the retention and progression into senior positions of female talent (Baggallay, 2011). While the above statement may be a narrow view considering shifts in many companies' policies aimed at supporting work-family balance, working mothers still have many concerns. Some of these concerns have been highlighted by the participants in this study, and confirm the need to better understand the challenges faced by female employees returning to work after maternity leave. The primary purpose of this study is to identify common themes arising from South African female employees' experience of returning to work following maternity, and to ultimately gain an understanding of the interests of both mothers in the workplace and employers looking to retain and nurture top female talent. The results of this study revealed that, despite viewing work positively, the participants found that returning to work after childbirth was difficult. A significant change in the attitudes of the participants towards their careers after childbirth was also found. This change is not necessarily negative and should not be interpreted as an indication of employees' loss of interest in their careers; it does, however, highlight the need for adequate management of the "workplace pregnancy" to ensure that female employees return to work. Employers who are open to the evolution of best practice for maternity leave, the management of family responsibilities, and striking a balance between employee productivity and fulfilment will position themselves as an employer of choice, thereby attracting high-calibre talent. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

This study was conducted to clarify the use of an annual attitude survey by a certain company, as it relates to that company's female employees. In previous surveys using the Job Descriptive Index, it was noted that the scatter of scores about the mean for the satisfaction with Work, Pay, Promotion, Supervisor, and Co-workers sub-tests was much greater for the females than for the males. It was postulated that the female group might be composed of two or more definable subgroups which had statistically different means. It was also shown that for satisfaction with supervisor, whites had higher satisfaction than blacks. On satisfaction with promotion, persons twenty-five years or younger scored higher than did those who were fifty-five and older, and then those who were from twenty-five to thirty-four years old. All of the above differences were statistically significant at the p < .05 level. No statistically significant differences were found in groups stratified by having dependents, or by tenure. The primary hypothesis was accepted. No subsidiary hypothesis was found acceptable by this study.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the differentials and commonalties in the consumer behavior and attitudes of the working woman as opposed to the non-working woman. The findings of the research are analyzed to determine their impact on the performance of marketing institutions and functions. The major hypothesis tested in this research is: Working women comprise a distinct market segment, which differs in kind from the non-working woman. Both primary and secondary data are used for this study. The principal sources of secondary data are the 1960 and 1970 U.S. Government Census Tracts of the Census of Population. The primary data was obtained from a questionnaire, sent to 1,093 women residing in specific Census Tracts within the Dallas, Texas Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Tracts were selected by geographical dispersion and statistically tolerable limits for female labor force participation and median family income. This criteria insured the inclusion of women for whom the value of work was either high or low. The analysis of the data revealed that working women may be segmented into a distinct consumer market. Demographic characteristics related to consumer behavior were found to be (in order of importance) Age, Income, Education, Age of Children at Home, and Marital Status. The working woman is more likely to be younger, unmarried, have fewer, if any, children at home, and have a family income of less than $10,000 dollars, than her nonworking counterpart. Major differentials, related to work status were found in the areas of Food Shopping, Personal Clothing Shopping, Use of Leisure Time, Newspaper Readership and Television Viewing, Frequency of Eating Out, Use of Vending Machines, Use of Mail Order Catalogs, Attitude Toward and Use of Discount Houses, Opinion and Use of Advertising and Its Portrayal of Women, and Use and Knowledge of Credit. The use of services was more related to income than to work status.

Dagens IT-område är tungt mansdominerad trots att det arbetas med att introducera fler kvinnor till fältet och det arbetas för att behålla dessa kvinnliga anställda [2, 3, 5]. Denna forskning visar hur Virtual Reality (VR) tekniker kan användas som verktyg för att identifiera en av de faktorer som kan vara orsaken till att kvinnor lämnar, nämligen de fysiska miljöstressorerna som påverkar kvinnliga anställda inom IT-branschen. Målet med denna studie var att utvärdera genomförbarheten av ett VR-baserat tillvägagångssätt för att testa faktorer som miljöstressorer. Studien försöker också introducera mer information om VR-baserad testning och observation och vilka fördelar det kan medföra samt ge information till IT-baserade företag där fysiska miljöstressorer kan orsaka missnöje på arbetsplatsen bland kvinnliga anställda. Studien gjordes i fyra steg, en litteraturstudie för att samla in information om situationen för kvinnliga medarbetare samt aktuell forskning inom VR, ett design and creation steg för att skapa en prototyp för att identifiera stressorer på en arbetsplats, en pilotstudie för att bekräfta designbeslut och allmän testbarhet och slutligen ett fallstudie-experiment av kvinnliga anställda på ett IT-konsultföretag för att samla in data och utvärdera VR-lösningen som ett verktyg för att identifiera och utvärdera stressorer på kvinnliga anställda. Uppgifterna från experimentet samlades in genom inspelning av användarinteraktioner med den virtuella miljön och via enkäter. Två enkäter användes, en före VR-upplevelsen och en efter. Detta gjordes för att ta reda på hur VR-upplevelsen påverkat deltagarna och om de kunde identifiera olika stressorer. Resultaten av studien visar att alla fem av de utvärderade miljöstressorerna kunde identifieras med hjälp av VR-lösningen och att man kan potentiellt hitta sätt att minska stress som kvinnliga anställda upplever. Detta genom att tillämpa det som har hittats med en studie som denna studie. Lösningen kan också potentiellt anpassas för att vara tillämplig på andra områden än IT. / The Information Technology field of today is heavily male-dominated despite work to introduce more women to the field and work to retain these female employees [2, 3, 5]. This research shows how Virtual Reality (VR) techniques can be used as a tool to identify one of the factors that could be the cause of women leaving, namely the physical environmental stressors that affect female employees who work in IT industries. The goal of this study was to evaluate the viability of a VR based approach to testing real-life factors such as environmental stressors. The study also tries to introduce more information about VR based testing and observation and what advantages it may bring as well as provide information to IT-based companies on which physical environmental stressors could cause workplace dissatisfaction among their female employees. The study was done in four steps, a literature review to gather information about the situation for female employees and the current research in the field VR, a design and creation step to generate a prototype to gauge the viability of a VR based approach to identifying stressors in a workplace, a pilot study to confirm design decisions and general viability of testing and finally a case study experiment of female employees from one IT consultancy company to collect data and evaluate the VR solution as a tool for identifying and evaluating stressors on female employees. The data from the experiment was collected by recording the user interactions with the virtual environment and by questionnaires. Two questionnaires were used, one before the VR experience and one after. This was done in order to find out how the VR experience influenced the participants and whether they were able to identify various stressors. The results of the study show that all five of the evaluated environmental stressors could be identified using the VR solution and that one could potentially find ways of reducing stress experienced by female employees by applying what was learned using a solution such as this one. The solution could also potentially be further modified to be applicable to other fields than IT.

Power imbalances and gender-based violence (GBV) have increasingly been cited as important determinants putting women at risk of HIV infections. Studies have shown that globally one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The study explored working women’s perceptions of power, gender-based violence and HIV-infection risks. A qualitative, explorative study was conducted among female employees in an airline business in Namibia. Five women participated in in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The findings show that all of the participants experienced power imbalances and GBV in their intimate relationships. All of the women reported emotional or psychological abuse, whilst the majority were subjected to economic abuse, followed by physical abuse, and two alleged having been sexually abused. The study concludes with specific recommendations for the development and successful implementation of workplace policy and programmes to protect and promote women’s rights. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV/AIDS)

SUMARRY The focus of this dissertation is the return to work of women after parental leave. The paper explores the topic of maternity and parental leave and care required by pre-school children. It further looks at the current employment status of these women on the job market, along with the offer of flexible forms of employment. The current situation in the Czech Republic is compared to other countries, mainly member states of the European Union. An empirical study based on a questionnaire survey is also a part of this paper. This survey examines the situation of a number of female employees of VZP ČR on parental leave as well as their managers and employees after return to work from parental leave. Based on the results of the survey, this paper proposes a programme, which should help female employees of VZP ČR with a smoother transition while returning to work.

Women form a critical component of the workforce of South Africa. Therefore the issue of retaining women should be a strategic priority for organisations. This study focused on identifying general retention factors for women in a higher education institution. The research also examined the retention of women from two distinct leadership perspectives: how different leadership styles of managers and the presence of leadership opportunities for women could affect their retention. A cross-sectional quantitative research approach was followed. A non-probability simple random sample was drawn from permanent female staff at a higher education institution. Through the process of exploratory factor analysis, six retention factors were identified, namely unique needs, growth, recognition, work conditions, relationships and support. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted. The results indicated that various leadership constructs predicted the retention of women. Recommendations for retention strategies aimed specifically at women are suggested on the basis of these findings. / Business Management / M. Com.

Power imbalances and gender-based violence (GBV) have increasingly been cited as important determinants putting women at risk of HIV infections. Studies have shown that globally one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The study explored working women’s perceptions of power, gender-based violence and HIV-infection risks. A qualitative, explorative study was conducted among female employees in an airline business in Namibia. Five women participated in in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The findings show that all of the participants experienced power imbalances and GBV in their intimate relationships. All of the women reported emotional or psychological abuse, whilst the majority were subjected to economic abuse, followed by physical abuse, and two alleged having been sexually abused. The study concludes with specific recommendations for the development and successful implementation of workplace policy and programmes to protect and promote women’s rights. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV/AIDS)