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This book offers an analysis of the key issues faced by women in the labor market in the 21st century. It identifies the factors that inhibit women's participation in the labor market, studies occupational segregation by gender and analyzes labor transitions, questioning whether the experience for men and women differs. It also explores the effect of entrepreneurship support programs on women's economic and social positions, as well as the public policy implications of women's entry into the labor market. The book investigates working women in Mexico and also offers comparisons with countries such as Spain and developing countries within Eastern Europe. It explores a variety of topics, from a gender perspective, such as labor participation, the feminization of poverty, migration, wage gaps, changes in employment, informal work programs and public policy. Finally, the book offers a topical and timely analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic, tracking the gender inequalities among men and women in labor markets. The main market for the book is the global community of academics, researchers and graduate students in the fields of economics and, specifically, in the study of the labor market from a gender perspective. It will also be beneficial to government institutions responsible for the creation of public programs and policies, as well as non-governmental and non-profit organizations.

Veterinary medicine has undergone sweeping changes in the last few decades. Women now account for 55 percent of the active veterinarians in the field, and nearly 80 percent of veterinary students are women. However, average salaries have dropped as this shift has occurred, and even with women in the vast majority, only 25 percent of leadership roles are held by women. These trends point to gender-based inequality that veterinary medicine, a profession that tilts so heavily toward women, is struggling to address. How will the profession respond? What will this mean for our students and schools? What will it mean for our pets entrusted to veterinarian care? Who has succeeded in these situations? Who is taking action to lead change? What can we learn from them to lead the pack in our lives? Leaders of the Pack, by Julie Kumble and Dr. Donald Smith, explores key themes in leadership and highlights women in veterinary medicine whose stories embody those themes. In it, Kumble and Smith cull over three years of interviews to profile a wide variety of women as they share triumphs and challenges, lucky as well as tough breaks, and the sound advice and words that inspired them to take their careers in unanticipated directions. By sharing unique stories that illuminate different paths to leadership and reflecting on best practices through commentary and research, Leaders of the Pack will allow more female leaders to create wider pathways to the top of their profession.

Gender inequality in the workplace persists, even in nations with some of the most progressive laws and generous family support policies. Yet the dimensions on which inequality is measured—levels of women's employment, number of hours worked, sex segregation by occupations and wages—tell very different stories across industrialized nations. By examining federally guaranteed parental leave, publicly provided child care, and part-time work, and looking across multiple dimensions of inequality, Becky Pettit and Jennifer Hook document the links between specific policies and aggregate outcomes. They disentangle the complex factors, from institutional policies to personal choices, that influence economic inequality. Gendered Tradeoffsdraws on data from twenty-one industrialized nations to compare women's and men's economic outcomes across nations, and over time, in search of a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of gender inequality in different labor markets. Pettit and Hook develop the idea that there are tradeoffs between different aspects of gender inequality in the economy and explain how those tradeoffs are shaped by individuals, markets, and states. They argue that each policy or condition should be considered along two axes—whether it promotes women's inclusion in or exclusion from the labor market and whether it promotes gender equality or inequality among women in the labor market. Some policies advance one objective while undercutting the other. The volume begins by reflecting on gender inequality in labor markets measured by different indicators. It goes on to develop the idea that there may be tradeoffs inherent among different aspects of inequality and in different policy solutions. These ideas are explored in four empirical chapters on employment, work hours, occupational sex segregation, and the gender wage gap. The penultimate chapter examines whether a similar framework is relevant for understanding inequality among women in the United States and Germany. The book concludes with a thorough discussion of the policies and conditions that underpin gender inequality in the workplace. The central thesis of Gendered Tradeoffs is that gender inequality in the workplace is generated and reinforced by national policies and conditions. The contours of inequality across and within countries are shaped by specific aspects of social policy that either relieve or concentrate the demands of care giving within households—usually in the hands of women—and at the same time shape workplace expectations. Pettit and Hook make a strong case that equality for women in the workplace depends not on whether women are included in the labor market but on how they are included.

Are current patterns within women's occupations a function of external limitations on initial ambitions, or do women simply prefer distinct types of work? Including case studies of fire fighting and teaching, this book offers a qualitative exploration of girls'and women's reported journeys towards their work choices.

So entrenched and powerful is the patriarchy within organizations that women have serious difficulty acquiring positions of real importance, even when it is in the organization's best interest to use their talents fully (and reward them equitably). Reeves surveys the structural obstacles to women's advancement and argues that successful women executives threaten their male counterparts and their patriarchal culture, which responds by punishing them. Unlike other studies on the topic, Reeves explains the mechanisms by which gender discrimination operates—the dynamics of discrimination and the processes by which women in business are marginalized, subordinated, and excluded. Her book combines theory with first person case study accounts of 10 women who were suppressed, then fired. The result is a fresh, compelling argument that, despite claims to the contrary, the glass ceiling still exists. The patriarchy has simply devised subtle new ways to circumvent the legal remedies meant to crack through it.Reeves reviews statistics on the role of women in work, patterns of horizontal and vertical segregation, and differences in the experiences of men and women, then turns to an assessment of the theories of women's subordination. She profiles each of her 10 women subjects, explains their education, career trajectory, and accomplishments. Their experiences reveal various mechanisms through which the patriarchy operates to subordinate successful women, such as communication patterns among men that minimize women's contributions, withholding of information, denial of status to women, intimidation tactics, and the double bind that women find themselves in when they seek fair treatment. After analyzing the women's termination in detail, Reeves discusses how each woman's personality played a role in her termination. Reeves ends by drawing conclusions on what the present and future seem to hold for women's progress in organizations, and particularly in publicly held corporations.

How does economic development affect women in Latin America? This work examines the different ways that economic and social relations between the sexes are redefined in Guatemala as capitalist expansion transforms the nation. An unusual and rich combination of fieldwork in four communities supplemented by national-level data shows there are major differences in the sexual division of labor in four major segments of Guatemalan society: the Maya peasantry, the plantations, the urban poor, and the middle class. Without losing sight of the role of each community within the national economy, local economic and social options are described to show how economic change alters women's status relative to men's. The treatment of these differences goes beyond quantitative summaries to include life histories illustrating the complex choices women make and their adaptive strategies. The importance of cultural, class, and regional differences are brought to bear on the interpretation of different patterns of male-female relations, while local community adaptations are set against the larger background of capitalist expansion in Latin America.This book provides a unique contribution to the literature of Mesoamerican communities in that it redresses the imbalance in community-level coverage of women's economic and social position within the Maya population, and it provides data on several types of communities that have scarcely been covered by anthropologists working in Mesoamerica. The comparative material on Maya and Ladino, rural and urban, and the poor and the elite is used to advance the theoretical understanding of the changing causes of women's subordination in the Third World. Rejecting conventional explanations of machismo and traditional culture as cause of male dominance, this work explores the multi-faceted effects of the larger capitalist system on sexual stratification.Laurel Herbenar Bossen is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.