Race and Gender
Race and Gender issues arise from the all the three pillars of development that is social, economic and political. Some of the economic aspects used in determining the extent of race and gender issues include labor force participation, gender difference in occupation, gender pay differences, effects of 2008 recession and employment opportunities.
The research carried on labor force participation showed that the percentage of women had increased by 7% as from the year 1984 to 2002. However, these years had a negative influence on the participation of males considering that their participation reduced. The rate ages for female participating is 15+: 55/.5% while that of male participating is 15+: 68.6%. This depicts that employers are coming to appreciate the role of women in the work place. Further, this also shows that the awareness on the role of women in the society has also increased. However, the participation rate ages still shows that a higher percentage of male rate ages, 15+ meaning that there is still more preference of males to male in the labor force.
The gender differences in occupation show that men are still dominant in the engineering field, IT and police officers. These jobs usually relates to the provision of technical skills consequently leading to the separation in the genders. Most of the women exist as primary social workers, nurses and cleaners. These jobs usually relate to less skill and may serves as the reason for the gap existing between the genders. The only common jobs shared by the genders are secondary teaching, journalism and town planning. This depicts that these fields still considers that men are more aggressive as compared to women, which they consider as soft and cannot related to the technical labor provision. Further, this serves in illustrating that there is still need to protect women from the perception that they cannot carry out technically skilled jobs.
The gender pay differences also serve in showing the difference between the two genders in the economic front. The research shows that men make 15% (in their pay) more than women do on average, in the United Kingdom. The more percentage of men occurs because there is always lack of flexible work schedule between women and men in the employment field. Most of the women associate to the low paying works after entering the employment field with men associating to the higher paying works in the same. Further, the research also shows that women who work full time for 10 years in the labor market are earning below the men in the same with a percentage gap of 12%. This shows that there is still preference of men to women for the higher paying work in the employment field. Most of the employers consider the efforts put by males as more compared to that put by women. However, the private sector showed that they were slow to respond to the wage differences between the genders. This shows that private sectors are starting to recognize the efforts by women.
The effects of 2008 recession have also had an impact on the relation between men and women. It led to the many men losing their jobs compared to women. However, the statistics also shows that male employment number recovered faster than that of female. The research also shows that the rate of female employment continued on the decrease while that of men being on the increase. This is enough depiction that there were more men in the job sector; consequently the effect of the economic recession would have influenced more men. The economic recession mostly affected the higher income jobs, an enough indication that many men were in this fields compared to women. However, the rate of male employment recovery was more than that of women serving as an indication that, even after the recession, the jobs still preferred men.
The employment opportunities serve as a factor, which distinguishes between the various existing races. The research done on the research opportunities available for the different races showed that there is favoritism towards the white individuals. This shows that the employers still consider the whites as superior to their black counterparts (considered as the minorities) thereby strengthening the race discrimination. They (employers) associate the whites as possessing more skills and work ethics oriented compared to male. Even though, the whites and the minorities fight for the same job, with the same level of experience, the employers always favor the former because of the more belief they put on the former. They believe that whites are more trustable with the operation compared to blacks whom they consider as exhibiting less ethics. Further, the research also shows that minorities are a subject to discrimination even in the education field. This has led to the less of the minorities possessing the skills that may make the employers consider choosing them instead of the whites. The less of the minorities, than the whites in the education field, has served to support the less preference by the employers.
