Difference between Male vs Female in a Certain Occupation - Research Paper Example

   Sociological research in difference between mal vs. female in a certain occupation        The twentieth century witnessed rapid transformations in labor market structures in both developed and developing countries. Women in large numbers joined the labor force and took up paid employment. This trend is still continuing. The trend was first visible in the Western industrialized nations, but it has not been limited to developed nations only. Many of the developing countries have also witnessed significant growth in female labor force participation. In most developing countries, the period since 1980 has witnessed increasing participation of women in recognized paid employment and this trend has intensified since 1990. Participation of married women has also increased considerably across the countries. In addition, since 1980s, the labor market qualifications of employed women have increased significantly compared to those of employed men in both developed and developing countries. (Tzannatos, 551)       Among all these developments in labor market, one aspect has remained a thing of great concern – the gender differential in labor market outcomes. These differential outcomes can take various forms like gender pay gap, occupational sex segregation, etc.   Although female earnings relative to male earnings have increased over time, there still exists significant gap in male and female wages in developed as well as developing countries. Similarly, occupational sex segregation is also present in a significant way where women are still found to be concentrated mainly in low paying female-typed jobs. Several empirical studies have documented this persistent gender differential in labor market outcomes. For example, Blau and Kahn conducted a study to examine the gap in male and female wages in U.S. labor market and how this gap has evolved over time. In their study, they found that in U.S., although the gap between their earnings had narrowed over time, women on average earned less than men (Blau & Kahn, 76).  Mehra and Gamage, on the other hand, in their study found that in developed as well as developing regions of the world women are mainly concentrated in clerical, sales and service jobs which are typically called female ‘female’ occupations. (Mehra and Gamage, 533)       Today more than 50% of women around the world are officially in the labor force, and they constitute approximately one-third of the total labor force. Women’s earnings, on the other hand, typically average around two- thirds of men’s. Overall, not more than one-fifth of the world’s wages accrue to women (Tzannatos, pp 551). This is partly because women are engaged in low paying jobs, and even in these jobs, women are usually paid less than men doing comparable work. But the most interesting thing is that even in same occupation women faces lesser wages. The case is not quite different in the field of health care. In practice women are found to be deprived of various opportunities in the health care sectors. For example women doctors still do not get to work at an environment where they are given a status which is similar to that of men, even if they are equally qualified and have same level of productivity as that of men.       The issue of gender bias in the sector of medicine has drawn attention of many researchers over the years. However, the number of researches on the issue of gender bias in terms of income in medical sector is very limited. The present study attempt to find out the extent of income differences in male and female doctors controlling for the variables like qualifications, experiences etc. The hypothesis that the present research is going to check is that “there exists significant gender gap in earnings in the occupation of doctor”.       This paper will elaborately discuss the methodology that will be applied for testing the hypothesis stated above.                                                 To check the stated hypothesis, it is necessary to collect income related data for doctors across gender. For the convenience of the study doctors belonging to one particular medical branch will be considered. Here, the current research will put its focus on the cardiologists.       As far as gathering income related information is concerned, the current research can not be based on secondary data as adequate secondary information on income or other relevant variable is not readily available. Hence, the present study has to be relied upon primary data. An appropriate way of gathering primary data is to conduct interviews with selected candidates with the help of a properly structured questionnaire.   For conducting primary survey, the first step is to select a particular sample. Since here the focus is on the cardiologists, the sample will be comprised of only male and female cardiologists. For constructing the sample stratified random sampling method will be used as focus is on one particular medicine field, i.e. cardiology. The technique of stratified random sampling will also help in ensuring that people of different age group are included in the sample. For collecting the sample ten hospitals having cardiology department, private or public, will be selected using the stratified random sampling method. Then from each hospital 3 men and 3 women cardiologists will be selected randomly. However, while selecting research workers, one important criterion will be followed although mainly a random sampling technique will be employed.  The criteria is that only those cardiologists will be considered for the purpose of study who have more than 10 years of working experience in his or her professional field, not essentially in the same institution. After selection is done, interviews will be conducted with each of the selected doctors.       As far as the techniques adopted for interviews in primary surveys in are concerned, there exist three particular techniques of conducting interviews- Structured interviews, Semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews. Structured interviews: Closed, fixed response interviews. In this method, structured questions are administered to all the respondents with the option of selecting responses from similar alternatives. Semi-structured interviews: Standardized, open-ended interviews where a standard set of open-ended questions is administered to all the respondents. Unstructured interviews: Informal conversational interviews where questions to be asked are not formulated in advance. (Arksey & Knight, pp. 33-34 ) For the purpose of the present study, semi structured interview technique will be adopted as for the present research it will be quite hard to obtain answer of close ended question as questions relating to income are very sensitive and people are quite reluctant in providing proper information. So, open ended questions are best suited for the present purpose. While conducting semi-structured type of interviews, a number of open-ended questions in different categories will be asked to the selected cardiologists. . Open-ended questions must be framed in detail and have to be straight to the point so that the level of confusion can be minimized in the best possible manner. Through semi-structured interviews, valid and reliable answers are expected to be gathered. Before conducting final interviews one thing have to be kept in mind that the questions have to be pre-tested for avoiding all the irrelevant questions to the main topic. One of the major advantages of this interviewing technique is that through this technique the questions set by the researchers can be discussed with the interviewees with more detail. The data obtained through this type of interviewing is very extensive. This process, however, has one disadvantage. In some occasions, interviewees tend to give long answers and later on it become difficult as well as time consuming in transcribing the data from this long answers. But for the present study which deals with sensitive issue like earnings, this method is quite appropriate for gathering data. (Arksey & Peter, pp 47-50; Glitz, pp 387)       Interviews can be conducted through telephones, or through emails or directly by face-to face. All these three ways of interviewing have their own advantages and disadvantages. For the present survey, face-to face and e-mail interviews will be conducted. In case face to face interviews in-depth knowledge sharing is possible. It also helps in developing bigger picture regarding the selected issue and analyzing the results in more elaborate way. Face-to-face interview is also good for networking. However, it has certain disadvantages, like it is very much time consuming and very often interviewers find it difficult to arrange an interview time with all the interviewees. Face-to-face interview also possess difficulty during the time of comparing and analyzing information. Among all the disadvantages of face-to-face interviews the major disadvantage is setting an appointment with the interviewees as in most of the cases interviewees are found to be very busy, specially in case of those interviewees who hold high profile jobs. For the present survey also there might arise huge problems in setting the time of appointment as doctors use to be very busy. To solve this problem email interviews will be conducted with those doctors for whom it will be difficult to fix an appointment time. (Herndl and Nahrwold, pp 270-73; Diaz and O'Hanlon, pp 26-28, Arksey & Peter, pp 47-50)        After deciding on a particular method of interviewing, it is essential to prepare an appropriate questionnaire. For the present study sufficient care has to be taken while preparing questions. Interview questions are required to be set in such a fashion that it reflects the research questions, aims and objective of the research. The major objective of the present research is to study income differences across gender among cardiologists. But the major problem with conducting income related study is that, exact information on income is quite difficult to gather as people are quite reluctant in divulging the extent of their income no matter which field they belong to. Particularly in the medical field, quite high proportion of doctors uses to practice privately no matter whether they attend any public hospitals or not. So it is quite tough to obtain income related statistics of doctors. Hence for the present study it would be wise to consider some proxy variables which will be able to give some ideas about the income of a person. For the present study information on several forms of expenditure can be taken as proxies of income of cardiologists. Apart from asking question on several expenditure forms, it is also necessary to ask some basic questions regarding age, experience, the highest academic degree obtained in the medicine field for providing some explanation if there exists any income differences across gender. For example, along with income differences, if it is also found that average level of experiences and average qualification are less for women compared to men then, income difference can be attributed to differences in average level of experiences and average qualification.       The interview questions will therefore be set under two sub-sections: Basic information Information on work experience and qualification Information on expenditure and life style Under the first sub section, information on the following areas will be gathered: 1. Gender, 2. Age, 3. Ethnicity and 4. Nationality. Under the second sub-section the following questions will be asked: 1. How many years have you been in this profession? 2. How many surgeries have you done? 3. What is the average number of patients you treat monthly on average? 4. How many patients do you treat in outdoor on average? 5. What is the highest degree you have obtained in your academic career in the field of medicine? Under the third and the most important subsection for the present study, the following questions will be asked: 1. What is your average monthly expenditure on food? 2. Do you have your own house? 3. If you have your own house then what is the average monthly expenditure for the maintenance of your house? 4. If you do not have your own house, then what is the rental cost that you have to bear monthly? 5. Do you have any car? 6. If no, then what mode of transaction you use? 7. What is your monthly average expenditure on transaction costs? 8. What is your average monthly expenditure on luxury commodities? If the interviewees give answers to all the questions set above, then it would be possible to obtain some idea about their income status. Although on the basis of the answers given to the questions above, it would not be possible to obtain accurate income statistics, but some reliable approximation can be done regarding the income level of the interviewees. Some of the questions that have been set for the research are qualitative in nature while others provide quantitative information. Hence the present research can discuss the income differences qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Quantitative information can also be used for statistical testing to find out if there exists any significant difference in relevant variables across gender. For testing statistical significance of differences in the values of approximate income or the proxy expenditure variables used, across gender ‘t’ can be applied.   Works cited 1. Tzannatos, Zafiris. Women and Labor Market Changes in the Global Economy: Growth, Inequalities Hurt and Public Policy Matters. In World development, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 551- 569. 1999. 2. Blau, Francine D. and Lawrence M. Kahn. Gender Differences in Pay. In  Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol .14, No.4, pp. 75–99. 2000. 3. Mehra, Rekha and Sarah Gammage. Trends, Countertrends, and Gaps in Women’s Employment. In World development, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp 533-550. 1999. 4. Arksey, Hilary & Peter Knight. Interviewing for Social Scientists. London :Sage Publications. 1999. 5. Herndl Carl and Cindy Nahrwold. Research as Social Practice: A Case Study of Research on Technical and Professional Communication. Written Communication, 17(2):258-296. 2000. 6. Diaz Karen R. and Nancy O'Hanlon. Hot Topics on the Web: Strategies for Research. Reference, and User Services Quarterly, 41(1):25-29. 2001. 7. Glitz, Beryl. The Focus Group Technique in Library Research, An Introduction. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 85(4), 385-390. 1997. Read More