Women in the Workplace: Which Women, Which Agenda?

Much of the work family literature that has blossomed over the last decade has focused on professional women and has emphasized policy changes that would be of less utility to many other working women and men. In this symposium contribution, we explore the recent data on working time to demonstrate that in today\u27s economy more women are underemployed rather than overemployed. We also demonstrate that although professional women tend to work the longest hours, they also tend to have the greatest means, both in income and workplace benefits, to support them in achieving a workable balance between their work and family demands. We discuss the most prominent policy proposals for helping attain this balance, including a greater emphasis on part-time work and shorter workweeks, and critique them for their failure to address the needs of most working women. Finally, we suggest several alternative proposals, including lengthening school days, addressing domestic violence, and challenging the stubborn gender norms that prevent further progress for equality in both the workplace and the home

Statistical Inequality and Intentional (Not Implicit) Discrimination

Racial disparities remain a disturbing fact of American life but whether those disparities are the product of discrimination remains deeply contested. This is an important question because as a society we are committed to remedying discrimination but are significantly more conflicted over addressing racial disparities that are not tied to discrimination. This essay explores the question of how we can determine when statistical disparities are the product of discrimination, and relies on two areas where the presence of racial disparities are incontrovertible – police automobile stops and school discipline. Based on a large number of studies, there is little question that African-American drivers are stopped and searched more frequently than whites, even though contraband is found more commonly on white drivers. Similarly, based on studies dating to the 1970s, African-American students are suspended and expelled at rates that are generally three times as high as white students, and there is little reason to believe that the disparities are solely explained by the behavior of African-American students. After refuting the nondiscriminatory explanations that are often offered to justify the disparities, the last part of the essay urges policymakers to treat repeated patterns of behavior as intentional, as opposed to implicit, discrimination, and offers a critique of the recent turn to implicit bias

Sex Discrimination in the Nineties, Seventies Style: Case Studies in the Preservation of Male Workplace Norms

This article analyzes a series of class action employment discrimination cases that have arisen in the last decade to challenge persistent sex discrimination against women. These cases have targetted the practices in the securities and grocery industries, and include a series of sexual harassment class action claims. These cases pose a challenge to the consensual view that sex discrimination is now perpetuated through subtle practices, and instead highlight the continuing ways in which male norms are preserved in the workplace through intentional acts of hostility and exclusion

Education is associated with lower levels of abdominal obesity in women with a non-agricultural occupation: an interaction study using China’s four provinces survey

Abstract Background The prevalence of obesity is increasing rapidly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as their populations become exposed to obesogenic environments. The transition from an agrarian to an industrial and service-based economy results in important lifestyle changes. Yet different socioeconomic groups may experience and respond to these changes differently. Investigating the socioeconomic distribution of obesity in LMICs is key to understanding the causes of obesity but the field is limited by the scarcity of data and a uni-dimensional approach to socioeconomic status (SES). This study splits socioeconomic status into two dimensions to investigate how educated women may have lower levels of obesity in a context where labour market opportunities have shifted away from agriculture to other forms of employment. Methods The Four Provinces Study in China 2008/09 is a household-based community survey of 4,314 people aged ≥60  years (2,465 women). It was used to investigate an interaction between education (none/any) and occupation (agricultural/non-agricultural) on high-risk central obesity defined as a waist circumference ≥80 cm. An interaction term between education and occupation was incorporated in a multivariate logistic regression model, and the estimates adjusted for age, parity, urban/rural residence and health behaviours (smoking, alcohol, meat and fruit &amp; vegetable consumption). Complete case analyses were undertaken and results confirmed using multiple imputation to impute missing data. Results An interaction between occupation and education was present (P = 0.02). In the group with no education, the odds of central obesity in the sedentary occupation group were more than double those of the agricultural occupation group even after taking age group and parity into account (OR; 95%CI: 2.21; 1.52, 3.21), while in the group with any education there was no evidence of such a relationship (OR; 95%CI: 1.25; 0.92, 1.70). Health behaviours appeared to account for some of the association. Conclusion These findings suggest that education may have a protective role in women against the higher odds of obesity associated with occupational shifts in middle-income countries, and that investment in women’s education may present an important long term investment in obesity prevention. Further research could elucidate the mechanisms behind this association. </jats:sec

The Supreme Court’s Surprising and Strategic Response to the Civil Rights Act of 1991

This essay, which was prepared for a symposium issue in recognition of the twentieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, explores the Supreme Court’s response to the Congressional repudiation of its cases reflected in the 1991 Act. Relying on a positive political theory framework, I demonstrate that the Court appears to have responded in a strategically sophisticated manner designed to insulate their decisions from Congressional reversal. The 1991 Act reversed or modified eight Supreme Court decisions, and reflected concern regarding the conservative turn the Court had taken in discrimination cases. After the passage of the Act, plaintiffs have fared substantially better in the Supreme Court - prevailing on nearly seventy (70%) of the non-disability employment discrimination cases, with nearly two thirds of the victories rendered by unanimous decisions. Yet, in the most significant cases - the cases the conservative members of the Supreme Court likely have the strongest preference - defendants continue to prevail, often by a 5-4 margin

Is Something Better than Nothing? Critical Reflections on Ten Years of the FMLA

This Essay will explore some of the history that led to the FMLA’s passage, and then will contrast the publicly stated expectations with the realities of the statute’s use since its enactment. Two published studies have examined the extent and nature of leave taken or needed by employees pursuant to the FMLA. Those studies demonstrate that the leave provisions relating to the birth or adoption of a child have proved to be the least important parts of the statute to employees, in direct contrast to the emphasis within the legislation and its history. I will then turn to a discussion of why the interest groups supporting the legislation were willing to settle for such a weak bill. Advocates of family leave legislation generally asserted two rationales for the importance of the statute: (1) Something was better than nothing, and relatedly, the FMLA would be, if nothing else, an important symbolic victory; and (2) that the FMLA would be a critical “foot in the door” leading to better and more progressive legislation in the future. I will question both of these rationales, and also analyze some of the important, and often overlooked, costs to the legislation that directly challenge the notion that some legislation is better than no legislation. I will also suggest that the special interests of the advocacy groups in passing legislation may have provided an important and unacknowledged rationale for pursuing the statute despite its obvious deficiencies. In this respect, this Essay will also be a case study in legislative enactment and the various motives that can underlie what otherwise appears to be public-spirited legislation

Was the Disparate Impact Theory a Mistake?

The disparate impact theory has long been viewed as one of the most important and controversial developments in antidiscrimination law. In this article, Professor Selmi assesses the theory\u27s legacy and challenges much of the conventional wisdom. Professor Selmi initially charts the development of the theory, including a close look at Griggs v. Duke Power Co. and Washington v. Davis, to demonstrate that the theory arose to deal with specific instances of past discrimination rather than as a broad theory of equality. In the next section, Professor Selmi reviews the success of the theory in the courts through an empirical analysis and concludes that the theory has had a strikingly limited impact outside of the context of written employment tests and is, in fact, an extremely difficult theory on which to succeed. In the final section, Professor Selmi contends that whatever gains the disparate impact theory has produced could likely have been obtained through other means, particularly in large urban cities, and that the theory may have had the unintended effect of limiting our conception of intentional discrimination. Disparate impact theory has always been seen as beginning where intentional discrimination ends, and by pushing an expansive theory of impact we were left with a truncated theory of intentional discrimination, one that continues to turn on animus and motive. Rather than a new legal theory of discrimination, what was needed, Professor Selmi concludes, was a greater societal commitment to remedying inequities and the ultimate mistake behind the theory was a belief that legal theory could do the work that politics could not