Search Results (30)

Background: In a context of profound transformation within Public Administration, the growing generational diversity of the workforce poses critical challenges to organisational well-being. While ageism is a known risk, the intersectionality of age and gender—manifesting as gendered ageism—remains an under-explored area that can significantly undermine job satisfaction and employee health. Objective: This study aimed to explore the subjective work experience of public sector employees, specifically focusing on intergenerational relations and the impact of gendered ageism. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted involving 30 employees of the Italian Public Administration, recruited via purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 38 min and analysed using a thematic analysis of elementary contexts via T-Lab software. Results: The analysis revealed four distinct thematic clusters positioned along two main factor axes (Individual/Organisation and Difficulties/Potential). The results show a dichotomy: while positive relationships with colleagues (Cluster 1) and the drive for change (Cluster 4) act as potential resources, the experience is marred by significant difficulties. These include organisational imbalances (Cluster 3) and, crucially, specific experiences of gendered ageism (Cluster 2), manifesting as stereotypes, pressure on women’s physical appearance, and exclusionary dynamics. Conclusions: The findings highlight that gendered ageism is a distinct stressor impacting workforce sustainability. Combating intersectional discrimination represents a strategic priority to safeguard well-being, retain skills, and build a healthy, resilient, and productive working environment. Full article

This paper empirically analyses variation in use of formally, semi-formally, and informally regulated finance using the South African National Income Dynamics Study longitudinal data. The logistic regressions indicate that many individuals use a combination of services across all levels of regulation depending on age, gender, education, population group, religiosity, and social trust. Widespread use of informally regulated finance in South Africa is particularly evident on the savings side through savings groups/stokvels. The originality of the paper lies in its use of nationally representative longitudinal data to disentangle and analyze the variations in the use of different financial mechanisms, moving beyond the conventional formal–informal dichotomy. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing debates on financial inclusion by demonstrating that informally regulated finance represents a rational, adaptive response to the limitations of formally regulated services rather than a residual or inferior alternative. Depicting the market as dualistic is therefore misleading, ignoring the need for a more nuanced understanding and official recognition of the drivers of financial services’ use. Full article

This paper builds on findings from the first systematic study of military families in Slovenia (2019–2022) to critically examine how military families are perceived and constructed within broader sociocultural and institutional frameworks. Using perspectives from family studies, military sociology, defense studies, and critical military theory, the study investigates whether these perceptions continue to reproduce the traditional binary logic that positions the family as a feminized, private domain and the military as a masculinized, public domain, or whether late modern discourses have begun to disrupt these dichotomies. The analysis focuses on the intersection of gender roles, family practices, parental responsibilities, and the symbolic and practical meanings ascribed to the notion of the “military family.” We used a reflexive approach to thematic analysis, combining qualitative interviews with young adults (aged > 18) who grew up in military families (14 participants), interviews with military and civilian experts (41 participants), survey data from service members, their spouses, and civilian respondents (411 and 125 open-ended responses from separate surveys). Findings reveal significant differences in how military families are understood and experienced. More critically, the study highlights how military institutional power and its greediness extend into the familial realm, not only through logistical demands, but also through the normalization of military values, hierarchical gendered expectations, and parenting practices. Full article

This research situates urban planning as a social well-being determinant, highlighting that cities function as social habitats that shape individuals’ quality of life, as well as being physical spaces. The study emphasises the dangers of inadequate urban management, particularly when it is based on biased or incomplete information. This has the potential to exacerbate inequality and undermine the benefits of urbanisation. The present study focuses on the intersection of gender, social roles, and access to basic infrastructure, including childcare centres, elderly facilities, healthcare services, pedestrian paths, street lighting, and green areas. By addressing this critical urban issue, namely the uneven distribution of opportunities for well-being, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge in this field. The Capability Approach, developed primarily by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, provides a theoretical framework for evaluating individuals’ freedom to pursue the lives they value. Theories of subjective well-being (SWB) are rooted in psychological and economic traditions that assess individuals’ life satisfaction, happiness, and emotional equilibrium The present study proposes a methodological framework that integrates the Capability Approach with Subjective Well-Being theory. This approach facilitates a more comprehensive measurement of citizens’ well-being, transcending the limitations of traditional gender dichotomies. The study identifies the manner in which infrastructural design affects individual capabilities and demonstrates the manner in which urban policies can foster gender equality and inclusive socio-economic development. It is therefore evident that the research provides urban planners and policymakers with actionable insights by demonstrating that equitable infrastructure provision is a cornerstone of sustainable, socially just urban development. Full article

Cumulative Ecological Resources Theory offers an integrative perspective for social–emotional interventions by overcoming the traditional dichotomy between internal and external resources. As a crucial ecological resource, perceived social support is known to be heterogeneous, yet its mechanism of influence on social–emotional competence remains to be clarified. This study investigates the effect of developmental characteristics of adolescents’ perceived social support on social–emotional competence. A six-month longitudinal study tracked 995 adolescents using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Delaware Social and Emotional Competency Scale. Based on the results, (1) the adolescents’ perceived social support could be categorized into four types: Poor, Moderate, Rich, and Separated; (2) the Poor type exhibited greater category mobility, whereas the Moderate and Rich types demonstrated higher stability; some adolescents in the Poor, Moderate, and Rich types transitioned to the Separated type; and adolescents in the Separated type were more likely to transition to the Moderate type; (3) gender, age, and boarding status influenced the transition in perceived social support categories; (4) the transition pattern of transitioning to or remaining within the Rich type positively predicted social–emotional competence at T2. The findings support the Cumulative Ecological Resource Theory by revealing heterogeneity in adolescents’ perceived social support and demonstrating that trajectories toward higher resource accumulation significantly enhance social–emotional competence. Full article

Cultural beliefs about what it means to be “good” at mathematics profoundly impact students’ perceptions of their abilities and how they come to see themselves in STEM. These beliefs can be traced back to dominant societal discourses about mathematical aptitude and achievement. These dominant discourses are communicated to students in a myriad of ways through family, friends, media, and overall societal norms. They reify deficit perspectives (often gendered, classed, and racialized) about who is or can be mathematically competent. In this investigation, we used a framework of dichotomies within dominant discourses about what it means to be “good” at mathematics to interpret retrospective narratives from a larger phenomenological study of accelerated mathematics course-taking. Focus group and individual interview data from two high-achieving young women were analyzed to understand how evolving beliefs about mathematical competence impacted their STEM identity development. These dichotomies explain the questioning of their mathematical competence and their subsequent decisions to decelerate from the most rigorous program of study at their high school. Our participants negotiated tensions in their STEM identities as a result of a mathematics culture that too often values speed, correctness, and competition over collaboration, productive struggle, and help-seeking. They continue to navigate these tensions as college students and as STEM majors. Our framework can be used to understand how mathematics experiences contribute to students’ struggles to develop robust STEM identities. Full article

Using semi-structured, qualitative interviews of 25 heterosexual Muslim women residing in the US, the author examines the extent to which respondents simultaneously constructed and deconstructed the gender dichotomy when explaining sexuality, countering reductionist accounts of Muslim women’s sexuality. Integrating concepts of religiosity and gender norms, respondents reconfigured the dominant discourse of power and sexuality in innovative ways. One of the main themes that emerged from this research is that male sex drive discourse, typically associated with power and “machismo” within the traditional sexual script, was reimagined by Muslim women as an indicator of women’s greater strength in the eyes of God. Full article

In this article, we intend to understand and discuss how immigrant men and women living in Portugal perceive their contributions to the performance of unpaid work and how they try to deal with the situation of the greater burden on women. To this end, a qualitative methodology was used to conduct an exploratory study with 10 focus groups of immigrant men and women in five regions of the country: North, Centre, Lisbon, Alentejo and Algarve. The participants, 43 females and 27 males, were aged between 19 and 80 years. From the discourse of the immigrant participants in this study, it could be concluded that the division of unpaid work between immigrant women and men is not equal, as their statements evidenced a greater responsibility and overload on women. From a traditional vision of gender roles, a persistent dichotomy of two worlds could be perceived, based on a “naturalized” vision of the social roles of gender and on a distribution grounded in biological differences. In parallel, discourses show a change in the sharing of household chores and childcare. However, this does not always occur regularly and appears very much associated with the entry of women into the paid labour market. Full article

Sex hormones are key determinants of gender-related differences and regulate growth and development during puberty. They also exert a broad range modulation of immune cell functions, and a dichotomy exists in the immune response between the sexes. Both clinical and animal models have demonstrated that androgens, estrogens, and progestogens mediate many of the gender-specific differences in immune responses, from the susceptibility to infectious diseases to the prevalence of autoimmune disorders. Androgens and progestogens mainly promote immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory effects, whereas estrogens enhance humoral immunity both in men and in women. This study summarizes the available evidence regarding the physiological effects of sex hormones on human immune cell function and the underlying biological mechanisms, focusing on gender differences triggered by different amounts of androgens between males and females. Full article

Research studies have established that mindfulness helps in psychological well-being, stress reduction, chronic pain management, behavioral therapy, and other areas including organizational development. Mindfulness often refers to a state of consciousness, but mindfulness can also be understood as a personality trait. State mindfulness is referred as the individual’s capacity to cultivate a particular state of mind during meditative practice. Traits are more permanent facets of personality characteristics that are difficult to change and likely have some basis in genetics. Few scholars have criticized meditative mindfulness as a trend and cautioned that organizations should carefully consider their goals before introducing meditative mindfulness training. This dichotomy has prompted us to review the literature and carry out a comparative analysis of two divergent measurement scales of mindfulness: the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and Langer’s mindfulness/mindlessness scale. The MAAS is the most widely used mindfulness scale to measure mindfulness, and Langer’s scale measures mindfulness/mindlessness. We developed hypotheses relating Langer’s scale and the MAAS. Further, we studied whether there is any difference in mindfulness/mindlessness among business school students with an undergraduate background in engineering and nonengineering streams. Using a self-administered questionnaire, we measured the mindfulness levels of 221 MBA first- and second-year graduates and tested the hypothesis using partial least squares structural equations modeling (PLS-SEM). We found that Langer’s mindfulness/mindlessness scale was negatively associated with the MAAS. We did not find any effect of gender, education, and professional specializations on mindfulness. Full article

Various studies indicate that workload metrics can be used to assess inequities in the division of labor according to gender and in the mental health of health care professionals. In most studies, the workload is portrayed in a way that does not integrate the different fields of work, that is, work in health services and unpaid domestic work. The objective was to determine the effects of the workload domains of health work and unpaid domestic work according to the gender division of health professionals working in primary health care (PHC), and to analyze the workload as an inducer of anxiety disorders and episodes of depression. This cross-sectional study consisted of 342 health care professionals recruited for interview at primary health care units in the extreme south of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Sociodemographic and occupational variables, workload in PHC and unpaid domestic work, and dichotomies of anxiety disorders and episodes of depression were considered. Poisson and multivariate linear regression models were used for data analysis. Cohen’s standardized effect size was used to assess the magnitude of the difference between women and men in terms of workload. The female professionals presented higher scores in terms of PHC work and unpaid domestic work and higher proportions of episodes of depression and anxiety disorders compared to males. The male professionals showed that anxiety disorders presented a medium standardized effect size on domestic workload and the level of frustration with family involvement was higher in those with episodes of depression. The results illustrate that the workload metric is an important indicator of female vulnerability to working conditions in PHC and in the family environment. Full article

The special issue of which this article forms a part looks at human violence and tries to investigate religious potentials to strengthen the case for nonviolence as the preferred method of social change. This article’s focus is on Gandhi’s version of a faith-based form of nonviolent resistance, called Satyagraha, and its relation to gender. In particular, the article asks whether this Gandhian tradition holds any value for women’s struggles and for contemporary feminist politics. The first section follows the historical development of Gandhi’s thinking on women’s participation in Satyagraha, from South Africa to India. The second section gives a brief overview of the recent empirical work conducted by Erica Chenoweth on the impact of women’s participation on the outcomes of mass movements over the past century. The final section places these two thinkers in conversation and draws out the value and limitations of Gandhi’s thinking for contemporary women’s struggles and feminist resistance. Although the direct focus is on the relation between women and nonviolent revolutionary campaigns and movements, indirectly the unstable gendered dichotomies, male–female, masculine–feminine, and violence–nonviolence, will be simultaneously drawn upon and problematised. Full article

Without adequate sanitation facilities, environmental, social, and health risks are common and worsen as the state of sanitation stagnates. Vulnerable groups, specifically women, are unequally affected by poor sanitation. Attitudes towards and perceptions of gender and menstruation have created a health and social discrepancy between women and men. Women must undergo additional obstacles when practicing proper sanitation and managing menstruation. This article utilizes the sanitation insecurity measure to assess the lived experience of women in rural and urban India. This article also discusses accounts of women’s experiences managing menstruation in both the rural regions and urban slums of India and discusses the social implications of the state of sanitation. Examining the issue of sanitation by focusing on menstruation and the dichotomy of men’s and women’s experiences with sanitation and hygiene will indicate that achieving gender equity requires sanitation to be viewed as a human rights, social justice, and education issue. Full article

Female participation in the labor market has been increasing over time. Despite the fact that the level of education among women has also increased considerably, the wage gap has not narrowed to the same extent. This dichotomy presents an important challenge that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with respect to gender inequities must address. Hispanics constitute the largest minority group in the US, totaling 60.6 million people (18.5% of the total US population in 2020). Cubans make up the third largest group of Hispanic immigrants in the US, representing 5% of workers. This paper analyzes the conditional income distribution of Cuban immigrants in the US using the clustering of effects curves (CEC) technique in a quantile regression coefficients modeling (QRCM) framework to compare the transferability of human capital between women and men. The method uses a flexible quantile regression approach and hierarchical clustering to model the effect of covariates (such as years of education, English proficiency, US citizenship status, and age at time of migration) on hourly earnings. The main conclusion drawn from the QRCM estimations was that being a woman had the strongest negative impact on earnings and was associated with lower wages in all quantiles of the distribution. CEC analysis suggested that educational attainment was included in different clusters for the two groups, which may have indicated that education did not play the same role for men and women in income distribution. Full article

(1) Background: Gestational surrogacy is the most common type of surrogacy today. Although technologically well-developed and legal in many countries, it challenges and even contradicts the basic traditional concepts of family, motherhood, and gender roles. In the present study, we examined the types of stigma coping strategies surrogate mothers discussed in an online support group in post-Soviet Russia. (2) Method: We conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of 15,602 posts on a Russian-language online support group for surrogate mothers. (3) Findings: group members discussed four types of coping strategies: stigma internalization, stigma avoidance, group identification, and stigma challenging. Nevertheless, these strategies varied across the surrogate motherhood stages. Group members advised each other on specific strategies to use to cope with the state of discreditable (invisible) stigma (i.e., during the first few months of their pregnancies), with different strategies for when the pregnancies became visible and they risked becoming discredited people. Furthermore, group members disclosed that they used these strategies even when they returned to their previous family and work routines. Theoretically, our findings challenge Goffman’s classic theoretical dichotomy and coping research concerning discreditable (invisible) and discredited (visible) stigma. (4) Conclusion: Our findings indicate that surrogate mothers anticipate experiencing stigma and therefore plan for it by discussing potential coping strategies in the online group. Moreover, any intervention designed to cater to the needs of surrogate mothers must, therefore, take into consideration the social needs of their entire family. Full article