Emotional Labour and Gendered Occupational Segregation

Introduction

Emotional labour is a common phenomenon, especially in service industries. Broadly speaking, emotional labour means that an individual in the workplace displays positive or organisationally acceptable emotions regardless of their true emotional state (Hochschild, 1983). When interacting with customers, for instance, a customer service employee is required to treat customers with empathy, kindness, and calmness irrespective of how the employee is feeling or how the customer behaves or talks. Portraying negative emotions such as anger, frustration, and hostility could potentially injure the reputation of the organisation or negatively affect customer confidence in it. Fundamentally, emotional labour means that while at work, the experience and articulation of feelings should be separated: one is expected to display the desired emotions, not the emotions they are actually experiencing (Ward and McMurray, 2016).

Does emotional labour mean that service organisations must seek employees with the ability to manage their emotions? And if they do, what kind of employees are these? A closer look at many service organisations reveals that most jobs — especially those involving interaction with customers — are occupied by women. Airline, hospitality, and customer service jobs provide good examples. For instance, a call made to a customer service hotline is more likely to be answered by a woman than a man. Similarly, airlines are more likely to employ women in frontline and flight attendant positions. The same trend is replicated in hospitality organisations such as restaurants and hotels, where the majority of waiting and customer service staff tend to be women. In essence, there tends to be a noticeable gender-based segregation in service work. Such segregation persists even with considerable legislative advancements such as the Equality Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of gender and other protected characteristics.

This raises an important question: why do service organisations prefer a certain gender over another for certain jobs? Though debate remains, it has been established that women tend to be better emotional labourers than men (Taylor and Tyler, 2000; Meier, Mastracci and Wilson, 2006; Pilcher, 2007; European Commission, 2009; Pruitt, 2012; Baruah and Patrick, 2014). Therefore, for roles that require emotional labour, service organisations are likely to select women. With reference to the literature and my personal experiences as an employee, this paper discusses how emotional labour in the service sector has promoted gendered occupational segregation. It has two major sections: first, a review of literature relating to emotional labour and gender-based occupational segregation; second, a presentation of personal experiences as an employee in the hospitality industry.

Literature Review

The concept of emotional labour is originally credited to Arlie Russell Hochschild, who described it in her influential 1983 book The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling. Based on thorough observation of flight attendants, Hochschild (1983) defined emotional labour as the process of managing one's feelings and emotions to portray a publicly acceptable facial or bodily display. Rather than showing one's intrinsic or true emotions, one projects emotions in a way that conforms to the underlying rules of conduct. Emotional labour is essentially about impression or appearance management (Pilcher, 2007). At work, organisations require employees to constantly demonstrate composure and compassion when serving or interacting with customers. One is expected to show such positive emotions regardless of their real emotional state (Williams, 2013). In other words, whether one is experiencing positive or negative emotions, they are required to always show positive emotions. For instance, irrespective of how difficult or stubborn a customer is, employees are expected to empathise with that customer. For any organisation, such positive emotions constitute part of the organisationally acceptable behaviours expected during employee-customer interactions.

Emotional labour occurs in two major ways: surface acting and deep acting (Hochschild, 1983). Surface acting essentially entails faking emotions — showing feelings not actually experienced — or hiding emotions that, if portrayed, would be inappropriate in a given situation, such as when serving customers. This means that the individual is aware of the separation between the emotions they display at work and their true character or personality. Deep acting, on the other hand, involves aligning one's real emotions with organisationally desirable emotions. Unlike surface acting, deep acting does not involve creating false emotions; instead, an individual unconsciously engages in temporary acts aimed at generating the emotions appropriate to a given situation. Though quite different, both deep acting and surface acting generally entail projecting emotions that are not fully authentic. Indeed, both types of emotional labour can be likened to the notion of emotional intelligence (Ghalandari et al., 2012). Emotional intelligence involves awareness of other people's emotions and acting on the basis of those emotions. Similarly, emotional labour involves controlling one's emotions to conform to expected rules of behaviour. Nonetheless, this is not to say that the terms emotional labour and emotional intelligence can be used interchangeably.

Though emotional labour may occur in any organisational context, it tends to be more concentrated in service industries (Kinman, 2009). In service industries, there is often a great deal of interaction between employees and customers. From airlines to hotels and hospitals, employee-customer interaction is an important part of day-to-day work. Whether it is selling tickets, checking in passengers, answering customer queries, receiving guests, or examining patients, service workers interact with customers on a daily basis. This means that fulfilling service roles requires both physical and emotional effort. Service workers must constantly display the expected emotions, in large part to safeguard the image of their organisation. For service organisations, how employees behave when interacting with customers can have significant implications (Taylor and Tyler, 2000). A service organisation whose employees consistently display calmness and empathy towards customers is more likely to inspire greater customer confidence than one where employees show negative emotions (Hochschild, 1983).

Emotional labour's impact on the workplace is a particularly interesting area of inquiry. More specifically, emotional labour has affected the workplace by influencing how organisations make employment decisions. In the service sector, it is not difficult to see how one gender dominates certain jobs (Huppatz, 2012). From hospitality firms and airlines to schools, women and men tend to perform different roles, with most frontline and interactive jobs — such as cashiering, reception, check-in, cleaning, and teaching — being undertaken by women.

According to Pilcher (2007), interactive service work tends to be significantly gender-segregated in the sense that most service organisations disproportionately select women for roles that require emotional labour. This segregation is broadly referred to as gendered occupational segregation: a form of workplace segregation where an employer shows preference for a certain gender for particular jobs (Pruitt, 2012). In service organisations in the UK and elsewhere, gendered occupational segregation is not an unfamiliar phenomenon (European Commission, 2009). For instance, women have historically comprised a significant majority of waiting staff in bars, restaurants, and hotels, and the majority of flight attendant and sheltered housing warden positions have traditionally been reserved for women.

So, how exactly does emotional labour promote gendered occupational segregation? Baruah and Patrick (2014) offer a valuable explanation, arguing that female employees are more likely to employ emotional labour compared to male employees. This is because women are inherently perceived to be more "caring" than men (Pilcher, 2007). It is also believed that women tend to be better than men at building rapport and managing interpersonal interactions (Meier, Mastracci and Wilson, 2006; European Commission, 2009). These beliefs are generally informed by social norms and stereotypes, which tend to classify jobs as either feminine or masculine (Pruitt, 2012). Accordingly, as service organisations generally prefer employees who can consistently project positive emotions, they are likely to employ women — especially in roles involving substantial interaction with customers (Taylor and Tyler, 2000). Furthermore, empirical evidence has shown that women are often expected to perform emotional labour in a sexualised fashion, such as portraying heterosexuality openly or "flirting" with male customers (Pilcher, 2007). Therefore, for jobs that require sexualised physical appearances, service organisations are more likely to select women.

Though gender-based segregation is evident in service organisations, this does not necessarily mean that men working in these organisations are not expected to perform emotional labour. Expectations do exist for men, but they tend to be considerably lower than those for women (Pilcher, 2007). Men may also be expected to sexualise their roles at the workplace, but not to the same degree as women.

While there is evidence of gendered occupational segregation in service work, some critics have argued that, though emotional labour is gendered, the segregation does not necessarily involve negative consequences for those expected to perform it (Pilcher, 2007). Furthermore, performing emotional labour does not necessarily render the performer powerless (Ward and McMurray, 2016). There may be some truth in these assertions, as some emotional labourers may derive pleasure from the work. For instance, a female customer service employee may find interacting warmly with customers genuinely enjoyable. However, this is not to say that expecting female employees to perform emotional labour in a sexualised manner makes them universally happy with their jobs. For some, such expectations may constitute an emotional burden. Moreover, the fact that emotional labour can be pleasurable does not mean that the pleasure derived necessarily outweighs the associated costs (Huppatz, 2012). It has also been argued that emotional labour, as a skill or ability, is evident in both women and men (Ward and McMurray, 2016), making it inappropriate to feminise certain jobs on the basis of this capacity alone.

Emotional Labour in the Hospitality Industry

It is further argued that gendered occupational segregation occurs not necessarily because of emotional labour expectations, but also because of men's attitudes towards female-dominated jobs (Pruitt, 2012). Broadly speaking, many men do not desire to work in fields they associate with femininity. For example, it may be difficult for many men to seek or apply for flight attendant jobs, as they perceive such roles as inherently feminine. Therefore, it may not always be that employers in the service sector deliberately exclude males from certain jobs — men's own beliefs about those jobs also play a crucial role in widening segregation (Huppatz, 2012). Even so, it is hard to ignore the fact that emotional labour expectations are fundamentally created by employers, not employees.

One of the service contexts where emotional labour is most evident is the hospitality industry, an industry in which I have firsthand experience as an employee. With the desire to please, attract, and retain customers, the hospitality industry is one of the most competitive sectors. Players in the industry strive to outperform their competition by ensuring unparalleled service standards. Whether it is receiving guests, food quality, serving orders, in-room entertainment, or room service, hospitality firms must guarantee service excellence. In essence, service differentiation constitutes a crucial source of competitive advantage for hospitality firms.

To ensure service excellence, hospitality organisations rely heavily on their personnel. They seek to recruit and retain frontline employees with the ability to treat customers in an organisationally desirable manner. For example, it is quite rare to observe customer service staff in a hotel or restaurant yelling at customers. This does not happen by accident, nor does it mean that hospitality employees do not experience negative emotions. Rather, hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality organisations constantly seek individuals with the ability to impress customers. Furthermore, employees in the hospitality industry are thoroughly trained on how to behave while interacting with customers. In other words, hospitality employees are expected to maintain certain facial and bodily displays at work — warmth, receptiveness, courtesy, and so forth — which are crucial for maintaining an inviting atmosphere for customers.

In my work life, I have served as a customer attendant in a mid-sized restaurant. As I learned through that experience, working as a frontline employee in a restaurant is a daunting task. It is an emotionally exhausting job, not a glamorous one as many people may assume. Every time we walk into a hotel or restaurant, we are greeted by ever-smiling waiting or customer service staff. As waiting staff generally display positive emotions while at work, it is easy to think that their job is always comfortable. The truth is that working as waiting staff in a restaurant is far from straightforward. Typically, one grapples with demanding working schedules, heavy workloads, difficult customers, and tough supervisors. The physical and emotional weight of these challenges may be further compounded by non-work pressures such as family difficulties and academic commitments. Yet at the end of the day, one is expected to act composed — to flash that inviting smile when receiving customers, to be kind to a rude or irate customer, and to appear relaxed at all times. As Hochschild (1983: 7) puts it, one is expected to "manage their heart" or "induce or suppress feelings in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind" in customers.

Conclusion

Overall, gendered occupational segregation in service organisations is considerably evident, especially in roles that involve interaction with customers. Literature demonstrates that the segregation is largely informed by gender stereotypes and beliefs. It is generally believed that women have better nurturing and rapport-building abilities than men. As such, service organisations tend to prefer women over men for positions that require emotional labour. They believe that women are more capable of displaying positive emotions even in transactions that might ordinarily elicit negative ones. For service organisations, impression management is crucial for building and maintaining customer confidence, and this belief drives employment decisions.