Gender Inequality and Occupational Health Hazards for Women

Gender Inequality as an Occupational Health Issue

There is no real sense of equality between the two genders when it comes to discrimination in the American workplace today, and it is important to acknowledge that significant work remains in the fight for equality. Sexist treatment and gender discrimination are forms of inequality in the workplace that amount to a very real occupational hazard for women. Such rampant unfairness regarding gender identity can cause tremendous unhappiness and ultimately lead to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, insomnia, nausea, and headaches.

Balancing work and family responsibilities places additional stress on women, who in many families still bear primary responsibility for childcare and eldercare. When family and work demands collide, the resulting stress can lead to physical health problems such as poor appetite, lack of sleep, increased blood pressure, fatigue, and heightened susceptibility to infection (CDC). It can also result in mental health problems such as burnout and depression. As the World Health Organization notes, although few psychological differences between men and women have been demonstrated scientifically, men are generally found to have higher self-esteem and confidence, while women tend to be more emotionally expressive. Differences in education, socialization, and upbringing may lead to differences in the way workers manage illness, perceive risk, and decide whether to take sick leave or seek treatment (WHO, 2014).

It is also important to recognize that in different parts of the world, men and women occupy different jobs, with women frequently performing less physically demanding work. Given the different professions men and women tend to enter, combined with the varying degrees of stress those occupations present, it is essential to understand the unique stressors women face. Women are generally under greater workplace stress and pressure, and thus experience more occupational health concerns.

The Gender Wage Gap and Its Psychological Toll

The wage gap — the difference in earnings between men and women for equivalent work — remains a persistent reality in America. Rather than treating it as an unfortunate but fixed condition, the wage gap must be understood as a manifestation of real inequality that causes genuine health and safety consequences for women. While approximately 3% of the full-time female workforce out-earns men, the remaining 97% does not (Americanprogress.org, 2014).

"Education, success, and occupational prestige are not enough to protect women from the gender wage gap. While data show that American women hold more senior managerial positions than women in other OECD countries, these high-achieving women are still disadvantaged by an above-average wage gap. Managerial professionals, CEOs, and administrators all rank in the top ten occupations in which women earn less than men" (Americanprogress.org, 2014). This finding is profoundly troubling: it indicates that even a woman's education, success, and prestige cannot protect her from the discrimination that persists in today's job market. Women cannot expect to earn as much as men in most industries, regardless of their accomplishments.

Such a reality can have a catastrophic impact on self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Recognizing that regardless of how hard one works or what one achieves, one will never be rewarded in the same way men are rewarded — that one's intelligence, effort, and accomplishments will never be valued equally — is deeply demoralizing. It is also worth noting that in the jobs where women do out-earn men, it is typically by only a slight margin, whereas in the jobs where men out-earn women, the gap is often substantial. This imbalance "tops out with women earning a premium of 6.4% compared to their male counterparts, compared to a 39.4% gap in the top occupation where men earn more than women" (Americanprogress.org, 2014).

The most equitable outcome would be one in which there is no wage gap whatsoever — where men and women are paid equally for equal work. Yet not only are men paid significantly more than women in most professions, but this reality is inflicting measurable psychological stress. Studies have demonstrated that women report lower levels of self-esteem and self-worth than men. Despite real progress over the decades, enormous inequality persists in the workforce: "And yet, as we've worked, ever diligent, the men around us have continued to get promoted faster and be paid more. The statistics are well-known: at the top, especially, women are nearly absent, and our numbers are barely increasing. Half a century since women first forced open the boardroom doors, our career trajectories still look very different from men's" (Kay & Shipman, 2014).

Some researchers argue that the self-esteem and self-worth issues generated by being underpaid and undervalued actually perpetuate the very inequality from which they spring. Low self-worth and low self-esteem contribute to low confidence, which in turn contributes to lower levels of achievement. The fact that women's work is so undervalued allows the situation to be perpetuated indefinitely. As Kay and Shipman (2014) observe, "Compared with men, women don't consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they'll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology." It is therefore important to acknowledge that it is not only the skewed playing field of today's workforce that drives this situation. The different ways in which girls and boys are raised — and the different ways the genders are socialized — also contribute significantly to the confidence gap.

Research demonstrates just how damaging this lack of confidence becomes: "Success, it turns out, correlates just as closely with confidence as it does with competence. No wonder that women, despite all our progress, are still woefully underrepresented at the highest levels. All of that is the bad news. The good news is that with work, confidence can be acquired. Which means that the confidence gap, in turn, can be closed" (Kay & Shipman, 2014). While this is an encouraging note, it remains critical to address the very real health consequences that a toxic workplace environment creates: beyond low self-esteem and low self-worth, the confidence gap means women are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and related symptoms that only further impede their advancement.

Overlapping Roles and Compounded Stress

Another factor that contributes directly or indirectly to the earning gap is the reality that women frequently occupy intensely overlapping roles. Many women face serious stress at work and then return home to face equally demanding responsibilities: picking children up from school, cooking dinner, helping with homework, cleaning the house, and a host of other duties. Given the divorce rate in the United States, many women are single parents managing all of these obligations on their own. These compounding stressors place women at a distinct disadvantage in achieving at work and are contributing factors to the wage imbalance.

Research on low-income women and single motherhood illustrates this clearly: "Single mothers were twice as likely as their married counterparts to be in financial hardship, despite being twice as likely to be in full-time employment. Both of these factors were independently associated with onset [of depression] in single mothers. The link between them and onset was via their association with humiliating or entrapping severe life events. Single parents were at a much raised risk of experiencing these events. Onset was also more likely to follow such an event when women had poor self-esteem and lack of support, both of which were more common among single mothers" (Brown & Moran, 1997). Being a mother — and particularly a single mother — therefore places women in a structurally disadvantaged position in the workplace, making them more vulnerable to depression and other mental health disorders.

Conclusion

Sexual harassment, the wage gap, compounding domestic burdens, and reproductive chemical hazards collectively constitute a serious and multidimensional occupational health problem for women. Each of these forces operates independently, yet they reinforce one another in ways that keep women underrepresented, underpaid, and overburdened. Addressing women's occupational health requires recognizing these interconnected hazards not as unfortunate but inevitable features of working life, but as systemic problems that demand targeted education, policy reform, and institutional accountability. Until these issues are treated with the seriousness they deserve, the gap between men's and women's experiences of the workplace — and their health outcomes within it — will persist.

References

Americanprogress.org. (2014). The gender wage gap differs by occupation. Retrieved from

Brown, G., & Moran, P. (1997). Single mothers, poverty and depression. Psychological Medicine, 21–33.

CDC.gov. (2013). Work-related health challenges facing women. Retrieved from

Kay, K., & Shipman, C. (2014, April 14). The confidence gap. The Atlantic.

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. (2013). Causes of sexual harassment. Retrieved from http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/svaw/harassment/explore/3causes.htm

UN.org. (2013). Occupational and environmental health of women. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/occupational.htm

WHO.int. (2013). Women and occupational health. Retrieved from