The phenomenon of gender inequality as a factor of women's career capital: problem statement

Abstract

A woman’s career begins with the choice of a professional path and advances with life-long learning, but her success can be impeded by gender asymmetry. Despite changes in working conditions, legal norms, and social policy, the gender gap is consistently reproduced, leading to “stalled progress.” Our analysis of literature showed that the search for subtle, yet resilient mechanisms responsible for the reproduction of gender inequality in Russian companies will be most efficient if it is based on the following theoretical concepts: 1) the “gendered organisations” approach, which differs distinctly from other methods and allows researchers to analyse gender inequality on both the structural and the regulatory level; 2) on the concepts of career capital and social capital, which enable us to synthesize individual and structural levels of analysis; 3) on the model of “a creative organization” and upon investigating the consequences of gender inequality for the development of both an individual working woman and the organisation as a whole. In Russia, studies of gender inequality that apply current approaches are seldom carried out; many researchers rely on the “gender role approach”, which is considered outdated by the global scientific community. The theoretical analysis also allowed the authors to formulate two hypotheses for further empirical testing: 1 — a working woman includes gender in the attributes that are important for career advancement; and 2 — an organisation is perceived as less creative if its employees observe the signs of gender inequality in its structure and operations. It is suggested that a social psychological model of career success factors for a working woman should include, on the one hand, the organizational context (informal structure, norms and regulations, etc.), and on the other — individual social strategies (including strategies that use career capital to eliminate gender inequality). It is concluded that key mechanisms for gender inequality reproduction are the mechanisms associated with social capital and its development, which have not been sufficiently investigated.