Purpose The purpose of this paper is to find the most important factors to the Index that explains gender gaps in education, health, politics, and economic outcomes worldwide.
Design/methodology/approach World Economic Forum (WEF) data are analyzed using hedonic regression analysis to estimate which factors affect a country's Global Gender Gap Index. Standardized β coefficients reveal the top five factors influencing the Index, just as key components of the US Consumer Price Index are teased out using this method.
Findings Women in public sector management, administration, and politics explain a substantial portion of gender inequality. Policies to increase women's representation in parliaments, as heads of state, in ministerial positions, and in public sector management mitigate inequality as gauged by the Gender Gap Index. Economic indicators are also among the leading components of the Gender Gap Index.
Research limitations/implications Although comprehensive and drawn from several sources including the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, and the United Nations Development Programme, WEF data do not capture the full experience of women worldwide. Subsequent qualitative research is recommended.
Practical implications This analysis reveals policy recommendations for advocates working to close gender gaps, particularly in politics and economic outcomes. Increasing proportions of women in public sector management can mitigate inequality. This supports electoral quotas and human resource management initiatives to diversify management ranks.
Social implications Increasing women's share of public sector managerial positions fosters gender equity, as does increasing women's share of elected and appointed positions.
Originality/value This study provides quantitative evidence of the important role of women's representation to guide subsequent fieldwork. This evidence supports efforts to increase women in elective office and public sector management.
Based on a continuing program of research, this paper reveals several organizational measures needed if emotional labor is to be supported, including self-care plans, recruiting for self-awareness, and performance evaluations that capture more than a standard set of knowledge, skills, and abilities. The paper focuses on the experience of emergency responders, who work in extreme conditions that demand extensive emotional labor. Propositions are presented to link human resource management practices and individual and organizational outcomes; propositions that can inform future research and hypothesis testing in this area.
This article combines theories on emotional labor in public service and dirty work to argue that organizations should adopt an ethic of care to support their workers. The economics of public services undermine the consumer-sovereignty narrative in government, particularly where public servants are agents of social control and enforcement. Public servants cannot and should not behave according to a customer-service ethos in many important areas of public service. Emotional labor is the process by which workers manage the identity-damaging aspects of public service. This article critiques individual-level human resource management (HRM) approaches and recommends dismantling customer service expectations that are inappropriately applied in public-service contexts.
Working mothers in federal service spend about 20 min per day less on caregiving activities, compared to their counterparts in the private sector. This result holds regardless of the type of job they hold, their educational attainment, marital status, the number and ages of their children, or the employment status of their spouse. This is an important result to federal agency recruitment, which targets a similar labor pool as does the private sector. It is also important to the retention of human capital in federal government, which has sought to establish a reputation as a model employer through the development and implementation of family-friendly workplace programs and a culture that supports overall work–life balance. However, mothers in federal service spend more time at work compared to their counterparts in the private sector, which prompts one to wonder whether less caregiving time and more work time is true balance.