IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v43y2022i2p830-852.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women’s participation in teacher unions: Implications of a ‘triple burden’ for union gender equality strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Mihajla Gavin

    (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)

  • Susan McGrath-Champ

    (University of Sydney, Australia)

  • Meghan Stacey

    (University of New South Wales, Australia)

  • Rachel Wilson

    (University of Sydney, Australia)

Abstract

Amidst declining union influence, teacher unions have retained power. However, work intensification, arising from increasing reform in school education, has potentially undermined union participation, particularly women’s. Using a mixed-method approach, this article examines how the tangled combination of women’s paid work, union participation and family/domestic responsibilities (the ‘triple burden’) affects women’s roles as unionists. Examining the case of Australian teachers, the article finds that while demands of ‘work’ and ‘life’ can stifle union participation, it is specifically the cultural and historical legacies in unions that hinder women’s participation. The findings offer new insights around issues affecting the participation of women in female-dominated unions, and the intersection between union organisation and operation and the member-workers whom they represent.

Suggested Citation

  • Mihajla Gavin & Susan McGrath-Champ & Meghan Stacey & Rachel Wilson, 2022. "Women’s participation in teacher unions: Implications of a ‘triple burden’ for union gender equality strategies," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(2), pages 830-852, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:43:y:2022:i:2:p:830-852
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X20958481
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X20958481
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X20958481?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emily Murphy & Daniel Oesch, 2015. "The Feminization of Occupations and Change in Wages: A Panel Analysis of Britain, Germany and Switzerland," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 731, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Gill Kirton, 2015. "Progress Towards Gender Democracy in UK Unions 1987–2012," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 484-507, September.
    3. Louise Thornthwaite & Nikola Balnave & Alison Barnes, 2018. "Unions and social media: Prospects for gender inclusion," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 401-417, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Getinet Astatike Haile, 2021. "Men, women and unions," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 201-217, May.
    2. Julie Prowse & Peter Prowse & Robert Perrett, 2022. "‘Women take care and men take charge’: The case of leadership and gender in the Public and Commercial Services Union," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(2), pages 773-792, May.
    3. Mark Dean & Robert Perrett, 2020. "Overcoming barriers to women's workplace leadership: insights from the interaction of formal and informal support mechanisms in trade unions," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 169-184, May.
    4. Fabian Sander & Irene Kriesi, 2019. "Medium and Long-Term Returns to Professional Education in Switzerland: Explaining Differences between Occupational Fields," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 136-153.
    5. Geraldine Healy & M. Mostak Ahamed, 2019. "Gender Pay Gap, Voluntary Interventions and Recession: The Case of the British Financial Services Sector," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 302-327, June.
    6. Cécile Guillaume, 2018. "Women's Participation in a Radical Trade Union Movement That Claims to be Feminist," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 556-578, September.
    7. Aslı Vatansever, 2021. "Feminization of Resistance: Reclaiming the Affective and the Indefinite as Counter-Strategy in Academic Labor Activism," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    8. Daniel Oesch & Oliver Lipps & Patrick McDonald, 2017. "The wage penalty for motherhood: Evidence on discrimination from panel data and a survey experiment for Switzerland," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(56), pages 1793-1824.
    9. Aline Zucco, 2019. "Occupational Characteristics and the Gender Pay Gap," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1794, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Gill Kirton & Cécile Guillaume, 2024. "Towards ‘Racialising’ the Union Agenda on the Front Lines of Healthcare Professions," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(2), pages 358-376, April.
    11. Mathias Kloss & Thomas Kirschstein & Steffen Liebscher & Martin Petrick, 2019. "Robust Productivity Analysis: An application to German FADN data," Papers 1902.00678, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2019.
    12. Simon Pek, 2019. "Rekindling Union Democracy Through the Use of Sortition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(4), pages 1033-1051, April.
    13. Lara Minkus, 2019. "Labor Market Closure and the Stalling of the Gender Pay Gap," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1049, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    14. Raquel Rego & Ana Espírito-Santo, 2023. "Beyond density: Improving European trade unions’ representativeness through gender quotas," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 29(4), pages 415-433, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:43:y:2022:i:2:p:830-852. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.