IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v18y2004i3p481-506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equal Opportunities Policy and Practice in Britain:

Author

Listed:
  • Kim Hoque

    (Nottingham University Business School, UKkim.hoque@nottingham.ac.uk)

  • Mike Noon

    (De Montfort University, UKmnoon@dmu.ac.uk)

Abstract

This article evaluates the nature and incidence of equal opportunities (EO) policies in the UK using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS 98).The article identifies the types of workplaces that are more likely to adopt formal gender, ethnicity, disability and age policies. It then assesses whether the policies are ‘substantive’ or merely ‘empty shells’: first, by evaluating the extent to which workplaces that have adopted EO policies have also adopted supporting EO practices; and second, by evaluating the proportion of employees who have access to EO practices in workplaces where they have been adopted. On balance, the ‘empty shell’ argument is more convincing. Smaller workplaces, private sector workplaces and workplaces without an HR or personnel specialist are identified as being more likely to have an ‘empty shell’ policy.While unionized workplaces are more likely to have a formal policy, those policies are no less likely to constitute ‘empty shells’. Finally, the policy, economic and legal implications of the findings are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim Hoque & Mike Noon, 2004. "Equal Opportunities Policy and Practice in Britain:," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 18(3), pages 481-506, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:18:y:2004:i:3:p:481-506
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017004045547
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017004045547
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017004045547?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. Trevor Colling & Linda Dickens, 1998. "Selling the Case for Gender Equality: Deregulation and Equality Bargaining," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 389-411, September.
    2. Wendy Richards, 2001. "Evaluating Equal Opportunities Initiatives: The Case for a ‘Transformative’ Agenda," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Mike Noon & Emmanuel Ogbonna (ed.), Equality, Diversity and Disadvantage in Employment, chapter 2, pages 15-31, Palgrave Macmillan.
    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. Canton, César G., 2012. "Empowering People in the Business Frontline: The Ruggie’s Framework and the Capability Approach," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 23(2), pages 191-216.
    2. Ines Wagner & Mari Teigen, 2022. "Egalitarian inequality: Gender equality and pattern bargaining," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 486-501, March.
    3. Deborah Foster, 2015. "Devolution and disabled workers: the experiences of union equality representatives in Wales," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 153-168, March.
    4. Chris Creegan & Fiona Colgan & Richard Charlesworth & Gil Robinson, 2003. "Race Equality Policies at Work: Employee Perceptions of the ‘Implementation Gap’ in a UK Local Authority," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 17(4), pages 617-640, December.
    5. Ernest Bruce-Twum, 2013. "The Accounting Profession and the Female Gender in Ghana," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-54, February.
    6. Linda Dickens, 2007. "The Road is Long: Thirty Years of Equality Legislation in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 463-494, September.
    7. Deborah Dean, 2015. "Deviant typicality: gender equality issues in a trade union that should be different from others," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 37-53, January.
    8. Laura C. William, 2016. "The implementation of equality legislation: the case of disabled graduates and reasonable adjustments," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 341-359, July.
    9. Jon Erik Dølvik & Jeremy Waddington, 2002. "Private sector services: challenges to European trade unions," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 8(3), pages 356-376, August.
    10. Carla Lima Aranzaes & Christian Lyhne Ibsen & Philip S. DeOrtentiis & Maite Tapia, 2024. "Solidarity with atypical workers? Survey evidence from the General Motors versus United Auto Workers strike in 2019," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 72-97, March.
    11. Josefina Erikson, 2021. "A special fund for gender equality? Institutional constraints and gendered consequences in Swedish collective bargaining," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1379-1397, July.
    12. Veronika Lemeire & Patrizia Zanoni, 2022. "Beyond methodological nationalism in explanations of gender equality: The impact of EU policies on gender provisions in national collective agreements in Belgium (1957–2020)," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 28(1), pages 47-64, March.
    13. Paula Koskinen Sandberg & Maria Törnroos & Roosa Kohvakka, 2018. "The Institutionalised Undervaluation of Women’s Work: The Case of Local Government Sector Collective Agreements," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(4), pages 707-725, August.
    14. McLaughlin, C. & Deakin. S., 2011. "Equality Law and the Limits of the 'Business Case' for addressing Gender Inequalities," Working Papers wp420, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    15. Bowles, Hannah Riley & McGinn, Kathleen L., 2007. "Untapped Potential in the Study of Negotiation and Gender Inequality in Organizations," Working Paper Series rwp07-062, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Hadi Esfahani & Roksana Bahramitash & Bin Lin, 2016. "Gender and Labour Allocation: the Role of Institutions and Policies in the Allocation of Female and Male Labor," Working Papers 998, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.

    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:woemps:v:18:y:2004:i:3:p:481-506. 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.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.