GENDER INEQUALITY AT WORK

This is a chapter of the 3rd international Survey, promoted by Denki Rengo Japan Trade Union in electrical and electronic machine companies of 14 countries. The purpose is to examine gender inequality at work focusing not only job segregation and pay differentials, but also organisational change (i.e. traditional and innovative firms). These points of view are apparently far away, but really interlaced. The innovative character of the company gives some influences to change gender relation within the workplace, at least, on the structural level. The system of gender segregation as a combination of social and cultural change shows us that some positive tendency for female workers, however, at the same time, we should notice that managerial and professional jobs firmly dominate by male workers. The problem is that, where society as a whole is strongly gender-marked, this will be reproduced, albeit in a different form, in the labour market. At the same time, there is nothing irrevocable about this: the awareness and intentions of the subjects are clearly important.?