Locating gendered work practices: a typology

Unequal workplace gender outcomes continue to motivate research. Using the prism of work-life-(im)balance, the purpose of this paper is to show how identity salience and motivation contribute to a subject position that for many reproduces socially gendered practices of workplaces.

After initial inductive computer-assisted text analysis, the authors innovatively move to deductively analyse data from focus group and semi-structured interviews of 18 female and 19 male Australian managers in the financial and government sectors.

The authors find that a gendered sense of reflexivity is virtually non-existent among the female Australian managers and professionals interviewed in this research. The inductive stage of critical discourse analysis revealed a substantial difference between men and women in two concepts, responsibility, and choice. These form the axes of the typological model to better explain how non-reflexive gendered workplace practices are “performed”.

This empirical research provides a foundation for understanding the role of choice and responsibility in work-home patterns for women.

The absence of a reflexive gender-based understanding of women’s work-home choice is explained in Bourdieusian terms.

By not specifically using a gender lens, the authors have avoided the stereotypical understanding of gendered workplaces.