social stratification

• catherine hakim


  preference theory
• Catherine Hakim argued that advances in gender equality legislation, and social changes such as the contraceptive pill, have led to a point where now women's position in society is a direct result of their own free and fair choices.

  she found that there were three types of women with different preferences around a work-family balance
• catherine hakim- found that there were three types of women with different preferences around a work-family balance

  • 20% of women were home-centred
  • 60% of women were adaptive
  • 20% of women were work-centred
• • home-centred - family life and children are the main priorities throughout life, they prefer not to work, qualifications obtained as cultural capital.
• adaptive - prioritise both career and family equally, want to be able to choose between them at any time, may take breaks from work when needed or change jobs to fit better with family commitments.
• work-centred - prioritise careers over family life, often single mothers who need to support themselves financially, but also some married women who see their job as more important than having children.
• in these surveys she found that only 20% of women saw work as their primary concern in life. this meant that for most women, they were mostly focused on their home life.

  • for most women work came as a secondary focus
• Catherine Hakim therefore argued that concepts such as the glass ceiling and forms of vertical segregation, were only because women made different choices to men.

  she found that the reason women worked more part-time jobs was because women wanted more time to invest in their family, not because they felt pressure or forced to by their male partners.

  she concluded that this wasn't a result of gender inequality, but simply women's choices.