Psychology of Gender Through the Lens of Culture by Saba Safdar & Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka

Author:Saba Safdar & Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Competing in the Labour Market

As it was described previously, after the 1989 political changes the official discourse was divided. During this time, gender role expectations partly became more traditional than they had been in the socialist time and sought to maximize the differences between the sexes. Furthermore, gender role partly became more modern and sought to minimize the differences and emphasized non-discriminative practices in the workplaces and encouraged women to pursue high ambitions.

There are several studies that investigate if women and men have equal chances to get ahead in the competitive job market and corporate ladder in Hungary. Basically all studies point to men’s competitive advantages and women’s lack of equal chances to get into managerial or leadership positions in spite of all the legislations against discriminations. Despite all the social and economic changes in recent decades and the high proportion of women in tertiary education, only a third of managerial positions are occupied by women in Hungary , and in the top positions their presence is only symbolic (10 %) (Nagy, 2012). While these statistics reflect a significant imbalance, they are almost the same as the EU average (32 % managerial positions and 11 % top positions), Hungary is not exceptional in this respect, showing that women compete unsuccessfully for leadership positions all over Europe (Nagy, 2012).

There are many obstacles blocking real growth in women’s participation in senior management. Hungarian researchers, similar to researchers from Western Europe or North America, discuss the glass ceiling (vertical block) and the glass wall (horizontal segregation; women working in feminized jobs) effects that contribute to women’s more limited career opportunities and advancement to high-level managerial positions (Nagy, 2012). Coinciding with the traditional gender role expectations that are still prevalent in the Hungarian society, research with Hungarian women shows that their personal motivation is much lower when it comes to securing managerial jobs. They do not really want to compete and climb to the highest levels of the corporate ladder because they do not see that career can be reconciled with motherhood and family life (Pongrácz, 2001). In fact, the proportions of being single and being divorced among female executives is significantly higher than among male executives (Nagy, 2001). The career plans of young women and men are already different from the start, with young women having internalized the traditional gender role expectations of Hungarian society. A study of graduates in international relations revealed that even if women and men are keen on working on their career intensively as it starts, women later perceived their intimate relationship as a more important priority, while men prioritized career building (Budavári, 2008).

It is also a competitive disadvantage that female executives bear the double burden because—as it was discussed previously—there are only limited changes in connection with work–life balance in Hungary. The Hungarian labour market does not offer sufficiently flexible or atypical working arrangements and part-time work for mothers with small children (Nagy, 2013).

The social context is not welcoming either. Hungarian society is strongly prejudiced against women leaders and prefer men to women, for example in promotion, reward and wages.

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