×
Home
2024 Conference
All Conferences
Instructions
TSVC | Tourism Students Virtual Conference

An occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry

An occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry
Author: Meiju Lehtovuori
2 Commentries
Abstract: An occupational gender segregation is a major issue in the tourism industry. This paper will examine occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry, especially women who work in the housekeeping department in hotels. This paper will go more into the problems that complicate women moving on their careers.

Keywords: occupational gender segregation, hotel industry, housekeeping, women, inequality

Discussion Paper

The aim of this discussion paper is to identify different aspects of occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry, especially women who work in the housekeeping department in hotels. Also this paper will go into different gaps and barriers that complicate particularly women to move forward on their careers. As this idea of occupational gendered jobs should not exist today’s world.
Hotels, catering and tourism (HCT) is a major and quickly growing industry, women participation is 56 per cent at the global level and even 70 per cent in local level in the tourism industry. They are recruited to many roles, such as housekeepers, kitchen staff and front line customer service workers (90 per cent of these workers are women). Issues in the hotel industry relate to gender segregation, wage differences, career opportunities and different treatment between male and female workers (Baum, 2013).

Occupational gender segregation can be identified women and men work in different occupations and sectors. Tourism is a large and quickly growing industry which makes it challenging for the industry to be equal for both genders. The issues of the gender segregation may be identified by the size of the of the industry. The growth of the industry and social interactions associated with may have influence on occupational gender segregation.

Even though there may be skilled and valued workers, the managers (mainly men) do not appreciate those workers, which makes it difficult to move forward on their careers. By this the workers are stuck on those sectors they have started (Sinclair, 1997). The hotels employ a very high number of female workers (in the UK around 60 per cent of all hotel workers are women) which makes it clear that in hotel industry there is a gender segregation (Gurrier and Adib, 2000). Even though the seasonal and part-time jobs are occupied by women, the men are occupied by leadership roles in tourism industry. The women still have a lot of problems in the workplace, such as less than 40 per cent of managerial and supervisory positions are held by women (Simão and Breda, 2014).

The housekeeping department is important as it gives the image of the hotel to the customers. Almost every housekeeper in the hotel industry is a woman, and more likely an immigrant woman. They clean around 15 rooms or even more a day, this means they skip their breaks and work overtime to please their managers as they are scared to lose their jobs (Unitehere, 2016).
The working conditions in a housekeeping department is difficult as the demand for the job is harder than usual jobs. This type of job is normally seasonal or part-time job which means there are many new workers during the different seasons without any instructions. Also during the peak times, the housekeepers has to work quicker than usual, and the work is not as satisfying as it should be. Lastly the housekeeping staff is limited so the staff has to work harder and do more rooms than they are able to do during their work hours. Because of this the housekeepers work overtime and skip their breaks (Malik, 2010). The reason why women take part-time jobs more easily than men because it allows balance them between home and work (Campos-Soria et al., 2015).

Housekeeping should be a part of the overall team of the hotel, in order to the hotel to be able to succeed. Housekeeping is time-consuming and difficult and by this the housekeepers increase the risk of getting injured in the workplace. It is said that hotel industry has a 40% higher the injury rate than other service workers (Unitehere, 2016). Also this pressure makes a high employee turnover in the housekeeping department. The low wages and working on the weekends is frustrating to workers. As well the weak quality of supervision, no training and the difficulty of getting a promotion, keeps the employee turnover high. But also the high percentage of turnovers in the hotel industry is not only expensive to hotels, it may also impact on losing customers and negative reputation. The turnovers also effect on the quality of service as well to low employee morale (Chien, 1997).

To conclude this discussion paper, it tried to understand the different perspectives of occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry. This paper discussed about the different positions between men and women in the hotel industry, and more closely about the women who work in the housekeeping department. Also why there are gaps and barriers that make difficult to especially women to move forward on their careers. To meet the needs for the future both men and women should be equal in the workplaces, and should be able to work in same positions, and this idea of gendered workplaces should not exist anymore.



References
Unitehere (2016) Housekeeping Can Be Dangerous Work. Available from http://unitehere.org/wpcontent/uploads/HousekeepingDangerous.pdf [accessed 24 April 2016].

Malik, M. A. (2010) The Problems Faced by the Housekeeping Department of Novotel Solo. Sebelas Maret University Surakarta. Available from https://core.ac.uk/download/files/478/12350560.pdf [accessed 24 April 2016].

Guerrier, Y. and Adib, A. (2000) ‘No, We Don’t provide that Service’: The Harassment of Hotel Employees by Customers, Work. Employment and Society, 14(4), pp. 689–705.
Segregation of the hospitality industry; focus on housekeeping
Author: Claire Johnson
I decided to comment on this discussion paper due to the similarities with my conference paper and interests in gender segregation within the tourism and hospitality industries. Although my paper discusses the barriers faced by women in entering managerial roles within hospitality I was interested to explore a different study perspective focusing on a specific roles gender segregation. There has been an array of literature outlining the segregation of the tourism and hospitality industries, with certain roles outlined as “more appropriate for women” (Women 1st, 2010:35) and many occupations classed as being ‘women’s work’ and ‘men’s work’ (Guerrier and Adib, 2004) and certain roles, including housekeeping, are classed as “respectable women’s work” (Adib and Guerrier, 2003: 420).

The author has to be commended for underpinning various drawbacks and issues of employment within hospitality and the housekeeping role specifically, as the role is perceived to be ‘typical women’s work’ (Adib and Guerrier 2003: 420). The role of the housekeeper is one which has been heavily stereotyped as a female role, suggested to be due to the role allowing females to “use their female attributes” (Clevenger & Singh, 2013 in Manwa, 2014: 5937). It is a concern for me to see such stereotyping evident within today’s society, when surely times have moved on a gender equality should be present within all roles. Furthermore, the author outlines similar problems to my paper, with management being dominated by males, again this may be a result of stereotyping as women are seen to ‘take care’ whereas men are seen to ‘take charge’ (Opportunity Now, 2000) and many organisations have a dominant masculine culture (Women 1st, 2010).

The author picked up on a key barrier associated with females in progressing their careers, the challenge of finding a balance between home and work life. According to WTO (2011) “women experience greater difficulties than men when it comes to balancing work and private life”. This is in line with my paper and primary research which discovered this to be the main reason stopping females from working within management.

It would have been nice to see some examples where gender segregation has been combatted within the industry, such as Accor Hotels Women at Accor Group (WAAG) networking programme, which pairs females with a mentor and guides them into management (Baum, 2013). In addition to perhaps some recommendations for the industry in order to achieve gender equality in the future. However, overall this piece of work is well researched and written, yet concise. It covers a wide range of issues for females working within the role of housekeeper, and addresses the barriers and negative sides of the industry.

Adib, A. and Guerrier, Y. (2003) The interlocking of gender with nationality, race, ethnicity and class: The narratives of women in hotel work. Gender, work and organization. 10 (4), 413-432.

Baum, T. (2013) International Perspectives on Women and Work in Hotels, Catering and Tourism. [Online] Geneva: International Labour Office. Available from: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/-dgreports/-gender/documents/publication/wcms_209867.pdf [Accessed 13th March 2016]

Women 1st. (2010) The case for change: women working in the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism sector. [Online] U.K: People 1st. Available from: http://www.women1st.co.uk/system/assets/files/000/000/076/original/Women_1st_Case_For_Change_Full_Report_November_2010.pdf?1446131629
Occupational gender segregation in tourism industry
Author: Xiaoying Zhang
I chose to comment this paper is due to that my conference paper considers partly the same things. In this paper, the author is focusing on occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry, especially women who work in the housekeeping department in hotels. The author also discussed the barriers and positions of women employment in the tourism in industry. In my conference paper, I also concerned the barriers and reasons that women cannot move forward their careers in the industry.

The author mentioned that the number of women participate in the tourism industry and provided the specific evidences of it. Women participation is 26 per cent at the global level and 70 per cent in local level. That we can see women occupy a large proportion in the tourism industry. And this point reflects the gender segregation in tourism is serious, the imbalance of men’s and women’ employment in the tourism industry. On the other hand, according the primary researches, also reflects although women occupy high proportion in the tourism industry, still exists wage differences and different treatment between male and females workers (Baum, 2013).

The author has noticed the same fact that I did is that men are occupied by leadership roles in tourism industry, less than 40 per cent of managerial and supervisory positions are hold by women. Women are in the tourism industry with the low position, women is mainly responsible for season and part-time job. Furthermore, the author also mentioned every housekeeper in the hotel industry is women, and they work overtime every day, this reflects that the inequality of women in tourism employment are treated. As mentioned before that women are mainly responsible for seasonal and part-time jobs, which are low skills jobs. The international labor organization (ILO) (2010) emphasize tourism the challenges faced by working women, pointed out that ‘no technology and half of women tend to work in the sensitive, bad work environment, opportunity inequality, may caused lots of problems’.

Last, the author described the disadvantage of the role of housekeepers (most are women). Housekeepers increase the risk of getting injured in the workplace, and made the tourism industry has high injury rate than others, the reason of this result is that unequal gender employment in the tourism industry. Meanwhile, due to the unequal gender employment also decreased the quality of the whole industry service.

To conclusion, a good discussion paper. The author discussed the conditions and barriers of women in the tourism industry employment. Gave us the deeper understanding of occupation gender segregation in the tourism industry. A point for the future research would relate to how the tourism industry increases the equal employment for both men and women.


References
Baum, T. (2013). International perspectives on women and work in hotels, catering and tourism. [online] Available from http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents/publication/wcms_209867.pdf
[Accessed 10th May 2016].

International labor organization (2010). Developments and challenges in Hosipitality and Tourism Sector. [online] Available from http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_166938.pdf
[Accessed 16th April 2016].