Gender-fair language use in online job advertisements - relations to job status and gender equality

Hodel, Lea; Formanowicz, Magdalena Maria; Sczesny, Sabine; Valdrová, Jana; von Stockhausen, Lisa (23 May 2013). Gender-fair language use in online job advertisements - relations to job status and gender equality (Unpublished). In: 16th congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology. Münster. 22.-25.05.2013.

Purpose
Gender fair language use in job advertisements has been shown to impact the outcome of personnel selections. It is thus important to assess, to what extent gender fair language is used in job advertisements and with which factors it is associated, e.g., language, culture, status, and gender typicality of profession.

Design/Methodology
In the present research we investigated gender fair language use in job advertisements published online in four European countries with different socio-economic rankings of gender equality (World Economic Forum, 2011), namely Austria (rank 34), Czech Republic (75), Poland (42), and Switzerland (10).
From four lines of business with different percentages of female employees – steels/metals, science, restaurants/food services, and health care –we randomly selected 100 job advertisements, summing up to 1600 job advertisements in total.

Results
A first analysis of the Swiss data indicates that the phrasing of job advertisements is closely related to a profession’s gender typicality (e.g., merely masculine forms are used in steels and metals, gender-fair forms in healthcare). Feminine forms however are almost never used. Cross-cultural comparisons will be presented.

Limitations
We analyzed job advertisements of four specific lines of business in four European countries. To what extend results can be generalized remains an open question.
Research/Practical Implications
The present data provide a sound basis for future studies on gender fair language use in job advertisements. Furthermore it sheds a light on how companies comply with national guidelines of gender equality.

Originality/Value
This is the first time that gender fair language use in job advertisements is investigated (a) across different countries and languages and (b) considering status and gender typicality of professions.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Poster)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology

Graduate School:

Graduate School Gender Studies

UniBE Contributor:

Hodel, Lea, Formanowicz, Magdalena Maria, Sczesny, Sabine

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology

Language:

English

Submitter:

Lea Hodel

Date Deposited:

16 Feb 2015 11:04

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:40

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/62969

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