How has society changed for women today compared to 40 years ago?

 How has society changed for women today compared to 40 years ago?

Title of proposed research:

            A qualitative assessment of how society has changed for women today compared to 40 years ago.

Research question:

            How has society changed for women today compared to 40 years ago?

Research aim:

The overarching aim of this research is to investigate societal changes in the past four decades and how they have impacted women. 

Academic rationale:

            Over the past four decades, women have experienced tremendous economic and social progress, and this is a key indicator of the considerable transformation in their economic and social roles over this period. A report by the Office for National Statistics (2013) reveals that in the past 40 years, the UK labour force has witnessed a considerable increase in the number of women aged between 16 and 64 in work to nearly 2013. This represents a 53% rise in comparison with figures recorded in 1971. On the other hand, the percentage of men of a similar age gap appears to have declined over the same period from 92% in 1971 to 76% in 2013.  This shift in fewer men and more women working occurred in the two decades between 1971 and 1991. This transformation was due to a number of factors. First, the manufacturing sector had started to decline in the 1960s and it accelerated in the next two decades (Office for National Statistics 2013). Considering that a higher percentage of men had traditionally worked in the manufacturing sector, this led to a decline in the percentage of men in work. Conversely, the service sector was on the rise and given that a higher proportion of women have historically worked in the service sector, this could explain the noticeable change in workforce. 

            Additionally, the 1970s and the subsequent years heralded the introduction of various pieces of legislation that have gone on to impact positively on women's rate of employment. For example, the Equal Pay Act 1970 made it illegal to discriminate an employee in terms of pay on the basis of their gender. Consequently, women started earning nearing as much as men in certain positions (Office for National Statistics 2013).

 The passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 was also instrumental in promoting opportunity and equality between women and men, while the Employment Protection Act of 1975 brought with it statutory maternity provision, in addition to outlawing firing a woman on grounds of being pregnant (Collins, Ewing & McColgan 2005).  The 2007, thanks to the Pensions Act, women could now retire much later than was the case before.

            Women have also made tremendous progress in politics and leadership over the past 4 decades. The emergence of political equality movement in the 1980s helped to fuel the group quest for equality representation, a key concept of women's agenda in the late 1970s. By the late 1990s, the demand for equality in politics was inescapable given the growing number of women involved in politics.  In the early 1980s for example, less than 5 percent of the members of parliament were women but by 1997, this figure had increased to more than 10 percent (Russell, Lovenduski & Stephenson 2016). In those four decades, the number of women occupying senior leadership positions has also increased. For example, in 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister to the UK while in 2016, Theresa May replaced David Cameron following his resignation over Brexit referendum. This is still a very low representation considering the number of male Prime Ministers who have occupied this position during this period. However, it is a clear indication that women too can compete with men for leadership positions on all fronts.

            In 1999, the number of women directors in FTSE 250 companies was estimated at 6.2% and by 2004 it had increased to 9.4%. This increase was the result of the recommendations made by the 2003. In 2013, women occupied about 25% of the director positions in FTSE 100 companies, another sign that men still retain a firm grip on positions of crucial decision-making (Davies 2016). However, the rise in the number of women in boardrooms was occasioned by the recommendation of the 2003 Higgs Review of Corporate Governance which called for considerable changes in corporate board composition.

These changes are the results of various legislations and policy development aimed at enhancing equality and gender balance in what was a largely male-dominated society.

            Women have also witnessed a tremendous transformation in their career preparation through increase educational attainment and career choices. Four decades ago, men outperformed women in terms of educational attainment. Since then however, women in the UK, along with other industrialized societies are no longer characterised by gender inequality in the education sector. Actually, women have made tremendous progress in virtually all spheres of education and even do better than men in various vital educational benchmarks. In 1970, men accounted for 58 percent of all college students. However, by the late 1980s, women had caught up with men in terms of college enrolments. In 2010, women accounted for 57 percent of all college enrolments. According to DiPrete and Buchmann (2013), women today have a higher probability of remaining in college, graduating from college, and enrolling for graduate education.

            Conducting this study is important for a number of reasons. First, it will help to shed light on the achievements made by women during this time in the various sectors of the economy. Secondly, the study is projected to depict the tremendous progress made in terms of the realisation of gender equity through the passage of key legislation and policy developments. More importantly, it will also help to fills the gaps in existing literature on this issue by providing valuable data and information that can find use in future related studies.   

Methodology

            The proposed study shall assume a qualitative research design. Neergaard and Ulhøi (2007) have defined a qualitative study as 'a study that focuses on understanding the naturalistic setting, or everyday life, of a certain phenomenon or person' (p. 383). On account of its exploratory nature, qualitative research is thus deemed to be the most suitable technique to assess how society today has changed for women over the past 4 decades. Since qualitative research enables the researcher to gain an in-depth understanding of the opinions, reasons and motivations regarding a certain phenomenon, its use in this study would thus give insights into the issue under investigation. As such, qualitative research is best suited for the current study because it will enable the researcher to examine the participants' meaning systems in social life.

            Data collection for the proposed study will be based on the use of a semi-structured interview questionnaire as the tool of data collection. This will be administered to the study population. Given the open ended nature of the semi-structured interviews, this will give the interviewee and interviewer the opportunity to explore various key aspects of the topic under study into more detail (Creswell 2007). Moreover, using semi-structured interviews, the interviewer is in a position to encourage or prompt the interviewee to give more information on the topic of discussion. The method further affords the interviewer the freedom to question the interviewee so that he/she can follow or shed more light on a new line of inquiry that emerges in the course of data collection.

            A qualitative research design is best suited for this particular study owing to a number of benefits. First, the technique provides detail and depth to the research. This is because it assumes an in-depth analysis of the feelings, behaviours, and attitudes of the study population. Secondly, qualitative design creates openness by encouraging or prompting participants to expand their responses (Patton 2015), thereby enabling the researcher to gain insights into areas that they might not have considered. Also, qualitative research design helps to simulate participants' individual experiences. Accordingly, the researcher is in a better position to develop an in-depth picture of why individuals behave in a certain way, along with their feelings over their actions. 

            Once data has been collected, it will be analysed via content analysis. This is a technique that entails classification of behavioural or verbal data with the goal of categorising, summarising, and tabulating such data. Accordingly, the data shall be categorised and indexed with the objective of gaining further insights into data collected as well as to emphasize on significant features, messages or findings.

Sampling and Recruitment

            The research participants shall be women holding managerial positions in the banking sector in the UK. Sampling of the study participants shall be accomplished via purposive sampling. 

Ethical Issues  

            Considering that the study involves interviewing human subjects, it is important to observe ethical considerations. First, the research will seek approval from the university's ethics committee before undertaking the study. Secondly, the researcher will seek permission from the various organisations where the target population works for their participation in the study. Also, participants will be required to complete consent forms to the effect that they are participating in the research out of their own volition (Houghton et al. 2010).  In addition, no participant will be coerced to participate in the study against their will. Confidentiality shall be maintained throughout the process of collecting data.     

Who might be interested in the research?

            This research would be of interest to various stakeholders. First, the study is of interest to sociologists as it will give them a trend of the achievements made by women in the various social contexts over time. Secondly, the study is of interest to policymakers in the various sectors of the economy as they can use the findings to develop new policies to reflect the changes realised by women.   

Challenges and limitations of proposed research

            The proposed research could be faced with a number of limitations. First, because of its qualitative nature, the researcher might be faced with a lot of raw data that could be time consuming in terms of analysis and interpretation. Also, since the main focus of the research is on women leaders in the UK banking sector, it is possible that the findings will only be restricted to this particular sector and hence cannot be generalised to the wider society.