Work and Learning: 895097

Introduction:

            When considering the employment opportunity around the world, it is found that women are having less opportunity compared to the men. One of the prior reason behind that women are considered as protected groups like the other equity-seeking groups, and it becomes disadvantageous for them in the field of employment. Actually, women are facing this disadvantage not only in the employment sector but also the similar kind of issue they are facing in the training and higher education also. There are so many obstacles which resist the women from the proper employment. In most of the cases, the origin of these obstacles is within the history of the particular nation’s culture and general practices. Also, in many societies, a working woman is considered a taboo. With these type of barriers, there is also some additional barrier which are practices, policies and government legalisations.

            This essay is on about the employment of women, and it aims to discuss the barriers faced by the women in the sector of employment. So, for analysing how the skills training, policies of work and learning and the practices that limit access to the employment for the women and other equity-seeking groups will be discussed.

Discussion:

            In the present modern society, a popular type of education is the vocational approach, and the social policies are designed for link establishment of the economy and education. In the employment, sector education is important for developing various types of soft-skills which includes critical thinking, teamwork, flexibility and the adaptability to compete with the global market (Kyllonen, 2013). Also, the employees need to have the potential of perusing a different kind of careers so that they can fit themselves in several jobs or fields. To satisfy this approach employees need to develop their own human capital. Also, this approach can be difficult for many employees as they need to pursue account existing financial constraints and the practices limit the opportunity in education, training and work and learning.

            Employees learn several of skills through their life experience and some form the generation to generation (McDonough, 2017). Both of the males and the females can learn various of skills from their life experiences such as the judgement, teamwork and adaptability. While many common skills are learned for both males and females from the life experience, still there are some limitations because of some specific skills which can be possessed by only males. One such of the limitation is education. In many of the societies highly educated women are considered as taboo and to achieve a decent profile of job non-formal or formal education is important, especially for the developed countries.

            With different societies, different countries also have some specific perspective on the education and work of the woman. It has been identified that almost 90% of countries in the world have at least one differences in the legal perspective which restricts economic opportunity of a woman (Hoobler, Lemmon & Wayne, 2014). In this total economy, 79% of the economy have specific laws that can restrict some types of jobs for the woman. Also, as per the laws of the 15 economies husbands of the woman can prevent them from accepting the jobs. Thus it is clear that the woman who is coming to Canada for a new job opportunity, which was limited in their home country due to lack of employment opportunities and for the educational restriction will also face problems in Canada. Though in Canada there are very few restrictions for the employment of the woman still they will face problems regarding lack of experience in the Canadian work culture (Hilde, 2013), fluent English language and due to lack of educational requirements.

            Workplace learning also creates some problem for the employment of women. There is various restriction for the workplace learning policies which create problems outside of the workplace that interferes with the ability to learn in the workplace (Manuti et al., 2015). Ultimately the learning ability of the workers is reduced. An example can be given on this which is employees trying to improve themselves. To solve this issue employees need training but there are various obstacles in the training when it comes to the training of women employees (Sawchuk & Taylor, 2010). For the women, these obstacles include lack of funds to pay for the training and objections from the family members. Also, in many of the cases organization allocates the budgets for the training for the higher ranked employees, but still the woman again faces problem in this. This is because generally equity group employees and the woman simply does not fall under this group.

            Home life responsibility is another issue for which woman faces difficulty in the field of the job opportunity (Ibarra, Ely & Kolb, 2013). When the woman is restricted to from the higher level of education, they might join some jobs which provide the woman with low security, low pay and some low skills entry-level job position within the organization. Such organizations generally have policies of long shift hours which conflicts with the household responsibilities of a woman in traditional societies. Also, if the woman works in these organizations on a part-time basis, then they will miss the opportunities of learning which again creates a barrier in the further growth of employment.

            According to the Spencer and Kelly, gender inequality exists in the workplace and act as a topic that dominates the woman within the workplace. As discussed above most of the woman are working in the sector of low paid jobs it the sole reason of lack of career progression. For this reason, woman is facing barriers to earning a high salary (Spencer & Kelly, 2013). Thus economic inequality occurs in the organization with woman and men to address the key issues within the organization and in the society. For this reason, the gender division has been occurred in the organization and in society for different work position of men and women.

            While considering the OECD countries like Canada, there are various problems with the skills initiatives (Arntz, Gregory & Zierahn, 2016). In Canada, there are nine essential skills that have been identified which include the numeracy, document use, thinking skills and working with the peoples. In the OECD countries, there are federally driven individualistic skills-based training strategies. The main surprising thing about that how quickly these agenda is unleashed. One of the main problems with the skill initiatives in the OECD countries and in Canada is that the individual skill development process is fragmented, gendered and futile focused (Fenwick, 2006). The problem regarding the individual work knowledge has been assessed in the OECD countries. It is analysed that work knowledge is embedded in the cultural disclosures and joint activity rather than the skill notation acknowledge. Considering the skill initiative, in many cases, a problem regarding this is the over skill development. Many of the employees in Canada has reported that due to the skill initiative they have developed far better skills and knowledge than the requirement of their job role. The assumption made by the skill initiative about the learning and knowledge is that the relationship between the economy and the education not supported by any empirical research. Such an assumption of the sliding productivity is based on the meaningful constitutes, socially contributing work and the way of measuring it. In the skill initiatives, the learning and knowledge which are marginalised are the non-western, non-acquisitive and non-technological. This skill initiatives in Canada has created problems for the women because it has introduced the gender inequality in Canada which has separated the job role for the men and women. Due to that, the women are in a disadvantageous position in the employment market as their job criteria are less compared to men.

            The workplaces which are considered as the glass ceiling are effectively preventing some designated groups of peoples when top job opportunities occur (Wallace & Fenwick, 2010). This designated group of peoples consists of aboriginal peoples, radicalized peoples, disabled persons and women. This type of glass ceiling workplaces also prevents these peoples in terms of higher education, promotion and training. They effectively prevented by the workplaces because the workplace consider this designated group of peoples as a disadvantage within the workplace which can slow down the productivity of the organization. The workplace has derived these disadvantages from those designated group of peoples as they need a good work-life balance and this is forcing them to juggle multiple priorities at the workplace and in the home. Example of these can be founded in real life where some of the equity groups are compelled to maintain a tight schedule for performing multiple jobs to maintain their work life balanced (Carter, 2010). They need to perform multiple jobs because their salary is low and their salary is low because they are very low skilled. Also, their job security is low. A poor socio-economic condition is also responsible in this case because that designated group of peoples are also not privileged to opt the higher studies or cannot apply for a job at a higher position that can be considered as a promotion. This also creates obstacles in pursue of better training to get promoted at higher levels. Thus this type of learning policies is creating limits to the access to employment for the equity seeking groups and for the woman.

Conclusion:

            From the above discussion, it can be concluded that skills training, work and the learning practices and policies are limiting the access to the employment for the peoples who fall under the equity-seeking groups and the for the women. In this essay, several readings have been analysed and from that readings how the gender differences creating intersect with the learning at work has been analysed. From the essay, it can be understood that cultural issues and different types of training and skills have affected the learning of the workplace. There are various problem has been identified from the essay regarding the skills initiatives which are regulated in Canada and in the other OECD countries. This essay has also identified the assumption of the skills initiatives about knowledge and learning, and with that, the types of knowledge and learning that marginalized in the skill initiatives has been found. This essay has demonstrated that the skill initiatives are creating a problem for the women and the equity-seeking groups and why these problems are created has been successfully analysed. Many of workplaces are preventing women and some other equity-seeking groups in their job environment. Form the analysis it has been found that these workplaces are preventing them because these type of workplace believes that the woman and the equity-seeking group is a problem or a disadvantage for them.

References:

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Fenwick, T. (2006). Control, contradiction and ambivalence: Skill initiatives in Canada. [Conference proceedings]. Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (CASAE). Retrieved from http://www.casae-aceea.ca/sites/casae/archives/cnf2006/2006onlineProceedings/CAS2006Tara%20Fenwick.pdf

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