The Middle-Class Glass Ceiling in the Postwar Era

This chapter explores working Paulistanos’ access to good jobs and the limits to mobility in the 1920s. By the end of the Old Republic, laborers and liberal professionals comprised São Paulo’s middle class, and a segmented labor market existed with good jobs in commerce, transportation, and the mechanical sector and bad jobs in the textile sector. Interview transcripts and worker profiles show workers valued a high salary, opportunities for training and advancement, and family employment. Established residents and new residents, who were internal migrants, Eastern Europeans, or immigrants from other Southern Cone ports, vied for these good jobs. Despite tightening immigration regulations and increasing cost of living, the city doubled in size. Not everyone had equal access to these positions: a good appearance and the right connections facilitated entry, placing individuals coming directly from the lavoura, who could not afford the city’s overpriced clothing, women, and Afro-Brazilians increasingly at a disadvantage. The search for housing compounded disadvantages, and the working class increasingly built outward, expanding São Paulo’s footprint into the city’s floodplains. The Great Flood of 1929 demonstrated the precariousness of success and limits of opportunity as flood victims sought refuge in the Hospedaria.

Demographic Differences in Protean Career Behavior: A Study of a High Demographic Inequality Labor Market

The protean career concept is dominating recent career research. Demographic groups are postulated to differ on protean career behavior with implications for career development, social equity and management of an increasingly diversified workforce. The purpose of this paper is to explore the unique contributions of employees’ gender, nationality, sector and age in the deployment of career advancement strategies in the high demographic inequality labor market of Kuwait. This is one of the few studies with an exclusive focus on demographic differences in protean behavior. Most protean career research treats demographic difference as an ancillary focus, even though demographic differences are part of the foundation of psychological sciences. The study utilized a set of questionnaires on a sample of 908 highly educated young employees working in Kuwait. Primary findings are that there are greater demographic differences in protean career in Kuwait than in the West. Men, Kuwaitis, private sector and younger employees deploy significantly more career advancement strategies and have stronger strategy orientations than women, self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), civil servants and older employees. The results are attributed to contextual inequalities in opportunities because they echo the Kuwaiti segmented labor market by gender, nationality and sector. They also reveal that women’s and SIEs’ proactive career histories have not been sustained in the Kuwaiti workplace. These demographic differences in protean behavior suggest that the potential benefits of this behavior are limited to members of particular groups, and any intervention strategies to support career development may, therefore, benefit a large portion of the workforce that is impacted by the inequalities. The originality and value of this study stems from addressing four literature gaps. Specifically, it examines the understudied protean behavior as most studies have focused on attitudes. It centers on demographic differences in protean career behavior, utilizes native and SIE samples working in high inequality non-Western context.

Characteristics of and gender differences in young Hungarians’ attitudes and intentions on emigration

This chapter is based on the Hungarian Youth Research 2012, in which 8000 young people aged 15-29 were interviewed within a national representative sociological examination. In this study, the issue of international migration, especially of foreign employment trends, and the mobility intentions and attitudes of young Hungarians in terms of gender differences are examined.The global social contexts of the migration process in Hungary are examined through the theory of dual or segmented labor market, mobility theories, and models of integration. In 2011, many European Union's member states opened their labor markets to Hungarian workers, so more and more young people consider working abroad within the legal framework as an attractive prospect. This chapter analyzed what causes and motivations lie behind international migration, and what factors influenced young Hungarians to work or study abroad. It also discussed the factors that increase or hinder the migratory propensity, and the differences of opinion between young women and men.