A double edged sword: 21st century workplace trends and gender equality

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the hidden gender consequences of three current trends in the workplace, the increase in knowledge work, information and communication technology (ICT) and work-life balance policies. Knowledge work, ICT and work-life balance policies are found to increase the temporal and geographical flexibility of work. Such enhanced flexibility should facilitate women's participation and advancement in work and therefore gender equality. However, all three trends also have hidden gender consequences that significantly prevent women from participating and advancing. The paper makes a novel contribution to the academic debate on gender equality in the workplace and provides an improved basis for better informed discussions between academics, policy makers and practitioners about how to achieve gender equality in today's world of work

Bibliographic Citation:

Eikhof, D.R. (2012) "A double-edged sword: twenty-first century workplace trends and gender equality", Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 27 Iss: 1, pp.7 - 22

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