Precarious Professionals: Layoffs and Gender Inequality in the Oil and Gas Industry.

As mass layoffs, downsizing, and corporate restructuring have become standard organizational practices, professional work is becoming less stable. We examine the effects of this turbulence on gender inequality through a case study of layoffs in the oil and gas industry. Using a longitudinal survey that followed a cohort of recently hired scientists and engineers at a multinational oil and gas company from 2012-2016, we find that a major reduction-in-force during our study resulted in significant gender disparities in firm departures. Results indicate that about seventy percent of the gender gap in departures can be explained by underlying gender differences in the formal layoff criteria and workers' experiences in the firm prior to layoffs, pointing to formal organizational processes as insidious mechanisms driving inequality. The firm stated that layoffs were determined by performance and skill set, but the actual attributes for surviving layoffs turned out to be more malleable and open to bias. Results suggest that the firm's performance rating system may provide a pathway through which women's relational disadvantages became formalized in seemingly bureaucratically neutral ways. Our findings illustrate how increasing insecurity in professional careers may disadvantage women and shed light on the organizational mechanisms that reproduce gender inequality in professional work today.

Association of Job Expectations Among High School Students With Early Death During Adulthood.

Importance: Deaths from self-injury are increasing. Understanding the sources of risk is important for prevention and treatment. Objective: To estimate the risks of suicide and drug poisoning deaths among adult men whose adolescent occupational expectations were not met in adulthood. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study included a sample of men interviewed as part of the High School and Beyond study, a nationally representative study of US high school sophomores and seniors in 1980, who were interviewed every 2 years through 1986; those who were sophomores in 1980 were reinterviewed in 1992. Men who survived to 1992 and reported occupational expectations were included in the present study. Death records prior to 2018 were linked to mortality databases and released in 2019. Data analysis was conducted from May to October 2020. Exposure: Occupational expectations. Main Outcomes and Measures: Survival or death by suicide, drug poisoning, chronic liver disease, heart disease, cancer, or some other cause, categorized from International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision and Tenth Revision codes. Competing risk Fine-Gray survival models regressed cause of death on adolescent occupational expectations and covariates. Results: The 11 680 men in the High School and Beyond cohort study had a median (interquartile range) age of 29 (28-30) years in 1992, when the analysis of their future mortality began. Most men survived until 2015 (11 060 [weighted percentage, 95.0%]). Reported causes of death were suicide (60 [weighted percentage, 0.5%]), drug poisoning (40 [weighted percentage, 0.4%]), chronic liver disease (20 [weighted percentage, 0.2%]), heart disease (130 [weighted percentage, 1.0%]), cancer (100 [weighted percentage, 1.0%]), and other (280 [weighted percentage, 2.0%]). Subhazard ratios for death by suicide and drug poisoning were 2.91 (95% CI, 1.07-7.88; P = .04) and 2.62 (95% CI, 1.15-5.94; P = .02) times higher, respectively, among those who in 1980 expected to hold a subbaccalaureate occupation that later declined in labor market share compared with those with professional occupational expectations. The actual job held by men did not attenuate the hazards of deaths from suicide and drug poisoning. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, men whose occupational expectations were not met because of labor market declines were at a higher risk of death from suicide or drug poisoning than men with different occupational expectations. Interventions to mitigate labor market changes should account for individuals' expectational ideals.

Corporate Diversity Programs and Gender Inequality in the Oil and Gas Industry.

Since the 1980s, major U.S. corporations have embraced diversity as a management strategy to increase the number of women in top jobs. Diversity management programs include targeted recruitment, hiring, and promotions policies; mentoring programs; affinity groups; and diversity training. Few of these programs have proven effective in achieving gender diversity in the corporate world, despite their widespread popularity. To explore the reasons for this, the authors investigate the experiences of women scientists in the oil and gas industry who are targeted by these programs. In-depth interviews reveal possible reasons why these programs fail to achieve their intended goals. The authors find that these programs can paradoxically reinforce gender inequality and male dominance in the industry. The authors discuss alternative approaches for addressing gender inequality in work organizations and conclude with implications of their findings for corporate approaches to promoting diversity and for future research.