Gender differences in the hospitality industry: A Job quality index

• Women’s rate of participation on the labour market is growing, but their working conditions, and consequently their quality, are less favourable than men’s.
• A study of job quality from the gender perspective is a pressing need.
• Creation of a Composite Index of Job Quality (CIJQ) for the Tourism Industry.
• Important number of published studies that compare men’s and women’s job quality, which focus primarily on salary.
• The CIJQ includes more variables apart from salary and reveals the importance of bearing work week duration in mind.
• CIJQ results confirmed that on average women held lower quality jobs than men and an analysis by age group revealed gender gap widens with age.
• Women have lower job quality in management positions they have not traditionally held.
• The gender gap in quality is widest in clearly feminised, lower skilled jobs.

Employment in the hospitality industry is generally associated with lower quality of employment opportunities than other industries. While women's participation has improved both quantitatively and qualitatively, they continue to encounter a host of barriers attributable to labour market discrimination. A gender-oriented study of job quality is consequently in order.The present paper aims to define and construct a composite index of job quality, compiling objective job security conditions in a single variable that allows the detection of possible gender differences in job quality. Unlike other comparisons of job quality that focus primarily on salary, the composite indicator developed stresses work week duration in an industry in which part-timing impacts women particularly heavily. Findings reveal that women hold lower quality jobs than men and that the gender gap widens with age. Results also show a double adversity for women: a lower job quality in management positions they have not traditionally held, and a wider quality gap in clearly feminized, lower skilled positions.