Gender and job (in)security in commercial banks : challenges and opportunities in Nigeria

This thesis set out explore the experiences of men and women working in Nigerian commercial banks and to understand the link between gender and job insecurity. To achieve this aim, the following research questions were asked: Are men and women treated equally in Nigerian banks? Are jobs in Nigerian banking secure/insecure? Who has job security/insecurity? Men or women? Using a constructivist approach to grounded theory, a total of twenty four (24) indepth interviews with bank employees were conducted by the researcher. The insights from the field work conducted during the course of this research are summarized under the three reseach questions below. What emerged from the data is two conflicting views. On the one hand, the general sentiment from research participants is that on balance within Nigerian banks, men and women are treated equally. However, on the other hand, research participants also reported instances of unequal treatment of both men and women with instances of recruitment bias in favour of single, unmarried and ‘beautiful’ women. Another insight from the experiences of research participants overwhelmingly is that jobs in the Nigerian banking sector are insecure. Research respondents reported a general sense of uncertainty about their jobs. Thirdly, men and women equally suffered from the job insecurity occasioned by the cut-throat corporate culture ubiquitous in Nigerian banking. Although banks were more interested in performance and profits for their shareholders, the emphasis was on individuals, be they men or women who could/would bring in business for the banks, the job roles at the lower levels of the organisational chart were the most insecure and tended to be occupied more by women