What does “gender equality” mean? Social representations of gender equality in the workplace among French workers

No commentInternational audiencePurpose – This work deals with social representations of gender equality in the workplace and their influence on the implementation of the company policy. Design/methodology/approach – The research, conducted in a French company, is based on a mixed-method approach. The academic literature about gender and the theoretical framework of social representations allow to make a general hypothesis, which is operationalized thanks to a qualitative study. An online survey is conducted and t-tests and variance analysis are used to test the hypotheses. Findings – This work shows that, for workers, gender equality consists above all of equal pay and equal access to responsibilities, work-life balance and gender diversity being less important. However, this representation varies according to gender, age, professional field and managerial status. This variation of social representations of gender equality helps to understand the incomplete implementation of the gender equality policies. Practical implications – The results can encourage companies to promote a more uniform representation of gender equality, so as to foster the implementation of the policies.Originality/value – Little academic work deals with the way workers define gender equality. However, this is an important question as gender equality is a very large notion, poorly defined in legal texts. Notably, the variety of representations of gender equality can influence the implementation of gender equality policies