Calgary Journal Online

The recession in Calgary just might be striking women harder than their male counterparts.

Julie Rowney, professor of Human Resources and Organizational Dynamics in the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, has done extensive research on where women are in the work force and said there are issues with seniority.

“There’s not as many (women) in the higher management positions, so if you’re going to downsize, you’re more likely to downsize in the lower positions,” Rowney said.

Women may also be hit harder because of the cuts people make to their own spending habits during a recession.

“The first thing that you kinda have to look at is the larger picture, where are women primarily working?” she said.

According to a survey she does every four to five years, women make up 80 per cent of the workers in community service in Calgary, such as the Catholic Immigrant Society, Heritage Park, and Chamber of Commerce.

“If you’ve got a recession, are people going to be going to the Glenbow or contributing to the United Way?” she queried.

In the Calgary retail service industry, 53 per cent of the workers were women and many of them were not in senior management positions, meaning that they’ll be hit both ways there.

Another issue is that women who work in jobs that don’t require much education or experience are often working because they need the money, not because they enjoy the job, Rowney said.

That may mean they feel the impacts of a recession harder than someone who went to school for that career, she said.

“If (those women) are going to be laid off, it’s going to create major strains on the family, particularly if they’re a single parent,” she said, adding it may contribute to feeling more vulnerable to emotional strain.

Calgarian Carly Hylton, 18, has worked in the retail service industry for several years and had been approaching the two-year mark at her job at Cadence Coffee when her boss shocked her with the news that she was being laid off.

“I had felt quite loyal to my boss and company,” she said. “It was quite a surprise to me.”

She questions her boss’ motivations, especially since a male in the same position – but who’d been there a shorter amount of time – kept his job, but said that while she took it very personally she decided to just start looking for another one.

Though she hasn’t had much luck yet, she suggests trying Kijiji as a resource. She’s had more luck getting calls with her resume up there than she has by handing it out.

Hylton also agrees with Rowney when she says that there’s an imbalance between males and females in senior management positions, noting that most of her superiors had been men.

However, while she was “frustrated and angry,” she also recognized that the small coffee shop in Bowness had been doing poorly and even her tips were suffering, so she understands that the company had to make cuts even if it had nothing to do with her gender.

“Sexism, like racism, doesn’t not exist,” she said. “It’s definitely out there, (but) it’s a lot rarer than it used to be.”

Rowney said that because women may notice that there is less of their own gender around, they may wonder about discrimination, but she mostly sums it up to who is in what field and their position in the company.

“It’s not a simple answer,” she said. “You can’t say it’s going to be this or that; it’s going to be a combination of things.”

That being said, in industries such as agriculture, transportation or construction men are definitely going to be hit harder than women, Rowney said, simply due to the numbers of men that occupy positions in those fields.

Michelle Beauchesne, who had been working as a customer sales representative for a Calgary furniture company, also had a surprise pink slip delivered.

She said she also took it perhaps a little too personally, but said that after sending out close to 100 resumes she came back with four offers for interviews before she found another job.

Beauchesne finds comfort in the “good old what goes around comes around” adage, but advises women to “just keep your head up. Something will come around and everything happens for a reason.”