Essay Sample: Gender Discrimination and Age Discrimination in the Tech Industry

Introduction

Age and Gender discrimination appears rampant irrespective of race, religion, or city. However, the existence of age and gender diversity could open doors to mentoring opportunities, faster technology integration, and fresh and new skill sets in the workplace. Understanding these opportunities and hiring employees across all genders and generations is key to a strategy for success. This paper aims to answer the following questions.

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Examples of Gender and Age Discrimination in the Tech Industry

Gender discrimination happens when one is treated differently due to his gender; for example, an employer having favorable terms and conditions for the female gender has direct prejudices against men. At the same time, age discrimination is when one is treated differently due to age in one instance or the other. For example, in Hong Kong, the corporation technology giants are hunting for energetic young staff to see veteran managers' cases (Li, 2019). This is direct discrimination against age. Hong Kong tech prefers youth employees, in part due to demands such as "996," which require workers to work from 0900hrs to 2100hrs, and at least six days a week.

Furthermore, the United Nations Committee on Eliminating Discrimination Against Women raised concerns about gender discrimination in Hong Kong. Specifically, prejudice about religion and ethnic minority women. Also, discrimination against women with disabilities who have inadequate access to employment, health, and education (“Consumer Search Hong Kong Limited”, 2016). Chinese statistics illustrate that while young ladies in the age bracket of 20 to 29 earned the same salaries and wages as their male counterparts, the gender wage gap also widens with age.

Reasons for Gender Discrimination and Age Discrimination in the Tech Industry

The reason for age discrimination in Hong Kong is that youth are energetic and productive, and they can work from 0900hrs to 2100hrs, and at least six days a week.

The reason for gender discrimination is that gentiles are ever produced, and they do not go on maternity leave, and they are more energetic than females.

Using the labeling theory and stigma theory to comment on this statement: "New immigrants are welfare/benefit scroungers"

Labeling theory states that deviance is not integral to an act. Instead, it is the result of the externally forced label of deviant. It emphasizes the tendency of majorities to adversely label minorities or those observed as deviant from standard cultural norms (Abrah, 2018). The theory looks into how individuals' behavior and self-identity may be influenced or determined by the terms used to classify or describe them. While stigma theory holds that a stigma is an attribute reputation that is discrediting socially in a specific way, it causes a person to be mentally categorized by others in a rejected, stereotypical, undesirable rather than an acceptable normal one (Tyler & Slater, 2018). An immigrant presence is the welfare of scroungers as he is stigmatized to do anything and is exploited since he adheres to all he is told.

Labeling theory is concerned with usual roles that give meaning to lives, although, with crucial roles, society gives the deviant behavior known as social stigma, stigmatic roles, or deviant roles. A stigma role is a set of anticipation about behavior. They are essential for the company and functioning of any group or society (Mahmood, 2019). New emigrants are benefit scroungers as they will follow the rules and regulations found in a given community or organization; hence, they will be exploited to the maximum.

Comment on the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Social Integrationist Discourse on Social

Exclusion

Social exclusion refers to a process that impedes the full participation of a given society in normatively shared activities. It denies them access to resources, identity, information, recognition, and sociability, decreasing capabilities to attain personal goals, and eroding self-respect. The use of social exclusion has crucial policy significance as its asset in establishing the weaknesses and strengths of existing social protection arrangements (Peters & Besley, 2014). One of the strengths is viewing it as a social protection tool to advance economic and human development. Specifically, social protection is an instrument used to promote long-term economic security, and consequently, investment in human capital. It also believes that social protection should have a transformative angle for social justice, supporting equity, and empowerment (Babajanian & Hagen-Zanker, 2012). Its weakness is that this discourse's political sustainability is related to the poor's segmentation and marginalization (Villani & Fana, 2020). The marginalization and stigmatization are characteristic of means-testing and identifying effect-self-respect accorded to the poor by other people.

Strengths and Limitations of Using the Informal System to Reduce Poverty

One of the strengths of using an informal system is that it is a source of income that eradicates poverty. Secondly, it acts as a testing ground for business creation. Also, it decreases barriers to entry to business ventures as most of it starts with close social relationships. One of the informal system's weaknesses is; that the system encounters many barriers to entry to the formal market as they are unable to give employment history to backup people's skills. Also, they face problems in expanding the enterprise, which cannot be advertised openly.

References

Abrah, P. B. (2018). Labeling Theory and Life Stories of Juvenile Delinquents Transitioning Into Adulthood. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 63(2), 179–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624x18787303

Babajanian, B., & Hagen-Zanker, J. (2012). Social protection and social exclusion: an analytical framework to assess the links. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SHS/pdf/Workshop-Social-Inclusion_ODI.pdf

Consumer Search Hong Kong Limited (CSG). (2016). Exploratory Study on Age Discrimination in Employment -Report - Prepared for. https://www.eoc.org.hk/eoc/upload/ResearchReport/2016161633111925251.pdf

Li, S. J., Pei. (2019, March 25). China tech firms, seeking passion and energy, promote younger staff. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tech-ageism/china-tech-firms-seeking-passion-and-energy-promote-younger-staff-idUSKCN1R60PS

Mahmood, A. (2019). The Urban Informal Economy and Earning Facilitations: Evidence from District Multan. Pakistan Social Sciences Review, 3(II), 364–379. https://doi.org/10.35484/pssr.2019(3-ii)28

Peters, M. A., & Besley, T. A. C. (2014). Social Exclusion/Inclusion: Foucault's analytics of exclusion, the political ecology of social inclusion and the legitimation of inclusive education. Open Review of Educational Research, 1(1), 99–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/23265507.2014.972439

Tyler, I., & Slater, T. (2018). Rethinking the sociology of stigma. The Sociological Review, 66(4), 721–743. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026118777425

Villani, D., & Fana, M. (2020). Productive Integration, Economic Recession and Employment in Europe: An Assessment Based on Vertically Integrated Sectors. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3656296