Journal of Tourism and Development

Journal of Tourism and Development

The Identification of Factors Influencing the Gender Pay Gap in Tourism Industry (the Case of Travel Agencies)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Zahra Teymouri 1
Esmaeil Ghaderi 2
1 MA in Tourism Development Planning, Department of Tourism Management, Faculty of Accounting & Management, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Associate Professor of Tourism Management, Department of Tourism Management, Faculty of Accounting & Management, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/jtd.2023.398103.2773
Abstract
The current research aims to identify the factors influencing gender pay gap in the tourism industry (case: travel agencies) and to determine the effect weight of each factor. The methodology of the research is mixed method and the Sequential Exploratory approach (qualitative-quantitative) is adopted. In phase 1 (qualitative), in order to extract the factors, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 tourism experts selected by snowball sampling technique. In phase 2 (quantitative), a structured questionnaire was designed based on the extracted factors. It was given to 248 employees and managers of travel agencies who were selected by convenience sampling technique and had experienced gender pay inequality. The qualitative data were analyzed by interpretive analysis and coding via the method of Strauss and Corbin. The qualitative data were analyzed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (Structural Equation Modeling composing of Measurement Modeling and Structural Modeling) using SPSS-V23, LISREL-V8.8 and SmartPLS-2 pieces of software. The model fitted the observations well. The following three dimensions influencing gender pay gap in the tourism industry were confirmed: (a) sociocultural (including stereotypes, gender socialization, androcentrism, legal literacy), (b) political‐legal (including policymaking and overarching laws, implementation, monitoring, rewards and punishments), (c) administrative-organizational (including managerial failures, organizational culture, and technological infrastructure and equipment). In addition, the examination of the coefficients of the model paths showed that the sociocultural dimension and the gender socialization component--amongst the dimensions and components, respectively--influenced gender pay gap in the tourism industry most. This implies the necessity of educating and improving the awareness of individuals in the area of gender equalit
Keywords
gender gap
gender socialization
pay gap
tourism industry
travel agencies
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