Transnational/Global Frame of Analysis: The Scalar Analysis

Transnational/Global Frame of Analysis: The Scalar Analysis

Discrimination between men and women in work places has been a major issue in the daily lives of the American people. Anthropologists on the other hand have gradually turned it into an ethnographic subject that requires a global outlook. This has resulted into a multi-sited approach that has provoked analyses of the spatial, visual and scalar kind even as analysts strive to understand what this means to the social structure.

This paper picks the United States of America and Puerto Rico and performs a scalar analysis on the stereotype ‘Discrimination Against Men and Women in Work Places’ with a special focus on the effectiveness of this kind of trajectory. This paper therefore embarks on an expose’ to shed more light on the various scalar relations that may deepen ethnographic analyses. The various strategies and methodologies employed shall also be reviewed even as we look to make a stance on the global landscape.
United States of America has a predominantly male workforce and if history is anything to by, there are male-leaning trends even in the pay-grids. Recent indications show that the female nation is slowly gaining ground in the employment sector thereby showing a radical shift in the labour market. The economy has also shifted more towards the service industry from the traditional manufacturing sectors that required brute strength than wit and ultimately locked out the women. This change has resulted into a paradigm shift in the number of women being considered for employment by firms and agencies.
Puerto Rico on the other hand has a large population of Hispanic descent and therefore faces a myriad of challenges that are representative of other developing economies. Unemployment, crime, soaring inflation rates, corruption and backward chauvinistic tendencies dominate the structure of the island. The labour market of the island therefore makes a very rich ethnographic site of study especially when compared to a first world economy like the United States of America.
Multi-scalar Methods
Several qualitative and quantitative sources were used in the development of this paper to provide a vastness and variety of informational data that explored the scalar relations present between these two ethnographic sites especially when it comes to earnings and job opportunities available for both genders. Data from Census surveys, Federal Data Bureau, analyses by transnational agencies formed a deep core of the information provided in this paper.
Quantitative
According to a census report (Mead, 2010), women in there is a considerable wage gap between women men with women earning considerably higher than their male counterparts. To make it even more interesting, their annual median incomes posted were almost twice what their men raked in. However, when compared to other states in the United States, the report showed that the earnings were still way behind their counterparts in other states. Several factors can be attributed to this kind of phenomenon. In comparison to other states, more women take part in the labour force of Puerto Rico than men; the viable labour force in the island is mainly composed of women holding undergraduate papers while manual labour mostly done by men has reduced considerably with a new focus now on the service industry. Such shifts in the labour market have caused a balance between the two genders when it comes to employability.
The Census Bureau in its 2013 survey reports that the earnings ratio between men and women in the United States may have risen a bit compared to the 2010 report but the disparity in earnings between the two sexes was still glaringly visible.
Estimators involving maximum over sample estimates of population parameters, and inference on this parameter followed with the implicit assumption that the sample equals the population maximum are employed to analyse the gender wage gap reported (Horrace, 2001). The result is every bit shocking as it shows that the required 95% level required is not attained meaning that discrimination is still very rife.
Qualitative
Various reports show that the full story behind the disparities in wages and employability between men and women in Puerto Rico and the United States is more complex than first thought. Factors such as age and education levels come into play with more women especially in ethnographic sites like Puerto Rico involved possessing a higher probability of education attainment than men.
This however does not mean that the male gender in the Puerto Rican ethnographic site is prone and gullible to economic short-termism and sabotage. To resolve this complexity, gender and age are used as a unit of analysis to understand the role played by the social factors that contribute to this phenomenon. Legal complexities that operate these kinds of locations as well as policy frameworks in place that govern the work place operations of riparian states like these also come into play when analysing the possible causes of these disparities. An effective way to investigate would be the use of structured interviews with a mix of scaled questions that may range from the significant to the insignificant. This builds trust and allows the interviewees from both ethnographic sites to provide their own insight that will enable a clear perspective and an unbiased analysis of the whole thing.
Limits of Multi-Sited Ethnography
Admittedly there is an unprecedented challenge in the capacity to effectively cover the ethnography of two vast locations. The differences in cultural and social practises between the United States of America which represents a predominantly white ethnicity and the island state of Puerto Rico which has mostly Hispanic nationals poses a mountain of a task in effectively covering it. Language barriers and the politics in play have a considerable effect on the cumulative impact on the outcome of this outlook. The use of multi sited ethnography to analyse this stereotype also happens to have its limits. While analysis of single site location would be effective, like say analysis of the gender disparities of the work places in the United States of America, ethnographers do not guarantee quality and efficiency when multiple sites are introduced into the fray in this case being Puerto Rico. The system apparently doesn’t provide for a completely totalitarian world system. This is majorly to do with geo-political disparities (Marcus, 2001).
Conclusion
From the limits of multi-sited ethnography afore stated, it’s evident that introducing a transnational angle to the stereotype complicates the analysis as it does not take into account various fundamental factors that are also in play like the political and historical differences between the two nations. Objectivity is almost lost as it is easier to overlook the tremendous gains made so far for the emerging trends in both systems. As to the question of effectiveness between spatial, scalar and visual analyses, scalar analysis gives a richer insight of the true picture of things. Information derived is more representative on the global scape and it makes the divergent emerging trends even more visible.











Bibliography
Marcus, George E. Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography. houston, texas: annual reviews inc. , 1995.
william c. horrace, ronald l. oaxaca. “Inter-Industry Wage Differentials and the Gender Wage Gap: An Identification Problem.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review february 2001: 26-45.