Gender Equity in the Leisure Services Field

Given the reported benefits of gender diversity in the workplace, the homogeneity of the leisure services field is worrisome. While women represent the majority of the field's new entrants, they remain under-represented in the upper levels of most leisure service agencies. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into why women are not advancing to upper administrative positions, and to compare the results of this study to the studies conducted over a decade ago. The equity theory and two explanations of attitudinal commitment guided the study's research questions: the gender and job models. The findings indicated that women reported greater feelings of discrimination and perceived inequity, more gender-related obstacles toward promotion, and had lower career aspirations than did their male counterparts. However, the frequency and strength of women's attitudes towards some of these issues were less intense than expected.