ABSTRACT
Although numerous studies across nations have shown that women benefit from joining trade unions and from holding union jobs across occupations, there has been little specific attention on women in journalism. This chapter seeks to expand what is known by exploring the relationship between Women's status in newsrooms, their membership in trade unions, and a range of indicators of Women's status within the United States and other nations. While no specific cause-effect relationship between Women's union membership and their advancement within journalism is possible given the paucity of data, the chapter seeks to draw correlations between these, as possible, while also factoring in indicators of Women's status in politics, economics, education, and other social realms. The research will be conducted by examining and comparing data from two international studies on Women's status in news and media organizations – The Global Report on the Status of Women (Byerly, 2011), and Advancing Gender Equality in Decision-making in Media Organizations (Ross & Padovani, 2013) – and data from the databases established by the Quality of Governments and the Varieties of Democracy Project. The chapter will draw on women-and-workplace theory to provide an overarching analytical framework.
