A Dissertation on Gender Equality in the UK Marketing Industry

This marketing dissertation investigates gender equality within the UK marketing industry, focusing on the impact of gender on women's experiences and opportunities. The study examines the perception of women in the workforce, equality between genders, job satisfaction, and the challenges faced by women in marketing, including maternity leave and the pay gap. The research explores the benefits of women's experience and integration, the perception of women working in marketing, and the impact of gender equality in the workforce. The methodology involves a descriptive research design, with data collection through questionnaires, and the findings aim to provide insights into the current state of gender equality, challenges, and recommendations for improvement. The dissertation also includes an overview of the UK marketing industry's size and the increasing share of women in the field, along with a literature review covering the evolution of gender roles in marketing, the impact of digital technology, and the importance of diversity in the workplace.

Gender Equality in the UK Marketing industry

Marketing Dissertation
Student Declaration
Student number 1 7 4 5 1 1 0 0
I confirm that the work presented here is all my own, and that I have
referenced my sources appropriately.
I confirm that this work has not been submitted for any other
assessment, either at The University of Northampton or elsewhere.
I understand that this work may be checked for plagiarism using The
University of Northampton’s plagiarism detection software.
I agree that this work may be made available to other students for
reference purposes, either in hard copy or electronically via The
University of Northampton’s virtual learning environment (NILE).
Acknowledgements
The thesis is dedicated to my family, without their support and my dedication, enthusiasm,
perseverance I wouldn’t be able to start and finish the thesis. During the research were couple
Student name

of tutors who were happy to give advices and guide through the right path, encouraged me in
this difficult process and make me believe in myself.
First, I received great assistance from my supervisor, Dr. Rebecca Fakoussa, the tutor of the
Year 2018 at the University of Northampton, being in a great advantage to be inspired by her
broad experience on business field, she supervised and engaged me in a knowledgeable and
well-informed way.
Secondly, my lovely, unforgettable tutors, Jason Vaughan, Simon Wragg, Grant Timms,
Mike Chiariello, Learning Development and the rest of the University staff that were more
than happy to support and help me during the research process.
Last, but not least, my daughters Madalina and Carolina who understood that their mum
needs to study for a better future. My parents, who are far away, but I am sure that they are
proud of me, even if they do not know what a dissertation means…thanks them for giving me
life and a noble mind, that’s helps me a lot to see the world in beautiful colours even if the
sky was not always clear and blue.
The adventure started with trust and beliefs that everything in world is possible with the right
attitude, hard work and dedication.

1 Contents
Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................................3
1Contents..............................................................................................................................................4
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................5
1.1Background...................................................................................................................................5
1.2Importance of study.....................................................................................................................5
1.3 Research questions and objectives..................................................................................................6
1.4 Researcher Experience....................................................................................................................6
1.5 Time and Budget..............................................................................................................................7
1.6 Non-Probability Sampling................................................................................................................7
1.7Organisation of study...................................................................................................................8
Chapter 2 Literature review...................................................................................................................8
2.1 Perception of women in the workforce...........................................................................................9
2.2 Equality between men and women.........................................................................................9
2.3 Job satisfaction / work life balance........................................................................................11
2.4 Women in Marketing.............................................................................................................12
2.5 Women Marketing maternity leave.......................................................................................12
2.6 Returnship.............................................................................................................................13
2.7 Collective vision of women in campaigns..............................................................................14
2.8 The negative impact of Adv for women.................................................................................16
2.9 New Trends............................................................................................................................17
3.0 The Pay Gap...................................................................................................................................18
4. Conclusion from Literature......................................................................................................22
5 Methodology....................................................................................................................................22
6 Ethical consideration........................................................................................................................24
7 Reliability and validity.......................................................................................................................24
8 Findings............................................................................................................................................24
9 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................24
10 Ethics forms...................................................................................................................................24
11 References......................................................................................................................................26

Introduction
1 Background
An era of digital world which brings lot of changes, opportunities, to women and equality in
workforce for both genders. Studies around this subject were done years ago and continues
till present (Morrison,1992; Lewis et. al., 1994) showing that women can face more
difficulties then men due to their role which affect them being involved in Marketing
management opportunities. From years it has been seen that males perform marketing while
the female has only seen as a consumer (Bond, 1988). Little research where done to
investigate the gender issues in marketing, however there is a growing number of females
working in the field. The research will focus on women marketing roles and experience they
get while performing their job.
The study will focus on the biased between genders affecting women in Marketing
workplace. Jakimow et. al., (2006) states that women needs to have no obstruction to follow
any interests, they must have freedom economically, socially and politically, bringing
broaden evidence by understanding that women can help in growth of Marketing, reaching
their aspirations.
This is the period when women can be of a great help it the digital technology transformation.
To reach the objective of the study a descriptive research design has been adopted. Result
from the research enable researcher to understand the aspect of equality in terms of giving
opportunity to both genders i.e. men and women in the field of marketing. Moreover the
marketing industry of UK is ranked as fourth largest in the world and consider first when it
compare at Europe market. Addition to this there is a spending of about 21.19 billion British
Pounds which is recorded in year 2016 which get increased to 22.35 billion pound in 2017.
Other than this, it has been found that in year 2019 sept total job are 171000 among them 85
thousands are male and 86000 are females which is really a big ration that shows the
increasing growth of industry as well as share of women in industry (Advertising and market
research jobs in the United Kingdom (UK). 2020)
Importance of study
Exploring the available research, to find out the advantages and disadvantages of women that
are pursuing a career in Marketing and how relevant organisations can help them in achieving

their potential, encouraging them to be independent, increasing their self-esteem and
durability, confidence forgetting about the ex-social trends. Denning, (2017); Lapsley, (2019)
describe women in Marketing activity which is getting important due to several different
trends such as: anticipation of new technology, innovation, connection with people, rapid
expansion of market. All these changes are not much enough to determine the respondent’s
attitude and credibility over the changing environment as well as society and in determine
women approach toward their ability and trust. However, 2015 study identify top five words
used to refer to people in human computer interaction appearing as gender neutral:
participant, user, person, designer and researcher (Perez, 2019).
1.3 Research questions and objectives
Effective research delivers essential evidence for the explanation of data. This include strong
structure of the questions and solid objectives which allows the researcher to recognise which
topics needs to be approached (Drummer et. al., 2013). But these research objectives or
questions are mainly depending over the main aim of the study which is mentioned below:
“To investigate about the impact of gender equality within the UK marketing industry.”
The questions were formulated leading to the following objectives:
1.To what extent Marketing benefit from women experience and integration on the field.
2.Perception of people seeing women working in Marketing.
3. The impact of gender equality in workforce.
1.4 Researcher Experience
The dissertation is based upon the topic of women employing in marketing sector which is
one of the critical aspects in current era of competitive or globalised marketplace. However,
as a researcher, I was able to gain in depth information or knowledge about the influence of
providing equal chances or platforms for womanpower. From this study I become able to get
a thorough understanding regarding the factors that are against a women career in marketing
that act as a barrier for them to perform well and get access to further growth. Along with this
I also become able to determine the areas in which they are performing well and major
attribute that motivate them to pursue their career in marketing field. This is so because, now
a days women also started performing job in almost all areas and performing well. This
become possible as they started getting opportunity to prove themselves, which is earlier
provided to only males. But now organisations remain more focused toward maintaining a

diversified workforce where men and women work co-ordinately and equally as it helps in
increasing the overall productivity and profitability ratio in a stipulated time frame. Along
with this, equality among both gender support establishment to build a better relationship
between each personnel as well as lead them to grab all sort of marketing opportunity in an
improved manner. In addition to this, I also identified that each workforce can determine the
issue and to deliver better decisions for organisational conflicts. But, as per collected data, it
has been determined that women are more active and effective in understanding the issues
and consider all the aspects while implementing decisions. Additionally, with the
introduction of digital technology within marketing industry, it gives several chances or
platforms for women to perform their ability and also can improve their lifestyle among
community in a positive manner. Henceforth, practising equality and diversity drive
organisation to enlarge its market share and to accomplish the goal in an effective manner
without any hindrances. In order to gather information regarding this I make use of
questionnaire which support in gathering larger amount of information at a time.
Additionally, in order to represent the information in more effective manner I make use of
statistical techniques for interpreting the information that support in presenting more accurate
and reliable information. But in future when I again get a chance to perform investigation
over this area of concern then I will also adopt interview as a tool to gather primary
information which not only help in gathering detailed information but also support in
ensuring the reliability of data as the information is gathered from face to face interaction
where questions can be mould in order to evaluate several aspect of particular situation for
gathering better information for study.
1.5 Time and Budget
This component in research methodology is considered as an integral element as it assists
researcher to achieve its pre-determined goal in a desired time duration without any kind of
failure. Hence, in relation to current report, investigator try to complete all the pre-defined
researcher activities within a given time frame. Equally, due to the limited budget, the
number of sample size was affected.
1.6 Non-Probability Sampling
The aspect of non- probability sampling is related with those process of data collection in
which targeted respondents are not provided with equal chance to express and give their
views or opinion towards specified topic. Some of the types of non- probability sampling are

quota, cluster, convenience, purposive and many more. With the help of non-probability
sampling it become easier for the researcher to select only those people who have thorough
understanding about this topic and can provide valid information. Hence for this the
respondents are being selected based on personal judgement which support the researcher to
gather accurate views or ideas from identified respondents in an efficacious manner. For
performing this study, the respondents will be selected who are related with the marketing
field and are currently working in it so that they can provide better information as compare to
others. This is so because the unknown proportion of entire population, sampling may fails to
render generalizations to selected population in an amended way without any hindrances.
However, non- probability sampling can be used for limited number of population and for
exploratory study as it concerns with understanding the opinion of respondents.
2 Overview of chapters
This is considered to be a significant part of a thesis as it involve the planning of
important sections which are crucial for gathering the information from different important
sources. Under this chapter 1 is a introduction section which provide an overview regarding
the current areas of study and also support in gathering information regarding new trends in
marketing, women as a multitasking person, the effect and biased between men and women
in Marketing, Pay Gap. After that chapter 2 detail about the literature review, where
secondary information will be analysed and evaluated to discover the main issues of the
thesis - the Gender Equality in the UK Marketing industry which support in performing study
over information which is already available. After that in Chapter 3 there would be a
methodology study that will provide a detail about set of methods or tools used for
performing investigation effectively. After that in Chapter 4 the information collected with
the help of primary method will be presented and then interpreted to explain about its
findings. At last in the end of the research findings will be analysing and linked with the
literature and for extracting out appropriate conclusion.
Chapter 2 Literature review
This chapter will investigate, gender biased in Marketing workplace. In order to review the
literature precisely, all adequate literature will be organised and evaluated according to the
main objectives of the study:
1.To what extent Marketing benefit from women experience and integration on the field.
2.Perception of people seeing women working in Marketing.

3.The impact of gender equality in workforce.
Jobs are starting to change enormously, days to days needs new information acquired and
new skill learned in order to become a trustful marketer. Now is the perfect time for changes,
by proving abilities, skills, confidence in digital marketing, research projects, digital tools,
access to the market which raise opportunities to women to fulfil their potential in Marketing
career (Cronson et. al., 2000).
Basically, considering at what men are better than women and vice versa would be a great
cooperation in a company (Barleta, 2006). Another important aspect is that more and more
women are dedicated to study and will get a degree in the future (Kotler, 2014). To bridge the
gap, the governments could seek to remove limitation on the type of nature of work
availability to women, eliminating rules that would limit women (the world bank ,2019). Step
in financial market will be of incredible usefulness in all supply changes (WEF, 2019).
The role of women in Marketing in UK is related to positive outcome for community,
economies (Brusshey et al., 2012). Women needs to be authentic in order to grow, limiting
stress and to exceed the external norms, power structure, governmental regulation in order to
develop themselves, acquiring new skills, (Lepeley et al., 2019). Decades ago, women were
stopped by law to participate and take actions in certain activities like:
-to work in legal jobs and public service.
-to apply for credit card or lend money on their name.
-receiving and donating property on the same term as men.
-requesting equal pay, providing same work as men (Molly, 2018).
But with the 1918 Act, championed by suffrage pioneer Milicent Fawcett and suffragette
leaders, which perform a pivotal moment for the women’s rights and support them in lay the
foundation for an effort as well as progress toward a political, social and economic equality.
This support in brining changes in the condition of women by providing them right to
perform job.
It is very surprisingly that is less known about the demographics of women welfare in UK,
benefits or tax credit influence them to live apart, never married or living in separation, thus
leading to a total dependency on benefits and lack of independent income (Griffiths et al.,
2017). This is so because, women are consider to be dependent on male for living their life
effectively and financing their needs. This suggest that ideal families are less
common ,children being brought up in separation. Government respond that is their choice:

“the formation of couple relationship is a private matter for individuals” (Department for
Work and Pensions, 2014). This is not applied although for all women in UK. Support, as
high training even in mathematics, literacy, numeracy at least to the same level of men, it is
possible women to develop themselves. Initiatives were taken by female interest in STEM
topics increased in the numbers, although it is still lot of deliberations in terms of workplace
gender equalities (Mintel, 2019).
Mark Ritson (2013), suggested that women also constitute a major part of marketing as the
male do and even female are consider as more effective mind as compare to men in term of
performing their marketing job. This is so because from the study it has been found that
women are consider to be good at communication as well as emotional understanding as
compare to men which support a lot in determining the consumer behaviour. Women are
consider to be more sensitive and better at decoding the non verbal communication, studying
the facial expressions effectively and judging the character of an individual much effectively
as comper to male which is consider to be biggest strength that women can adopt in order to
perform their marketing job role effectively. This in turn also support a lot in formulating
effective strategy that proves to be suitable for approaching more and more customers. In
contrast to this, men struggles more challenges in term of understanding others and it can be
said that more then empathy there is no such skill for a marketer to perform well. As the
major challenge that a individual marketer face is to develop an understanding regarding the
actual want of a consumer and bring that understanding to the organisation so that better
strategies can be developed to cater the need of customers. Therefore, it can be said that
women are having a biological advantage when it come to marketing as they are better at
understanding as compare to men which avoided the chances of error or wrong assumption.
So it can be said that women are more likely to get inside the head of market and base their
strategies over the real need of consumers. Hence, it can be said that women are good at
marketing and can be perform equivalent to male if get opportunity and the only reason due
to which larger number of women lacking behind in the marketing field is due to stereotype
perception of people who differentiate a women from men over different scale.
2.1 Perception of women in the workforce
Global imbalance between men and women persist in position of power (world bank, 2019)
forecasting all changes, it might be an important step for marketing. Women becoming pilots,

speed cars drivers, car service mechanics, lorry drivers, electricians, technicians, politicians,
they are involved in political campaign, juridical career, full control over material resources,
partnership. A significant numbers of marketing executives were hired by women in the
years from 2009-2017(business news daily, 2018). Women ask for lots of information before
starting or being interested in such kind of jobs but they do not care of computer gigabytes,
electronic features, their focus on the benefit the product deliver (Tanenbaum, 1997). How
women shop differ greatly by men ,if the online construction group don’t understand the
features the women value, and which frustrate them, it will be definitely a fail. Another
important issue that resume again that women are necessarily in marketing business, thus,
there is a great interest to attract both gender, experiencing a significant growth of
women ,especially in develop countries (Hisrich et al.,1983).
Naomi Ellemers (2018), stated that women are being judged as different from man in
everything which is a main cause behind gender inequality. “Women are from Venus and
men from Mars”, is a phrase which represent the perception of people about the differences
among men or women in term of the way they think, act or feel. With the identification of the
stereotype perception it has been found that it not only describe what difference a men and
women possess, but also prescribe what men and women should be and manner they behave.
A survey was performed within 36 countries over 40000 employees which revealed that men
and women almost found same issues while maintaining a balance between family and work.
Yet managers consider these issues to be more at women side and when employees are being
rated mothers are less likely to be recommended for job as compare to women without
children while ignoring the fact that they are highly qualified and posses more experience.
Additionally when it is about nominating the employees for prestige or promotion, women
are less likely to be promoted due to a stereotype perception that more responsibilities can be
effectively managed by a men as compare to women.
2.2 Equality between men and women
Beauvoir, (1949) suggests that “humanity is male, and man defines woman not in herself, but
as relative to him: she is not regarded as autonomous being”, while (Barletta,2006) suggests
that men tend to be single minded and focused, while women tend to be multi minded and
integrated, these shows precisely how men and women deal with their life. The man
prioritizes, the woman maximizes. Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl, (2013) argues
that a woman’s most important career decision is whom she marries, someone who help her
with housework, not sacrifices her career to support him. As the baby boomer population

moves into prime time-and become progressively more female -it is possible major shifts in
cultures and marketing opportunities. Women possesses a more hidden sensory ability,
reading easily body language, facial expression.
Men and women are different in term of their choices to [product as their need and perception
remains different which make it necessary to consider and formulate a clear marketing
strategy to reach them. Sometimes companies don’t look to this difference by gender to
forecast their market opportunity and consider both of them over a single scale of demand
and target them with product or services which is to be approached in two different manner.
Communication between two genders are different, while men can give a big picture about
the product, women are likely to give details which are important to people lifestyle.
According to (Tanenbaum, 2017) a company needs to win “word of mouth”, otherwise they
lost before they even knew they were in the running. Nowadays when marketers are trying
to differentiate from competitors it’s the details which make the difference.
According to Naomi Ellemers (2014), it has been found that organisations that maintain a
diversity in their workforce tend to be more successful and be able to earn more profit from
gender diversity specially by maintaining it at management level as compare to other
organisation. This is so because by having a woman at strategic leadership position it become
easier for organisations to penetrate in new market while catering different customers.
Additionally, the team of a gender mix within management support in displaying more
creativity and innovation, it also supports in resolving issues more effectively due to the
presence of different perspective. The gender diverse leadership also facilitate the
understanding of complex demand and differences in culture within the global market, as it
provide a quick acceptance as well as adaptability to changes in business environment. From
the study it has been found that organisations having more female board directors are
reported to have a 16% more return on sale and 26% more return over investment capital. But
this is less likely found in companies due to difference in career development and gender pay
gap which women mainly faces. The men and women starts with same education, having
same degree or capability, but still male are giving more preference to job as compare to
female. The business graduates that are female likely to earn 19% less as compare to make
classmates. This difference not only ends with the salary packages but it can also be seen in
several different areas of working such as for higher positions, promotions or leadership.
Although the female and male participation within the paid work equally but still from the