John Kervin

Professor John Kervin began his research career at UTM doing experimental sociology related to interpersonal status.  He later turned to labour-management conflict and negotiations.  At present, his work is in the areas of “Work” and “Gender”, focusing on women in the workforce.

Research

Kervin’s recent research investigates the determinants of wages, particularly the wages paid for women’s work relative to its value to the employer organization.  This work examines how cultural beliefs and values influence assessments of the worth of women’s work.  It includes a comparison of cultural and social structural factors related to male backlash, particularly male resistance to women’s advancement in occupations and careers.  As well, he has examined the unexpected workplace conflict generated by “family-friendly” policies designed to help employees with child-care responsibilities,   

Professor Kervin also does related consulting, writing reports and providing evidence in pay equity cases.

More recently he has broadened his work to include occupational culture, comparing job evaluation results and wages for male and female jobs in both male-dominated and female-dominated occupations.  Currently, he is writing a book which incorporates a number of statistical techniques that he has developed to assess the worth of work, including different tests for gender bias in job evaluation systems, and methods for overcoming the problems of multicollinearity among job factors.