Women and Working Lives: Divisions and Change

223 Pages·1992·22.01 MB·English

by  Sara Arber, Nigel Gilbert (eds.)

WOMEN AND WORKING LIVES
Women and
Working Lives
Divisions and Change
Edited by
Sara Arber
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
University of Surrey
and
Nigel Gilbert
Professor and Head of Department of Sociology
University of Surrey
Palgrave Macmillan
© British Sociological Association, 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1992
All rights reserved. For information, write:
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1992
ISBN 978-1-349-21695-6 ISBN 978-1-349-21693-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21693-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women and working lives: divisions and change/edited by Sara Arher
and Nigel Gilbert.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-06866-0
l. Women-Employment-Congresses. I. Arher, Sara, 1949-
II. Gilbert, G. Nigel.
HD6052.W563 1992
33l.4-dc20 91-24428
CIP
Contents
List of Tables and Figures vii
Preface ix
Notes on the Contributors x
1 Re-assessing Women's Working Lives: An Introductory
Essay 1
Sara Arber and Nigel Gilbert
Part I Women's Labour Market Position: Ideology and Social
Policies
2 World War, Women's Work and the Gender Division of
Paid Labour 17
Richard Brown
3 Gender-role Attitudes in Britain and the USA 36
Jacqueline Scott and Jean Duncombe
4 Money, Marriage and Motherhood: Dual Earner
Households after Maternity Leave 54
Julia Brannen
5 Employment and Domestic Work: A Comparison of
Samples of British and French Women 7l
Ian Procter and Peter Ratcliffe
6 Feminisation of the Labour Force in Britain and France 89
Patricia Walters and Shirley Dex
7 Demographic Change and 'New Opportunities' for
Women: The Case of Employers' Career Break Schemes 104
Carole Truman
8 Women under Glasnost: An Analysis of 'Women's Place'
in Contemporary Soviet Society 118
Kay Richards Broschart
v
VI Contents
Part II Breaking Male Definitions of Work
9 Wives' and Husbands' Labour Market Participation and
Household Resource Distribution in the Context of
Middle-class Male Unemployment 131
Gillian Leighton
10 The Modern Cinderellas: Women and the Contract
Cleaning Industry in Belfast 148
Madeleine Leonard
11 Women, Business and Self-employment: A Conceptual
Minefield 162
Sheila Allen and Carole Truman
12 Trading Relationships: Home Selling and Petty Enterprise
in Women's Lives 175
Fiona Poland
Bibliography 190
Author Index 204
Subject Index 208
List of Tables and Figures
Tables
1.1 Percentage of women working full-time and part-time by
age and age of youngest child, 1985-6 4
1.2 Women and social class. (a) Proportion of women
workers in each class, (b) proportion of part-time
workers in each class, (c) median weekly full-time
earnings for men and women. Britain, 1985--6 5
1.3 Weekly earnings of women by social class (£). (a) For
full-time and part-time workers, (b) by age of youngest
child for full-time workers. Britain, 1985-6 7
3.1 Percentage endorsing egalitarian positions in Britain and
the United States 44
3.2 Consistency of responses to two items assessing whether
women's employment is detrimental or beneficial to
family life 45
3.3 Differences in gender-role attitudes between Britain and
the United States 46
3.4 Attitudes towards the different circumstances in which a
woman should work 47
3.5 Differences in gender-role attitudes among men and
women in Britain and the United States 48
3.6 Differences in British and American women's gender-
role attitudes by employment status 50
5.1 Demographic and economic circumstances of the
Coventry and Rouen female samples 76
5.2 Percentage of 'peak child-rearing period' spent
economically active by country 77
5.3 Recollections of labour market participation intentions
in last year of school 82
5.4 Percentage of 'peak child-rearing period' spent
economically active by level of qualification and country 83
6.1 Employment indicators of British and French mothers 93
6.2 Percentage of mothers continuously employed by (a)
age, and (b) number of children 93
vii
Vlll List of Tables and Figures
6.3 Percentage of mothers continuously employed in each
occupational group 94
6.4 Summary of women's employment patterns 94
6.5 The occupational status of British and French mothers
working at the date of survey 96
6.6 Job and employer history from last job before first break
from employment to first job after 98
8.1 Percentage of women in the labour force in the United
Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union by
age group, 1985 122
8.2 Women workers and average monthly wages in Soviet
economic sectors with highest proportions of employed
women, 1986-7 123
9.1 Wives' employment status by length of husbands'
unemployment 136
9.2 Allocative system prior to husbands' unemployment 140
9.3 Allocative system during husbands' unemployment 141
Figure
5.1 Employment participation rates, women aged 20-64, by
five-year age groups, Britain and France 72
Preface
The chapters in this book are based on presentations at the British
Sociological Association Annual Conference held at the University of
Surrey in April 1990 on the theme of Social Divisions and Social
Change. The conference was organised by Sara Arber, Nigel Gilbert,
Roger Burrows and Catherine Marsh. Two of the chapters in the book
were from a conference panel session organised by Julia Brannen.
Three other volumes of conference papers are published simultan-
eously: Consumption and Class: Divisions and Change (edited by Roger
Burrows and Catherine Marsh), Fordism and Flexibility: Divisions and
Change (edited by Nigel Gilbert, Roger Burrows and Anna Pollert),
and Families and Households: Divisions and Change (edited by
Catherine Marsh and Sara Arber).
We should like to thank all those who gave papers, the organisers of
the panel sessions and those others who contributed to the success of
the conference. In particular, we would like to thank the contributors
to this volume, and Anne Dix and Sheila Tremlett of the British
Sociological Association for all their encouragement and support. The
Department of Employment is gratefully acknowledged for permission
to reproduce Figure 5.1, and for permitting the publication of Chapter
6 which is based on research which it funded.
SARA ARBER
NIGEL GILBERT
ix
Notes on the Contributors
Sheila Allen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bradford.
She has researched and written extensively in areas of work, employ-
ment, gender and race and ethnic relations. Her recent books include:
Homeworking: Myths and Realities, 1987 (with C. Wolkowitz); Gender
Divisions Re-visited, 1990 (ed. with D. Leonard); Race and Social
Policy, 1988 (with M. Macey). She is a past President of the BSA.
Sara Arber is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of
Surrey. She is co-author of Doing Secondary Analysis, 1988, and
Gender and Later Life, 1992. She has published widely on inequalities
in women's health, social stratification, informal care and gender issues
in later life.
Julia Brannen is Senior Research Lecturer at the Thomas Coram
Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, and has
done extensive work on families and households. She is co-editor of
Give and Take in Families, 1987, and co-author of Marriages in
Trouble, 1982, New Mothers at Work, 1988, and Managing Mothers,
1991.
Kay Richards Broschart is Professor of Sociology at Hollins College,
Roanoke, Virginia, USA. Her current research focuses on the history
of women in the social sciences. She is author of articles on women in
the professions, the family and adult development.
Richard Brown is Professor of Sociology at the University of Durham.
He was President of the BSA, 1983-5, and the first editor of the BSA
journal, Work, Employment and Society, 1986-9. Co-author of The
Sociology of Industry, 4th edition, 1981, and editor of u.K. Society:
Work, Urbanism and Inequality, 1984. He has also written many papers
on work and employment.
Shirley Dex is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Keele.
She has published a number of books on women's employment: The
Sexual Division of Work, 1985, British and American Women at Work,
1986 (with L. B. Shaw), Women's Occupational Mohility, 1987, and
Women's Attitudes towards Work, 1988.
x