Working Women

International Perspectives on Labour and Gender Ideology

Nanneke Redclift, M Thea Sinclair, M. Thea Sinclair

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN:
  9780415018432
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134978212
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Anthropologie

As the female labour force continues to expand, the terms on which women participate remain a considerable problem. Working Women presents a detailed examination of women's position in the paid workforce in a variety of first and third world countries and identifies the common cultural and economic factors which create disadvantage.

Chapter one

Women, work and skill

Economic theories and feminist perspectives

M.Thea Sinclair

Introduction

Women and men participate in the paid labour market on a very different basis. Women’s employment in both the ‘North’ and ‘South’ is segregated horizontally, in a limited range of occupations and of jobs within occupations, and vertically, at the bottom of the occupational ladder. Such segregation almost invariably corresponds to lower earnings and inferior working conditions for women and is accompanied by a division of labour within the home which accords women the major share of childcare and other domestic labour. What are the forces which serve to perpetuate such inequality, and under what circumstances is it open to change? In answering these questions existing studies have tended to emphasize three types of variables: material conditions, institutional determinants, and ‘unobservable’ factors such as preferences, attitudes, and ideologies. Orthodox economic explanations, for example, have examined the operation and effects of market forces, concentrating on changes in quantifiable variables such as wages, income, and family circumstances including the age and number of children. Segmented labour market theorists, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of structural differences within the overall labour market and examine the institutional determinants of such differences; for example the provision by employers of a career ladder for (male) workers within the privileged primary sector of the labour market, pay bargaining procedures, and the role of trade unions in reinforcing the advantaged role of workers within the primary sector. Many sociological workplace ethnographies have concentrated on the role of socialization and culture in forming the consciousness of working women.

This book shows that uni-causal explanations of women’s working position are over-simplistic. Since the inequality between women’s and men’s positions results from and is perpetuated by a complex combination of factors, it is analysis of the interrelationships between the different factors which is appropriate. Such factors include not only material variables such as wages, but also a range of ideological determinants, among which gender is particularly important. The labour market is not a gender-neutral context to which women simply bring a set of preconditioned attitudes, but is permeated by implicit gender ideology activated through the practices of management, unions, male workers, and women themselves (Cockburn 1985, Game and Pringle 1984). At the same time, women’s participation in the world of paid work and their representation within it cannot be understood in isolation from their position in kinship and family structures and their relationship to childbearing and reproduction. Their positions in paid and unpaid work are mutually determining. The significance of women’s unwaged labour continues to have a crucial effect on their identity as waged workers, in spite of their integral role within the paid labour force.

In order to understand the ways in which the labour market is gendered, it is necessary to take into account the system of social reproduction, including the division of labour in the family, reciprocal relations in the wider kin group or community, assumptions concerning sexuality, fertility, procreation, and nurturance, and the control over property and income allocation. Also of importance is the construction of subjective identity through the media, the state, and the education system, offering women images of the values of the home, motherhood, and paid work which, like the system of social reproduction, vary between class and race. Such variations mean that although it is possible to make some general statements about the relationship between work and gender, the use of a homogeneous definition of ‘women’s work’ precludes adequate explanation of either the structure of the labour market or the determinants of women’s own self-perceptions and consciousness. Explanations of the gendering of the labour market should therefore take explicit account of differences by race and class.

Comparative analysis of the conditions under which women work and the ways in which their work is defined is necessary both for explaining inequality and for shedding light on the ways in which women’s inferior position in the workforce is reinforced or can be challenged. Many previous studies have been related to women’s position either in the ‘North’ or the ‘South’, implying a disjunction between the experiences of women in these distinct contexts. However, the chapters in this book show that by examining women’s positions in a variety of circumstances, it is possible to demonstrate the similarities between the concepts which are used to explain women’s unequal positions in the workforce in different settings. At the same time, variations in the specific positions of women which relate to differences in economic and cultural contexts can be identified. Although previous work has analysed inequality and women’s subordinate position in the workplace and the family, the contributors to the book demonstrate that it is also important to examine some of the attempts which women have made to establish alternative forms of paid work which are not based on inequality.

It has long been assumed that social production is the key to the determination of collective consciousness. Many of the chapters in this book question this view and, while focusing primarily on forms of women’s waged labour, show how the world of paid work interacts with domestic ideologies and concepts of gender. In the department store situation as discussed in Chapter 3, for example, the labour force is structured and controlled on the basis of a concept of white femininity which is reinforced by management literature and directives. Gender stereotypes are also associated with a language of control which can be used by employers to achieve a particular form of industrial discipline and flexibility, as is shown in the case of Turkish factory workers in Chapter 4. In another context, the view of women as sexually submissive objects to be used for male release provides the basis for sex tourism as a key feature of South-East Asian ‘development’ in Chapter 5.

The main themes which the book examines are gender ideology and control, consciousness, and alternative working practices. Although all the chapters in the book are concerned with all three themes, the issue of control and gender ideology is the main focus of the first four chapters. The following two chapters discuss the relationship between women’s consciousness and their material conditions. The final four chapters deal with the theme of resistance and examine a variety of ways in which women have challenged their working conditions by industrial action and the establishment of alternative forms of work.

Orthodox economic theories

One of the main topics which is examined in this book is the relationship between gender, definitions of skilled and unskilled work, and associated pay levels. Women generally undertake jobs which are perceived as involving low levels of skill and which are relatively low paid. Among the explanations which have been put forward to account for women’s position in the workforce, those of economists have proved particularly influential owing, in part, to the central role they play in determining the ideology and policies according to which the economy is run. Their influence is extensive not only within industrialized countries, but also in non-industrialized countries, via the powerful positions which they hold in international financial and ‘developmental’ agencies. A review of the most important economic explanations of the relationship between women’s jobs, perceived skill levels, and the wages they receive therefore provides a useful context against which to appreciate the ways in which this book contributes to the debate and challenges some of the existing theories. The dearth of intelligible explanations of orthodox and alternative economic analysis constitutes a further reason why such a review is useful. The contributions and challenges put forward by the authors in this collection can then be considered against this background.

Economists argue that an examination of the supply of and demand for labour is essential to any explanation of women’s position in the labour market. The usual methodology is to set out a theory to explain the supply or demand for labour as dependent upon a number of observable variables. The variables included in early studies of the supply of female labour (measured by women’s participation in the labour market or the number of hours worked), were usually limited to those which are attributed a value by the market, such as wages and other household income (Killingsworth and Heckman 1986:186–188). The link between women’s role in both paid production and reproduction has received greater acknowledgement in more recent studies and has been accompanied by the introduction of other variables such as the number and age of children (Leuthold 1979; Heckman and Macurdy 1980; Joshi 1984).

Studies of the demand for female labour have also estimated the demand for labour as a function of measurable variables such as wages, and recent studies of a variety of industrialized countries have attempted to quantify the degree of substitutability between female and male labour of differing ages (Hamermesh 1985). Particular attention has been paid to young workers, given the context of the current and future effects of demographic changes upon the labour market. All economists agree that the demand for and supply of labour are important determinants of wage levels. However, beliefs about the nature of wage determination differ. For example, those who adhere to the view that the economy operates as a ‘perfect market’ argue that the wages paid to workers are determined where demand equals supply, with any excess demand bidding up wages and any excess supply lowering them. According to this argument, wage levels correspond to the individuals’ productivity levels, with additional amounts being paid to compensate for activities which are particularly unpleasant or dangerous.

Orthodox economists argue that discrimination occurs if employers pay equally productive individuals different wages, or refuse to employ some individuals at any wage, however low, with minority ethnic workers being a possible example of the latter category. Since employers are assumed to aim to maximize their profits, discrimination, according to orthodox reasoning, is unlikely to result, since other employers could increase their profits by employing the lower paid workers. Thus, the operation of market forces is said to eliminate discrimination in a ‘perfect’ market economy. Since it is argued that differences in wage levels which are not due to differences in productivity levels are eliminated by competition, this theory implies that the reason why women’s average wages are lower than those of men is because women are less productive than men.

One theory which has been put forward to explain women’s relatively low wage levels is the human capital theory, which relates wage levels to the levels of ‘human capital’ (education, training, and skill) embodied in individuals. Women are said to have a lower average level of skill than men as the result of a lower level of education and training. The emphasis is thus on the skills which individuals possess, some of which are innate and some of which are acquired at a cost outside the home. There is some acknowledgement that different skills are required for carrying out different occupations. However, it is usually argued that even if wages are associated with jobs rather than with individuals, higher paid jobs are almost invariably carried out by individuals with more human capital.

The reason why women are thought to have less human capital and hence to be less productive than men is the time they spend out of the labour force during the years spent rearing children (Mincer and Polachek 1974). They are also said to choose jobs which require less education and training than men partly because they believe that they will spend fewer years in the labour market obtaining a return on the time spent in such training. Employers assume that women will have a lower degree of attachment to the firm than men, and prefer to train male workers who will wish to work continuously. Women’s lower degree of training is said to cause them to be less productive than men, resulting in their lower average wages.

A fundamental problem with this type of reasoning is its circularity, since low levels of human capital appear to be both the cause and the consequence of women’s changing participation in paid work during the life cycle (Amsden 1980). It can be argued that skill and productivity levels not only cause but also result from relative wage levels. Since the wage is a key element of the opportunity cost of child rearing, women may decide to obtain lower levels of training prior to and during child rearing as a consequence of the lower level of female wages, since the level of household earnings which are lost during the years of child rearing will be lower if women rather than men leave the labour force during this period. Thus, there is a material incentive for the household, and men in particular, to allocate child rearing to women. The tremendous loss of earnings which women undergo throughout their post child rearing years as a result of interrupting their paid work has only recently been quantified (Joshi 1984).

Orthodox economics acknowledges that people make decisions about their paid and unpaid work activities in the context of constraints, some of which (for example limited availability of paid employment) may be of such great importance as to imply very little actual choice. The choices which women and men make have also been related to variables such as the presence of children and level of education. However, a major limitation associated with the use of a methodology involving the estimation of models including measurable variables is that the nature and effects of non-quantifiable causes of the choices which people make are rarely identified (Mallier and Rosser 1987:2). Given this methodological approach, it is thought to be either impracticable or unnecessary to estimate the relative importance of material and non-material variables (such as voluntary preferences, socialization, perceptions of appropriate roles) in explaining women’s and men’s generally differing combinations of paid work and home activities during their life cycles.

‘Choices’ are in fact made within a context of inequality. Women and men enter into and participate in the labour market on an unequal basis owing to preexisting gender assumptions and an unequal distribution of power. The analysis of interactions and outcomes on the basis of the prevailing ideology and distribution of power means that the ways in which such interactions and outcomes are affected by and, in turn, affect dominant ideological beliefs are rarely considered. In consequence there is a lack of analysis of specific forms of resistance by women to such assumptions and inequalities.

Orthodox economic analysis is useful in shedding light on particular aspects of women’s role in the labour market, for example in quantifying the effects of changes in observable variables on the supply of or demand for female labour, and in enabling comparisons to be made with the changes in the supply of or demand for male labour. Most economists agree that higher wages tend to be paid to workers who are more productive and who have higher levels of skill. However, many believe that the use of a ‘perfect’ market model of the economy is an unrealistic way of explaining the determination of wage levels. Instead they argue that wages in some sectors of the economy are determined by additional variables such as trade union membership (Thomas 1982) and the seniority of workers within the firm (Collier and Knight 1985). Most of the studies which have been carried out have been limited to labour markets in western countries, owing partly to the fact that accurate data relating to women’s labour in activities such as agricultural production in low and intermediate income countries are more difficult to obtain than data for women’s work in industrialized countries (Beneria 1981).

Alternative economic theories

Segmented labour market economists have charged orthodox economics with failing to account for the ways in which labour markets are structured in terms of horizontal and vertical segregation (Cain 1976). For example, as Hakim (1981) has shown, there has been relatively little decrease in the extent of occupational segregation by sex in Britain since the beginning of the twentieth century. Moreover, approximately 80 per cent of part-time jobs are now carried out by women, most of whom are white (Bruegel 1989). When considered by orthodox economists, such segregation is often said to be caused by differences in the job preferences of women and men, by ‘imperfections’ in the labour market such as geographical immobility and imperfect information, and by externalities such as firm-specific human capital. Since women and men are employed to carry out different jobs, it is also argued that segregation is consistent with an absence of discrimination by employers (as previously defined).

However, in practice the phenomenon of occupational segregation is likely to cause the demand for labour for particular occupations to be directed towards either male or female workers. It is also likely that the inequality between different groups of workers’ positions in labour markets has different effects on the groups’ plans and expectations in relation to education and training, fertility, and the combination of labour market and home activities. Thus, instead of constituting the outcome of differences in voluntary preferences, segregation may itself influence such ‘voluntary’ behaviour. This point is taken up by alternative theories of segmented labour markets.

Segmented labour market and job competition theories are concerned with explaining the structure of labour markets in industrialized countries, and bear some resemblance to the dual economy models which have been applied to industrializing nations. Both theories co-incide in challenging the human capital theory of wage determination, although job competition theory is closer to orthodox theories of the labour market (Cain 1976). Job competition theory argues that the number and type of jobs in internal labour markets in large, unionized firms are technologically determined. Employers hire workers to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1 Women, work and skill: economic theories and feminist perspectives
• 2 Gender and library work: the limitations of dual labour market theory
• 3 Images and goods: women in retailing
• 4 Shop floor control: the ideological construction of Turkish women factory workers
• 5 Prostitution and tourism in South-East Asia
• 6 Return to the veil: personal strategy and public participation in Egypt
• 7 Women in struggle: a case study in a Kent mining community
• 8 Women shop stewards in a county branch of NALGO
• 9 Money and power: evaluating income generating projects for women
• 10 Greek women and tourism: women’s co-operatives as an alternative form of organization
• 11 A feminist business in a capitalist world: Silver Moon Women’s Bookshop
• Name index
• Subject index