Gender Segregation

Divisions of Work in Post-Industrial Welfare States

Lena Gonäs, Jan Ch Karlsson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754644538
• eBook ISBN: 9781351934572
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This insightful volume asks if, and to what extent, gender divisions in working life are changing. The contributors discuss the implications from a labour market perspective and a family-work level perspective, which are combined to examine if and where patterns of gender integration can be found. Research from several European countries is presented, as well as from the US, to provide comparative and international perspectives. A wide range of related issues are tackled including questions of methodology and measurement, as well as segregation patterns, welfare state provisions and the use of parental leave. The volume provides suggestions for integration at different levels of society and, by applying a multidisciplinary approach and illustrating developments on different analytical levels, the authors further the discussion on how integration can be pursued.

Chapter 1
Divisions of Gender and Work

Lena Gonäs and Jan Ch Karlsson

Introduction

The objective of this book is to discuss if and to what extent gender divisions in working life are changing. In doing so, we will explore implications of gender segregation and possible openings for integration at different levels in society. Gender segregation is discussed from two perspectives; a labour market perspective and a family-work level perspective. The authors unite these perspectives and discuss if and where we can find patterns of gender integration and where there still is stability and continuity in gender relations. By applying a multidisciplinary approach and illustrating our problem area with development on different analytical levels we hope to further the discussion on how and in what ways integration can be pursued.

Stability and change

In a long perspective the segregation patterns have changed towards a more even distribution of women and men over occupations and sectors in the labour market in most countries (Rubery et al., 1999). At the same time, countries with high female employment rates have high segregation levels. Studies on the development in the European Union show that there is a positive correlation between employment rates and segregation levels (Rubery et al., 1999; Emerek et al., 2001). As more women enter the labour market they are recruited into sectors and work tasks that already are defined as ‘female’ jobs, and they are doing service jobs earlier performed in the household but now transformed into market work. Growing welfare state labour markets produce health, education and services and have become major employers of women. The dual dependency between the post industrial welfare state and the growing female labour force has formed new relations in the labour market and in the political arena. Women are dependent on the welfare state for the supply of child and elderly care to be able to take a job at the same time as these services are their major labour market, at least in the Nordic welfare states. In other welfare state regimes the relations are different, and as can be seen from many studies, the support from the state to develop a social infrastructure that support women’s paid employment varies (Lewis, 1993; orloff, 1993; Plantenga and Hansen, 1999a and b; Sainsbury, 1999). The retrenchment of the welfare state during the crises of the 1990s had gendered consequences. Plantenga and Hansen cited the Spanish expert in a benchmarking report from the EU network Gender and Employment:

Women are not only late comers in the labour market, but they arrive massively in the middle of an employment crisis without precedence… In addition, the underdevelopment of the welfare state in Spain and the aging of the population increase the work load of women.

(Plantenga and Hansen, 1999a, p. 41)

Swedish experiences during the 1990s showed that certain groups were more vulnerable than others. In February 1999 the Swedish Government set up a commission of researchers to review welfare development in Sweden during the 1990s. The commission took the name ‘A Balance Sheet for the Welfare in the 1990s’. One conclusion from this work is that single mothers during the 1990s lived under worse conditions than other comparable groups in society (single fathers, single without children, cohabiting with and without children). Four patterns were prevailing:

1. Already in the beginning of the 1990s, single mothers had worse economic conditions than other comparable groups.
2. This relatively bad economic situation was consolidated during the decade.
3. The big changes occurred during the first half of the decade, the income level was reduced and the economic buffers were decreasing.
4. Other groups that had experienced negative changes had an increase in the income level during the second part of the decade, but this was not happening for the single mothers (Gähler, 2001).

The study is based on the Level of Living Study performed by Statistics Sweden. For lone mothers the results showed that by the end of the decade, the adjusted disposable median income was 5 percent lower in the beginning, half of them had no economic margins and more than 60 percent had difficulties in coping with the current expenditures.

What explanations are to be found? Is it related to the income composition or to the employment pattern? The answers were found in the labour market. The main explanation is that the development of the number of working hours among employed single mothers had developed negatively. While full time wage labour had generally been on a constant level during the 1990s for single mothers, it had increased substantially for mothers in two-parent families. The weekly working hours had increased for both full time and part time working mothers in two-parent families, but been constant for full time working single mothers and decreased for part time working single mothers. The analysis in the report concludes that when asked single mothers say that an increase in working hours would be the best solution to their economic difficulties. Problems with day care or that it is uneconomical to work are not referred to as reasons for not increasing working hours or entering the labour force, if they for example are in education and training. The obstacles were found in the labour market, for example discrimination on the basis of being a single parent.

Diane sainsbury has in her report to the ‘Balance Sheet Commission’ discussed the welfare changes for women and men in Sweden during the 1990s (Sainsbury, 2000). The gender differences in entitlement to both health insurance and unemployment benefits have decreased during the period. Even through the crisis in the 1990s one can say that the gender differences in these two systems have at least not increased. For the pension system the gender differences are still substantial when it comes to income related pensions over the minimum level. Here still just two thirds of women belonged to this category in 1997, while over 90 percent of all men belonged to it.

The divisions of paid and unpaid work on societal level have to be considered when analysing gender relations in the labour market. The role of the state, its policies, laws and regulations are shaped by ideas and traditions that are gendered. The need for women as a labour force has varied during decades. War time needs for women in factories was transformed to its opposite in the post war period of the 1950s. And nowadays, the reserve army concept seems to be outdated when it comes to describing women’s position in the labour market. But the increase in all age groups of female employment levels has not been followed by stable positions in the labour market for all. Part-time jobs, temporary jobs and short term contracts by temporary agents are to a large extent characterizing the female labour force, universally. Again policies, laws and regulations differ between countries, but a common feature seems to be a gender segregation where the outcome of higher education, distribution of the well paid jobs, and career possibilities are unevenly distributed to the negative for women.

A consequence of gender segregation is uneven economic conditions. Empirical studies estimate that gender segregation explain a large proportion of the gender wage gap. How much the gender segregation shall be accounted for varies, but according to Blau et al. (1998) it might in the United States be between 12 and 37 percent of the gender wage gap. A swedish study concerning the development of the gender pay gap during the period 1981 to 2000 found that the traditional explanations of gender difference in education and skill do not any longer explain the gender wage differences. A standardized calculation showed an increase in the wage gap that had to be explained by other factors (SOU, 2001:53). Given the trend in women’s educational level and working experience the gender pay gap should have decreased much more than it has. Labour market segregation looks more as a possible explanation. The hierarchical segregation and the under representation of women as managers and executives probably affects the overall gender gap.

Let us also look at data on the division of labour between men and women in housework in Sweden. Up to the 1970s – for as long as there have been statistics on the matter – women performed most of the housework, both if we count actual time and percentages. During the 1970s there was, however, a change: men spent more of their time doing housework and their share of it increased. Most people have since believed that this development towards gender equality has continued. But if we scrutinize the data we find that this is a truth with modifications. Men’s share in percentages of housework has indeed increased considerably – but it is not due to the men themselves. In a time study comparing the years 1990/91 and 2000/01 it is laconically stated (Statistics Sweden, 2003, p. 22): ‘For men there is no change to report when it comes to housework.’

What has happened is that women do less housework now than before. (The decrease during the 1990s is on average 40 minutes per day.) Today there are probably more dust angels under beds and behind chests of drawers, few iron underwear, there are more semi manufactures of food, more dishwashers and microwave ovens, and so on. The consequence of women’s reduced time in housework and the status quo of that of men, is that the total amount of time spent on housework is less now than before. And that is why men’s share has increased as long as we only consider percentages. But in that regard one might say that Swedish men have taken a great step towards gender equality – without having changed their behaviour at all.

Changing gender relations: Two strategies

There exist at least two standpoints in the debate on gender segregation and how to act in relation to this phenomenon. One line of argument says that gender segregation is not the problem; it is only the wage discrimination. If women and men were to get equal wage for work of equal value, the gender divisions would not matter. Supporters for the other standpoint argue that segregation is the major cause for wage differences. They say that equal wage for equal work will be an illusion as long as women and men are in separate segments of the labour market, divided by more or less clear barriers and demarcation lines. One process that results in segregation is the bare sorting of people according to gender, ethnicity, education and experience to fit the demands of different segments of the labour market. Recruitment strategies, contractual relations as well as remuneration differ between segments and their ‘ideal’ labour force.

To be able to explain labour market segregation one has to go from a societal or macro perspective to analyze mechanisms and decision-making processes on organizational and individual level.

In her article ‘The Future of “Gender and Organizations”: Connections and Boundaries’, Joan Acker (1998) discusses how contemporary research on gender and organizations has broken down the boundaries between economics and organization – boundaries formed on disciplinary reasoning and not by the character of the problem to be solved. Studies on power and social relations cut across disciplines, not only in relation to gender but also to ethnicity and class.

But it is on the individual level and in the family that changing gender relations find its most profound expressions. It is here we can see if work arrangements and labour market conditions make it possible for men and women to change their roles and responsibilities. That is why we also present papers showing the relations between employment, work organization and family on one hand and on the other hand effects of new institutions and their practices from an individual and family perspective.

Are there openings towards integration? Of course we can register changes, occupations have changed their gender composition along the history as technology and organization of work has taken new forms. We find historical examples of office clerks once being a very male dominated task becoming one of the most ‘female’, continuing to be almost disappearing in the new technology developments and organizational changes of office work. Today higher education creates a skilled female labour force, but the opportunities for women to use these skills in the labour market have not increased correspondingly. One can say that education is more profitable for men than for women. Swedish data shows that changes in the wage structure from 1981 and forward have been unfavourable for women as a group. During this period there has been an increasing equality between women and men in experience and length of education (SOU, 2001:53, p. 155). If only these factors had influenced the wages, the gender wage gap would have decreased by 6.5 percent between 1981 and 2000. But the average wage difference between women and men decreased much less (around 1.5 percent). This is explained by the fact that wage differences have increased, given educational length and experience. Data gives the picture of women getting less out of their education in terms of economic reward than men.

Women’s income from work in relation to men’s can be seen as an illustration of the costs of having a family and children for a woman. In the year 2000 Swedish cohabiting women had 66 percent of men’s incomes. If they had small children the relation between women’s and men’s incomes fell to 57 percent. Cohabiting women with children aged 7–17 had 64 percent of men’s incomes, lower than single women with children of the same age. The latter had 68 percent of men’s incomes. The economic penalty for women of having a family and children was substantial (Prop., 2002/03:1).

Content of the book

The choice of participating countries is based on the idea that we need to have a representation of studies from countries belonging to different welfare state regimes. Our decision has been to present studies performed in countries belonging to the liberal and the Scandinavian or so-called social democratic welfare state regime. As a basis for this book is a conference held in Stockholm – Women, Work and Health 2002, and two special seminars organized by the Department of Working Life Science at Karlstad University in Sweden and the publication of this book can also be seen as a presentation of young scholars from this department.

After this introduction, Chris Tilly (Chapter 2) takes his point of departure in the standard, efficiency-driven economic narrative of labour market inequality, which holds that such inequality results straightforwardly from the interplay of supply and demand in a market for individual skills. But much social science research points to a very different, socially driven account of labour market inequality. Norms and stereotypes channel action in labour markets. Power disparities and the imperatives of organizational maintenance decisively shape labour market outcomes. Labour markets are constructed not simply of striving individuals, but of pervasive networks.

The chapter reviews two bodies of evidence about labour markets in the United States that offer a test of the relative validity of these two views of the labour market. First, it examines how racial inequality in the labour market has changed over time. Second, it looks at differences across cities in class, gender, and racial gaps in earnings. In both cases, the socially driven model offers more satisfactory explanations.

After briefly addressing the generalizability of these US-based conclusions to other parts of the world, the chapter turns to predictions for future trends in labour market inequality. The efficiency-driven approach contends that the labour market has largely shed, and will continue to shed, distinctions of race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, and that the future will be determined above all by the evolution of technology and of skill development systems. The socially driven view, on the contrary, holds that categorical distinctions reappear in new forms, and that technological choices are a result as much as a cause of social arrangements. A distinction is suggested between the ranking of jobs and the sorting of people among jobs and employment statuses to explore the further implications of a socially driven perspective.

Lena Gonäs considers (in Chapter 3) a multilevel approach to gender and work on the Swedish scene. During the last decade, the Swedish labour market has undergone a severe transformation. The economic crisis that hit the country in the beginning of the decade caused an increase in the unemployment levels for both women and men, at first in the manufacturing, building, and construction industries. Change followed in the public sector, both in the number of employees and in the way production was organized. By the end of the decade, the situation had changed and there was a labour shortage in certain occupations and regions (that is, in the major metropolitan areas, both in new occupations, such as the IT-industry, and in more traditional occupations like nursing and teaching). Swedish women have almost the same employment rate as men, but the labour market is very segregated. Women are predominantly employed in the service sector and/or the public sector in health, education, and child and elder care. These employment patterns (that is, a situation with both labour shortage and unemployment) point to the importance of regionally specific analyses of gender patterns. In addition, since gender segregation at work is associated with both differential exposures to health and safety hazards and higher rates of absenteeism for both men and women, the mental and physical health status in the female workforce may be expected to vary tremendously among these subgroups of the economy.

Towards this background Gonäs describes an action-oriented, regional research project that involves collaboration between researchers and practitioners. The local actors have contributed with knowledge based on local conditions; researchers with gender theoretical perspectives, concepts, and general knowledge about working life, health, and organization. The overall aim is to study the origin of segregation, inequity, and gender-related ill health within the region and what mechanisms maintain deficiencies in equal opportunity. The central questions are: 1) What changes have taken place in the 1990s labour market and in work organizations, and how have these changes affected gender-based segregation patterns, working and living conditions, and health? 2) In what way does gender segregation affect different types of employment, working conditions, means of influence, and health/ill-health for women and men? 3) What are the regional factors that influence these patterns? and 4) How can local act...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Divisions of Gender and Work
• 2. Labour Market Inequality, Past and Future: A Perspective from the United States
• 3. Gendered Divisions of Work: A Multilevel Approach
• 4. Segregated Integration
• 5. Measuring Gender Segregation
• 6. The New Economy and the Work Life Balance: Conceptual Explorations and a Case Study of New Media
• 7. Life Modes and Gender in the Swedish Public-Health Sector
• 8. Employment, Flexible Working and the Family
• 9. Men's Parental Leave: A Manifestation of Gender Equality or Child-orientation?
• 10. Dualities and Contradictions
• Index