Abstract
In 1983, 8.8 million women were employed in Britain; 5 million in full-time jobs and 3.8 million in part-time jobs. The full-time figure is a slight decrease on the 1971 figure of 5.5 million although the size of the women’s part-time labour force increased by one million, from 2.8 million in 1971. Women’s unemployment also grew during the 1970s from 280700 in 1976 to 854000 in 1983.1 The size of the women’s labour force as a whole has grown over the post-war period, therefore, and it continued to grow through the 1970s and 1980s recession.
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Notes and References
See EOC (1984, table 3.3, p. 77, and table 3.4, p. 78) for sources of these figures.
Source is the Women and Employment Survey, Martin and Roberts (1984, table 3.2).
Source is New Earnings survey - see EOC (1984, p. 82).
Another group of American economists began writing in the 1960s about the same issues calling themselves ‘radical economists’. These writers also adopted the concept of a segmented labour market as part of a more radical political economy or class analysis of the USA (Edwards, Reich and Gordon, 1975). Whilst there is a need to recognise some distinctions between the institutional and radical schools, it is convenient to discuss concurrently the value of their shared notion of a segmented labour market since the overlaps are greater than the differences. The specific contribution of radicals is discussed under the section on class analysis.
E.g. Bibb and Form (1977), Beck et al. (1978) and a review by Sorensen (1983).
For a review of this material see Dex (1985, chapter 6).
This is not to say that American writers are therefore excluded. American class theorists like E. O. Wright are regarded as being in the European tradition for example.
Goldthorpe (1983, p. 470) says that he would alter his view of ‘the extent and nature of female participation in the labour market is now such that in the more “normal” conjugal family it is increasingly hard to say whether husband or wife could better be regarded as the family “head” or that in many cases there are in effect two “heads” with, quite often, different class positions’.
Walby (1985, pp. 20–1) says: ‘From neoclassical economists … I would take the analysis of the sexual division of labour within and outside the family as a proper subject of study, and the necessity of the analysis of the relation between women’s paid and unpaid work … From Bergmann I would take the analysis of the dismal effects that the crowding of women and blacks into a few occupations has on the market power of these groups … From Matthaei I would take the necessity for a historical analysis of the development of the sexual division of labour … From segmented labour market theories like Gordon, Edwards and Reich I would take their focus on the development of segmented labour markets over time through social struggle … From Hartmann I would take her approach to gender relations in terms of the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism, although I would emphasise the tension between the two systems to a greater extent than she does, and pay greater attention to the reasons for variations in segregation.’
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© 1987 Shirley Dex
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Dex, S. (1987). The Distributions of Women’s Employment. In: Women’s Occupational Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18572-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18572-6_2
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