After Retrenchment: Labour Market Experiences of Women and Men

Economic Record, 1982

A survey of 1030 women aged between 20 and 60 years was made in I977 in Eastwood, a middle-class suburb of Sydney. It was used to measure the sire of the female labour force and the level of unemployment in the area. In addition, logit analysis was applied to the data to identqy the personal and family characteristics that determined work behaviour. It was found that active workforce participation and hours of work could be explained adequately by only four variables-age of respondent, marital status, education level and (where relevant) age ofyoungest child. 'The data were collected by 200-level demography students at Macquarie University under the supervision of Mr G. N. Pollard. We thank him for his cooperation. We also wish to thank the referees for their helpful comments.

Studia i Prace WNEiZ

The purpose of the study is to provide the assessment of employment structural changes impact on the situation of women on the labour market. The research period covers the years 2008-2015. The structure changes observed in the European Union countries confi rm the convergence of employment sector structure towards highly developed economies. In the years 2008-2015 the largest number of jobs were opened in all European Union countries in the service sector.As a result of the conducted analysis it can be concluded that structural changes in employment, on the one hand, do not reduce the disproportions in female and male employment in the most feminine and masculine sections but, on the other, create opportunities for an extended employment of women in service sections requiring high qualifi cations.

The theme of the autumn conference, held at Birkbeck College on 26 November 1988, was 'Sexual division in the family and in the workplace', and the four papers that follow were part of the programme. Additionally we are glad to include a report of the conference on 'Mass culture and the working class, 1914-1970', held in Paris on 14-15 October 1988.(Eds.)

Changing Ireland in international comparison, 2007

Employee Relations, 1991

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2011

The dramatic increase in women's activity and employment rates explains a large part of the secular increase in labor supply that took place during the second half of the 20th century in many industrial countries. It constitutes one of the most interesting facts of contemporary economic history and indeed it stimulated an extensive debate. This article takes issue with the mainstream economics explanations of this phenomenon. The mainstream economic theory traditionally approaches the issue of gender differentials in the labor market by ...

2005

The aim of this project was to review the employment and earnings potential of women who return to employment after a period of caring for children or other family members. The report includes analysis of the literature and statistical data on women's employment histories, the kinds of jobs they do and what they are paid. It also looks at women's qualifications and skills and the way in which their employment reflects their skills and explores employers attitudes to women returners and the training opportunities available to them. Key Findings  Women returners form a quarter of the female labour force in the UK. In 2005, mothers returning to work part-time were heavily concentrated in four occupations: elementary administration; sales and customer services; caring personal services and administration. These occupations are female dominated and have lower rates of pay in the UK compared with male-dominated occupations.  Mothers returning to work full-time were found to work in a broader range of occupational areas than those returning part-time, including some of the ones listed above, but also other areas such as teaching and management.  Women who gain a formal Level 2 (GCSE) or Level 3 (A-Level) equivalent qualification are far more likely to be in paid employment, compared with women who have not achieved these levels of qualification.  Women returners tend to under-utilize their past training-e.g. scientific and technical training-when they take less skilled jobs for which they are over-qualified. Over-qualification of mothers is most notable among the caring occupations and sales and customer services.  Returners who are currently working part-time experience an extra 16 percent loss of wages (per hour), given their characteristics. Full-time well-qualified returners have much higher wages and are in better-paid occupations than part-time returners.  Women returners' lower rate of pay is likely to reflect three factors: oversupply of labour, poorer opportunities for training and support, and choosing an employer close to home.  Women who return to full-time work are more likely to gain advancement and promotion than those who return to part-time work.  Male-dominated jobs are more likely to have skills shortages. A number of maledominated occupations, notably the skilled trades and some construction occupations, had skills-shortages in ESS 2001. However, a number of important female-dominated occupations (notably health and social work professionals) also had skills-shortages.  Skills shortages are partly due to the need for qualifications in certain occupations, notably science and technology professionals, skilled construction and building trades, and skilled metal and electrical trades. Recommendations  Women returners remain a partially untapped workforce resource. Explicit and formal recognition that women returners and potential returners have been overlooked in UK training and skills policy will be important if policy makers are to succeed in making training and other means of skill-acquisition more accessible.  Certain employment-related training programs have omitted the category of 'women returners' from the list of target groups. Additional education and training targeted at women returners could improve women's capacity to earn in the labour market.  Incentives, funding and resources to address the UK's intermediate-level skill gaps can be directed in part to those working in occupational areas that have high maledominance. It may be desirable for training offered to workers aiming at these occupations to be gender-inclusive and age-inclusive as well as welcoming and encouraging those who do caring work.  Mechanisms for improving the quality of part-time jobs need to be found. The diversification of part-time work and the adoption of genuinely flexible working practices need to be encouraged if women returners are to avoid occupational downgrading.  Firms paying women wages that are below their potential productivity level would benefit from attempts at job redesign if the changes allow the workers to remain part-time but to use their existing skills better.  Employers need to recognise that institutional cultures and embedded practices such as working overtime, working away from home, and irregular hours can serve as barriers to women and especially to women returners. The long-term employment trajectories of women returners could be improved by concerted efforts to achieve a more familyfriendly workplace culture across all sectors.  Women themselves can be discouraged from occupational downgrading, but it is essential that childcare services, help with domestic work, and work-life balance policies in the workplace be put into place too. Otherwise women will tend to be seen as 'to blame for' or as 'choosing' the overall situation which results in them being overqualified.  Skills shortages in specific occupations can in part be addressed through reducing the gender-segregation of the male-dominated occupations. The converse of maledomination of the occupations with high skills shortages is overcrowding in the femaledominated occupations. Gender segregation should be reduced in UK occupations through job redesign, retraining , a welcoming attitude to women joining in malestereotyped jobs, and a fresh attitude to flexible working hours and part-time working. Hard-to-Fill Vacancy SICSOC-Combined classification using SOC1 and SIC 92 SET-Science, Engineering and Technology Thus, hard-to-fill vacancies are a subset of all current vacancies. The hard-to-fill set of vacancies in turn has a subset which has become known as the skill-shortage vacancies. A ratio measures the proportion of skills-shortage vacancies by employment. See also 'Report Definitions and Abbreviations' at the beginning of this report.

International Journal of Mental Health, 1984

2009

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Empirical studies, especially in the US and UK, have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job separation, or dismissal, are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed investigation. In this paper household panel survey data from Australia are used that also find higher dismissal rates among men than among women. This differential, however, largely disappears once controls for industry and occupation are included. These findings suggest that the observed gender differential primarily reflects systematic differences in the types of jobs into which men and women select.