The Gendering of Inequalities

This was first published in 2000: This work is founded on the premise that many analyses of economic restructuring and of gender relations fail to recognize two things. First, the situation facing women is different from that of the 1960s when the conceptual apparatuses for analyzing "women and work" were created. Labour markets are dominated by flexible, non-standard work, precarious contractual relations and income disparities. Therefore, it is difficult to structure political claims or analysis around the notion that there is a single labour market, that the primary problem is discrimination or inappropriate training, and that political strategies should focus on discrimination and non-traditional employment. Rather, new challenges require new solutions. The second point of departure is that is is impossible to understand either contemporary labour markets, or the roots of employment and other public policies without locating them vis a vis patterns of gender inequalities generated by and in these labour markets. The labour force has been feminized to such an extent that new, and often unequal gender relations are crucial to their very functioning.

Jane Jenson, Jacqueline Laufer, Margaret Maruani

Introduction; 1: A Comparative Perspective on Work and Gender; 2: An Overview of the Major Issues; I: Categorical Messages: Thinking and Rethinking Gender Relations; Introduction to Part I Intersections: Gender Categories in Time and Space; 3: Time and Women's Work: Historical Periodisations; 4: Where Have They Been Working and What Have They Been Doing? Historical Perspectives on Working Women; 5: Immigrant Women and Their Daughters: Intersections of Race, Class and Gender; 6: The Sexual Division of Labour Re-examined; 7: Re-signifying the Worker: Gender and Flexibility; II: Be Prepared: Education, Training, and Skilling; Introduction to Part II Variations on Women's and Men's Occupations; 8: A Hidden Curriculum? Coeducation and Gender Identity; 9: The Social Construction of Skill; 10: Secretarial Work and Technological Change; 11: The French and German Educational Models and Their Consequences for Women; III: Women's Relationship to Labour Markets: More and More Precarious?; Introduction to Part III (Wo)man-Handled by the Labour Market; 12: The Enduring Wage Gap: A Europe-Wide Comparison; 13: Part-Time Work: Challenging the Breadwinner Gender Contract; 14: Female Unemployment in France and the Rest of Europe; 15: Moving Towards the American Model? Women and Unemployment in Great Britain; 16: When Exclusion is Socially Acceptable: The Case of Spain; IV: Public Policy: Promoting Equality or Engendering New Inequalities?; Introduction to Part IV Public Sphere, Private Sphere: The Issue of Women's Rights; 17: Equality at Work: What Difference does Legislating Make?; 18: European Policies Promoting More Flexible Labour Forces; 19: Family Policy and the Labour Market in European Welfare States; 20: France's New Service Sector and the Family; 21: Democracy Confronts the New Domestic Services; 22: Rethinking Time: There is More to Life than Working Time; Conclusion; 23: The Future Remains Open