ORGANISATIONS, WORK AND SEXUAL DIVISIONS:

Occupational change in market economies and remaking gender?

Janette Webb

University of Edinburgh

Framing Questions

• Interactions of markets and gendered power relations

• Are some forms of ‘market economy’ more conducive to greater equality between the sexes?

• What drives what? – Cultural change in gender relations drives

economic restructuring?– Economic restructuring, and occupational change,

drives cultural change in gender relations?

Two Models from Feminist Political Economy

• Varieties of Capitalism (VOC)– Liberal market economies (LME)– Coordinated market economies (CME)– These result in different patterns of occupational

sex segregation and inequality

• Post-Industrialism– Change as dominated by universal dynamics of

post-industrial shift, which reinforce occupational sex segregation and ‘gender essentialism’

Varieties of Capitalism

• LMEs– Education and training for general skills– Deregulated, individualised labour markets– Short-term orientation to profitability– Social policy emphasis on individual responsibility

• CMEs– Education and training for organisation- and industry-specific

skills– Coordinated/regulated labour markets– Long-term orientation to governance and profitability– Social policy emphasis on protection and pooling of risk

Feminist Analysis of VOC

• CMEs/ specific skills regimes – Expected to have higher levels of occupational sex-

segregation

• LMEs/ general skills regimes– Expected to have less segregated occupations but higher

income inequality

• Might speculate therefore that:– gender is a more prominent principle of social division in

CMEs?– While class is more prominent in LMEs?

• Drivers of change perceived as primarily economic, overlaid on essentialised model of dualistic gender

Feminist Post-Industrialism

• Interaction of universalising economic forces of post-industrialism with universalistic gender dualism

• Effect is to reinforce occupational segregation• Gender ideology, rather than economics,

drives – horizontal segregation between manual (male)

and non-manual (female) occupations– and pervasive vertical segregation within

occupational hierarchies

Comments on the VOC and Post-Industrial Models

• Utility of models emphasising one or two macro-level concepts to explain complexity

• Limitations of labour market data over 15 years old when dealing with questions of economic restructuring

• Snap shot of occupational segregation at a single time

• Focus on occupational categories rather than incorporating industrial sector

Using Data from ILO Labour Market Stats

• Less discriminating occupational classification• Problems of different cultural interpretations of the

‘same’ occupational classifications• But allows some longitudinal comparison • And more recent data (1985-2005)• Crude occupational breakdown compensated for to

some extent by ability to disaggregate occupation by industrial sector

• Descriptive statistics for concentration of men and women in occupations rather than index of segregation

Rationale for Selection of Countries

• Sweden and Japan as contrasting examples of CMEs

• USA and UK as contrasting examples of LMEs

• Likely to share common shift towards services

• Since 1985, all have increased proportion of economically active population

Total Economically Active, 1985-2004

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

Sw85 Sw04 USA85 USA05 UK85 UK05 Ja85 Ja05

Women as % of Workforce

0

5101520253035404550

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

SwedenUSAUK Japan

Declining Employment in Extractive & Transformative Industries

• Growth in economically active population• Alongside decline in proportion of

employment in extractive and transformative industries

• Japan continues to have the highest proportion of employees in these sectors– now has only 31% in such employment– equivalent to the position of the USA twenty years

earlier

% of Labour Force in Extractive & Transformative Industries

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

SwUSAUKJpn

% of Women in Extractive & Transformative Industries

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

SwUSAUKJpn

Labour Force in Extractive & Transformative Industries

• As proportion of employment declined, male-concentration increased

• Most noticeable in Japan - women were 35% of employees; now 28%

0

20

40

60

80

100

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

all employees

SwUSAUKJpn

0

20

40

60

80

100

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

women

SwUSAUKJpn

% of Labour Force in Services

0102030405060708090

100

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

SwUSAUKJpn

% of Women in Services

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

SwUSAUKJpn

Labour Force in Services

• Japan - men in the majority in services

• Sweden - post-industrial shift associated with less female concentration in 2005 than 1985

• No simple relationship between post-industrialism and ‘universal reinforcement’ of sexual divisions

0

20

40

60

80

100

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

all employees

SwUSAUKJpn

0

20

40

60

80

100

mid-1980s mid-1990s mid-2000s

women

SwUSAUKJpn

Change in Occupational Structures

• Occupational upgrading?– Crude measure shows increasing proportion of

workforce employed in managerial, admin, professional, technical and associated occupations in 2004-05 than in mid-1980s/1990s

• Combined with gradually decreasing proportion of employees in production jobs (including skilled craft and routine manual work)

Occupational structures, 2004-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Sweden USA UK Japan

profsmanagerialclericalsales/svcAFFproduction

Sweden, 1984-2004: occupation by male-female

0102030405060708090

100

prof8

4 '94 '04

mgr8

4 '94 '04

cler

84 '94 '04

sale

s84 '94 '04

prod84 '94 '04

femalemale

USA, 1985-2005: occupation by male-female

0102030405060708090

100

prof8

5 '95 '05

mgr8

5 '95 '05

cler

85 '95 '05

sale

s85 '95 '05

man

l85 '95 '05

femalemale

UK, 1995 & 2005: occupation by male-female

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

prof9

5'05

mgr9

5 '05

tech

95 '05

cl.s

vc95 '05

man

l95

'05

femalemale

Japan, 1985-2005: occupation by male-female

0102030405060708090

100

prof8

5 '95 '05

mgr8

5 '95 '05

cler

85 '95 '05

sale

s85 '95 '05

svc8

5 '95 '05

prod85 '95 '05

femalemale

Differences in Occupational Concentrations of

men and women - LMEs v CMEs? Sweden

0

20

40

60

80

100

prof8

4 '94 '04

mgr8

4 '94 '04

cler

84 '94 '04

sale

s84 '94 '04

prod84 '94 '04

femalemale

USA

0

20

40

60

80

100

prof8

5 '95 '05

mgr8

5 '95 '05

cler

85 '95 '05

sale

s85 '95 '05

man

l85 '95 '05

femalemale

UK (95 & 05 only)

0102030405060708090

100

prof9

5'0

5

mgr9

5 '05

tech

95 '05

cl.s

vc95 '0

5

man

l95 '0

5

femalemale

Japan

0

20

40

60

80

100

prof8

5 '95 '05

mgr8

5 '95 '05

cler

85 '95 '05

sale

s85 '95 '05

svc8

5 '95 '05

prod85 '95 '05

femalemale

Male-female split among occupations 2004/5

0

20

40

60

80

100

Sweden USA UK Japan

Professionals

malefemale

0

20

40

60

80

100

Sweden USA UK Japan

Managers & Administrators

malefemale

0

20

40

60

80

100

Sweden USA UK Japan

Clerical workers

malefemale

0

20

40

60

80

100

Sweden USA UK Japan

Production

malefemale

The Effect of Industrial Sector on Occupational Divisions

• Using only 2004/5 data• Excludes Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing• Groups Industrial Sectors into 3:

– extractive and transformative – business and finance, real estate and retail

services– public and welfare services

• Showing % of women in each occupation

Distribution of women in occupations by industry, Sweden, 2004

0

10

20

30

4050

60

70

80

90

100

mg/ad prof tech cler svc prod

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retaileducation, HSW

Distribution of women in occupations by industry, USA 2005

010

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

mg/ad pro/t&a cler svc prod

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retailingeducation, HSW

Distribution of women in occupations by industry, UK 2005

0

10

20

30

4050

60

70

80

90

100

mg/ad prof tech cler svc prod

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retailingeducation, HSW

Distribution of women in occupations by industry, Japan 2005

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

mg/ad prof &tech

cler svc prod

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retailingeducation, HSW

Distribution of women in occupations

0102030405060708090

100

mg/ad prof tech cler svc prod

Sweden

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retaileducation, HSW

0102030405060708090

100

mg/ad pro/t&a cler svc prod

USA

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retailingeducation, HSW

0102030405060708090

100

mg/ad prof tech cler svc prod

UK

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retailingeducation, HSW

0102030405060708090

mg/ad prof &tech

cler svc prod

Japan

extractive &transformativefinancial, real estate,retailingeducation, HSW

Occupation by Industry & VOC

• No simple relationship between LME policies and lesser concentrations of men and women in segregated occupations

• In the UK, barriers to the a-typical sex entering occupations do not seem to be lower than in Sweden

• Swedish social-democratic model more effective in facilitating movement of women into career occupations in industry and in private sector services

Continuity of dualistic gender ideologies?

• Evidence provides support for the argument that a dualistic, if not ‘essentialist’, gender ideology continues to underpin some universally sex-differentiated occupational patterns

• Not the case however that shift to services universally reinforces sex-segregated work

• Can conjecture that effects of shift to services differ according to interaction between– cultural, and historically located, processes of gendered

power relations – political-economic strategies – equality policies – and the resulting organisation of occupations in different

sectors in different countries

Evaluation of Models

• Strengths and limitations of a feminist model of VOC – Utility

– But over-reliance on macro-structural concepts of skills and gender

– Loss of insight into process

– Need to integrate income data and inter-dependence of class with gender and ethnic divisions

– Skills, and their formation and use, are not independent of power relations, and are in flux in ‘knowledge economies’

• Strengths and limitations of a feminist post-industrialism– Identifies the intransigence of dualistic gender

– But a version of convergence theory?

What would a sociological model of the interactions of gender and markets look like?

– A situated account of the remaking of gender in the context of new occupational relationships

– Gender and markets as mutually constitutive– Organisational level is where inter-relations of

markets and personal biographies are worked out: • Occupational positions and skills are

constituted• And in their enactment produce the contested

strata of class, gender and ethnicity• Which in turn reshape occupations and skills