Gender transformations

256 Pages·1997·5.147 MB·English

by  Sylvia Walby

GENDER TRANSFORMATIONS
In this lucid and subtle investigation of the economic, political and cultural
condition of women in contemporary society, Sylvia Walby, one of the world’s
leading authorities on the sociology of gender, shows how undoubted increases
in opportunity for women in Europe and America have been accompanied by new
forms of inequality. She charts changes in women’s employment, education and
political representation and the complex relations between gender, class and
ethnicity, between local conditions and global pressures which together determine
the place of women both in the labour market and in the wider social, political and
economic world of today. Individual chapters look at the phenomenon of flexible
work and its influence on the total labour market, at gender politics and social
theory, at the gendering of citizenship and nationhood and gender in the context
of European integration.
The eagerly awaited successor to Walby’s classic, Theorising Patriarchy,
Gender Transformations will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in
how questions of gender remake and are remade by the social and economic
conditions in which they occur.
Sylvia Walby is Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and the author
of Theorising Patriarchy (1990) and Patriarchy at Work (1986).
INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOCIOLOGY
Founded by Karl Mannheim
Editor: John Urry
Lancaster University
GENDER
TRANSFORMATIONS
Sylvia Walby

London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1997 Sylvia Walby
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Walby, Sylvia.
Gender transformations\Sylvia Walby.
p. cm.— (International library of Sociology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women-Social conditions. 2. Women-Economic conditions.
3. Women-Employment. 4. Sex discrimination against Women.
I. Tittle. II. Series.
HQ1206.W2 1997
305.42–dc21 96–46222
CIP

ISBN 0-203-43115-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-73939-6 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-12080-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-12081-0 (pbk)
CONTENTS
List of figures vi
List of tables vii
Acknowledgements ix
1 INTRODUCTION 1
2 RECENT CHANGES IN GENDER RELATIONS IN 21
EMPLOYMENT
3 FLEXIBILITY AND THE CHANGING SEXUAL DIVISION 63
OF LABOUR
4 LOCALITIES AND GENDER RESTRUCTURING 77
5 SEX SEGREGATION IN LOCAL LABOUR MARKETS 97
6 LABOUR MARKETS AND INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURES 117
IN WOMEN’S WORKING LIVES
7 GENDER POLITICS AND SOCIAL THEORY 133
8 ‘BACKLASH’ TO FEMINISM 151
9 IS CITIZENSHIP GENDERED? 161
10 WOMAN AND NATION 175
11 GENDER AND EUROPEAN UNION INTEGRATION: 191
TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GENDER
APPENDIX: Labour markets with female majorities in 207
employees in employment, 1991
Bibliography 211
Index 233
FIGURES
2.1 Increases in women’s economic activity rates, 1851–1991 27
4.1 Women as percentage of all employees for 1971 and 1981 83
4.2 Location quotients of grouped socio-economic groups for women in 88
the five localities for 1971 and 1981
5.1 Percentage of men in socio-economic groups comprising 70 per cent 110
or more men
5.2 Percentage of men in socio-economic groups comprising 90 per cent 111
or more men
5.3 Percentage of women in socio-economic groups comprising 70 per 111
cent or more women
5.4 Percentage of men in minimum list headings comprising 70 per cent 112
or more men
5.5 Percentage of men in minimum list headings comprising 90 per cent 112
or more men
5.6 Percentage of women in minimum list headings comprising 70 per 113
cent or more women
TABLES
2.1 Employees in employment, 1959–95 26
2.2 Women’s economic activity rates, 1851–1991 28
2.3 Economic activity of men, by age, 1975–94 29
2.4 Women’s and men’s hourly earnings (full-time only), 1970–95 30
2.5 Employees in employment, 1971–95 30
2.6 Hourly earnings of full-time men and full-time and part-time 31
women
2.7 Socio-economic group by sex, 1975–94 33
2.8 Occupational orders for women and men, 1981–91 34
2.9 Gender changes in occupational orders, 1981–91 36
2.10 Education and employment: women, 1994 41
2.11 School qualifications by sex, 1993–94 42
2.12 A levels by sex, 1985–94 42
2.13 Participation rates in further education by sex and age, 1980/1– 43
1994/5
2.14 Higher education enrolments, 1993–94, home students 44
2.15 Higher education full-time enrolment, 1975–95 44
2.16 Highest selected qualifications by age and sex 45
2.17 GCSE/SCE (S grade) attempts and achievements in schools, by 46
sex, 1993–94
2.18 Higher education selected subjects by sex, home students, 1993–94 47
2.19 Economic activity of women of working age, 1973–94, by age of 49
youngest dependent child
2.20 Domestic production goods, 1979–94 50
2.21 Working women b y marital status and presence of children, 1977– 52
94
2.22 Economic activity of women, 1975, 1985, 1994 54
2.23 Gender composition of selected occupations of employees in 56
employment, 1991
2.24 Percentage of women employees who work part-time, by age, 1991 57
2.25 Economic activity by socio-economic group, 1992–94 58
2.26 Economic activity by ethnic group, 1993 59
3.1 Employment trends, 1959–95 64
3.2 Rates of female economic activity, part-time working and gender 74
unemployment ratios in the European Union
viii
4.1 Change in employment by sector, sex, and women’s part-time 83
employment for all localities and Britain, 1971–81
4.2 Employment for five localities and Britain, 1971 and 1981, by sex 85
and by women’s part-time employment
4.3 The composition of employment by sector, sex, and women’s part- 92
time employment
4.4 Changes in employment at order level by sex and congruency 93
5.1 Horizontal segregation by sex, 1971, 1981, five localities and 101
Britain
5.2 Socio-economic groups by sex, five localities and Britain, changes 105
1971–81
5.3 Grouped socio-economic groups by sex, changes 1971–81 107
5.4 Vertical segregation by sex, 1971 and 1981, five localities and 109
Britain
6.1 Job movement by sector for Lancaster women 126
6.2 Sectoral change of re-entrants compared to job-to-job changes 127
6.3 Full-time to part-time changes 128
6.4 Occupational changes for those moving from production to service 129
industries
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the many individuals who have contributed to the
development of my ideas over the time that this research was conducted, and
especially: Paul Bagguley, June Greenwell, Joni Lovenduski, Celia Lury, Clare
Short, John Urry, Gail Wilson.
The research reported in Chapters 4 and 5 was conducted as part of the Lancaster
Locality Study (Grant Number DO4250010) funded under the Economic and
Social Research Council’s initiative, ‘The Changing Urban and Regional System
in the UK’. The original versions of these chapters were co-written with Paul
Bagguley, for whose thoughtful contributions, as well as permission to publish, I
am grateful. Data from the Census of Employment for 1971 and 1981, and from
the Census of Population for 1981 was computed from the Manpower Services
Commission’s National Online Manpower Information Service (NOMIS),
programmed and developed in the Department of Geography, University of
Durham, by R.Nelson and P.Dodds. I would like to thank D.Shapiro, J.Urry and
A.Warde for their comments on earlier versions of these papers.
Earlier versions of some papers have previously been published. I am grateful
for permission to publish revised versions of these papers:
(1988) ‘Gender politics and social theory’, Sociology, 22(2): 215–32;
(1989) ‘The changing sexual division of labour and flexibility’, in Stephen
Wood (ed.) The Transformation of Work? Skill Flexibility and the Labour
Process (Unwin Hy man);
(1989) ‘Gender restructuring: five labour markets compared’, Environment
and Planning D: Society and Space (Pion Ltd, London);
(1990) ‘Sex segregation in local labour markets’, Work Employment and
Society, 4(1): 59–82;
(1991) ‘Labour markets and industrial structures in women’s working lives’,
in Shirley Dex (ed.) Life and Work History Analyses: Qualitative and
Quantitative Developments, Sociological Review Monograph 37
(Routledge);
(1992) ‘Woman and nation’, in International Journal of Comparative
Sociology XXXIII (1–2), January–April: 81–100;