Deregulation and Women's Employment: The Diverse Experiences of Women in Britain

Abstract

In recent years employers in Britain have taken up equal opportunity policies more widely and structural changes in the economy have generally favored women. Against this, the pursuit of labor market deregulation is generally thought to impact adversely on women. This paper considers the changing British policy framework of the last ten to fifteen years and the effects on women's employment, highlighting differences amongst women. Deregulation and flexibilization are argued to have affected the conditions of part-time employment for women rather than its scale and pattern of expansion. The changing gender wage gap in Britain and the growth of pay inequalities amongst women are analyzed using a shift-share approach. The limited convergence in earnings between men and women is largely confined to full-time workers and has two distinct aspects. Full-time female employees have made some inroads into higher-paid occupations, but at the bottom end of the market the narrowing of the gender wage gap reflects little more than the deterioration in the position of low-paid men, relative to the median. The British case shows the limitations of an equal opportunities agenda pursued within a wider regime of burgeoning labor market inequalities.Britain, Gender Wage Gap, Deregulation, Equal Opportunity Policies, Labor Market Inequalities,

A Privileged Pole? Diversity in Women's Pay, Pensions and Wealth in Britain

“…Reflecting this, in 1994 Burchell and Rubery suggested such ‘advantaged women have more in common with advantaged men than with less advantaged women’ (1994, p. 109). As they work to improve their training and qualifications and ensure that they maintain a full‐time and continuous employment pattern, women in the pole are leaving other women and most men far behind them in the labour market (Breugel and Perrons, 1998; Dex et al , 1996 1 ). More recently, Bradley termed this a trend towards gender homogenization for some groups, suggesting there are ‘some signs of convergence between women and men in patterns of employment and work histories’ (Bradley, 1999, p. 38).…”

Gender Earnings and Part‐Time Pay in Australia, 1990–1998

“…In the part-time labour market the same ratio converged by 10.3 percentage points to 103.1 per cent. Given the literature concerning systems of pay determination and gender equity, these trends are curious, although not unique (see Bernhardt et al 1995;Bruegel and Perrons 1998;Bell and Ritchie 1998).…”

“…A central question in the investigation is that of 'male gains or female losses?' Within the literature there is increasing concern that observed gains in the relative pay position of women have been underpinned by a deterioration in the economic position of men (Bernhardt et al 1995;Bruegel and Perrons 1998).…”

Diversity in Work: The Heterogeneity of Women's Employment Patterns

“…The changes in women's labour market participation and female employment have spawned a vast amount of social science research (Bruegel and Perrons, 1998; Crompton and Harris, 1998; Daly, 2000; Ginn et al ., 1996; Hakim, 1995; Lewis, 1992; Rubery et al ., 1998). More recently, scholarly efforts have focused on explaining the growth of part‐time work (O'Reilly and Fagan, 1998; Plantenga, 1997; Tijdens, 2002; Visser, 2002; Yerkes and Visser, 2006), the combination of paid and domestic work, and policies that surround such issues (Crompton, 2002, 2006; Dulk, 2001; Hantrais and Ackers, 2005; Peper et al ., 2005; Plantenga and Remery, 2005; Wattis et al ., 2006).…”

“…In contrast, British mothers are more likely to remain outside the labour market. Part‐time work is often more precarious in the UK (Bruegel and Perrons, 1998; Fagan and Rubery, 1997) and these results suggest that mothers have fewer employment alternatives, individual preferences notwithstanding. In comparison, the structure of employment and social policy in Germany is clearly centred on what happens with the care of young children, which is reflected in the influence of the age of the youngest child on women's employment.…”