Information Technology, Gender Segmentation and the Relocation of Back Office Employment: The Growth of the Teleservices Sector in Ireland

Abstract

A b s t r a c tThe movement of routine back of ce activities from the central business districts of metropolitan regions in advanced economies to remote locations is leading to a distinctive global division of labour in of ce employment. While facilitated by the development of information and communication technologies, this process of relocation is primarily driven by the desire to reduce operating costs, mainly by moving to sources of cheap female workers. This reflects a classic gender segmentation process in patriarchal societies whereby back of ce work is mainly done by women and, accordingly, involves relatively low levels of remuneration. This provides direct parallels with the offshoring of routine manufacturing work associated with the new international division of labour. Ireland has been to the forefront in acting as a host for internationally-mobile routine of ce work, initially involving mainly data processing and, more recently, teleservices. As elsewhere, teleservices employment in Ireland is characterized by a combination of female predominance, low pay, difficult working conditions and high turnover rates. However, the Irish teleservices sector is unusual in its foreign language requirement, the high education levels of workers and its concentration in a prosperous metropolitan location. The resultant labour shortages, combined with growing use of Internet-based business-to-consumer transactions, are likely to place the sustainability of the sector under increasing pressure. Plans to upgrade the types of back of ce functions being located in Ireland may pose further challenges for women workers due to male dominance of the higher-level jobs involved.

Producer Services in the Urban Core and Suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona

“…The development of call centres illustrates this technical division of labour (Bishop et al, 2003). While access to large labour pools is desirable, these centres are increasingly moving to low-wage locations in developed countries and beyond (Breathnach, 2002). Successful dispersal of back offices and call centres cannot obscure the continued close integration of decisionmakers and sizeable internal administrative support staff in many producer services.…”

Occupational Change and Social Polarisation in Ireland: Further Evidence

“…Clerical workers comprise a significant portion of the workforce who, despite in most cases being well-educated and in many cases having significant skill levels, are generally in receipt of relatively low remuneration levels. This primarily reflects the fact that this occupational group is predominantly female (77 per cent in the case of Ireland in 2002) -such groups traditionally being undervalued in Irish society (Breathnach 2002a the two groups should be separated in any analysis seeking to track occupational change in terms of the social polarisation hypothesis. The 'other' category listed in Table 1 consists mainly of unskilled manual workers, especially labourers, cleaners and counterhands.…”

Unequal Englishes

“…The link between femininity and call center work is well established with most studies reporting that about 60 percent to 70 percent of call center workers who engage in frontline customer service work in both the source countries and offshore locations are women (Belt 2002;Belt et al 2000;Breathnach 2002;Elmoudden 2005;Fernandez & Sosa 2005). Studies of the feminization of call center work have generally looked to the gender division of labor as an explanation for this phenomenon.…”