Empowered or Entangled: Agency and Choice in Women’s Employment in India

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-116
Author(s):  
Neetha N.
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Division Of Housework ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Self Help Groups

In India, formation of NGO-aided self-help groups (SHGs) for production was seen as an important step to lift women out of economic marginalisation and, thus, for women’s empowerment. With changes in economic policies, challenges of wage employment for women were also assumed to have been addressed. In this context, this article, drawing from the history of empowerment discourse and its obsession with the economic aspect, examines women’s employment and its multiple dimensions The analysis provides insights into the gender-based inequalities in the labour market which are evident in the concentration of women workers in precariat, feminised jobs either under the control of the family or without any recognition or legal protection. The prevalence of regressive gendered ideologies in employment and in the division of housework raises critical questions about the understanding of the two critical pillars of empowerment, namely, choice and agency.

Crisis at Work: Gender, Class, and the Dehumanization of Jobs

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-136
Author(s):  
Harriet Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
The Uk

Drawing on Huw Beynon’s paper in HSIR 40 (2019), this article surveys the position of women in the UK labour market over the last fifty years. It suggests that many of the developments Beynon describes are relevant to women’s employment, but with the added twist that women’s position in the labour market and society is structured by their responsibility within the total social organization of labour for reproductive labour. Despite increased women’s employment, gender segregation, both horizontal and vertical, is obstinately persistent, especially in working-class occupations. Two of these occupations, care work and retail, are used to illustrate how increasing precarity of jobs combined with technologies of control have brought about a dehumanization of work. It is concluded that the restructuring of global capitalism on neoliberal principles has negatively affected opportunities for women workers.

Work–Family Reconciliation Policy in France

Making Waves ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
Jan Windebank
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Domestic Labour ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Women's Role ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Reconciliation Policies

This chapter examines the history of French work-family reconciliation policies from the 1970s until the present day. It considers the extent to which the development of these policies does and does not link to second wave feminist ideas about women’s domestic labour that emerged in the 1970s. It argues that while in Scandinavian countries, for example, debates and policies addressing work-family reconciliation debates considered men’s roles in the home as well as women’s employment, in France men’s roles were not addressed. This has meant that while French women today are well integrated into the labour force, and have used a variety of resources available to them to free themselves from domestic and caring responsibilities, men’s role in the family has changed very little in comparison with women’s role in the workforce.

Economic Exchange or Gender Identities? Housework Division and Wives’ Economic Dependency in Different Contexts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadas Mandel ◽  
Amit Lazarus ◽  
Maayan Shaby
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Economic Exchange ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
Division Of Housework ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This paper explores cross-country variation in the relationship between division of housework and wives’ relative economic contribution. Using ISSP 2012 data from 19 countries, we examined the effect of two contextual factors: women’s employment rates, which we link to economic exchange theories; and gender ideology context, which we link to cultural theories. In line with economic-based theories, economic exchange between housework and paid work occurs in all countries—but only in households which follow normative gender roles. However, and consistent with the cultural-based theory of ‘doing gender’, wives undertake more housework than their spouses in all countries—even if they are the main or sole breadwinners. This universal gendered division of housework is significantly more salient in more conservative countries; as the context turns more conservative, the gender gap becomes more pronounced, and the relationship between paid and unpaid work further removed from the economic logic. In gender egalitarian societies, in contrast, women have more power in negotiating housework responsibilities in non-normative gender role households. In contrast to gender ideology, the cross-country variations in women’s employment did not follow the expectations that derive from the economic exchange theory.

scholarly journals Fostering Family Relationships and Women’s Employment

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-138
Author(s):  
Andrea Leverentz
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Family Reunification ◽  
Drug Courts ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Crime And Criminal Justice

Although people in prison share some commonalities, they also face distinct issues based on who they are and where they are incarcerated. In this article, I offer suggestions regarding re-entry programs and policies for women. I frame these policies through a broader lens of intersectionality and the importance of context. People are embedded in interlocking systems of power, and experiences and positionality are shaped along multiple dimensions. Additionally, to understand criminal justice responses, we must understand the local social, political and economic contexts, as these programs may not translate across jurisdictions if local considerations are not taken into account. Just as crime and criminal justice policies are embedded in larger social worlds, so too are re-entry programs. Three policy areas are considered within this larger framework: drug courts, family reunification and employment.

Women’s earnings and household inequality in OECD countries, 1973–2013

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rense Nieuwenhuis ◽  
Henk van der Kolk ◽  
Ariana Need
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Female Labor Force Participation ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Female Labor ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
Household Inequality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women's Earnings

This article shows that women’s rising earnings contributed to reducing inequality in household earnings, with respect to couples. We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) on 1,148,762 coupled households, covering 18 OECD countries and the period from 1973 to 2013. In this period, women’s share of household earnings grew, spouses’ earnings became more strongly and positively correlated in various countries, and inequality in women’s earnings was reduced. Inequality in household earnings increased due to the rising correlation between spouses’ earnings, but was reduced more by the decline of inequality in women’s earnings. Had women’s earnings remained unchanged since the 1970s and 1980s, inequality in household earnings would have been higher around 2010 in all observed OECD countries. Household inequality was reduced least by trends in women’s earnings in countries with a long history of high female labor-force participation, such as Finland (3% reduction) and Sweden (5%), and most in countries that observed a stronger increase in female labor-force participation in recent decades such as Spain (31%) and the Netherlands (41%). As more countries are reaching a plateau in the growth of women’s employment and earnings, the potential for further stimulating women’s employment and earnings to counter both women’s and household inequality seems to be increasingly limited.

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