Flexible Employment – Implications for a Gendered Political Economy of Citizenship

Abstract

The concept of flexible employment has now been broadly accepted within a wealth of literature and policy on economic restructuring. Emphasis has shifted away from questioning whether structural change is taking place towards how best to embrace and regulate it. The European Union has been a focal point for many of these debates and has undergone a combined process of encouraging the growth of flexible employment, while also developing new employment rights such as those contained in the social chapter of the Maastricht Treaty. Central to any discussion on the restructuring of work is the erosion and redevelopment of citizenship rights. Therefore the effect that flexible employment will have on individuals’ employment rights is of prime concern for many citizenship analysts. This chapter argues that gendered citizenship provides a useful framework for evaluating flexible employment, and uncovering its negative implications. Suggesting that flexible employment is gendered is not in itself new (see, for example, Dex and McCulloch, 1995; Walby, 1997; Beechy and Perkins, 1987). However, there is a need to place these developments directly within a gendered citizenship framework in order to understand fully the implications of embracing flexible employment. Applying this framework to the structural context of flexible employment also contributes to the development of a gendered political economy and thus to many of the themes central to this edited collection.