Gender and the Conceptualization of the Knowledge Economy in Comparison

Abstract

This chapter poses the question of how best to conceptualize the new economic activities at the core of discourses on the transition to a knowledge-based economy from a gender perspective. The focus is on economic rather than political, social or cultural dimensions of change; nonetheless behind the available reclassifications of economic activities are understandings of the driving forces behind economic changes, which have implications for a gender analysis of the knowledge-based economy. The dominant view places the emergence of new economic activities in the context of political and economic liberalization and internationalization, driven by technological innovations, with consequences for firm organization, skills and the division of labour. The important questions from a gender perspective address the extent to which gender-based occupational and labour market segregation persists within the emerging domains of the knowledge-based economy, and whether cross-national differences in gender continuity versus gender transformation are evident.