Skip to main content

Global Feminization and Flexible Labour Markets: Gendered Discourse in the Opposition to Pay Equity Reform

  • Chapter
Women, Work and Inequality

Abstract

Since the 1980s, Europe’s relatively high unemployent rates (‘Eurosclerosis’) have been used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other international agencies as a basis for positing the United States as a model of labour market flexibility (see Howell, 1992; Brodsky, 1994; Faux, 1995a,b). Measures to enable firms to adapt to changing markets is argued to be the necessary economic response to heightened international competition. Labour market flexibility has been depicted as a crucial dimension of this process (Brown, 1991; Curry, 1992).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Albelda, R. and Tilly, C., ‘Towards a broader vision: race, gender, and labor market segmentation in the social structure of accumulation framework’, in D.M. Kotz, T. McDonough and M. Reich (eds), Social Structures of Accumulation: The Political Economy of Growth and Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, E., ‘New work systems in the new world order’, in L. Mishel and J. Schmitt (eds), Beware the US Model: Jobs and Wages in a Deregulated Economy. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, P., ‘The feminization of the labour force: harmonizing down in a global economy’, in I. Bakker (ed.), Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Badgett, M.V. and Williams, R.M., ‘The changing contours of discrimination: race, gender, and structural economic change’, in M.A. Bernstein and D.E. Adler (eds), Understanding American Economic Decline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakker, I., ‘Pay equity and economic restructuring: the polarization of policy?’, in J. Fudge and P. McDermott (eds), Just Wages: a Feminist Assessment of Pay Equity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakker, I., ‘Introduction: the gendered foundations of restructuring in Canada’, in I. Bakker (ed.), Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996a.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakker, I., Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996b.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, B., ‘Comparable worth at odds with American realities’, in US Commission on Civil Rights (ed.), Comparable Worth: Issue for the 80’s. Washington, DC, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bergmann, B.R., ‘What the common economic arguments against comparable worth are worth’, Journal of Social Issues 45 (Fall 1989) 67–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bergren, O.V., ‘A business viewpoint on comparable worth’, in P. Schlafly (ed.), Equal Pay for Unequal Work. Washington, DC: Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blecker, R.A., ‘The new economic stagnation and the contradictions of economic policy making’, in M.A. Bernstein and D.E. Adler (eds), Understanding American Economic Decline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Block, F., Postindustrial Possibilities: a Critique of Economic Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, S., Gordon, D.M. and Weisskopf, T.E., ‘Business ascendancy and economic impasse: a structural retrospective on conservative economics’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 3 (Winter 1989) 107–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brodsky, M.M., ‘Labor market flexibility: a changing international perspective’, Monthly Labor Review 117 (November 1994) 53–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, D., ‘An institutionalist look at postmodernism’, Journal of Economic Issues 25 (December 1991) 1089–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burk, M. and Hartmann, H., ‘Beyond the gender gap’, The Nation 262 (10 June 1996) 18–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Çağatay, N. and Özler, S., ‘Feminization of the labor force: the effects of long-term development and structural adjustment’, World Development 23(11) (1995) 1883–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, M.G., ‘The implications of economic restructuring for women: the Canadian situation’, in I. Bakker (ed.), The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy. London: Zed Books, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curry, J., ‘The flexibility fetish: a review essay on flexible specialization’, Capital and Class 50 (1992) 99–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faux, J., Preface, in L. Mishel and J. Schmitt, Beware the U.S. Model: Jobs and Wages in a Deregulated Economy. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 1995a, ix–xii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faux, J., ‘Social democracy and the global marketplace’, in L. Mishel and J. Schmitt (eds), Beware the U.S. Model: Jobs and Wages in a Deregulated Economy. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 1995b, 3–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Figart, D.M. and Kahn, P., Contesting the Market: Pay Equity and the Politics of Economic Restructuring. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Figart, D.M. and Lapidus, J., ‘A gender analysis of US labor market policies for the working poor’, Feminist Economics 1(3) (1995) 60–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. and Gordon, L., ‘A genealogy of dependency: tracing a keyword of the US welfare state’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19 (Winter 1994) 309–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garza, M.M., ‘Wage warriors’, Chicago Tribune (9 May 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  • Geoghegan, T., ‘The state of the worker’, New York Times (25 January 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood, D., ‘The institutional inadequacy of the free market in determining comparable worth’, Journal of Economic Issues 18 (June 1984) 457–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, B. and Bluestone, B., ‘Wage polarisation in the US and the “flexibility” debate’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 14 (September 1990) 351–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hildebrand, G., ‘The market system’, in E.R. Livernash (ed.), Comparable Worth: Issues and Alternatives. Washington, DC: Equal Employment Advisory Council, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howell, C., ‘The dilemmas of post-Fordism: socialists, flexibility, and labor market deregulation in France’, Politics & Society 20 (March 1992) 71–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenson, J., ‘Part-time employment and women: a range of strategies’, in I. Bakker (ed.) Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenson, J., Hagen, E. and Reddy, C., Feminization of the Labor Force. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kotz, D.M., ‘The regulation theory and the social structure of accumulation approach’, in D.M. Kotz, T. McDonough and M. Reich, Social Structures of Accumulation: the Political Economy of Growth and Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kuttner, R., ‘A decent minimum wage’, Washington Post (29 January 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitter, S., Common Fate, Common Bond: Women in the Global Economy. London: Pluto Press, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitter, S., ‘On organising women in casualised work: a global overview’, in S. Rowbotham and S. Mitter (eds), Dignity and Daily Bread. London: Routledge, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mutari, E., ‘Women’s employment patterns during the inter-war period: a comparison of two states’, Feminist Economics 2 (2, Summer 1996) 107–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, B.A., Opton, Jr, E.M. and Wilson, T.E., ‘Wage discrimination and Title VII in the 1980s: the case against comparable worth’, Employee Relations Law Journal 6(3) (1980) 380–405.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Hara, P.A., ‘An institutionalist review of long wave theories: Schumpeterian innovation, modes of regulation, and social structures of accumulation’, Journal of Economic Issues 28 (June 1994) 489–500.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Hara, P.A., ‘Household labor, the family, and macroeconomic instability in the United States: 1940s–1990s’, Review of Social Economy 53 (Spring 1995) 89–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, J., ‘An argument against comparable worth’, in US Commission on Civil Rights (ed.), Comparable Worth: Issues for the 80’s. Washington, DC., 1984a.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, J., ‘The “comparable worth” trap’, in P. Schlafly (ed.), Equal pay for UNequal Work. Washington, DC: Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, 1984b.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, J.E., ‘The shrinking pay gap’, The Wall Street Journal (7 October 1994) A10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, E.F., Equity and Gender: the Comparable Worth Debate, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, J., ‘The challenge of comparable worth: an institutionalist view’, Journal of Economic Issues 24 (June 1990) 605–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, J., ‘Public policy and the economic status of women in the United States’, Journal of Economic Issues 26 (June 1992) 441–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabkin, J., ‘Comparable worth as civil rights policy: potentials for disaster’, in US Commission on Civil Rights (ed.), Comparable Worth: Issue for the 80’s. Washington, DC, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhoads, S.E., ‘Pay equity won’t go away’, Across the Board (July/August 1993a) 37–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhoads, S.E., ‘Would decentralized comparable worth work?’ the case of the United Kingdom’, Regulation: The Cato Review of Business and Government No. 3 (1993b) 65–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, S., ‘From segmentation to flexibility: a selective survey’, Review of Radical Political Economics 23 (Spring & Summer 1991) 71–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, R.E., Brown, R., Reich, R.B., Stiglitz, J.E. and D’Andrea Tyson, L., ‘What’s a minimum wage job worth? Up to a living wage’, Wall Street Journal (1 April 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rutten, T., ‘Inner cities in need of living wage’, Los Angeles Times (2 August 1991).

    Google Scholar 

  • Snow, E., ‘Comparable worth or pay equity?’, The Washington Times (2 August 1985).

    Google Scholar 

  • Standing, G., ‘Global feminization through flexible labor’, World Development 17 (July 1989) 1077–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steinberg, R., ‘The comparable worth debate’, New Politics 1 (Spring 1986) 108–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tyson, J.L., ‘“Living wage” drive accelerates in cities’, Christian Science Monitor (10 April 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  • Uchitelle, L., ‘Some cities pressuring employers to raise wages of working poor’, New York Times (9 April 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, F., ‘Social relations, welfare, and the post-Fordism debate’, in R. Burrows and B. Loader (eds), Towards a Post-Fordist Welfare State? London: Routledge, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, R.E. and Kessler, L.L., A Closer Look at Comparable Worth, Washington, DC: National Foundation for the Study of Employment Policy, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 1999 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Figart, D., Mutari, E. (1999). Global Feminization and Flexible Labour Markets: Gendered Discourse in the Opposition to Pay Equity Reform. In: Gregory, J., Sales, R., Hegewisch, A. (eds) Women, Work and Inequality. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333983331_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics