wow-inequalities/02-data/intermediate/wos_sample/a96137dee1bf1e2bc7f71629749c49e7-rodriguez-modrono-p/info.yaml

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2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
abstract: 'An emerging body of research about the impact of the recession and
austerity on women recognized but did not examine the potential
different impact of the crisis and austerity reforms on different groups
of women, particularly how it affected the labour supply, employment
attachment, patterns and experience of low educated women (e.g. Bettio
et al., 2013; Karamessini and Rubery, 2014). Yet this is an important
question. The policy responses at the European and national level
consisted mostly of measures to cut public spending and to increase
labour market flexibility, targeting welfare programmes, public sector
employment and pay, employment protection legislation and wage setting
institutions. Low educated women are more vulnerable to job insecurity
and low pay, and on the other hand their employment participation is
more likely to be influenced by welfare measures supportive of female
employment and so more likely to be affected if these change.
This paper focuses on the impact of the crisis and the associated
austerity measures on the patterns and quality of employment of women,
and how the crisis and changes to employment regulation and welfare
provision affected the employment and living conditions of women, the
family arrangements and gender relations in Southern European regions,
using Andalucia as a case study.
To this end, a systematic review of the reforms implemented is
discussed, together with their macro-level impact, through an analysis
of secondary sources and official statistical data. Statistical data
used in the analysis includes data on GDP, employment and working
conditions from Spanish Regional Accounts, Spanish Labour Force Survey,
Quarterly Labour Cost Survey and statistics on Collective Agreements;
data on formal and informal care are from the Statistics on Income and
Living Conditions; data on attitudes are taken from the European Social
Survey, and the last Eurobarometer special report on gender equality. At
the micro level, in order to understand the kind of pressures and
challenges created by the crisis and the austerity reforms, interviews
were conducted with 66 low educated women employed.
The findings reveal great precariousness, insecurity and adverse changes
experienced during the crisis, in spite of a strong added worker effect
of women increasing their labour market participation in response to
male unemployment. Women joined the labour market as men lost jobs but
faced increasing barriers to securing employment. The evidence suggests
that low educated women met even greater difficulties in accessing,
maintaining and re-entering employment. Reforms in employment regulation
and collective bargaining seemed to strongly affect the interviewees,
who reported poor labour practices and employer unilateralism. Legal
changes that increased firms'' discretion to change workers'' tasks,
location and schedules led to a growth of precarious work and to
employers'' abusing part-time work contracts to reduce costs by replacing
full-time workers with part-timers paid at lower rates and by pressuring
part-timers to work longer unpaid hours (Rocha, 2014). Legal changes
also created opportunities for firms to opt out from collective
agreements and unilaterally reduce wages. Temporary contracts and
part-time contracts were all typical of women starting working for their
present companies during the crisis. Many women reported increases in
working time, wage freezing or pay cuts. The women working in social
care consistently reported employer strategies to intensify work and
reduce labour costs, including the reorganization of work with fewer and
longer shifts in order to operate with less staff and the hiring of
hourly paid staff to avoid paying premium night shift rates.
A significant proportion of women reported that their husbands had been
unemployed or had pay cuts, resulting in a significant income loss.
These experiences of unemployment and reduced earnings of the women or
their husbands were associated with significant financial stress, mainly
in the cases of couples with children. When asked how they coped and
eventually overcame the financial hardship, they reported to have
drastically reduced expenses. Cohabitation is another familialistic
trait that continues alive and helped families to cushion the economic
impact of the crisis. Under these circumstances, the women interviewed
saw their wages as extremely important to the household budget.
This study provides also some insights on the strategies used by women
to reconcile waged work with family life in the context of the crisis.
Women with young children used formal childcare, either school or
nursery. However, as schools usually finish before their job ended,
there is a need for complementary arrangements. Some women worked
part-time hours or on a reduced schedule, whereas others were aided by
their own or partners'' mothers. Husbands or partners were also involved
but mostly those who were unemployed. Full-time working women appeared
to face increasing difficulties in balancing work with family due to
longer and less predictable working hours during the crisis, and cuts
introduced to public childcare funding. This was particularly
problematic for mothers but in general women struggled to combine their
full-time schedules with domestic work, which still fell mostly on their
shoulders.
The gender division of domestic labour remained mostly traditional,
though younger women tended to report more egalitarian sharing of
domestic labour. There is evidence of a modest move toward a greater
contribution of unemployed male couples. The interviewees'' discourse on
the importance of employment for women''s economic independence and
linking it to notions of fairness and egalitarianism suggests that
women''s attachment to employment is increasingly strong. Women''s
employment position appears more constrained by unfavourable labour
market circumstances than by traditional gender role attitudes.
This lack of evidence of a general backlash in gender attitudes, a
strong women''s attachment to employment and income contributions to the
household becoming even more crucial during the crisis may signal an
erosion of the gendered pattern of labour market segmentation. This
erosion may not represent a dramatic change. It will depend in the
duration of this process, and in the way out of the crisis. As reforms
to social welfare and to the regulation of employment have decreased
women''s ability to reconcile their family and work responsibilities, and
Southern European regions, such as Andalucia, have implemented a
strategy of retrenchment through drastic cuts in the welfare state,
austerity may create the conditions to the re-emergence of a more
conservative gender order.'
affiliation: 'Rodriguez-Modrono, P (Corresponding Author), Univ Pablo de Olavide,
Seville, Spain.
Rodriguez-Modrono, Paula, Univ Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain.'
author: Rodriguez-Modrono, Paula
author_list:
- family: Rodriguez-Modrono
given: Paula
da: '2023-09-28'
files: []
issn: 0213-7585
journal: REVISTA DE ESTUDIOS REGIONALES
keywords: Gender; Employment; Economic crieis; Social model
keywords-plus: SPAIN; POLICIES; RECESSION; POSITION; DENMARK; GREECE; FAMILY
language: Spanish
month: SEP-DEC
number: '110'
number-of-cited-references: '39'
orcid-numbers: Rodríguez-Modroño, Paula/0000-0002-0724-0248
pages: 15-37
papis_id: 4c43faa40af1b76860f5764758470a6c
ref: Rodriguezmodrono2017impactseconomic
researcherid-numbers: Rodríguez-Modroño, Paula/G-6238-2014
times-cited: '1'
title: Impacts of the economic crisis on employed women in Southern European Regions.
The case of Andalucia
2023-10-01 08:15:07 +00:00
type: article
2023-09-28 14:46:10 +00:00
unique-id: WOS:000434068600001
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '12'
web-of-science-categories: Environmental Studies
year: '2017'