Changes in Women’s Occupations and Occupational Mobility Over 25 Years

(2008) - Shirley Dex, Kelly Ward, Heather Joshi

Journal: Women and Employment
Link:: http://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781847202499.00009.xml
DOI:: 10.4337/9781848442931.00009
Links::
Tags:: #paper #NCDS #Mobility #Gender #Transition #school-to-work
Cite Key:: [@Dex2008]

Abstract

The collection of employment histories in the Women and Employment Survey (WES) in 1980 started to break down the stereotypes still around in the 1970s about women’s careers. The tendency had been to think that a women’s main role was as a mother, working at domestic tasks. Relatively few women were expected to have employment careers. The term ‘career woman’ was commonly used to describe the few, mainly thought to be single women, in professional occupations and viewed as freaks. What WES helped to show was that the majority (90%) of women were returning to employment after childbirth and many were attached to their occupations in a way that could be described as having occupational careers, although they were not always able to return to their original occupation after an employment break for childbirth (Martin and Roberts, 1984; Dex, 1987). WES employment histories also showed that women had a sizeable amount of downward occupational mobility across the break from work for childbirth and this was more likely, the longer they stayed out of work at this point, and if they returned to a part-time job. In the 25 years since WES was collected and analysed much has changed in the UK labour market. It is time to take stock.

Notes

“Through this lens we have seen that downward occupational mobility over first childbirth has declined compared with earlier generations in WES. However, there is still additional downward occupational mobility following the first return after first childbirth to most recent jobs for some of these women. We were unable to identify its causes at this point.” (Dex et al., 2008, p. 20)

“The 1958 cohort of women also demonstrates that the penalty to their occupational status of taking a part-time job on returning to work after (first) childbirth, or spending a few years out of employment have increased compared with the WES generations. One other important finding from the analysis of NCDS men’s occupational mobility is” (Dex et al., 2008, p. 20)