ABSTRACT
Gender relations vary significantly across space, not only by nation, but also by region and locality. Spatial differences are an important source of diversity in gender relations. Restructuring theory has made some very important contributions to our understanding of economic change, especially in its spatially and temporally sensitive account of the relation between capital and labour. This chapter will consider the extent to which such theories have enabled us to address the question of different patterns of gender relations in employment in different localities. While gender divisions within labour have been infrequently addressed as an overt and central issue in this theory (with some exceptions), yet there are necessarily implicit theses about gender in these accounts. This chapter is an attempt to develop restructuring theory by drawing out these implicit theses, testing them against empirical data, and suggesting a revised way in which restructuring theory and theories of gender relations can be synthesised. Many of the writers considered here did not set out to produce a full theory of gender and restructuring; the intention here is to develop this theory.
