ABSTRACT
Feminist critiques of gender-neutral approaches to the study of labour markets have demonstrated that gender relations do not simply articulate with, but are part of, the very fabric of labour markets as they have developed. That is, gender is a constitutive element in the formation of labour markets. Studies show that gender inscribes definition of skill, construction of the division between full-time and part-time work, the differential between men’s and women’s wages, segregation of the labour market into ‘men’s jobs’ and ‘women’s jobs’, the nature and type of hierarchies sustained by cultures of the workplace, and the experience of paid work in the formation of identities (cf. Beechey 1988 for an overview). Much less attention has been paid to ‘race’, ethnicity, or racialised/ethnicised constructions of ‘cultural difference’ in the gendering of labour markets (but see Chapter 2; Westwood 1984; Brah 1987; Westwood and Bachu 1989; Phizacklea 1990; Walby 1990; Bhavnani 1991). The point is that modes of differentiation such as ‘race’, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age or disability are at the heart of the constitution, operations, and differential effects of labour markets.
