ABSTRACT
The process of women returning to the labor market after having children has been studied extensively (Brannen and Moss, 1988, 1991; McRae, 1989,1991; Dex et al., 1998). Decisions about labor market participation and hours of work at this point in women’s employment careers have been shown to have important consequences. Returns to part-time work or having lengthy breaks carry a penalty in terms of foregone earnings, occupational status and career advancement (Dex, 1987; Joshi and Newell, 1987). In this sense some of the increase in so-called “flexible jobs” in Britain’s restructured labor markets, especially increases in part-time jobs, have hindered rather than helped women to gain equal opportunities with men, largely because part-time jobs have predominantly been low wage and low status. We know from other studies of flexible work that there are some benefits and some disadvantages for women who take part-time jobs (Dex and McCulloch, 1997). However, it is not clear whether all types of flexible jobs will have this effect on women’s status and career prospects. Fixed-term contracts and different types of self-employment have not been investigated to the same extent (Dex and McCulloch, 1997). This chapter sets out to examine women who became mothers when working in television production in the early 1990s as a particularly interesting group as far as new flexible jobs are concerned.
