ABSTRACT
The first workplace described in Box 6.1 illustrates the conditions typically experienced by female workers in sectors where women constitute the vast majority of the workforce. Four-fifths of the workforce is female in the private healthcare workplace where Jane finds her first job, and also in her second (and rather more attractive) job in public education. More generally, almost half the workforce is female, and women full-timers are more likely than men to be union members. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) points out that the number of people working more than 60 hours per week rose from one in eight in 2000 to one in six in 2002, and the biggest rise in this group was amongst women, from 6 to 13 per cent (DTI, 2002).
