ABSTRACT
Full and equal access to the labour force was a primary claim of second-wave women’s movement in all Western European and North American countries. This chapter provides some specification of the processes involved. Countercyclical, Keynesian-style interventions to generate full employment have not worked in years. In their place are alternative policies for work, both paid and unpaid. In Fordist economies and polities, women’s movements developed a political programme focused on affirmative action, women’s access to non-traditional employment, and pay equity as well as reproductive rights. Such programmes were designed to overcome the gender inequities of discrimination in hiring and segmentation of the labour force. Part-time work in particular remains a female ghetto and is deeply gendered phenomenon. The importance of public policy is also illustrated by this phenomenon. The patterns of gender inequality, which had been challenged in post-war citizenship regimes, are now being re-installed at the heart of citizenship practices of post-Fordism, as globalisation works its effects. The consequence for women and gender relations are profound. Women are the ones to whom the care responsibilities often devolve.
