ABSTRACT
To analyse some features of women’s unemployment and its evolution in France, this chapter begins with recent findings of a study by the Bureau of Women’s Rights. It shows that women’s greater unemployment has consequences for the female labour force as a whole, in that it has a deterrent effect on equal treatment, and particularly on equal pay. An indirect measurement of these marginal categories comes from observing the discrepancies between statistics for labour force participation according to the various statistical definitions used. The example that immediately comes to mind is the differences in the French unemployment rate. Attention often focuses on the unique case of Great Britain, where men have a higher unemployment rate than women. When measurements of unemployment are adjusted by these corrective measures, the discrepancy found is nonetheless considerably greater for women, in comparison with overall unemployment figures.
