ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the position of women in the British labour market, with its distinctive national context of high rates of part-time work, weak collective bargaining and a governmental strategy of deregulation as a response to globalisation. It focuses particularly on the dimensions of activity rates, wage differentials, occupational segregation and part-time work. The chapter considers the prospects for the national minimum wage as a means to reducing the incidence of low pay for women and increasing gender equity. In the light of this debate, it engages with women's position in the labour market, to see how far it can be described as the result of 'rational choice'. Low pay is more prevalent within certain groups of workers: women, young people, people with disabilities. The chapter examines the idea that low pay is the result of choices by women who prefer part-time jobs requiring little human capital because of their commitment to their domestic role.
