ABSTRACT
The allocation of different types of work to men and women suggests the kind of differentiation of the workforce which has prompted the development of dual labour market theories. These theories visualise workers as confined to one of two distinct labour markets with little mobility between them. In contrast to the primary sector, jobs in the ‘secondary sector’, are unskilled, without prospects, insecure and badly paid. In its original formulation, dual labour market theory was used to explain the exclusion of the urban poor from primary-sector employment since these lacked, or were supposed to lack, the required skills and qualities of dependability. Overall, then, the patterns of segregation in the two factories had a great deal in common. Alongside the ‘traditional’ exclusion of women from craft work there had recently developed, or intensified, a segregation in which men worked on capital-intensive processes whilst women were relegated to labour-intensive operations.
