Services and the employment prospects for women

This contribution shows that the development of both female employment and the service sector is heavily influenced by social conditions and that politics can play a decisive role. A comparison between different pathways to the service society shows that the individual breadwinner and the public service models are conducive to a high level of female employment at relatively favourable working conditions, whereas in the market service model both quantity and quality are lower. Yet so far the integration of women into the labour market and the transformation of informal household work into paid employment seems to be reproducing the hierarchical gender-specific division of labour in new forms. Genuine gender equality and the reconciliation of career and family made necessary by increasing paid employment by women imply the need for a revision of the still predominant conception of ‘standard employment', particularly with regard to working time.