Gender and Work in Transition: Globalization in Western, Middle and Eastern Europe

ISBN-13: 9783810032522 / Angielski / Miękka / 2002 / 291 str.

Regina Becker-Schmidt

Opis

The contributions collected in this volume were produced on the occasion of the International Women's University (ifu), which took place in Hanover in the summer of 2000. They belong to the preparation papers and lesson materials written for the project-area "Work. " This area was one of the six faculties, along with "Information," "Body," "Migration," "City," and "Water," which formed the program of the ifu. On a world wide horizon, each project-area chose re gional centers appropriate for its special topic. Tensions between global and - cal developments and their economic, socio-cultural and political effects on gen der relationships were thematized in almost all faculties. Special attention was paid to women's new opportunities as well as worsening life conditions in a chan ging world. The cosmopolitan orientation of the Ifu corresponds on a sci entific level to internationality and interdisciplinarity as requirements for each design of the curriculum. I will come back to what this means for our project area. It was our goal to explore the connections between globalization, work and gender. This was a difficult undertaking. As "globalization" is a process that oc curs in transnational contexts and under varying local constellations, its multiple modes of operation can only become visible by studying a certain number of countries. An approach based on contrasting methods, however, demands a weIl considered plan- how many and what kind of regions should be exemplarily compared."

Spis treści

With contributions from: Regina Becker-Schmidt, Brigitte Young, Friederike Maier, Christiane Lemke/Katrin Töns, Ulrike Teubner, Irene Dölling, Renata Siemienska, Katalin Koncz, Elena Meshcherkina, Gisela Notz

O autorze

Dr. Regina Becker-Schmidt, Dipl.-Soz., Professorin am Psychologischen Institut, Fachbereich Philosophie, Geschichte und Sozialwissenschaften, Universität Hannover

Blurb

World wide economic, political and cultural changes transform labor markets, frames of divisions of work, labor organization and famly structures. This can be demonstrated in a specific way in Western, Middle and Eastern Europe, where globalization and forced technology development from the one side cross with transformations processes in forms of government from the other side. Our investigation within this context emphasizes the question, how the living conditions of working women in comarison with those of men are touched by these social overturns.
The findings presented in this volume throw light on the ambiguities which political transformation and economic globalization effect on women´s work. Women profit by the emergence of working places that are brought force by new market-activities. But at the same time many of them lose qualifies occupations by shifting from full-time to part-time jobs, from high paid sectors to low remunerated industries. In all countries we find gender-based income differences. The proportion of women in political organizations is everywhere lower than that of men. The growing time pressure in the employment system reinforces women´s strain to combine household duties, child raising and paid work. Going beyond Europe we have to recognize the widening gap between industrialized regions and developing countries.