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- Title
Hours, Scheduling and Flexibility for Women in the US Low-Wage Labour Force.
- Authors
Jacobs, Anna W.; Padavic, Irene
- Abstract
Research on women's experiences with work schedules and flexibility tends to focus on professional women in high-paying careers, despite women's far greater prevalence in low-wage jobs. This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of the work-hours problems faced by women precariously employed in low-wage jobs by addressing how work-on-demand scheduling and other features of part-time labour in the neoliberal economy limit women's ability to make ends meet. Using data from 17 in-depth interviews, we identify four themes - unpredictable schedules, inadequate hours, time theft and punishment-and-control via hours-reduction - and the problems they present. Results suggest that much-championed flexible work policies that seek to encourage women's career advancement may have little bearing on the work-hours dilemmas faced by low-wage women workers. We conclude that social change efforts need to encompass work policies geared to low-wage workers, such as guaranteed minimum hours and increases in the minimum wage.
- Subjects
LABOR supply; WOMEN employees; PART-time employees; WOMEN in the labor movement; NEOLIBERALISM; ECONOMICS
- Publication
Gender, Work & Organization, 2015, Vol 22, Issue 1, p67
- ISSN
0968-6673
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/gwao.12069