Women's work and women's worth: the leisure implications of women's changing employment patterns

Abstract

This paper reviews the interrelationship of work and leisure in British women's lives. It focuses in particular on the practical and ideological significance of changes in women's patterns of labour market involvement. While women's gross employment levels have risen substantially over the last three decades, the scale and pattern of female employment is strongly differentiated across social groups. Most women's work involvement continues to be primarily shaped by the requirements of their family role, and to be strongly differentiated from male employment patterns. Among women with higher status jobs, however, a contrasting pattern is emerging. This paper considers whether the ‘advances’ of professional women are indicative of a general tide of change which can be expected to permeate to other sectors of the female population, and highlights structural factors in both work and family domains which are likely to inhibit this. It concludes that current trends in women's employment patterns both represent increasing divergence in women's lifestyles and contribute to the maintenance of gender divides.

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