It is argued that capital in advanced industrial Western societies has pursued a number of crisis-induced and related strategies to maintain profitability: automation, relocation and flexibility. While each of these related strategies has major implications for women's work generally, this article focuses on the specific impact that they have had on minority women's employment in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. On the basis of comparative analyses it is concluded that the relative collapse of traditional job opportunities in manufacturing for minority women has resulted in an increasing proportion being pushed sideways into the manual sectors of service work and in the UK also into a burgeoning `ethnic economy'.
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