This paper provides an account of the processes by which people were recruited to particular places in the labour market, and explores the implications of this account for conceptualisations of recruitment and of gender divisions in employment. On the basis of a survey of recruitment to 101 retail and clerical job vacancies in the North East of England, it is argued that the social and `tacit' skills required in the performance of such jobs are so inextricably linked with, and embedded in, gender that the jobs themselves may be seen as gendered. Gender itself thus has a direct influence on the separation of `men's jobs' and `women's jobs', which is distinct from the indirect effects of domestic responsibilities and the sexual division of labour in households.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Barron, R.D. and Norris, G.M. (1976) `Sexual divisions and the dual labour market' in D.L. Barker and S. Allen (eds.) Dependence and Exploitation in Work and Marriage, London: Longman .
2.
Becker, G.S. (1971) The Economics of Discrimination, Chicago: University of Chicago Press .
3.
Beechey, V. (1983) `Studies of Women's Employment', Feminist Review No.15, reprinted in Feminist Review (eds.) 1986: 130-159.
4.
Beechey, V. (1986) `Women's Employment in Contemporary Britain' in V. Beechey and E. Whitelegg (eds.) Women in Britain Today, Milton Keynes: Open University Press .
5.
Blackburn, R.M. and Mann, M. (1979) The Working Class in the Labour Market, London: Macmillan .
6.
Braverman, H. (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital: the degradation of work in the twentieth century, London and New York: Monthly Review Press .
7.
Bruegel, I. (1979) `The Reserve Army of Labour 1974-1979', Feminist Review No. 3, reprinted in Feminist Review (eds.) 1986, 93-113.
8.
Cockburn, C. (1983) Brothers: male dominance and technical change, London: Pluto Press .
9.
Crompton, R. and Mann, M. (1986) Gender and Stratification, Cambridge: Polity Press .
10.
Curran, M.M. (1985) Stereotypes and Selection: gender and family in the recruitment process, Equal Opportunities Commission Research Series, London: HMSO .
11.
Dale, A. (1986) The Role of Theories of Labour Market Segmentation in Understanding the Position of Women in the Occupational Structure, Occasional Papers in Sociology and Social Policy No. 4, University of Surrey .
12.
Davies, C. and Rosser, J. (1986) `Gendered Jobs in the Health Service: a problem for a labour process analysis' in D. Knights and H.W. Willmott (eds.) Gender and the Labour Process, Aldershot: Gower .
13.
Equal Opportunities Commission (1985) Code of Practice for the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sex and marriage and the promotion of equality of opportunity in employment.
14.
Equal Opportunities Commission (1986) Women and Men in Britain: a statistical profile, London: HMSO .
Ford, J. , Keil, T. , Bryman, A. , Beardworth, A. and Jenkins, R. (1984) `Internal Labour Market Processes' , Industrial Relations Journal, 15, 2, 41-50 .
17.
Gerzer, A. (1986) `The Beck Department Store: a case study' in T.S. Epstein , K. Crehan , A. Gerzer and J. Sass (eds.) Women Work and Family in Britain and Germany, London: Croom Helm .
18.
Hakim, C. (1979) Occupational Segregation, Research Paper No. 9, London: Department of Employment .
19.
Hakim, C. (1981) `Job segregation: trends in the 1970's', Employment Gazette, December, 521-529.
20.
Hartmann, H. (1976) `Capitalism, patriarchy and job segregation by sex' in M. Blaxall and B. Reagan (eds.) Women and the Workplace, Chicago: University of Chicago Press .
21.
IPM Joint Standing Committee on Discrimination (1978) Towards Fairer Selection: a code for non-discrimination, London: Institute of Personnel Management .
22.
Jenkins, R. (1986) Racism and Recruitment: Managers Organisations and Equal Opportunity in the Labour Market, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
23.
Jewson, N. and Mason, D. (1986) `Modes of Discrimination in the Recruitment Process: Formalisation, Fairness and Efficiency' , Sociology, 20, 1, 43-63 .
24.
Keil, T. , Ford, J. , Bryman, A. and Beardsworth, A. (1985) `Does Occupational Status Matter? the case of recruitment' , International Journal of Social Economics, 11, 2, 32-48 .
25.
Loveridge, R. and Mok, A.L. (1979) Theories of Labour Market Segmentation, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff .
26.
Manwaring, T. (1984) `The Extended Internal Labour Market' , Cambridge Journal of Economics, 8, 161-187 .
27.
Manwaring, T. and Wood, S. (1985) `The Ghost in the Labour Process' in D. Knights , H. Willmott and D. Collinson (eds.) Job Redesign: Critical Perspectives on the Labour Process, Aldershot: Gower Press .
28.
Martin, J. and Roberts, C. (1984) Women and Employment: a lifetime perspective, London: HMSO .
29.
Murgatroyd, L. (1982) `Gender and Occupational Stratification' , Sociological Review, 30, 574-602 .
30.
Myrdal, A. and Klein, V. (1956) Women's Two Roles: Home and Work, reprinted 1968, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul .
31.
Phillips, A. and Taylor, B. (1980) `Sex and Skill', Feminist Review No. 6, reprinted in Feminist Review (eds.) 1986, 54-66.
32.
Siltanen, J. (1986) `Domestic Responsibilities and the Structuring of Employment' in R. Crompton and M. Mann (eds.) Gender and Stratification, Cambridge: Polity Press .
33.
Windolf, P. (1986) `Recruitment Selection and Internal Labour Markets in Britain and Germany' , Organisation Studies, 7, 3, 235-254 .
34.
Wood, S. (1986) `Recruitment Systems and the Recession' , British Journal of Industrial Relations, 24, 1, 103-120 .
