-Benjamin Disraeli
Despite the fact that for years women have campaigned to be treated equally with men in the job market, no country has actually achieved this. Yet 'change is inevitable' - recent changes in the labour force have provided women with increased opportunities. In most industrialised countries, the gap between male and female employment - and their wage levels - has narrowed. It therefore begs the question - has women's increased participation in the labour force driven men from the workplace?
Figure 1
(Source : OECD Labour Force Statistics 1970-90 : pp.286-287)
The evidence for Ireland, as indicated in figure 1, shows clearly that during the period 1970-90 male unemployment has seen a steady increase, with only a slight fall away towards the latter half of the 1980's, while female participation has also steadily increased - an indication of a possible relationship between the two. The question of whether or not this increased female participation is directly to blame for increased male unemployment shall be the focus of an econometric investigation in section 3 of this piece.
The purpose of this project is two-fold in its aims - firstly, to examine the causes of increased female participation in Ireland, and secondly, an econometric investigation of the sectors of the labour force that have been shown in the literature to have the greatest influence on the level of male unemployment. It is the author's aim to conclude that increased male unemployment has resulted from a changing structure of employment in modern economies, with a resulting shift toward the service sector and part-time employment, from which men have lost and women have gained jobs. Increased female participation and an increase in male unemployment are the result of these changes - hence increased female participation is not to blame for pushing men from the work force, rather the blame lies squarely at the feet of the forces of society responsible for the shift in the structure of employment, from sectors deemed the traditional 'domain' of men to sectors where women have been the greatest benefactors.
Increased Female Participation
Approximately one-third of Ireland's labour force of 1.305 million in 1990 was female. They tended to be young, mainly in 'traditionally' female employment, and were inadequately represented in managerial and skilled occupations. They dominated secretarial-type work and part-time work, with average earnings at a lower level than that of their male counterparts. They tended to drop out of work and raise their family, experiencing difficulties re-entering the labour market, as discussed in Davidson and Cooper. Yet an increasing female participation rate coincided with an increased male unemployment rate - have women pushed men from the labour market? Why has it been easier for women to find jobs than men? The main answer lies in the way women's working lives differ from those of men.
To begin with, it is important to note that the significant developments in female labour supply has naturally attracted the attention of researchers and policy makers, so that the bulk of recent labour supply literature has concentrated on women. The labour force participation decision of women has also been studied in detail in many countries - the list of explanatory variables is lengthy but most studies contain a subset of the following:
In an ideal world all 9 variables could be examined in the case of Ireland, but due to the spatial constraints imposed on this project, the author has chosen to concentrate on labour market conditions, particularly the changing structure of sectoral employment.
In all rich countries, most women are crowded into a handful of occupations. These are secretaries, shop assistants, nurses etc. - the list varies surprisingly little between countries, and Ireland is no exception.
Women in Ireland have predominantly worked in the clerical and catering sectors (service) making up some 69.8% and 77.4% of total employment in 1990 in each sector, respectively. On the other hand, women constituted a mere 9.1% of the total employment in the agricultural sector in the same year. The fact of the matter being that women have not, on the whole taken men's jobs. Rather 'women's' jobs have expanded in the past couple of decades while so-called 'traditional' male jobs have been disappearing (see Table A). This is particularly striking if one looks at the split of the sexes between agricultural and service jobs. A larger proportion of women than men work in the service industry, and women are less likely than men to be employed in the agricultural sector. So as agricultural jobs have vanished, it is mostly men who have become unemployed. Conversely, service employment has grown - in particular clerical, health care, education and social work have expanded with women being the main beneficiaries.
Table A
Sector % of total employment 1971 % of total employment 1990
Ireland OECD Ireland OECD
Service 43.0 50.3 56.4 62.9
Industrial 30.8 36.4 28.6 29.6
Agricultural 26.2 13.3 15.0 7.5
(Source: OECD Labour Force Statistics 1970-1990 : pp.42-45)
In an attempt to provide an explanation for the increased female participation in the labour force, Rothschild examines the merits of the main approaches proposed in economic literature. Principally, two dominant tendencies can be observed - a microeconomic, supply oriented 'neo-classical' approach and a more demand oriented, macroeconomic and structural view-point. The microeconomic approach, which dominates the field, attempts to explain the determinants of female labour supply decisions in terms of the traditional elements of economic analysis: utility-maximisation in response to market signals (prices) and given resources (material and human capital) under special constraints. Accordingly prices (wages of women and their husbands), human capital (education levels) and various constraints (number and age of children, lack of nurseries etc.) are found to be the main components in an attempt to find the determinants of participation decisions. Yet, while there can be little doubt that these efforts have produced interesting and impressive results (in showing that at any moment in time some, if not all of these elements play a significant role in determining the probability of whether a woman will be in the labour force or not), a problem is encountered in their explanatory ability. For example, is the labour market entered into because one has few children and a high level of education (as theory suggests) or does the decision to enter the labour market lead to a reduction in the number of children and the furthering of one's education? Cause and effect, it would seem, are interchangeable.
Rothschild points to a less dominant and rather loosely presented explanation with regards to structural changes. Put simply, it proposes that with rising productivity and income there is a continuous shift in demand, production, and employment from the primary to the secondary and, finally, to the tertiary (service) sector. As previously noted (Table A), female labour is traditionally biased toward the service sector, hence this trend has favored the activation of a dormant supply of women whose share in employment has consequently risen. In view of the parallel increase in the importance of services and female employment in all countries, it is obvious that this explanation has a high degree of plausibility and its significance should not be denied. Yet again, however, we are faced with the possibility of reverse causation - could it be that an increase in women's propensity toward the labour market has, by increasing the availability of suitable labour, helped to accelerate the expansion of the service sector? In his econometric analysis of the determinants of increased female participation in the labour force, Rothschild finds some support for this final explanation with regards to structural changes, but also notes that female attitudes towards work, as developed by society, are of no small significance.
The changing gender structure of employment in the richer economies, including Ireland, is indicative of yet another, relatively unexplored dimension of the so-called 'new international division of labour.' In this new division, jobs are shifted from high-wage secure employment to ill-paid casualised work. Despite the fact that the total level of employment in Ireland increased from 1.151 million in 1979 to 1.152 million in 1990, the growth of jobs on part-time and short-term contracts has, in contrast, been substantial. In 1979, only 1 job in 20 was deemed part-time, but by 1990 the proportion had become 1 in 12. The fact of the matter being that, as can be seen from figure 2, the majority of part-time workers in Ireland have continued to be female.
Figure 2
Mitter further argues that the resultant shift in the gender structure of employment in Ireland mirrors the experience of all western countries and points 'to a new thrust in the restructuring of capital..' This restructuring is fundamentally based upon the accepted division of work in the domestic sphere. As it is the women who are deemed responsible for housework and childcare, it is considered 'normal' for them to be satisfied with ill-paid and insecure jobs. This theory is given added weight in an article in the Economist- the article suggests that part-time work suits employers because it helps them to reduce their wage bills. It also allows them to employ workers only when they need staff, as opposed to keeping idle people on their payrolls. Moreover, firms also find that part-timers often cost less per hour than full-time employees. Even if they manage to get the same hourly rate, part-timers may not qualify for costly fringe benefits such as paid sick leave, holidays or occupational pensions. All of which seems to suggest that the restructuring of employment from full-time, secure employment to that of part-time employment which has become a feature of the labour market in Ireland in recent years, has led to a shifting gender bias favouring women over men.
Another key element in the increased participation of women in the labour force arises in the context of legislation with regards to women at work - legislation which has seen some notable changes in the last 22 years or so. Such changes include -
Another major grievance of women during the seventies was the continuing discrimination against women in the tax code. A Supreme Court decision in 1980 with regards to sections 192-198 of the Income Tax Act of 1967, which deemed all income of a married woman living with her husband to be the income of her husband, led to the introduction of a new system of taxation of married couples whereby all married couples, whether with one or two incomes, were granted double the personal tax-free allowance and tax bands enjoyed by single people. Clearly, the changes to legislation in recent years with regards to women and work have presented increased opportunities for women in the labour market and, hence, increased female participation.
To conclude this section, it should be noted that the factors underlying the growth in female labour force participation over recent decades are complex, and that there are varying views as to the degree of emphasis that should be given to the different influences in explaining this growth. It is clear that all of the factors mentioned have had an impact, but the existing body of research does not allow us to determine clearly the relative importance of these different influences.
The Experiment
An econometric investigation of the influence three variables have on the level of male unemployment in Ireland between the years 1970-1990 now follows. These variables include;
-Female employment
-Industrial employment
-Agricultural employment
in Ireland during the years 1970 to 1990.
The Model
Y variable : The total number of males deemed unemployed in Ireland between the years 1970 and 1990. The figures from 1970-74 are official estimates based on the 1966 and 1971 Census, and those from 1975-90 are the figures established from the annual labour force surveys. A large increase between 1980 and 1987 occurred, male unemployment rising from approximately 60,000 to 180,000. A subsequent fall to below 140,000 by 1990 occurred after this.
X1 Variable : The total number of females deemed employed in Ireland between the years 1970 and 1990, drawn from the same sources as male unemployment. The extent to which this variable influences the Y variable will answer the question of whether increased female participation in the labour force has affected male unemployment levels - a positive 1 is expected indicating a positive relationship between female employment and male unemployment.
X2 Variable : The total number of people employed in the Industrial Sector in Ireland between the years 1970-90. The very fact that this sector is predominantly the domain of men would lead to the assumption that an increase in total employment in this sector would , in turn, lead to a reduction in total male unemployment - a negative relationship, as demonstrated by a negative 2, is expected.
X3 Variable : The total number of people employed in the Agricultural Sector in Ireland between the years 1970 and 1990. As the Agricultural sector has always been the domain of men, even more so than the Industrial sector, a strong negative relationship between this variable and male unemployment, as demonstrated by a negative 3, is expected.
The model is linear of the form:
Yi = + X1i + X2i + X3i + e
where , 2 and 3 are parameters and e is the error term.
Results
In estimating the model time series data from 1970 to 1990 has been used. All the data for the four variables has been taken from the OECD publication 'Labour Force Statistics 1970-90'. With the aid of the computer package SPSS, the multiple regression was found to have a coefficient of determination, R2 , of value 0.97063, which indicates that female employment, industrial employment and agricultural employment together explain approximately 97% of the variation in the level of male unemployment in Ireland during the period 1970-90.
Table B
Regression Results
Parameter
Variable Estimator t-statistic
0
Constant 658.1917 6.244
1
X1 -0.179053 -0.729
2
X2 -0.788562 -7.462
3
X3 -1.118785 -5.952
Closer examination of the evidence produces less than 'inspiring' information. To begin with, the parameter estimate 1 is negative which thoroughly contradicts the original hypothesis by suggesting a negative relationship between female employment and male unemployment. This indicates that an increase in female employment is consistent with a fall in male unemployment. This suggests that not only is increased female participation not responsible for pushing men from the labour force, in the case of Ireland between the years 1970-90 increased female participation in the labour force was responsible for pushing men from the dole queues into jobs (or retirement). That said, the parameter estimates 2 and 3 are negative, as was originally hypothesized, indicating that both industrial and agricultural employment are negatively related to male unemployment, with agriculture having the stronger (larger negative value) negative relationship. Examination of the t-statistics reveals that the parameter 1 is statistically insignificant at the 5% level. Therefore, the original hypothesis of a positive relationship between female participation (as represented by my chosen proxy - female employment) and male unemployment was found to be inaccurate, although both industrial and agricultural employment were found to have a positive relationship with male unemployment as had been originally hypothesized, albeit at statistically insignificant levels.
Analysis
Variations in the level of male unemployment can be significantly (~97%) explained by variations in the three chosen independent variables; female, industrial and agricultural employment in Ireland between 1970-90, but the premise for the experiment - to reveal a positive relationship between one's proxy for female participation in the labour force and male unemployment - was wholly contradicted by the findings of the econometric analysis. This could have resulted from a number of problems contained in the regression;
Hence, any attempt to draw any conclusions from the analysis was ultimately doomed from the offset of the analysis. The econometric investigation has added little to what was originally hypothesized - that increased female participation in the labour force and increasing male unemployment are both by-products of an ever changing structure of labour, a structure which has shifted from the industrial to the service sector, from full-time, secure employment to part-time and short-term work, as illustrated in section 2.
Conclusion
The gender structure of employment worldwide has experienced dramatic shifts in recent times. Ireland is no exception - an increasing male unemployment rate has coincided with a rising female participation rate. What is the explanation for this increasing female participation rate? Has increased female participation in the labour force pushed men from the workplace? In this project, this very question was addressed with respect to the case of Ireland during the period 1970 to 1990. Such is the complexity of these questions, this project has merely scratched the surface of these issues. Nevertheless, it has been shown that this period is characterised by a changing structure of employment in modern economies, with a resulting shift toward the service sector and part-time employment, from which men have lost and women have gained jobs. Upon econometric investigation, male unemployment in Ireland during this period was found to be significantly explained by the three chosen variables - female participation (as given by one's chosen proxy, female employment), industrial employment and agricultural employment - but closer examination revealed a negative relationship between male unemployment and female participation, indicating that during this period increased female participation was associated with a fall in male unemployment, truly a perplexing result. The econometric investigation, it would seem, has added little to what was originally hypothesized - that increased female participation in the labour force and increasing male unemployment are both by-products of an ever changing structure of labour, a structure which has shifted from the industrial to the service sector, from full-time, secure employment to part-time and short-term work.
As Disraeli said 'change is constant' - increased female participation and rising male unemployment during the period 1970 to 1990 were by-products of an ever changing structure of labour. Increased female participation in the labour force is not to blame for pushing men from work, rather the blame lies at the feet of those forces which have brought about the changes in the structure of labour.
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