Hazel Conley and Paula Koskinen Sandberg have co-edited a new International Handbook on Gender and Employment in the Public Sector, published by Edward Elgar in their International Handbooks on Gender series. This blog is based on the introductory chapter of the handbook.
Professor Hazel Conley would like to introduce her latest publication, at the formal launch of this handbook in the 11.12.23. There will be light refreshments, and ample opportunity to discuss the work. You can register to attend here.
Public sector employment is characterized by its high levels of gender segregation and, in many countries of the world, it is feminized providing both high and low skilled work for women. Public sector employment is inevitably politically charged because the State is often both employer and paymaster and because adequate public services rely on significant levels of taxation, making it a target for neo-liberal reforms fuelled; in recent times, by austerity. Here, trade unions still have a significant representation and collective bargaining presence, which periodically results in industrial unrest.
Further, Public sector employment is emotionally charged because it often involves work with the most vulnerable members of society – the old, the young, the sick, the homeless, victims of crime and other emergencies, which has included being on the front line of a global pandemic. Despite this, the rewards for public sector employment, particularly in relation to gender pay equality, are frequently called into question. However, these issues also mean that public sector employment has often been the focus of developing gender equality policies, practices and legislation. These debates provide fertile ground for feminist and academic research on equality, from which the contributions to the Handbook are drawn. The volume explores theoretical, conceptual and empirical research from established and early career researchers. It takes an international and intersectional perspective, which acknowledges that those who work in public sector employment have differences in demography that shape their experiences at work.
The 26 chapters of this book explore five main subject areas:
- Gender and the Neo-Liberal State as Employer
- Gender and Working Conditions in the Public Sector
- Women’s Pay, Reward and Pensions in the Public Sector
- Women’s Representation and Voice in the Public Sector
- Gender, Pandemic and Public Sector Employment
The book produces a wide range of global evidence detailing the ways in which women’s employment in public services is inevitably impacted by the many political and economic tensions that surround public spending. Women are used as flexible resources to move into or out of the labour market, depending on prevailing political ideologies and economic conditions. Their pay and job quality are used as tools to keep public spending low where neo-liberal ideologies demand while; at the same time maintaining levels of public service that limit the damage to the electoral chances of incumbent governments.
”…Women are used as flexible resources to move into or out of the labour market, depending on prevailing political ideologies and economic conditions...”
During the global pandemic the commitment and dedication of public service workers to the care of others was lauded, but their own health and well-being were secondary concerns, with ethnic minority and migrant women faring particularly badly. This book documents how years of underfunding combined with the effects of the pandemic have left public services, and the women who work in them, exhausted and demoralized. Lastly, despite propping up underfunded public services around the globe, women’s progress into leadership positions in this sector remains tortuously slow and unequally rewarded.
Although the evidence in this volume is international and is shaped by quite different cultural and political contexts, the underpinning logic for the position of women identified in each chapter is consistent: women’s paid labour is universally valued less than men’s and their unpaid labour is generally disregarded. Although one of the main roles of the state should be to uphold the human rights of its citizens not to be discriminated against, it is complicit in discrimination when it draws on gendered assumptions about women’s lives, skills and motivations to keep public spending low. The book highlights that change is possible, but this would require rethinking how public services, particularly care work, are valued and funded in societies. Importantly, change can only be achieved if women’s labour ceases to be thought of as secondary, low-skilled, cheap and dispensable. For these conditions to be realized, the trade unions and organisations that give women working in public services a collective voice must take this up as their raison d’etre and make sure that the exploitation of women is not the go-to solution for limiting public spending.
The International Handbook on Gender and Employment in the Public Sector provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research and policy debates on gender equality and diversity in public sector workforces around the world. Co-edited by Hazel Conley and Paula Koskinen Sandberg, this insightful volume features contributions from leading scholars across various disciplines. If you are interested in learning more about the challenges and opportunities related to promoting gender equality in public sector organizations globally, be sure to get yourself a copy of this important new handbook published by Edward Elgar Publishing.