Gender, Segmentation and the Standard Employment Relationship in Canadian Labour Law, Legislation and Policy

Abstract

Using gender as its analytic lens, this article examines segmentation in the Canadian labour market by focusing on the standard employment relationship. It illustrates how standard employment was crafted upon a speii gender division of paid and unpaid labour, the male breadwinner norm, and was only available to a narrow segment of workers. To this end, it traces how from the lOSOs the standard employment relationship ws supelemanted by a growth in jobs associated with, and filed pnrimaly by, women workers and it shows how women's increasing labour market participation in the late 196Os and early 1970s shaped demands for equality in employment policies. Since the 1 9SOs, a deterioration in the standard employment relationship has undermined both demands for and the basis of gender equality strategies and the article concludes by raising the question of the normative basis for regulating employment in order to Move towards strategies for reregulation.

Gender Differences in Precarious Work Settings

“…Not surprisingly, women are overrepresented in precarious work situations both nationally and internationally (Cranford et al, 2003;Presser, Parashar, and Gornick, 2008), and recent research suggests these trends are increasing (Fudge and Vosko, 2001;Ruyter and Warnecke, 2008;Vosko, 2006). In the U.S., thirty-three percent of women work in part-time positions compared to 12 percent of all men (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009).…”

“…More recent work has considered precarious employment as a continuum ranging from high precariousness to low precariousness, depending on wage work and regulatory protection across statuses, including full-time and parttime permanent and temporary positions (see Cranford et al, 2003). Accordingly, less lucrative work situations without stability and benefits are considered highly precarious for employees.Not surprisingly, women are overrepresented in precarious work situations both nationally and internationally (Cranford et al, 2003;Presser, Parashar, and Gornick, 2008), and recent research suggests these trends are increasing (Fudge and Vosko, 2001;Ruyter and Warnecke, 2008;Vosko, 2006). In the U.S., thirty-three percent of women work in part-time positions compared to 12 percent of all men (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009).…”

Laptops in the Living Room: Mobile Technologies and the Divide between Work and Private Time among Interactive Agency Workers

“…Company policy around this "benefit" often mimics existing stratifications in workplace benefits. Companies tend to extend workplace benefits such as pensions and health benefits to full-time "core" workers, while leaving out "peripheral" or non-standard workers who have temporary or contract positions (Fudge & Vosko, 2001: Vosko, 2000. Emerging company policies regarding the spatial flexibility of work appear to reinforce stratification, but tend not to address the issue of access restriction.…”

After Industrial Citizenship

“…The slow decline of the traditional conception of industrial citizenship -with the male breadwinner as subject-appears to be inevitable (Fudge and Vosko, 2001). 10 The pillars upon which it was initially established were weak and the ground underneath them has shifted.…”