Horizontal and vertical labour market movements in Austria: Do occupational transitions take women across gendered lines?

Abstract

The gendered division of occupations is a persistent characteristic of the Austrian labour market. Furthermore, we can observe more flexible employment biographies, where sequential employment episodes and occupational transitions become an important part. On this account, the article argues that both gender inequalities and labour market movements need to be examined simultaneously. The authors therefore analyse gender-(un)typed horizontal occupational transitions and their influence on the vertical positioning, based on the Austrian Micro Census (2008–2018). The results reveal that gender-typed occupational transitions are regaining relevance and that the gender effect is reversing in that women increasingly leave gender-untyped occupations. The findings also demonstrate that this gender-typed horizontal movement yields a significant decline in occupational status for women, which even increases when women become mothers. Based on their models the authors find no negative effects for fathers.

Living Alone in the City: Differentials in Subjective Well-Being Among Single Households 1995–2018

“…Furthermore, our results emphasized the great importance of both the individual as well as the societal context (Adamczyk, 2021;Esteve et al, 2020;Luhmann & Hawkley, 2016;Ta et al, 2017). In particular, our results point to the conclusion that young people in single households in Vienna have become less satisfied due to increasing flexibility and insecurity on the labour market and the housing market (Fritsch et al, 2020;Riederer et al, 2021b). In contrast to developments of economic well-being, it may be surprising that senior individuals who live alone are better off in terms of social well-being than young individuals who live alone.…”

“…Despite these government programmes, there were increases in the unemployment rate and receipt of means-tested guaranteed minimum income in Vienna until 2017 (Riederer et al, 2021b;Statistics Austria, 2021c). Although lagged compared to other European countries, we also observe growing numbers of precarious atypical employment relationships in Austria, especially in Vienna (Fritsch et al, 2020;Teitzer et al, 2014;Verwiebe et al, 2013). Risks of working in temporary employment, part-time, and poorly paid jobs are significantly pronounced among younger employees and/or women (Fritsch et al, 2019;Riederer et al, 2021b).…”

“…However, we can also observe relevant changes: Most interesting, both younger and senior singles were highly satisfied with their main activity in 2003 (averaging around 80-85%). In recent years, we do not find these high levels of satisfaction with regard to their main activity among the younger age groups anymore (only 66% of young female and 62% of young male singles highly satisfied) as conditions on the Viennese labour market have become more difficult (Fritsch et al, 2020;Riederer et al, 2021b). In addition, young women and men living alone have shown the highest levels of satisfaction with their family situation, social contacts, and leisure time in the past.…”

Flexible working for all? How collective constructions by Austrian employers and employees perpetuate gendered inequalities

“…Consequently, they tend to 'choose' jobs and invest accordingly in career development strategies and therefore contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy (Beblo et al 2008;Collins 2020;Gatrell & Cooper 2016). Furthermore, women with children tend to change their working hours and workplaces more frequently than men and to remain in or enter gender-typical occupations (Fritsch et al 2020). Some of these occupations are located in branches that have departed from standard employment and become increasingly precarious over the past years (Sardadvar 2019;Rubery 2015).…”

Transformation und Krise der Sorgearbeit

“…Sie grenzt (unbezahlte) Reproduktion und (bezahlte) Produktion, Weiblichkeit und Männlichkeit ab und hierarchisiert sie in konstitutiver Weise. So entsteht eine Zuteilung von Männern und Frauen in zwei gesellschaftliche Sphären, die bis heute die Grundlage für eine geschlechtsspezifische ungleiche Arbeitsteilung sind, die geschlechtliche Verteilung von Zuständigkeits-und Tätigkeitsbereichen in ein hierarchisches Verhältnis setzt und für die geschlechterspezifischen Ungleichheiten am modernen Arbeitsmarkt verantwortlich ist (Fritsch 2018;Fritsch et al 2020). Es ist kein Zufall, dass wir Unterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern in der Ausübung von Berufen beobachten (Frauen sind verstärkt in kaufmännischen und personenbezogenen Dienstleistungsberufen anzutreffen, während Männer zum Beispiel technische Berufe bevorzugen) (Leitner/Dibiasi 2015), dass in Europäischen Gesellschaften die Arbeit in typischen Frauenberufen in der Regel schlechter entlohnt wird als die in Männerberufen (Blau/Kahn 2017;Fritsch et al 2020), dass mehr Frauen als Männer in Teilzeitarbeit zuverdienen (Berghammer 2014), oder mehr Männer als Frauen Führungspositionen besetzen (Mairhuber/Papouschek 2010).…”