The OECD Observer: Changing Labour Markets and Gender Equality: The Role of Policy

The OECD Observer
January 1999, No. 215

Changing Labour Markets and Gender Equality: The Role of Policy
Concluding remarks by Lucy Smith

The Oslo Conference brought together 150 participants from 25 OECD member countries, representatives of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) and the Trade Unions Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD, as well as experts from the European Commission, the International Labour Office, the Council of Europe, the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers. The conference followed the line of the Ministerial meetings on labour and social policy held in Paris in 1998. At Oslo, Lucy Smith drew four conclusions, of which the following is an extended extract.

‘My first conclusion highlights an important fact that must be taken into account in developing labour market policies. The old model of the sole breadwinner having someone at home taking care of his children and private life is not the norm any more in our countries. There has been a clear shift to dual breadwinner households. At the same time we witness a growing polarisation between ‘work-rich’ and ‘work-poor’ households. Hence, policy has to respond equally to the needs of all workers in all employment situations.

For many employers, more flexibility seems to be the answer to the demands for efficiency posed by globalisation and technical change. But it may be necessary to protect workers against some of the imperatives associated with the drive for flexibility and offer them a degree of security. The instruments for doing this—by law or by negotiation between the social partners—will have to differ from country to country, and between different sectors in working life. The goal in all this should be to avoid ‘employment traps’ where people are marginalised into unemployment or under-employment, or ‘poverty traps’ where people become marginalised in low-wage jobs. The less educated, older workers and people with heavy family responsibilities are particularly at risk from these traps and special care must be taken to ensure that women are assisted to escape them. This specific concern leads to my second conclusion.

All OECD countries have a labour market that is too gender segregated to ensure the best use of the available human resources. This calls for continuing our efforts with policies designed to fight gender segregation in working life and its effects on women’s pay and career prospects. Policies that foster the better use of existing skills—women’s skills and competencies, the skills acquired by learning on-the-job—are of vital importance in today’s labour market. This puts a premium on developing and implementing effective strategies for lifelong learning involving both families and schools, the transition from school to work, vocational education and training, active labour market policies and on-the-job training. But this is not enough. It has to be complemented by family-friendly policies in the workplace and effective commitments to guarantee greater job satisfaction for women and offer them better career prospects.

This is often regarded as traditional policy for equality in working life. If so, it has not outlived its role. We have to fight the low evaluation of so-called women’s skills and tasks—social contact, empathy and caring. In real work situations, they are often the last to be taken into account when it comes to pay and career building.

My third conclusion is that as we stand on the threshold of the 21st century, our efforts to create a working life without gender differences and discrimination do not depend only on labour market policies and policy for equality in employment. They also depend heavily on the infrastructure or the arrangements we have in society when it comes to taking care of our dependants—both our children and the elderly. Labour market policy will have to cope with a world where employees—men and women alike—have family responsibilities which they want to combine with their responsibilities in the labour market.

My final conclusion concerns the appropriate strategy in today’s labour market and society to achieve our goal of gender equality. Many speakers have stressed the need for ‘mainstreaming’ of gender issues, that is, placing them in all major policy areas. This is important, but it does not mean that we should relax our efforts in the traditional areas of policy for gender equality.’

OECD Bibliography

Agenda and conclusions
(http://www.oecd.org/els/women/women.htm)