Contenu du sommaire : European labour markets in times of crisis

The article deals with the comparative experience of women and men during the current crisis in eight of the European countries most affected by austerity and the challenge that recession and austerity represent for gender equality. Short term reductions in gender gaps and the female employment rate have been a common trend in all countries but the longer term trends are more important from a gender perspective. More labour market flexibility leads to a greater convergence of men's and women's employment conditions at the bottom of the labour market; reductions in public sector employment hamper women's access to stable, protected and more equal jobs, while the withdrawal of the state from the provision of social care is interrupting the defamilialisation of care. However, as women's employment remains vital for social reproduction at both the macro and household levels, gender equality must be an essential component of a progressive exit strategy from the crisis.

The current economic crisis has deeply affected European labour markets. Employment has dropped more or less in all countries. Female employment was less affected by the recession phase of the crisis than male employment. The second stage, characterised by the implementation of stimulus packages, should have been more favorable to male employment. The third stage, during which austerity plans have been introduced, might be particularly harsh for female employment. These gendered effects of the crisis are basically explained by sectoral segregation based on gender. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the trend in employment for women and men during the different stages of current crisis in eight European countries. We break down the evolution of employment by sectors for men and women by using a shift-share analysis. In some countries, specifically in Spain, the impact of the crisis has led to a narrowing of the gender gap; this is mainly explained by gender sectoral segregation. In the UK and Denmark, women have been less protected by sectoral segregation, because they have experienced more job losses than they should have if their distribution across the different economic sectors had remained the same during the crisis.

The Great Recession furnishes a significant field of research for the analysis of trends in employment and national policies from a gender perspective. We argue that it is necessary to take a holistic view of the consequences of the recession both on the labour market and on labour market policies. In the context of widespread rises in female employment rates prior to the crisis, we highlight foregone employment growth, as well as the differing responses of women's and men's activity patterns. Furthermore, our review of European Union and national policies shows how advances based upon previous policy gains were also foregone. The position of gender equality in policy-making was challenged as governments responded to the crisis by "reverting to type" and weakening gender equality commitments.

In this paper we explore the impact of the economic recession of 2008 on gender inequality in the labor force in Central and Eastern European countries. We argue that job and occupational segregation protected women's employment more than men's in the CEE region as well, but unlike in more developed capitalist economies, women's level of labor force participation declined and their rates of poverty increased during the crisis years. We also explore gender differences in opinions on the impact of the recession on people's job satisfaction. For our analysis we use published data from EUROSTAT and our own calculations from EU SILC and ESS 2010.

This article explores the gender biases of recessions and policy responses they have entailed in France and Germany in the 2000s. During the Great Recession, France experienced a significant rise in both female and male unemployment. Germany apparently witnessed a gendered “employment miracle” and is thus cited as a model, especially for its structural labour market reforms, often presented as the reason for its current employment performance. In both countries, economic downturns have hit male-dominated sectors and men's employment first, thereby leading to a reduction or a reversal of the unemployment gender gap and challenging the male (main) breadwinner model. If women did not withdraw from the labour market, they have not been spared economic hardship: their employment and social conditions were hit in the second stages of recessions and impaired by austerity measures and structural reforms, especially in Germany. While recovery plans and labour market policies have provided support for male-dominated sectors, structural labour market reforms and activation policies have deteriorated the quality of women's employment.

The paper seeks to provide some insights into the trends and patterns of female employment in Germany and their underlying institutional framework. It is argued that the main challenge facing female employment in Germany is often the low quality of jobs. The so-called German “employment miracle” has been accompanied by a rising prevalence of low hourly pay and atypical work forms in recent years. Women's employment growth is primarily based on a steadily rising numbers of part-time and mini-jobs – a very particular German institution that provides incentives to keep the monthly earnings below €450. It is argued that real progress to more gender equality in the German labour market has been hindered by the institutional framework which still remains very ambiguous and inconsistent, as regards the role of women in the labour market.

Although, during the current Greek crisis, male employment retreated much more than female employment, the gender unemployment gap remained remarkably stable. To explain this outcome we have analysed labour market flows by sex using descriptive statistics and counterfactual techniques. Empirical findings suggest that while men experienced more dramatically the labour demand shock of the crisis because its impact was harder on male-dominated sectors, their falling participation rate mitigated the rise in the male unemployment rate. Women were affected less than men by the labour demand shock, but inactive women joined the labour force in increasing numbers that boosted the female unemployment rate. We interpret supply-side responses in terms of the discouraged worker and added worker effects.

In May 2011, following the deterioration of Portugal's financial situation, an agreement was signed between the Portuguese government and the “troika” (the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund), establishing a programme of austerity measures and reforms as a counterpart for obtaining financial assistance. The process of economic and social change the country has subsequently experienced has been marked by a significant deterioration of its main economic and social indicators. The Portuguese labour market has clearly changed throughout the process. This paper outlines the main changes the Portuguese labour market has suffered. Particular attention is paid to the gender dimension (and biases) of the crisis.

Over recent decades, women in Spain have continued to suffer a much higher unemployment rate than men, with a figure almost twice as high in some periods. This gap has however almost disappeared during the ongoing economic crisis. The aim of this paper is to explain this gender difference in the response of unemployment to the business cycle in Spain. The decomposition of changes in female employment shows the important role of the buffer effect in the 1992-1993 recession, while the segregation effect has been more significant in the ongoing recession. Estimation results support the segregation hypothesis: the concentration of women in less-cyclical sectors reduces their job losses during recession, so that the unemployment gap falls. However, the buffer effect for men appears to be greater than that for women, which is partly explained by more temporality in male-dominated industries.

The segregation hypothesis predicts that women are sheltered in recessions, since they are over-represented in the public sector and this sector is less affected by the economic cycle, than are male-dominated manufacturing and construction. Gender segregation in the labour market is strong in Sweden, especially as the local government sector is big and many women work in this sector. It could then be expected that women's employment should be protected relative to men's. However this has not been the case. On the one hand, employment has been lost in local government, while on the other hand women have found jobs to a greater extent than men in the private sector. This is partly because of employment transfers from local government to the private sector, due to privatisation, outsourcing, etc. But structural transformations towards a bigger private service sector and the recruitment of employees with higher education may also benefit women.

This article explores how the experience of recession followed by austerity in the UK has differed not only by gender but also by ethnicity. This is undertaken through examining labour market developments and government policy responses in the immediate recession and the phase of unfurling austerity. The findings highlight both the varying overall effects by gender and the tendency for ethnic minority women and men to have fared worse than UK born white women and men in the recession. Austerity policies, it is argued, are furthermore intensifying the underlying fault lines in the UK's high inequality economic model and will place future pressures that disproportionately affect women though public sector job and welfare cuts.