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This paper looks at the evolution of working conditions in France's hospital sector over the fifteen years to 2013. The issue is important in view of the extensive reforms undertaken in the sector since the early 1990s, which have led to profound reorganizations. We start by reviewing the state of knowledge and data of working conditions in hospitals. In the light of the last three editions of France's Working Conditions survey (enquête Conditions de travail), we then look at the changes in the pace of work and in the different forms of hardship at work that occurred in French hospitals between 1998 and 2013. We then compare these with observations for other sectors. Finally, we analyze, ceteris paribus, the current specificities of the hospital sector in terms of exposure to work pace, staggered schedules, physical hardships and a worsening working environment. We observe that there was an acceleration in work pace faced by hospital staff in the period studied. This was accompanied by a slight alleviation of physical hardships. However, working conditions in hospitals remain particularly stressful.JEL: L32, J81, J28

France's Garantie jeunes (“Youth Guarantee”, GJ) is a local support programme that targets young people who are in precarious situations and neither in employment, education, or training. It was set up in October 2013, initially on a trial basis. This article presents the results of a quantitative evaluation of the scheme. A panel survey conducted among young people who participated from the beginning of the trial in the areas first trialling Garantie jeunes reveals a very fragile population. The programme offers a high level of support, especially during the collective phase at the start. The evaluation of the scheme takes into account the fact that it was initially set up in only part of the country. Estimates concerning the participants in the first Garantie jeunes target areas indicate that the programme has had an impact on their life trajectories. It has intensified support and has had an impact on beneficiaries' employment rates, an impact that continues in the months following the end of support.JEL: C21, I38, J13

The purpose of this article is to show how low wages in home help services, a sector where jobs are considered “low-skilled”, result from an array of mechanisms that themselves are the fruit of a socio-political and socio-economic construction. These mechanisms flow from both public and private strategies, which we seek to clarify by synthesising empirical work in the field of personal services. Three mechanisms involved in the non-recognition of these professions are identified (denying or reducing the “qualities” used; developing an abundant labour supply; and dividing the workforce), with each of these being applied in both national policy guidelines and employer human resources strategies. The home help sector appears to be illustrative of trends at work in many other highly feminised service activities (cleaning, hotel and catering, and retail).JEL: J24, J31, L84, M51

This article offers a comparative analysis of the careers of men and women flight attendants in air transport. Using personnel records, collective agreements and interviews with flight attendants, we show that the picture of improvements in career equality in the airline studied here is illusory. For earlier cohorts, the massive prevalence of women as flight attendants has been accompanied by growing access to positions of in-flight responsibility (cabin manager) and on the ground (base manager), while repeated cross-sectional data indicate a narrowing of the gap between men and women in entry and exit conditions over time. However, our longitudinal analysis of a cohort of flight attendants who entered the company more recently (between 1998 and 2001) reveals gender inequalities in the likelihood of promotion, to the disadvantage of women. Career models are also highly gendered, with women notably more likely to work part-time. Rather than countering this tendency, the shift from a system of promotion based on seniority to one based more “on choice” reinforces gender inequalities, contrary to the claims associated with the equal-opportunity policy implemented by the airline, as of the early 2000s. This is because the new system is more heavily based on employees' investment in the company throughout their careers, and thus on “biographical availability”, which is greater among men than women.JEL: J16, L93, M51

Mompreneurs is a movement that appeared in France towards the end of the 2000s. Its members define themselves as women who create a business when their baby is born, abandoning paid employment in favour of an independence supposed to insure a better work and family balance. The movement may seem insignificant when only the members of its “certified” networks are counted, but it involves deep and transversal processes of individuation, as well as the ongoing public celebration of individual economic initiatives and the stress put on parenting, particularly among the middle and upper classes. Based on three years of research carried out in one of the French Mompreneurs collectives, this article summons up these women's words, attempting to grasp – given the objective conditions of the independent professional activity they have chosen to practice – what they expected by giving up their salaried employment. After sketching the identity of an entrepreneurial adventure in the guise of “perfect mother”, we will see how the family and its eventual fluctuations affect the life-courses of initially privileged women, revealing the part of fragility hidden beneath that promised, exalting, global enterprise of self.JEL: L26, J23, J62

The article deals with the social processes that incite “neo-rural” women – i.e. who do not themselves originate from agricultural families – to become fruit and vegetable farmers alongside their partners and work in their shadow, with no professional status. It shows, first, the extent to which their decision to become independent workers is sometimes governed by family rather than professional considerations. Secondly, it exposes the causes of their statutory invisibility: beyond the feeble economic resources that constrain small farmers and limit their ability to pay into social security schemes, they largely ignore the existing systems and the risks incurred, and they mistrust the established forms of social protection, preferring to count on couple solidarity and develop individual strategies in compensation. JEL: L26, J23