Conference Agenda

The last two decades have been a period of economic and social turmoil, marked by the Great Recession, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis that is just unfolding. This succession of crises has destabilised economic and political systems and risks undermining the steady if slow move towards greater gender equality in advanced societies. In this new period of turbulences with uncertain horizons, it is necessary not only to protect against general risks to decent work but also ensure that women will make progress towards equal access. We need a long-term outlook on how these different shocks with distinct origins may have common or differential effects on gender inequalities, and how these may interact, accelerating or disrupting, other pre-existing transformations, such as digitalisation and the green economy transition. This special session will examine these issues focusing on the impacts on and transformations in the world of work and its ramifications, considering how pre-existing gender, family and employment systems and varied national policy responses may help shape different gender outcomes.

Contributions will revisit and extend existing analytical frameworks and draw on novel empirical evidence to advance understandings of the consequences of crises for gender equality. Core themes include a) how, although gender segregation by occupation and contract type can be expected to drive gender differences in the employment effects of crises, different crises may have differentiated segregation-related gender impacts b) how impacts by gender also involve strong intersectional variations, for example by social class, ethnicity or immigration status or age c) how these crises may be associated with transformations in work organisation and their impacts on the work-family interface (also considering digital transformations, expansion of home-based work and increased flexibility) d) how the crises are affecting policy responses and priorities, especially related to caregiving, care services, and female-dominated essential work.

The session will enhance understandings of how gender relations both shape and are shaped by cyclical and longer-term economic developments, in the light of changing boundaries between the market, the family and the state. By looking at multiple dimensions of gender (in)equality, through different analytical levels and across different temporal and institutional contexts, the session will advance theoretical discussions on how crises interact with the drivers towards change in gender relations within and outside the labour market. Progress towards more gender egalitarian societies cannot be guaranteed and may be delayed and even reversed by responses to crises. The session thus aims at fostering a renewed research agenda on the future for gender equality in turbulent times.

Three papers will be presented: two focus on conceptualising gender equality impacts of crises; one analyses risk and experiences of crises from intersectional perspectives (by gender and social class and gender and migrant status). The session extends knowledge in two main ways- by mapping the divergent impacts of crises and transformations on gender equality conceptually and according to extant empirical evidence and by developing intersectional evidence and understandings of gender equality impacts within crises.

A succession of crises are destabilising economies and political systems, potentially putting at risk the steady if slow transformation of European societies to dual earner and dual carer societies. Building on previous work on the impact of economic crises on women in advanced countries (Women and Recession 1988, Women and Austerity 2013 Routledge), we consider how current crises (COVID and Cost of Living) and work transformations (digitalisation and net zero) could stall, reconfigure or accelerate progress towards gender equality and how they may operate along different and potentially contradictory dimensions. By conceptualising gender relations as a socially-constructed institution that shapes and is shaped by major economic, social and political events, we analyse the bases for optimistic and pessimistic perspectives on why this turbulence could either accelerate (as sometimes forecast during COVID) or derail progress towards gender equality, reversing hard won gains and further marginalising women’s claims for equality.

The different waves of crises that have hit our societies over the last two decades (Great Recession, Covid-19 pandemic, cost of living crisis) have all had consequences for labour market gender inequality. This paper examines to what extent these different shocks may have had differential outcomes in work and employment, producing specific forms of vulnerability that represent different facets of gender inequality, and whether common trends emerge throughout the whole period. We conduct a systematic literature review of theoretical empirical contributions on the developments of the three waves of crises across different levels of analysis (the state, organisations and workforce groups, and families). On this basis, we provide an overarching perspective into how each of these shocks may have heightened, mitigated, or uncovered pre-existing or new expressions of employment risks and vulnerability, outlining future questions of enquiry regarding prospects for gender inequality in the labour market.

This paper examines gender and class (in)equality in working lives in the UK over two decades of continuing crises. These turbulent times span years of deepening inequality in the new century, the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008-9, a decade of austerity politics, the ramifications of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the current deep cost of living crisis. Relentless turbulent times raise fundamental questions about the deepening or narrowing of gendered inequalities in work and intersecting disparities, but they also demand attention to the intended impact of government policies. Here we address the classed ramifications of continuing crises for women’s and men’s working lives and livelihoods. Drawing on the analysis of data gathered in nationally representative surveys, the paper tracks workers across decades of unrest. We show that the impact of work practices and policies on working lives has been unequally distributed, with women and working-class workers adversely affected.