Increasing flexibility in the labour market is leading to new forms of gender segregation according to a study in Portugal. The findings are from an analysis of Eurostat data on recent trends of labour market flexibility and precariousness, and its connection with gender relations. The study of data from 1999 to 2010 compared the situation in Portugal with other EU countries. It is thought the situation may have become even more precarious for female workers since 2010.
Background
A study in Portugal has looked at the links between increased flexibility in the labour market and new forms of gender segregation. It shows the increasing participation of women in the labour market has taken place in parallel with an increase in flexible and precarious forms of employment. This comes against a background of major changes in labour relations. An article by Sara Falcão Casaca, ‘Labour market flexibility and gender relations: Recent trends’, published in 2012, analyses the interplay between these phenomena.
Flexibility of employment
The data from the Eurostat Labour Force Survey 2009 (353 KB PDF) show large numbers of women across the EU15 were involved in flexible employment. The main types of flexible employment include part-time work, non-permanent contracts and self-employment.
In Portugal, the level of flexible forms of employment is higher than the EU15 average. This is mostly due to the relative weight of non-permanent contracts and of self-employment.
Asocial working hours
In Portugal, more than half of employed men (51.3%) and of 43.4% of employed women work on Saturdays. One in four of all employees also work on Sundays.
According to Eurofound’s Fifth European Working Conditions Survey, three quarters of the Portuguese workers surveyed say their work schedule is fixed by their employer.
Non-permanent employment
In almost all EU15 Member States, female workers are most likely to be employed under what might be termed ‘unstable’ contracts. Between 1999 and 2010, Portugal saw an increase of over three percentage points in the use of non-permanent contracts for female employees. For men, the increase was more than five percentage points.
Contractual insecurity among Portuguese workers has grown and it is important to highlight the fact that the figures are among the highest in the EU15. In 2010, 22.4% of men and 23.7% of women were given a non-permanent employment contract. This compares with the EU15 averages of 13.3% for men and 14.9% for women. Nearly a quarter of Portuguese workers have a non-permanent contract, and 83.6% of these are fixed-term contracts.
Contractual insecurity is evident among young people where there is also a clear gender difference. In 2010, in the 15–24 age group, 59.4% of women and 52.3% of men had fixed-term contracts. This represents a significant increase compared to the 1999 figures when 42.6% of young women and 37.7% of young men worked on a fixed-term contract.
Part-time work
Across all EU15 countries, part-time work appears to be much more common among women workers. Between 1999 and 2010, part-time employment of women increased in the EU15, while in Portugal this ‘feminisation’ of part-time work has decreased. In 2010, 60% of Portuguese part-timers were women, compared with 68.1% in 1999. In 2010, 12.3% of women in Portugal worked part time, compared with 4.9% of men. The 2010 EU15 average for the proportion of women workers employed on part-time contracts was 36.9%.
However, nearly half of Portugal’s female part-time workers say they work part time only because they find it difficult to find a full-time job, a much higher proportion than the EU15 average of 23.8%. Care responsibilities (29%, compared to the EU15 average of 5%), and family and personal reasons (26%, compared to the EU15 average of 17%) were other significant motives given by Portuguese women for working part time.
Commentary
The increased participation of women in the labour market has occurred against a background of increasing fragility of employment relationships.
It is thought that the sociooccupational position of women workers in Portugal may have deteriorated even further since the time period analysed in the study, between 1999 and 2010.
The position of women may have been affected by the current austerity programme, the labour reforms announced in 2012, the budget cuts in public administration, the pronounced decline in purchasing power, and the threat of job losses in sectors linked to social and personal services, an area of the labour market with a high proportion of female workers.
Economic and social vulnerability, created by job insecurity and by growing unemployment, threatens the economic and symbolic independence of women and increases the risk of reversal of the modernisation of gender relations.
Reference
Casaca, S. F. (2012) ‘Mercado de trabalho, flexibilidade e relações de género: tendências recentes’ [Labour market flexibility and gender relations: Recent trends], in Casaca, S. F. (ed.), Mudanças laborais e relações de género: Novos vectores de desigualdade [Changes in labour and gender relations: New vectors of inequality], Almedina, Coimbra.
Heloísa Perista and Janine Nunes, CESIS
