IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v27y2009i6p958-974.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Gendered Theory of Employment, Unemployment, and Sickness

Author

Listed:
  • Christina Beatty
  • Steve Fothergill
  • Donald Houston

    (Geography, School of Social and Environmental Sciences, Dundee University, Perth Road, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland)

  • Ryan Powell

    (Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Howard Street, Sheffield S1 1WB, England)

  • Paul Sissons

    (Institute for Employment Studies, Mantell Building, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RF, England)

Abstract

The high level of receipt of disability benefits in the UK was until the 1990s a problem predominantly affecting men. However, the number of women claiming—1.1 million—is now on a similar scale. The decline of heavy industry produced large numbers of men with ill health and limited alternative employment prospects who claimed disability benefits. However, this explanation is problematic for women, who have seen an expansion in employment. We set out a framework that reconciles the central importance of the level of labour demand in explaining worklessness with the paradoxical simultaneous rise of women's employment and receipt of disability benefits. Women claiming disability benefits are overwhelmingly located alongside male claimants in areas where heavy industry has declined, pointing towards linkages between the ‘male’ and ‘female’ sides of the labour market. Additionally, there may be raised knowledge and local acceptance of disability benefits in these locations.

Suggested Citation

  • Christina Beatty & Steve Fothergill & Donald Houston & Ryan Powell & Paul Sissons, 2009. "A Gendered Theory of Employment, Unemployment, and Sickness," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 27(6), pages 958-974, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:27:y:2009:i:6:p:958-974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://epc.sagepub.com/content/27/6/958.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:27:y:2009:i:6:p:958-974. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.