Gender and the Labour Process

Orthodox economic theory, with its emphasis on the marginal productivity theory, argues that women, in common with all agents, are rewarded according to their skills regardless of whether they are inherited or acquired. The theories we consider in this chapter take a very different approach to the gender issue. They attempt to tackle this issue by focusing on developments in the capitalist world following the collapse of the Fordist model in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The controversy between post-Fordist theory (or what is sometimes called ‘flexibility’ theory or ‘flexible specialisation’ theory: Piore and Sabel, 1984; Hirst and Zeitlin, 1989) and neo-Fordist theory (more aptly labelled ‘regulation’ theory: Aglietta, 1979a, 1979b, 1982; Boyer, 1988b; Lipietz, 1987), which is the natural development of the Fordist thesis, is exploited in this chapter since it is concerned with the labour process in a way that could potentially apply to the gender issue. These theories, however, are found to be unsatisfactory in their treatment of the gender issue. Two other theories — the feminist theory and the segmented labour market theory — are thought to provide a more positive approach to the issue. As mentioned in the Introduction, whilst there is no PKE theory that deals explicitly with the gender issue, the theories we concentrate on in this chapter sit comfortably within the perimeters of PKE analysis. In this sense this chapter (and Chapter 10) should be viewed as opening up new territory in post-Keynesian theory.