Opportunities for Women to Acquire Gainful Employment in the Alternative Sector in Berlin Available to Purchase

The alternative sector still offers women substantial and meaningful advantages over the formal sector in employment. A project group, “Women in the Labour Market”, associated with the Department of Economics at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1983 set out to study the opportunities for women to acquire gainful employment within the alternative sector and to examine the choices offered and the quality of employment attained within the projects examined. Co‐workers of 22 different projects (eight all‐women and 14 mixed) in crafts/manufacturing, transport, retail, trade, service sector and social services in Berlin were interviewed. All projects consciously tackled problems arising with an uneven distribution or assignment of tasks and information by concrete actions. Some branches required a specialised qualification or training, others did not. Gender‐specific work divisions are still found. However, these issues are being positively addressed. Care is needed to avoid repressive and unchangeable structures. The limited ability to secure a viable subsistence is the greatest constraint to the expansion of the alternative sector. Incorporating work and home life is no longer important. In the long term, the crafts/manufacturing projects appear most promising economically but may offer only limited access to women. Trade and retail projects are more easily accessible.