Demographic Change and Female Employment: Lessons from Two British Cases

Increases in female employment in post‐war Britain are characterized by the concentration of women in low‐paid and low status occupations. Demographic change in the late 1980s and early 1990s could have improved the employment status of women, with employers devising“women friendly” initiatives to deal with the accompanying predicted skill and labour shortages. Discusses research undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s to examine the extent to which some of the major employers of women (public and private sector) were responding to the threat of demographic change. It was found that only a small number of employers provided “women friendly” initiatives. These initiatives, however, only eased access into the existing low‐paid occupations in which women already predominated.