Gendered Jobs and Social Change

Originally published in 1990, Gendered Jobs and Social Change is a systematic exploration of the changing structure of women’s paid work in Britain since the Second World War and an invaluable and accessible text for undergraduate students, and teachers and researchers, in the areas of employment, gender, and class theory.

Four substantial case-study chapters, drawing upon original research material, give in-depth accounts of developments across the whole range of women’s employment, from the ’post-feminist’ finance professional to unskilled workers in the hotel and catering industry. This empirical work is set within a context of discussion relating to current theoretical debates of the time concerning gender, occupational segregation, and class and stratification theory and research; it is then complemented by a review of the structure of women’s employment in other western countries. Besides making an original contribution to research and theory, it also provides an invaluable summary and critique of developments at the time within a series of important sociological debates.

Rosemary Crompton (1942-2011) was a Sociologist and Professor at the University of Leicester and then at City University, London. She specialised in issues of class and gender, and more particularly in the analysis of the complex relationships between the two, showing that the many inequalities in each category could not be explained separately. She was committed in her research to empirical fieldwork and to the use of international comparisons. She became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2007.

Dr Kay Sanderson. Since retirement, and following a peripatetic academic career with UEA, the Open University and the University of Warwick, Dr Sanderson has been Chair of Norfolk Federation of WEA (Workers Education Association) and is involved in promoting adult learning as part of the Norwich Lifelong Learning organisation.