To what extent does the data on employment patterns and earnings suggest that, whatever their role may have been in the past, male manual workers are unlikely to beviable breadwinners in the near future?

To what extent does the data on employment patterns and earnings suggest that, whatever their role may have been in the past, male manual workers are unlikely to be

viable breadwinners in the near future?

The western male breadwinner family model is based upon the deeply rooted assumption that “…the public and the private sphere should be seen in terms of an essentially gendered opposition.” (Rose in Janssens/1998/p3) The assumption declares that the traditional and proper place for a man is in long-term employment providing for his family, whilst leaving his wife at home in the domestic/private sphere tending to the needs of the household and children. These values have been embedded in industrial society through legislative means as well as through cultural expectations. Although throughout the twentieth century historical events such as the two world wars, and social movements such as the development of the feminist perspective have challenged the traditional breadwinner model. These challenges have introduced unprecedented changes in the labour market and in the domestic sphere. The marked shift in female participation in the labour force has revolutionised conventional perceptions of the male breadwinner family and the social policies that encompass it.

In order to understand the cultural and economic changes that have occurred affecting the gender roles of individuals and the variations in employment patterns, it is important to first discuss the origin and characteristics of the male breadwinner model whilst reflecting upon its changing role, bound to social and historical developments.

The term “male breadwinner family” is best defined by Angelique Janssens.

“{It} refers to a particular model of household organization in which the husband is the sole agent operating within the market sector, deploying his labour in order to secure the funds necessary to support a dependent wife and children. In exchange, the wife assumes responsibility for the unpaid labour required for the everyday reproduction of her husband’s market work, such as cooking cleaning and laundering. In addition, she provides for the intergenerational reproduction of labour; the bearing and raising of children. Through this parental division of labour, the children are exempted from productive activities until a given age and are provided with time for education and personal development.” (Janssens/1998/p3)

In understanding the traditional elements of the male breadwinner family I feel it important to elucidate how it developed in industrial society. The hierarchal structures of feudalism began to fade away in between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe. In its wake emerged a new “capitalist” mode of production that was also hierarchal, despite its promises of liberty and equality. Capitalists ruled the labour force by virtue of wealth as opposed to birthright. The revised theory stating that all men were now free with the opportunity to better themselves. This new opportunity promoted a competitive nature amongst the male labour force. The responsibility of the prosperity of their family rested on their ability to compete in the labour meritocracy. Their masculine identities were here largely formed around their position in the public sphere; authorising right for power, authority and control in the private sphere. (Cockburn/1991/p47) The capitalist system was to walk hand in hand with patriarchy for years to come. The term patriarchy refers to a “…set of social relations which has a material base and in which there are hierarchal relations between men and solidarity among them, which enable them to control women.” (Hartmann/1979/p232)

Despite the so-called marriage of patriarchy and the capitalist system there has been some earlier evidence of female participation in the labour force. It has been suggested that prior to the nineteenth century men and women engaged in egalitarian marriages in which both partners shared in productive work and that the contributions of women was looked upon as socially and economically valuable. (Janssens/1998/p5) Male emigration in the late nineteenth century was said to have created a huge sex imbalance in the population. An estimated one million surplus females created a large populace of un-married women; this entailed the decline in demand for married females in the labour market. “Where a quarter of married women had had an extraneous occupation at the census of 1851, by 1901 only 13% of married women were employed outside the home.” (Klein in Cockburn/1991/p78)

There is no doubt that while breadwinning patterns have varied enormously from one period, region or industry to another, as well as at different points in the family life cycle, sexually segregated systems of labour division have everywhere assigned men and women’s work activities in a more or less unyielding way.

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In summary, it is possible to see now how the structured gender roles of men and women have developed whether justly or not so. The patriarchal nature of the capitalist system of production assigned conventional duties to both men and women, and also served to shape patriarchal attitudes that confined the individual to their role. The woman was given the uncelebrated, unpaid domestic role. Her main responsibilities were that of rearing children and facilitating her husband’s role in the labour force. The man was expected to provide a wage for his family yielding him power, status and authority in the home. Such characteristics were paradoxically inverted in the hierarchal arena of the capitalist work place. Despite this the manual workers status was very much bound to his job.

“Most people spend their prime waking hours at work, base their identity on work activities and are defined by others essentially through their relation to work.” (Willis/1977/p186)

It must now be made clear that the progression of the twentieth century has elicited unparalleled changes in the labour market; arguably the most significant change has been the shift of female labour from the domestic sphere into the labour force. Despite what we know now this trend was still clearly unexpected by academics as late as the 1950’s. As was reflected in Lord Beveridges post-war welfare settlement that assumed “most women will not be gainfully employed.” (Moss and Fonda in Cockburn/1991/p79)

Politicians and professionals of the time “…stressed the importance of re-building the family {and} the importance of full-time motherhood.”

(Lewis in Gladstone/1999/p48)

Despite expectations the percentage of married women that were economically active rapidly grew from 22% in 1951 to 68% in 1987. (Office of popular censuses and surveys in Cockburn/1991/p79)

One significant detail being, that many of these married women were mothers. Such a trend has surely undermined the notion that a woman belongs entirely too the demands of the domestic sphere and is bound to that sphere by a dominant system of patriarchy. The figures stated confirm the relative sharing of the financial burden between one who had traditionally been the main breadwinner, and another who had been expected to stay at home. Thus, rejecting the traditional model.

It became a convention that many of the British women who were drawn in to the labour market tended to take part-time jobs. Indeed, in between the years 1951 and 1981 women’s part-time employment was the only area of employment increase. The number of full time employees had fallen by 2.3 million (1.9 male), while the number of part-time positions rose by 3.7 million, 3 million of whom were female. (Cockburn/1991/p80) This sustained pattern was supported by statistics from the web based “Journal of gender studies”. The period beginning 1971 and ending 1996 saw an increase in female full-time employment of nearly 300,000. The figure grew from 5.6 million to 5.95 million. The same period saw the number of part-time female participants leap from 2.8 million to 5million in 1996. Men’s fortunes in the period were not as prosperous. The number of overall jobs decreased by 2 million, men’s full-time jobs fell by even more, as there was an influx of men into part-time employment. (wwwJournal of gender Studies/1997)

The changes that were happening in the labour market throughout the seventies and eighties tended to be pointed towards the traditionally male-dominated industry sectors. The market was focussing away from brute, manual industrialism moving towards a new computerized, technology based commerce. The manufacturing industry that had reliably provided the manual wage since the industrial revolution was drying up, as a service based industry emerged out of the smog. The mining industry, for example, where legislation bars women, lost most of the quarter of a million jobs in the aftermath of the pit closure plan instituted by British coal following the 1984-5 strike. (Jordan/1996/p234) The Thatcher government was tightening its purse strings as a process of privatisation prioritised more cost-efficient methods, viewing nationalised labour as a mere commodity. The steel, shipbuilding and motor industries were also heavily down seized. The shakeout in industry in the recessions of the 1980’s and 1990’s combined with equal opportunity legislation in the 1970’s all contributed to the transformation of the sexual division of labour.

The era has been aptly named post-industrialism and is closely associated with the work of Daniel Bell. Bell produced “The coming of post-industrial society” in 1973. In line with the theory of Industrialism, Bell predicted that a new technological era would bring about a new type of society. He suggested that computer based technologies would bring about new forms of employment in that white collared; professional jobs would displace manual employment. The result would be greater material prosperity for all bringing about greater harmony amongst social groups. Bell’s work can be seen as a deliberate challenge to Marxism and can seem deterministic. One theory devised with hindsight of the mass unemployment in the 1980’s was Andre Gorz’s offering “Farewell to the working class” (1982). Gorz contests that the arrival of information technologies in the workplace will bring wealth to all, suggesting that it will make a large proportion of the workforce redundant. His argument acknowledged the power of computerized production in suggesting that a society no longer needs all its citizens to be employed to produce the goods and services it needs. Gorz “…used these ideas to suggest that the accounts of capitalism offered by Marx and Weber were now redundant.” Weber’s theory of “The protestant ethic” would no longer stand up in a society where a majority of people face a future without work. (Bradley/2000/p37)

The political and economic factors that led to the changes in the labour market and the sexual division of labour were the same factors that reduced the importance attached to the male, manual breadwinner model. The autonomous nature of the manual worker had been undermined in tandem with the decline in economic importance of his industry. The manual breadwinner did not accord with Thatcher’s philosophy of individualism and enterprise culture. Whilst his white collared counterpart embraced the new financially rewarding era. He began to move the hegemonic ideal further away from the working class idea of mere “provision”, toward the culturally exalted ideal of success and accomplishment. Here we can identify the relationship between hegemony and institutional power. So, is it possible that the ageing or unskilled male can still maintain his masculine pride based around control, in a time where full employment seems alien and non-gender specific?

The declining nature of the traditional manual worker can be identified economically in a longitudinal study produced by the National earnings survey. In 1974 the average full-time income of a non-manual worker was £54.10 per week, the average full-time wage for a manual worker was £42.30 per week. That manual figure was 78% of the non-manual “white collar” wage. The survey published in 1994 showed the non-manual workers average full-time wage to have increased to £428.40 per week, showing the manual wage to have increased to £280.70 per week. These statistics reflect a relative decline in the manual workers wage, as the percentage against the non-manual income dropped by 13% to just 65% of the non-manual wage. We already know that the number of manual jobs have declined since the huge shifts in the labour market throughout the seventies and eighties. We can now determine that the worth of the manual worker has also declined relatively in comparison to the non-manual employee. It is also possible to identify the declining worth of the manual employee in contemporary society by reviewing the highest and lowest paid jobs published by the new earnings survey in April 2002. Amongst the highest paid industry groups are, for example, Software consultants, financial intermediates and data processors earning £748.2, £732.7 and £604.3 respectively. Those industry types that are amongst the lowest paid are manufacturing, retail sale of food and canteens and catering earning £279.2, £295.6 and £305.3 respectively.

The shift in industry away from manufacturing towards the service sector may have accommodated some generations more than others. Unqualified school leavers may perhaps of been in a better position to accept the nature of the service sector and reject the traditional perceptions of femininity associated with it. Where as it seems elder manual workers have not been able to cope with such change. A report published by the OECD in 1998 reflects labour force participation rates for those in the age bracket 55-64. The bar chart indicates that the rate of participation in Britain in1971 stood at 88.4%. That figure stood above the equivalent rates of Australia, France, Sweden and America. Over the course of twenty-four years that figure declined by 26%, leaving the male labour force participation rate at 62.4% (between the ages of 55-64). The British figure dropping lower than the relative rates of America, Sweden and France.

Is it that this generation of men were too old to learn the ropes of a new job? Or, is it that our society could no longer offer positions to this set of citizens? I propose not. I suggest that this generation of men may have felt anxious in losing their honour or “…crude pride…” (Willis/1977/p189) in entering a feminine arena that has been made so distinctly inferior to their traditional place of work. And in this sense I believe that many of these elderly men have opted for a life unemployed as opposed to alternatively working under a woman, so to speak. Whatever the reason this marked decline in senior men’s employment is contradictory to the autocratic, “breadwinner” pride that they may or may not be trying to preserve, the reasons are clearly contentious but such patterns of behaviour do not suggest manual workers will be viable breadwinners in the future.

The construct of the male economic provider was reflected in the post-war government’s adoption of Keynesian fiscal policy and Beveridge’s state benefit system. Although, in the following post-war years there was “…a decrease in the proportion of households with men as the soul or main breadwinner since the 1960’s and 70’s.” (Bernard in Mac An Ghail/1996/p86) This pattern has been mainly attributable an increase in female participation in the labour force and a rising number of men becoming unemployed.

Employment is said to offer the social and financial kudos necessary to exert power and control over others in the public sphere. Losing your job could consequently entail a reduction in freedom and influence outside and inside the home. Employed females with unemployed partners have arguably gained an element of power or freedom not normally associated with their gender role. The implication of this reversal could have meant unemployed men encountering feelings of “…disempowerment {and} emasculation.” (Willott and Griffin/1996/p85) Consequently this does not accord workingwomen the equivalent freedom of access to the male-dominated public sphere. The concept of hegemonic masculinity can be used as a measuring device by which the “other” is judged. This idea allows contradictions to surface in the white male also being from a working-class and unemployed background. Alternative sources of power have been identified as criminality (as a means of income), domestic abuse and to some degree domestication. In their qualitative study on unemployed men in the midlands Willott and Griffin discovered through interview that some men re-established authority through a claim to a greater level of competence in the home.

“And the babee’s screaming, the babee comes to you instead of the mum like, arguments like.” (Ray in Willott and Griffin/1996/p88) Jonathon Gershuny of Essex University conducted one study supporting the domestication of men. He recorded the daily minute differentials spent on housework by men and women in between the years 1961 and 1995. He discovered that the daily minutes men spent on housework increased from 126 to 172 minutes, whilst recording the women’s as rising by just four minutes to 260 in the same period. (www.Journal of gender studies/1997)

At the start of the century the male breadwinner model was an expected pattern of behaviour. Its assumptions were rooted deep within government policy and within the established values of Britain. The post-war year inflated feelings of domesticity for women and a consensual, government policy of full-employment looked certain to maintain the status quo. Things look set to carry on much as they had done throughout the industrial era. Despite these requisites for continuity, the second half of the century encountered “…one of the major historical developments in the modern era.” (Janssens/1998/p1) This was the substantial and quite remarkable rise in female labour force participation. This trend grew in development with the emergence of second wave feminism and as a result of changes in the labour market that saw male-dominated manual industries suffer the most. The post-industrial era is characterised by a move towards service-based, computerized trade. This created a mass of part-time positions predominantly in the service sector that were being filled by women.

Despite the enormous shift away from the traditional breadwinner model, overall it was men who were sill by far the principal earners, as Cynthia Cockburn points out, “The average hourly earning of {female} part-timers, even when part-time office staff and manufacturing workers are included, are not much more than half those of the average male full timers.” (Cockburn/1991/p80) What seems apparent here is that despite present income inequalities in Britain there are no longer overarching systems of male oppression where men always benefit and women always lose out. I see the gender roles of men and women as having converged towards each other, in the light of traditional expectations. It is now more common to see men facilitate the woman’s position in the labour force by maintaining the duties of the private sphere. Neither is it uncommon to see two-earner families maintaining a family wage. We also see more and more single mothers supporting a family and pursuing a career. Such emotional and financial individualism reflected in divorce rates. It can be argued that the divorce rate increases as the financial need for marriage decreases. All such factors indicate that whatever their role may have been in the past, male manual workers, according to the traditional breadwinner model, are unlikely to be viable breadwinners in the future.