Older Women’s Employment Strategies in the Clerical Sector Marjolaine Roger University of Kent at Canterbury Cultures et Sociétés Urbaines, CNRS, Paris « Women, Identity and Employability » University of Teesside February 7th 2008

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU2 Outline Context Data Identities and Employability: being a carer and having a career Educational Capital and Employability Conclusions

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU3 Policy Recent European and British legislation on age discrimination Two policy trends: keeping older people and women in paid work - by improving their employability and ensuring equality of treatment Current trend: increasing class inequalities between women (Adkins 2004: 7)

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU4 The Significance of Age Age: no longer a strong predictor of status, location in life course, identity etc. (fragmentation) -> Is age irrelevant? Older age as an accumulated disadvantage: its burden is sharper for already disadvantaged groups (discrimination and segregation) -> Age intersected with gender, class and ethnicity - what effects in the world of work?

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU5 Gender and Age Recent research on intersectionality between gender and age in the work context –Gender and Age at work: women never have the right age for work (Loretto and Duncan 2004) Does it apply to extremely segregated workplaces like clerical work, where the female gender is expected and normalised? Is employability related to age more than gender?

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU6 Clerical Work Clerical work : –Very homogeneous in terms of gender –Very heterogeneous in terms of age –Heterogeneous in terms of class? (from working to middle class - mostly lower/middle middle-class) –Ubiquitous: in very different workspaces A significant employer of women over 50: 1 in 4 older women in employment work in a clerical job

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU7 Fieldwork First analyses of data gathered on first two stages of fieldwork in semi-structured interviews and notes from short moments of observation Women over 50 working in two organisations: –University in SE England; –Hospital in SE England; Two of the largest local employers Voluntary participation

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU8 Sample 22 interviews: 16 (university) + 6 (hospital) All white and British All heterosexual - 14 married; 3 with partners; 4 separated or divorced; 1 widowed. All but one have children Aged from 51 to 69

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU9 Identities: Gender, Age and Class Age and generation structure gender and class at work Available bodies: age-sensitive feminine bodily performances –Emphasis on being ‘available’ both to others and to a great variety of tasks and duties –Provide them with: visibility, meaning, belonging, satisfaction which is often denied to a traditionally invisible population: female, older, subaltern occupation

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU10 Identities in Gendered and Classed Spaces A highly segregated workspace Balanced with other spaces which give a different meaning to their occupation and all provide meaningful senses of self (Halford and Leonard, 2006: 60-63). These women’s identities and class locations are ‘in-between’ various spaces. Gendered and Classed Geographies: more local geographies and trajectories

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU11 Career and Caring Selves Multiple sites for the construction of a caring self: at work, for families and in voluntary work Emotional v Economic Capital: their investment in caring (at work and outside work) restricts their mobility in social and geographical space (Skeggs, 1997) Specificity of emotional capital: it is ‘all about investments in others rather than the self – the one capital that is used up in interaction with others and is for the benefit of others’ (Reay 2004: 71)

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU12 Motherhood and Employability Life organised around family life; career breaks Return to work with varying success –Downward mobility: compensatory discourses –Upward mobility: motherhood is not seen as central to their working lives in their narratives

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU13 Education and Employability Education usually viewed for the enhancement of economic capital and for improved employability but it has a different value for these older women Educational levels: most of them have O’levels and secretarial qualifications; in the university, 4 of them have a degree (3 of them taken recently) - 3 of them have the lowest positions/grades => Mismatch between older female bodies and the translation of educational capital into economic capital

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU14 Different Value of Educational Capital Example of women with ‘later’ degrees: –Remained in same local clerical labour market after getting the degree –Did not use their new qualifications in their job search –Use-value rather than exchange-value of degree => Cultural capital is not transformed into symbolic capital (Bourdieu in Skeggs, 1997)

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU15 Conclusions These older women in clerical work negotiate between ‘caring’ and ‘career’ selves - building a coherent self across different spaces of personal engagement Performance of older femininity in a specific (occupational and geographical) context means specific investments in gender and age-typed capitals. The uses of care and education confirm the limited possibilities women have to convert some capitals they have gained into other types (Reay 2004: 60). Employability is not enhanced inside or outside the clerical sector by investments in motherhood nor in education.

07/02/2008 Marjolaine Roger - UKC/CSU16 References Adkins, Lisa (2004) “Introduction: Feminism, Bourdieu and after”, in Adkins and Skeggs, Feminism after Bourdieu, Oxford: Blackwell, pp.3-18 Halford Susan and Leonard, P. (2006) Negotiating Gendered Identities at Work: Place, Space and Time, Basingstoke: Palgrave Loretto, Wendy and Duncan, C. (2004) “Never the Right Age? Gender and Age-Based Discrimination in Employment”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol.11, N°1, McDowell, Linda (1997) Capital Culture, Gender at Work in the City, Oxford: Blackwell Reay, Diane (2004) “Gendering Bourdieu’s concept of capitals? Emotional capital, women and social class”, in Adkins and Skeggs, Feminism after Bourdieu, Oxford: Blackwell, pp Skeggs, Beverley (1997) Formations of Class and Gender, Becoming Respectable, London: Sage