Women and Social Change

Aim of this chapter is to discuss the relationship between women's life courses and social change. Women's patterns of life and expectations have changed more fundamentally than those of men, but often in a contradictory way. It is important to recognise the role of women as actors of change in two senses. First, in the post-war decades life course changes have been more pronounced for women than for men both in the family and in the labour market. Women’s employment across most Western industrialised countries has steadily increased; women’s educational attainment is rising; their economic independence is increasing; their fertility and family behaviour is rapidly changing. We should also mention the increased motivation of young people to achieve higher levels of education and training, and the greater centrality of these goals rather than motherhood and family formation for young women. Social, economic and legislative improvements and scientific advances have allowed women to have greater control of their lives. However, equality has not been achieved in many fields. While some women have been able to take advantage of the new opportunities available, many have not. Women’s risk of social exclusion has diversified. Even if, from a general point of view, the gap between the two genders has been reducing since the 1970s (increasing equality in educational opportunities has helped a lot, together with a reduction in discrimination and segregation in the labour market), women remain at higher risk of poverty than men in many countries and gender differences in the causes, extent and experience of deprivation are evident. Even though more jobs are made available when globalisation and economic growth is occurring – including those at managerial level – that does not mean that women are more likely to advance to executive level positions. Elevation to senior executive status requires that women have certain types of contacts, credentials and social networks that do not automatically become available to them as part of the economic integration process. In general, theories of globalisation and its impact on women and work suggest that it significantly expands opportunities for women in the workplace, but it does not remove barriers to advancement, cushion the impact of recessions, or ameliorate the predominance of low paying, insecure jobs held by women.