Studies of care workers frequently reveal relatively high levels of job satisfaction despite poor employment conditions. The rewarding nature of care work, altruistic motivations and gendered social norms have all been used to explain why subjective job satisfaction is high despite poor pay and...

This article makes two key arguments. First, European social models are being asked to extend social support to meet new needs associated with the ageing society, changes in citizens’ aspirations and behaviour and the reduced reliability of support from employers and the family. How...

In earlier work (Rubery, 1988), the extent to which women might act as a flexible reserve over the business cycle was argued to depend on three main factors: the pattern of gender segregation and its relationship to employment change; women’s commitment to labour market participation; and...

This paper explores changes in employment policies and practices that are typically associated with the classical `model' of the internal labour market. Drawing on documentary information and interviews with managers in four large organisations in the UK, the evidence suggests that many of the...

A survey of a random sample of over 600 employed adults in the Northampton area is used to compare men's and women's perceptions of the content of their jobs and to construct an index of skill. Differences were found between men and women in perceptions of both the types of skills required in...

Current controversies over indices of segregation emphasise the issue of measuring the level of segregation at the expense of analysis of the meaning of segregation. Comparative research into patterns of segregation across European member states has revealed that there is some evidence of...

This paper explores the empirical evidence for segmentation in the labour supply using survey data from a local labour market. Employees were clustered using variables relating to their work histories, current job attributes, employment expectations and personal attributes. Five clusters of...