Employment and social affairs

Abstract

This panel will consider some of the gendered dynamics shaping labour markets, social protection and social inequality in present-day Europe and locate those dynamics in a longer-term historical perspective. It will discuss evolving patterns of labour market access for women and young people; social inequalities in view of the “second demographic transition” (lower fertility across social classes, higher levels of education for women, higher levels of divorce among poorer couples); and the specific impact of the euro-crisis on women and their mobilizations in the face of the crisis. All of these questions will be placed in a longer-term perspective that considers the dynamic interactions between women’s uneven access to labour markets across 19th and 20th century Europe and the ways that women’s unequal access has been imbricated with highly gendered policies of social protection in the construction of European welfare states.