I wrote:
>>This disaggregation is crucial: I read what's happening as the gradual end
>>(and sometimes rapid demise) of the primary labor market jobs, which
>>offered some job security, and the spread of secondary labor market type
>>jobs, which don't. Because middle-aged white males hogged the primary-type
>>jobs that existed in the core and unionized sectors of the US economy, they
>>(or rather, people of their demographic category) are the ones who have
>>suffered the most from increased instability of job tenure. Women and
>>"minorities" traditionally had secondary-type jobs and typically had little
>>in the way of security. Thus, there's been a convergence of job experience
>>between the old insiders and the old outsiders in the labor-power market.
Doug wrote:
>This exaggerates the security of the old days, and treats rising female
>tenure as a secondary consideration to falling male, which you don't mean
>to do, do you?
I don't think I exaggerate the degree of security of ye olden days, since
my statements are all in relative terms, i.e., relative to nowadays.
and no, I don't want to treat rising female tenure as a secondary
consideration. The problem is that it gets into another piece of the puzzle
besides what I was discussing: adult women in the US have more and more
moved from being "marginally attached to the paid labor force" (especially
in the 1950s) to being full-scale part of the full-time paid labor force
(while unfortunately, due to the dogged persistence of sexism, still
bearing the lioness' share of the childcare responsibilities). This change
(which I'll try to explain if you really want me to, which I doubt) means
that women are less likely to have part-time jobs and thus more likely to
have longer job tenure.
That is, I see the change for women as being more on the "supply side" of
the labor-power market (the types of workers available) rather on the
"demand side" (though of course these two "sides" are not totally
independent of each other and are affected by similar third factors). I
interpret the demand side (the type of job slots available) as involving
less job security in general, as primary-sector ("good") jobs have become
less available. This would have messed white men over (because they hogged
most of the good jobs) even if women hadn't entered the paid labor-force in
droves. And because of the shrinkage of this sector, I don't see the women
with relatively long tenure as having the kind of job security that many
white males had during ye olden golden days.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia!
