Work & Employment

Non-work - An activity which is neither leisure or work but which has to be done such as sleeping, eating, keeping clean (Stanley Parker).

Work - Official, paid work.

Unemployment - Being able to work, but not working.

Formal Economy - A difficult term to explain but includes official paid work and housework but not leisure time.

Informal Economy - Work which is not officially recorded including domestic, hidden and voluntary work.

Leisure - An activity that we freely choose to do which we enjoy.

There are two sorts of economy in Britain:

• the formal economy
• the informal economy

The Formal Economy

This consists of people who are employed, part-time or full-time, or who work for themselves. They are officially considered to be employed, and pay insurance contributions and tax, and are covered by laws governing health and safety.

The Informal Economy

This consists of activities by people who do not receive a wage, though they may get money for what they do, and who are not covered by employment laws, rarely pay tax and receive no official recognition for what they do. These people usually work in one of two types of informal economy:

• the hidden (or underground) economy - the huge number of money-earning activities which people get up to outside the taxable and often legal framework. It can vary from builders doing jobs 'for cash' to drug dealing

• the household/communal economy - characterised by people performing unpaid tasks which could include 'housework', caring for a relative or volunteering to work in a charity shop.

How has work changed?

More jobs today are found on the tertiary sector because people are getting a good education and moving to the tertiary sector. Primary and secondary sectors have come to employ fewer people in Britain than they used to. This is partly because they are less important than they used to be, but also because workers in these sectors can often be replaced by machines. The machines are faster, they don't need breaks and they are efficient. Britain's economy moved to the tertiary sector because of its growing economy. Product and raw materials from the secondary and primary sector are often imported to Britain from another foreign country.

Primary Sector - Jobs involving taking natural resources from their natural environment.

Secondary Sector - Jobs involving changing the natural resources (raw materials) into finished goods. This often involves making, processing, building or assembling.

Tertiary Sector - Jobs involving providing services to business such as banking, insurance, transport etc. Jobs involving providing services to the public such as healthcare, retailing etc.

Main Points

• Women suffer considerable disadvantages compared to men in their working lives.
• Women are likely to earn less than men and be concentrated in a narrow range of occupations.
• Women are less likely to be promoted to senior positions than men.
• Women are more likely than men to be in part-time employment.
• Women are expected to do the majority housework whether they are in paid employment or not.
• Women tend…