Background to the Research

• The purpose of this chapter is to explore the responses of employees in NI to the changing labour market in the 1990's, and in particular, the role of women. Through analysis of data from the NISA survey, the authors add to previously conducted locally-based research and consider the structural and attitudinal impediments which stand in the way of women's advancement in the labour market, and ultimately impact on the achievement of equality of opportunity for women and men at work.
• The chapter has been divided into a number of sections. First, a profile of the changing labour market is presented, highlighting the role played by part-time women workers. This is followed by a consideration of attitudes to work; including the reasons why women and men work, and their satisfaction with work itself, their hours, their mobility and their pay. The third section examines the perceptions and realities of childcare services, family friendly working arrangements and trade union activism. Finally, these themes are used to draw conclusions as to where women stand in the 1990s.
  

Research Approach

• The NISA survey, as with the BSA survey, consists of 'core' questions and of 'modules' on specific topic areas. However, some of these modules with issues specific to NI are included only in the NISA. The NISA survey, designed to yield a representative sample of all adults aged 18 and over, living in private households, was drawn from the rating list. A total of 2,400 addresses were selected. Only one individual was selected at each address at which interviewers were successful in achieving co-operation. Interviewers employing Computer Assisted Interviewing carried out the fieldwork.
  

Main Findings

• 93% of the women in the NISA survey were working as employees and 30% were working part time. The self-employed account for just over 5% of the total.
• A high proportion of women work in the service sector. 90% of all part-time female workers in the survey are in this sector, compared with 80% of females working full-time. These percentages are in contrast to the results for males which showed that fewer than 53% of male-full-time workers were employed in the service sector.
• There are significant differences between female occupations in NI and GB. Only 27% of full-time female workers in NI are in the most prestigious groups: 'managers and administrators' and 'associated professional and technical occupations'.
• The female part-time worker is either more vulnerable to dismissal, or alternatively, more mobile than her full-time counterpart.
• The part-time female worker is more likely to be working out of financial necessity than her full-time counterpart.
• The female part-time worker is reasonably content with her pay packet and there is no marked difference between the attitudes of female full-time and part-time workers on the question of distribution of pay within the workforce.
• Only 2% of women with children under the age of five were using nurseries in NI, in comparison with 16% in GB.
• Given a choice of childcare arrangements, 20% of working mothers with children under the age of five would like to work more hours (including 38% of part-time workers).
• The availability of flexible and family friendly arrangements for employees in Northern Ireland is limited, and women in part-time employment appear to be the least privileged.
• 45% of men and 52% of women in the sample, who had ever been in paid employment, had never been a trade union member. Patterns of membership across sectors of the labour market are extremely variable.

Conclusions

• The emergence of the 'flexible workforce' has been the growth of female part-time employment.
• Male employment has tended to remain static or decline.
• A high proportion of women look on work as more than simply earning a living; they are reasonably content with both their hours and their pay, and in their opinion they are stable, hardworking employees.