Computer Chips and Paper Clips Technology and Women's Employment, Volume II: Case Studies and Policy Perspectives (1987) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
I. Overview
I. Overview
Technology, Women, and Work: Policy Perspectives
Pages 1-22
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
PartI Overview
|
From page 3... ...
The growing importance of women in the U.S. labor market, where they now account for 43 percent of all workers, a 3
|
From page 4... ...
Some 20 fields account for two out of every three women workers. ~ Over the last half century the occupational group that has experienced the most rapid rate of growth has been clerical workers, which is a reminder of the need to consider not only the broad potential impacts of technology but to narrow the focus to specific technologies that are likely to have a strong impact on women workers.
|
From page 5... ...
OBSERVATIONS ON CHANGING TECHNOLOGY Technological changes are a way of life for industrial societies, but most innovations involve changes in processes or products that are relatively circumscribed. Even when a significant technological improvement occurs, such as the discovery and manufacture of nylon or the development of the electric typewriter, the impact on the labor market is likely to be absorbed without serious job losses, because among other reasons the lower price or improved quality tends to increase demand.
|
From page 6... ...
this growth has been closely associated with the differentially rapid growth of the service sector; (3) while women are no longer as closely confined to a few major occupational fields, they remain heavily concentrated; (4)
|
From page 7... ...
to attack these five problems conjointly and effectively, the prospect of a severe recession with large-scale labor market consequences is not only possible but probable. There is steadily accumulating evidence that the United States and other advanced economies are confronting a sea change in the internationalization of their economies as evidenced by the following: ~ the spectacular spurt in imports to the United States from the LDCs (with adverse effects in this country on many nondurable manufacturing sectors with large numbers of women workers, such as apparel manufacturing)
|
From page 8... ...
The pessimist, of course, sees the future differently. In his or her view, the linkage of the computer to communications networks, which is only now hitting its stride, will have a range of adverse consequences for women's employment: first, by eliminating a number of white-collar positions, and second, by making possible the further relocation of many back-office positions from central cities to the suburbs, to distant communities, and also to overseas locations, particularly to English-literate populations.
|
From page 9... ...
Over the last half century, employment in agriculture has decreased from 20 percent of the total labor force to under 3 percent; in manufacturing, employment has declined from close to two-fifths to under one-fifth. For many years neither the tools (computer)
|
From page 10... ...
Women Registered nurses, dieticians, therapists Teachers, except college Sales workers, retail Bookkeepers Cashiers Office machine operators Secretaries Typists Assemblers Food service workers Health service workers (excluding nurses) Personal service workers Priorate household 1.7 3.3 2.4 2.0 1.7 1.1 3.8 1.0 1.1 4.8 2.0 1.9 1.0 92 71 70 92 87 75 99 97 54 66 90 77 97 NOTE: Civilians, 16 years old and over.
|
From page 11... ...
Table 2 illustrates that, with the single exception of private household employment, which sustained a decline of one-half million, the industries characterized by a predominance of women workers expanded in the years following 1970. The optimistic implications of this recent experience with respect to total employment trends and their impact on women workers, however, must not be uncritically projected into the future.
|
From page 12... ...
SOURCE: Bureau of the Census (1983:Table 698~. TABLE 3 Female-Dominated Occupations with Largest Projected Job Growth, 1984-1995 Change in Total Percent of Employment Total Occupation (thousande)
|
From page 13... ...
The computer and computer-communications linkages, including satellites, have had a head start in banking and finance, and the new technology has also been making headway, although more slowly, in the administrative and financial, and more recently, in the clinical areas of hospitals. Moreover, each industry has a large number of workers: in 1982 banking and finance employed about 2.8 million workers, of which women accounted for two-thirds, and hospitals employed 4.3 million individuals, with women accounting for three-quarters of the labor force (see Table 2~.
|
From page 14... ...
First, hospital employment increased in the 12 years after 1970 by no less than 50 percent, from 2.8 million to 4.3 million, and in both years women accounted for about three of every four members of the work force. A little noted phenomenon in this period of expansion in employment has been the trend of most acute care institutions to raise the qualifications of their nursing staff and
|
From page 15... ...
Their survival hinges on how quickly they are able first to understand their admissions and then control treatment regimens and length of stay, since under DRGs they are paid a fixed price per · ac mission. As noted earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and most other forecasters assume that health care in general, and hospitals in particular, will continue to be a major growth industry between now and 1995.
|
From page 16... ...
Part of this striking shift within such a short time period reflects the pressure of the new resistant climate on hospital administrators anct their ability through computerization to exercise much closer control over their personnel costs, particularly their nursing personnel costs. For a more balanced overview, it should be noted that the above relates solely to hospital employment, not to total employment in the health care sector.
|
From page 17... ...
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Currently, more than half of all adult women are in the labor force and many more would probably work if suitable jobs were available. Six major factors have accelerated the growing importance of women workers in the U.S.
|
From page 18... ...
While a rapidly penetrating new technology can on occasion result in job losses, most workers who are displaced lose out because of the inability of their employers to remain competitive, as has been the case in steel, autos, apparel, and many branches of electronics. Strengthened Education and Retraining Policymakers should recognize that the best approach to the prevention of increasing instability in the world of work is a strengthened educational system that will enable workers to be properly educated, trained, and retrained.
|
From page 19... ...
A National Jobs and Education Program The advances in computer-communications technology will, as we have seen, considerably reduce the demand for clerical workers and result in the relocation of many clerical jobs from large high-cost urban centers to outlying and even foreign locations. These developments will make it even more difficult for the urban high school drop-out to fashion a permanent attachment to the labor force, particularly in jobs that offer prospects of advancement.
|
From page 20... ...
Greater equity and career opportunities for women require that society recognize that women workers carry excessive burdens and seek to lighten these burdens (Economic Policy Council of UNA-USA, 1985~. A CONCLUDING NOTE The thrust of the foregoing policy recommendations has been to emphasize that the major preconditions for the continued expansion and improvement of employment opportunities for women hinge on the continuing strong growth of the economy and on strengthening the educational preparation of women for adulthood and for the world of work.
|
From page 21... ...
Dutka, Anna B 1983 A Review and Analysis of the Citibank Office Technology Pilot Project Program at Martin Luther King, Jr.
|
From page 22... ...
22 POLICY PERSPECTIVES Noyelle, Thierry J., and Anna B Dutka 1987 Business Serviced in World Markets: Lessons for Made Negotiations.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.