Women and unemployment : a case study of women's experiences of unemployment in Glasgow

This study investigates women's experiences of unemployment in Glasgow and will contribute to a literature in which there are very few studies on women's unemployment. The thesis seeks to challenge the marginality of women's unemployment in sociological discourses. The research is based on interviews with forty unemployed women and sixteen women engaged on Employment Training schemes in Glasgow. The research questions the assumptions and discourses of the mainstream sociological literature on work and unemployment. It highlights the ways in which these sociological discourses draw upon and give legitimacy to existing gendered ideologies about female roles. Contrary to the dominant sociological paradigm which marginalises the importance of women's unemployment, the evidence presented in this thesis demonstrates that waged work is a central and valued part of women's social identity. The data shows that in unemployment women lose their economic identity and this has a detrimental impact upon their social and domestic identities. Women's domestic role did not compensate for the loss of their paid employment. Rather, the experience of unemployment made women value waged work more