Executing Jobs in Telecommunications: Comparing France and Germany

This comparative study between France and Germany handles with transformations\ud and continuities of female employment in the two countries since the 1960s, based on an analysis\ud of low-level jobs in the public sector. The social status of female employment is still different in\ud these otherwise similar European countries: unlike in France, being married and having children\ud in Germany continues to create a gap between women with continuous employment and those\ud without. Starting from this general assessment, this article aims at analyzing the extent to which\ud jobs in the public sector, as well as the practices of women in these jobs, influence this tendency.\ud In this context, the social function of a particular type of employment, considered as a prototype\ud of a poorly qualified female occupation - telephone inquiry services - will be analyzed more\ud closely, based on a qualitative analysis of the relation to work and employment of these telephone\ud operators