Preliminary Programme

The female labour had played a very limited role traditionally in the Spanish glass industry. The mechanization of the glass industry was held in the first third of the twentieth century. In this paper we will discuss the characteristics of the mechanization process and will show the limitations and difficulties of it in the Spanish case. On the other hand, also tries to analyze the impact of mechanization on the work of women. The main hypothesis states that the use of child labour slowed the increase in the work of women, in other parts favored by the mechanization of important stages of the productive process. Payment of wages of the children was realized directly by the most skilled workers, the blowers. The maintenance of child labour was the result of the common interests of employers and glass workers. (Show less)

According to conventional accounts factory production crowded out home-based production during the process of industrialization. Still, substantial pockets of subcontracting remained in several industries and provided employment for women in particular. In this paper we compare the characteristics and labour market experiences of women employed in factories and in home based production i.e. industrial homework. For that purpose we combine the information in two kinds of sources: labour statistical surveys and tax records. Our study sample consists of female factory and industrial home workers in the city of Gothenburg during the first decades of the twentieth century, which in the Swedish context corresponds to the phase commonly referred to as the second industrial revolution. (Show less)

This study examines the formation of specific labour market campaigns to enable / integrate women in the Swedish labour market. Debates on gender equality policy in Sweden assume that women´s labour market participation is the key to gender equality, and have been conducted through special initiatives and programmes. During the post-war period actions targeting "vulnerable" groups, has been acted out in the name of active labour market policy, and has formed an important part of the Swedish labour market policy. In most cases, it has been women, youth, and immigrants, disabled and elderly people that has been problematised. This presentation focuses on the importance of the 1960 AMS policy and the activation of (married) women to paid work, and also the BREAK-programmes in the 1980´s and 1990´s, intended to break gender segregation and encouraging non-traditional gendered work choices. This study particularly relates to the implementation of programs in the counties of northern Sweden. On its way from the national centre of the AMS to the county labour boards something happened in the implementation of the programs, having to do with its achievement in meeting with regional planning conditions and the image of the northern 'periphery'. This study is using feminist research on intersectionality for analysing the complex relationship between different forms of power relations. It also uses an understanding of place as discursively constituted and constructed in relation to societal power relations. How has different groups been addressed as political problems over time? What economic or political narratives have gained the status of “facts”? What do these identity-building structures in the labour market initiate, in the 1960´s, the 1990´s and nowadays? What ideas of gender, class, race, age, rural and urban etc., have prompted labour market initiatives aimed at activating groups? What about the implementation of these programmes in the ”periphery”, in relation to the national policy "centre"? (Show less)