Welsh Journals

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Issues and DeveIopments tn PLanning in Wales Edited by PHILIP COOKE Department of Town Planning, U.W.I.S.T., Cardiff Women, Work and the Recession in Wales VICTORIA WINCKLER The role of women in the Welsh economy has changed substantially in the post-war years. From paid employment for women being relatively uncommon in the 1950's, it has increased rapidly to become the norm in the 1980's. Now over half of all Welsh women are in paid work. Much of this increase in female economic activity has been due to various state policies, including regional policy. The onset of the current recession in 1979 brought the upward trend in female employment to an end, and accelerated the decline in male employment. This has considerable implications for the structure of the Welsh workforce in the future. This paper is divided into four parts. The first part outlines the current position of women in work in Wales and points to the over- whelming concentration of female employment in service industries. The second part looks at the way in which the industrial distribution of female employment has been influenced by the state. In the third section, it will be seen that it is the concentration of female employ- ment in service industries, especially state services, that has so far protected women as a whole from the worst effects of the recession. However, as the fourth part of the paper then goes on to suggest, this favourable position is unlikely to continue. Women and Work in Wales The increase in female employment in Wales has been the most rapid in Britain. Between 1952 and 1980 over 150,000 women entered paid work, an increase of 61%, compared with a decline in male employment of some 80,000, or 12% Women have thus come to comprise a large share of the workforce, being in 1980 over 40% of employees, compared with only 27% in 1952. Even so, women in Wales are still less likely to be economically active than women in any other region of Britain, with the Welsh female activity rate being only 88% of that of Great Britain in 1979 (Home Office 1954, Welsh Office 1982).