The Control of Women's Labour: The Case of Homeworking

What kinds of work obligations do homeworkers experience, and what social relations determine their character? Homeworking is dominated by contrasting, conflicting assumptions and interpretations. It was for long ignored or portrayed as an anachronism, peripheral to the economies of advanced industrial societies and of marginal importance as a source of livelihood (Bythell, 1978). In the mid-seventies research undertaken by the Low Pay Unit and others began to replace an image of housewives working for 'pin money' with a picture of homeworkers as women forced by dire economic need to accept appalling wages for work at home (Bolton, 1975; Brown, 1974; Crine, 1979; Field, 1976; Hope et al, 1976; Jordan, 1977). By the 1980s homeworking has been taken up for discussion by those who applaud, wholly or in part, paid work in the home as a form of employment (Atkinson, 1984; Burns, 1977; Gershuny, 1979; Gershuny and Pahl, 1979-80; Handy, 1984; IMS,1984; Pahl,1980; Postgate,1985; Rose,1983; Tofiler,1980). Some of them have argued that British firms can make their products more competitive, or utilize new technology to best advantage, by putting work out to workers at home, thereby enabling firms to adapt flexibly to changes in demand by treating labour as a completely variable factor. Others portray remunerated work at home as a way in which the unemployed can supplement household income and combat demoralization, permitting enterprising individuals to take up rewarding work as part of new, home-centred 'life styles'. Some even manage to reconcile both points of view. Only recently have these projections and assumptions begun to be critically examined (Allen, 1985; Allen et al, 1986; Pahl, 1984; Purcell et al, 1986; Redclift and Mingione,1985).