GENDER and CRISIS in GREECE Author(S)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Th e ‘Aft erlife’ of Cheap Labour: Bangalore Garment Female Employment & FEDI Dynamics of Inequality Research Network Workers from Factories to the Informal Economy FEDI Female Employment & Dynamics of Inequality Research Network GENDER AND CRISIS IN GREECE Author(s): Antigone Lyberaki and Platon Tinios Country Briefing Paper No: 06.17.9 1 GENDER AND CRISIS IN GREECE Antigone Lyberaki and Platon Tinios Prepared for the Project Dynamics of Gender Inequality in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (ESRC Global Challenges Research Fund) London Conference, 9-10 June 2017 Background: As in other southern European economies, women’s employment rates in Greece started from a very low point but did a lot of catching up until the of the financial crisis after 2008. Indeed, there has been explicit and vocal policy activism since the end of the dictatorship in the mid-1970s to redress some of the most salient aspects of gender discrimination in the legal framework and gender gaps in economic outcomes, with a focus on employment. It is useful to situate the gender trends in the context of three distinct periods. In the first phase, from WW2 to 1980, Greece was a more-or-less successful developing economy, trying to qualify for what was then the European Community. This was the time of the explicit “male-breadwinner model”. Very few women were in employment – just three out of ten – and of those who were working, one out of three had the status of “unpaid family member”. The context was one of fast growth, a large primary sector, big and closely knit families, urbanization and fluid borders between the family firm/farm and the family. In the second phase, starting in 1981 and ending with the outbreak of the crisis in 2010, Greece was a member of the European Union (EU) and an established democracy. Aspiring to modernize quickly, Greece introduced “institutional leap- frogging” in gender, alongside other spheres of social regulation. This was the time of political activism and abundant resources to promote gender equality. Women’s employment rate increased substantially, fertility declined, and the public sector absorbed many women, with one out of four women employed there. Legislation countering gender inequalities in work was instituted, though it applied mainly in the public sector and the segment of the economy consisting of large firms; gender equality legislation was harder to apply in smaller firms, which constituted the bulk of the Greek economy. What essentially remained was a “covert male breadwinner” model. So, despite loud vocal proclamations, generous funding and considerable policy/institutional activism, Greece remained squarely within the male breadwinner model, with a twist: what we just described as a covert (or tacit) breadwinner model. Lack of part-time opportunities and flexibility options discouraged large numbers of women from entering the labour market. For those who worked, combining work and life was a struggle: On the one hand, social infrastructure remained poor. On the other, legislation aimed, not so much to empower working women to pursue a career, but, rather, to compensate the sacrifice of their careers, by offering early retirement (and hence further undermining their career prospects). Part of the solution for urban 1 women was offered by immigrant female workers who filled the care gap at affordable cost. The third period covers the crisis and beyond. The rate of progress in employment participation was arrested and unemployment caused job losses among women, but not as much as among men. Hence the gender gaps in both employment and unemployment diminished, while the financial contribution of women in family budgets increased in importance and visibility. The flip side, however, is that this closing of gender gaps is attributed more to the losses of men than the progress of women. The big question is to imagine the period beyond the crisis. Against a background of deteriorating demographics – that is, of rapid ageing – and the twin pressures emanating from the high debt and the pensions system, the only conceivable way forward should rest on tapping on the reservoirs of inactive women. This road would entail abandoning the male breadwinner model in order to move decisively in the direction of dual adult families. This would require significant adjustment in values, priorities and policy tools, moving beyond protection to empowerment. It would also require to interpret the crisis as a crisis of the male breadwinner model. Figure 1: Women’s employment (in thousands) 1983-2015 000ς Greece: Women aged 20-64 (in 000s) in employment, by professional status 2000 Contributing family workers 1800 1600 Employed persons except contributing family workers 1400 1200 1000 1,404 1,622 800 824 1,122 678 937 1,321 600 400 200 362 376 299 283 210 165 0 107 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 Source: LFS series, 1983-2015 Evaluating the long-term trends: Progress is visible if we compare the situation of women who entered adulthood in the post-WW2 period and the generation of their daughters who experienced their youth in the late 1970s and 1980s. Twice as many of the latter joined the labour market, mainly in office work or services, while their mothers worked mainly in the rural sector. It is worth noting that fully 64% of the mothers’ generation had never worked, compared with just 36% of the new generation. This new generation of working women had more education, including higher education attainment, and lived in a world of more choices and freedoms. The trend favouring gender equality in employment accelerated during the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century (see Figure 1). Nevertheless, if compared with the men of their generation, gender gaps were still stark: women worked for fewer hours, for fewer years and for lower wages, leading to highly unequal pensions in older age (Figure 2). 2 How can we characterise this trend? Is it a success story? The only way to answer this question is to compare Greece’s gender outcomes with those of other “gender laggard” EU members in the period before the crisis. This exercise tempers somehow the success story verdict. Greece’s performance was better only compared to Italy (Spain, Portugal and Ireland performed better in gender employment terms). In Figure 3, data are shown for the four countries (known by the acronym PIGS). Figure 2: Progress towards gender equality in the labour market Greece vs EU Gap (w-m) in % unemployment 35 30 25 20 Gap (m-w) in 15 duration of 10 Gap (m-w) in % working life 10 labour force (years) 31 participation 13 5 7 17 25 7 0 15 18 22 Gender 26 28 Gap (%) Gap (m-w) in % in pay 34 employment GR 1999 GR 2007 GR 2015 EU 2015 Source: Eurostat, LFS series, various years Figure 3: Comparative picture of women’s employment in PIGS Women's aged 20-64 employment rate (%) IE GR ES IT PT 70 65 66 65 PT, 66 59 60 56 IE, 60 55 55 ES, 56 50 50 PT, 49 GR, 52 46 IT, 50 45 41 42 40 GR, 39 35 IT, 36 35 IE, 33 30 33 ES, 27 25 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Source: Eurostat, LFS series. 3 The unemployment gender gap was and remained large throughout good and bad years. The gender gap in unemployment doubled in good times between 1985 and 2005 (from 5.0% to 9.1%) and in 2015 remained very high at 7% (women’s unemployment stood at 29%, while men’s unemployment stood at 22%). Conflicting and pressing demands on women’s time: Untapped labour resources among women, due both to unemployment and inactivity, is a constant characteristic of the Greek situation throughout. Among the inactive women, one third claimed that they could not afford to seek employment because of care obligations. This reveals a mismatch between conflicting roles, which is further exacerbated by labour market rigidities and the paucity of part-time work opportunities. Greece had always the smallest segment of part-time in the EU, and this lies at the heart of the «jobless growth» experience in the pre-crisis years. Interestingly, the lack of part-time jobs was always considered a point of pride among trade-unionists and politicians alike. Infrastructure for childcare made some progress, albeit for short hours, not covering the working day. The unmet childcare needs were partly covered by grandmothers and immigrant women. The unmet care burden is reflected in the «motherhood penalty»: if we compare mothers’ income from work to non-mothers, mothers in the private sector had at the age of 45 years almost half of the accumulated wage income compared to men in the same sector. The cumulative wage income (up to the age of 45 years) of mothers in the public sector lagged by 14.7% compared to a man working in the private sector, but mothers in the private sector by three times more (42%). Even childless women in the private sector faced a 24% gap by the age of 45. The influx of large numbers of immigrant women emigrating from the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus from the mid-1990s gave a boost to women’s employment (Lyberaki 2011)1. Three reasons need to be mentioned: • First, the supply of cheap labour encouraged women to move out of unpaid- family-labour status in the family business (firm or farm) and seek paid employment elsewhere. • Second, working mothers with young children could afford to remain in employment (with fewer career breaks). • Third, immigrant labour delayed somehow the trend of early retirement among women for the purpose of supplying care to a frail relative.