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The Female Reserve Army of Labour the Argument and Some Pertinent

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The Female Reserve Army of Labour the Argument and Some Pertinent Atlantis Vol. 7 No. J Fall/Automne 1981 45-46 The Female Reserve Army of Labour The Argument and Some Pertinent Findings i Bonnie Fox Dalhousie University Even before the evidence is examined, the reserve labour pool. First is the question of the term "reserve army of labour" seems an apt forces moving women who are primarily description of married women as workers. domestic labourers to seek wage work outside Women typically do work no one else wants to the home, and more broadly the nature of the do, at wages no one else will accept (or without relationship between the domestic work sphere wages in the case of housework), and can be and the sphere of commodity production. mobilized in times of war to take up jobs men Second is the issue of the effects, especially in normally do. Moreover, though we know dif• terms of wage levels, of women's presence in ferently, the work women do in the house• the labour market. Consequently, instead of hold—assuming the responsibility for meeting adding one more argument to the debate about the family's daily subsistence needs—seems whether women are or are not a reserve army secondary to paid work. Perhaps the easy fit to of labour, in whatever sense that is meant, I married women of this commonsense meaning shall review the arguments that have been of "reserve army" has led to its quick ac• made to date so as to highlight some crucial ceptance and rare criticism. questions.3 I shall then present findings which address some of these questions. Whether or not even a strict interpretation of "reserve army of labour" provides the best descriptive summary of women's position in The Arguments the work force is relatively unimportant, In arguing that there is a general tendency however. Instead, the attempt to understand for the process of capitalist accumulation to how the reserve army as Marx conceived it ap• generate a relative surplus population of plies to women is useful primarily because of workers (an "industrial reserve army"), Marx 2 the questions it forces us to address. Indeed, (1954) was specifying the mechanism by which there are two key questions raised by the wages are regulated. Just as competition in the argument that married women constitute a marketplace forces the prices of commodities towards their value (determined by the labour unemployed workers. This increased supply time socially necessary for their production), so checks a rising demand for labour, and pre• too the competition of the labour market vents wage raises from encroaching upon regulates wages. The crux of Marx's argument profits. was that the supply of unemployed or un• deremployed labour on the market was a Marx pointed out that in general the size of product not of demographic changes, as the unemployed labour force varies cyclically Mai thus had claimed, but of the workings of with the ups and downs of the economy, as jobs the economy itself. That excess supply of increase less rapidly or even decrease in down• labour largely determines the amount of com• swings. It also varies with increases in produc• petition in the labour market. tivity in different (backward) parts of the Marx argued that transformations in the economy, which make some of the work force economy created redundant populations of in those sectors redundant. The relative size of labour. For example, productivity increases the unemployed and underemployed segments due to the mechanization typical in times of of the labour force, along with the demand for 4 economic expansion enlarge the supply of labour, are largely what regulate wages. Recent discussions of married women as a work traditionally done by male crafts• reserve army of labour have typically taken men—but working in the same factory as the two directions. One argument is that men (Butler, 1969). housewives constitute a labour reserve for "women's jobs." That is, married women Finally, the process of sexual segregation has form a special reserve army whose inactivity is often accompanied the process of the division taken up with (domestic) work but whose of labour. As occupations have been broken existence exerts pressure on women's wages. down into more specialized jobs, women's The more uncertain argument is that women, traditionally low wages no doubt have enabled whether housewives or not, whether involved the payment of minimal wages to both men in the wage labour force or not, may constitute and women in unskilled jobs (Holcombe, reserves for the whole labour market. Ac• 1973). Of course, the end result of the division cording to this position, women's varying of labour is a general lowering of the wages of levels of involvement in wage work exert dif• all workers in the industry or occupational ferent degrees of pressure on wages in different category involved, although it is not clear spheres of the economy—even those largely whether this specialization of jobs in fact main• employing men. tains the relatively high wages of some men in some all-male jobs. In the first instance, it is assumed that Despite historical evidence that sex segrega• because of the sexual segregation of the labour tion has not prohibited a general lowering of force the competitive pressure that results from wages due to the presence of low-paid female the low wages paid women is restricted to labour, the argument that women today "women's jobs." In the second case, sex represent a reserve army of labour vis-a-vis the segregation is not considered sufficient to entire labour market seldom has been made. preclude a general competitive pressure due to The writers who have considered it have women's presence in the labour market. In dismissed it after only very crude empirical fact, the occupational segregation of the sexes tests. Let us consider both arguments about is a key reason why women consistently receive "the female reserve army of labour" in turn. lower wages than men do (Sanborn, 1964; Mc- Nulty, 1967; McLaughlin, 1978; Oppenhei- Harry Braverman (1974), in Labor and mer, 1970; Connelly, 1978; Armstrong and Monopoly Capital, asserts that the growing Armstrong, 1978). And because of their low presence of married women in the wage labour wages, there are many instances through force—available because of the progressive history of women displacing men (especially in redundancy of much domestic labour and at• unskilled occupations), so that over short tracted by the expansion of service sectors of periods of time occupations that were "men's" the economy—represents the recent creation of become "women's" (Pinchbeck, 1930; Butler, a reserve labour pool for 'women's jobs." 1969—originally 1911). In this process, sexual That is, women released from full-time segregation is maintained. Perhaps more domestic labour, and seeking wage work, significantly, industrial history is also full of represent to Braverman a redundant labour examples of women in job categories different force similar to that of unemployed men. Ex• from men threatening the jobs held by men. tending Braverman's logic, Patricia Connelly The most obvious example, although a bit ex• (1978) argues that all married women (or treme, is female machine operatives doing housewives)—even those not directly seeking jobs—constitute a labour reserve "institution• namely discussions of the notion that women alized" in the household. (and not just married women) constitute a special reserve army vis-a-vis the entire labour First, Connelly argues, married women market. were institutionalized as a labour force outside the chief sphere of production as a result of the Clearly, during the two World Wars, wom• historic removal of most subsistence produc• en in Canada were mobilized as a reserve army tion from the household. Consequently, they of labour. Especially during World War II, the represented a potential labour pool for com• state provided a range of incentives and sup• modity production. They became an actual la• port programs to lure married women into bour pool as the household was mechanized. wage jobs and, simultaneously, to protect the absent males from loosing their jobs or suf• Second, married women embody cheap fering wage reductions (Department of labour power because they are socially defined Labour, 1942, Connelly, 1978). At the end of to be housewives, or unpaid workers depen• the labour shortage, one could argue, the state dent on a man's wage. Their housework earns made attempts to entice women to return to the them no market equivalent because it involves domestic sphere (Schulz, 1978). no commodity production. When they do wage work, those wages need only support one in• Veronica Beechey (1977) offers a con• dividual since men are now assumed to be tradictory explanation of "why in theory responsible for family subsistence. married women might have become a prefer• red source of the industrial reserve army." Third, the female labour reserve constitutes First, she argues that when capital employs two competition for women's jobs: women's low family members rather than one the costs of wages result from pressures by housewives for family subsistence are spread over two a relatively limited number of jobs. However, workers' wages. At the same time, capital ob• Connelly concludes, the segregation of women tains the labour of two workers rather than in the wage labour force indicates that there one. Marx (1954, 373) pointed out this con• are two distinct labour markets and that sequence of the employment of married women probably do not compete with men for women. However, it is unacceptable to posit jobs. Connelly suggests that women may exert this effect of women's employment as one of its an indirect competitive threat on men's jobs, causes (Anthias, 1980).
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