A Long Way Ahead to a Long Way Ahead: Employee Welfare and Women

Abstract

Literature on the sociology of work, organisations and welfare states have outlined the structural and processual impacts of institutions and the employment relationship on gender relations. Women are often disadvantaged and in this context also face welfare-specific expectations and limitations. Chapter 8 reexamines the history of employee welfare with regard to its gender dimension in Germany and the UK. It shows that, like the governmental welfare system, employee welfare has mainly addressed male workers and in certain cases continues to do so. Almost all employee welfare programmes have traditionally distinguished between female and male employees by providing better conditions for male workers and establishing additional layers of control for female workers. In contemporary times, such explicit differences between men and women are not incorporated in employee welfare programmes. However, current work-life balance programmes, as one example of employee welfare, still create divisions between female and male workers as a result of organisational requirements and management practices.