Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The overall objective was to establish the place of employment in women's lives. It aimed to establish both the extent of current unemployment among women and to understand what unemployment meant for women. It needed therefore to compare unemployed women both with those women who were employed and those who were economically inactive; it also needed to establish how important a paid job was for women and how much of their lives they spent in employment.
Main Topics:
Variables Women's Questionnaire (a) Patterns of movement in and out of the labour market Whether women were working full-time, part-time or not working at different stages in their lives and at different points in time. (b) Factors affecting participation in the labour market Economic, social and psychological factors affecting decisions about whether or not to work. Reasons for working/not working. (c) Recent and current employment activities Description of type of work, conditions (pay, hours etc.) job satisfaction. Mobility between employers and type of work over the last five years. (d) The consequences of not working and the process of job search Attitudes to and consequences of not working. Investigation of different categories of 'not working', from 'registered unemployed' to 'not intending to work'. Economic, social and psychological consequences of not working for women wanting to work. How women look or intend to look for work. The reasons women give up seeking work. (e) Factors affecting decisions about whether to work Constraints of child care and other domestic responsibilities. Division of labour between husbands and wives. Attitude of husbands to wife working. Family financial situation. Availability of suitable work in terms of type of work, hours, pay, travel to work. Which factors would cause women to want to change their present situation (i.e. re working full-time, part-time, or not working). (f) Careers and occupational mobility Whether women see themselves as having careers. The future work intentions of women before they have children. Women's assessments of the level of their jobs before and after domestic absence. Whether women think their job utilises their skills, qualifications, training etc. (g) General attitudes to women and work The relative importance of work and family, male and female roles - views on whether men should take precedence over women for work if jobs are scarce. Attitudes to equal opportunities, general awareness of legislation and social trends. Men's Questionnaire Information concerning education and qualifications. Current employment situation and occupation. Ways in which husband's situation affects wife's employment. Income and financial situation. Whether respondent's job could be/is done by women. General attitudes to women at work. Whether respondent can easily take time off work to care for children. Division of labour between husband and wife in the home. Whether respondent's mother worked outside the home. Assessment of recent legislation concerning equal opportunities.
Stratified, multi-stage, random sample. (1) Random sample of 120 local authority districts, stratified by region, metropolitan/non-metropolitan and the proportion of the population in SEG 1-5 or 13. Districts were selected with probability proportional to the size of the electorate. (2) Random sample of 4 wards within each district with pps. (3) Random sample of approximately 20 addresses within each ward. (4) Doorstep sift to identify women aged 16 - 59
Face-to-face interview
