Making the difference – critical perspectives on the configuration of work, diversity and inequalities

Citation

Aulenbacher, B. and Innreiter-Moser, C. (2013), "Making the difference – critical perspectives on the configuration of work, diversity and inequalities", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 32 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/edi.2013.03032faa.001

Making the difference – critical perspectives on the configuration of work, diversity and inequalities

Making the difference – critical perspectives on the configuration of work, diversity and inequalities

Article Type: Guest Editorial From: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, Volume 32, Issue 6.

Despite successful equality politics it is evident in modern societies that the unequal division of labour continues to be stable by changing its forms and modes of distribution. Embedded in the tension between citizenship and civil rights aiming or guaranting equality on the one hand, and an economic system and order shaped by and shaping relations of inequality on the other hand, considerable differences and inequalities prevail with regard to the question of who does what kind of work and by what kind of conditions. Last but not least, differences and inequalities of gender, race/ethnicity and class are shaped and characterised by corresponding divisions of labour and vice versa.

One of the most obvious examples which will continue to preoccupy us in the special issue, is the global care chain. In states of the global north and west, both housework and care work are increasingly being assumed by migrant workers, who come from the global south and east. They live and work in their countries of destination or arrival with a wide range of different statuses of or below citizenship. Their employers, who – as a rule – possess full citizenship and civil rights, use migrant work to free themselves for, among other things, more respected and better paid jobs and careers or other aspects of life (Mahon and Robinson, 2011).

The history of migration movements and of organising care work by this way dates from colonial times. Evidently, the current forms are completely different from the past ones (Lutz, 2010). But indeed, the history of the present forms of labour, of both the paid and unpaid work, and the unfair distribution of these, with regard to their pre-capitalistic and pre-industrial roots, can be traced back to the beginnings of the modern age (Beer, 1990; Castel, 2000).

The focus of this special issue is not to revise modernity, for instance with regard to the divisions of labour which have emerged in this period, the inherent differentiations and inequalities associated with these, and their sociological or interdisciplinary reflection (for this Klinger and Knapp, 2007; Knapp, 2005, 2013). Rather by entitling the special issue “Making the difference”, one specific aspect of modern society will be set as a starting point, and the spotlight is turned on this when discussing the relations of work. This aspect is the modern pattern of drawing boundaries respectively with the construction of the “other”, which separates societal spheres and populations. This specific aspect has recently been brought into focus in the current discussion about the constitutional history of modernity, with regard to questions concerning equality and inequality and the comparison of diversity and intersectionality, in particular by Cornelia Klinger (2003). The papers of our special issue demonstrate empirically, that this pattern is, in many ways, also defining and shaping the configuration of work, diversity, and inequalities today.

2. The relations of spheres and sectors and of gender, ethnicity and class

In the context of the current organisation of labour, we are interested in the pattern of differentiation and the drawing of boundaries from two points of view: the first one is majorly motivated by social theory, and the second one by institutionalist approaches or analysis of interactions in the tradition of the interpretative paradigm[1]. Irrespective of different traditions and scholarships both points of view can enrich each other with regard to how empirical phenomena are examined and interpreted. Moreover, they overlap with regard to the thematisation of institutional change and its subjective processing.

In the afore-mentioned mainly social theory-based approach, the point of interest is on differentiations connected with the historical separation of spheres and populations, which have a lasting impact on the formation of modern societies and are still in motion themselves. It is a question of the relations to the outside world and of the functional and labour divisions in modern societies, whereby in the special issue, solely the present capitalistic formation of modern society is scrutinised in an empirical manner and the papers refer to OECD countries.

As far as the relations with the outside world are concerned, modern societies distinguish themselves from others, normally set up as societies which would be described as traditional. Compared to them modern societies perceive themselves to be superior due to their functional differentiation, for example, the separation of the state and the church, their equality postulate and their forces of innovation and innovative strength (in a type of reading which affirms the modern age, Zapf, 1991; in comparison Lenz, 1995 criticises the western point of view). With regard to the functional differentiation and the division of labour within modern age, the separation of the public and private domains is the foundation to shape further differentiation in the public sphere and to organise paid and unpaid work in and between the spheres. In the OECD countries, it is a matter of the nationally organised, in itself once again differentiated configuration of private industry, third sector, state, and private household. Within this configuration, all the goods and services, which are necessary for and demanded by society in both its spheres and in all sectors, are produced and delivered by paid and unpaid work, i.e., in the form of gainful employment, housework and voluntary work, which in terms of the function encompasses value added and supply-relevant work, production and administration, subsistence work, care and self-care among other things (Aulenbacher and Riegraf, 2009).

As discussed by Regina Becker-Schmidt (1998), for historical reasons, and thus always modifiable, the relations between the spheres and sectors are mainly constructed in a hierarchical way and homologous to the structure to the division of labour according to gender and, we might add, according to ethnicity and social class (Aulenbacher and Riegraf, 2009). The spheres with traditionally masculine connotations are more powerful in shaping societal relations than the public and private spheres with feminine connotations. The borders of the male-dominated powerful positions were stable for a long time; native women and male as well as female migrants now are moving successively for the first time into top public positions, for example, in politics (Aulenbacher et al., 2013). The sectors which are in historical terms particularly powerful, say the economy of finance, are, to a large extent, the domains of native middle class and upper class men. Private care work is done first and foremost by women, among them – as has already been suggested – in many cases by migrant workers who find themselves again in the lower classes at their countries of destination or arrival. Between these two poles of sectoral social fabric and incline, work is in part divided up quite clearly again according to gender, race/ethnicity and class. In part the division of labour is in motion, for instance in the form of the formation of segments, which are not segregated by gender anymore, or in the more or less well-aimed promotion of diversity.

If we assume here that the sectoral divisions of functions and divisions of labour according to gender, ethnicity and class are aligned in the same way, then this cannot be interpreted as a historic coincidence. Rather the relations between the spheres, sectors and segments are mediated, agreeing again with Regina Becker-Schmidt (1998), besides other processes. For example, rationalisation concepts and strategies, by which paid and unpaid work are organised, are joint with the existing division of labour; negotiations and decisions in all the questions of how the work load, income and further gratifications are distributed between men and women, by native and migrant people etc. have to be seen in such configurations.

In the context interesting to us and in respect to the following empirical contributions, the major point in the mediation of social relations is how the separately organised forms of labour in the public and in the private sphere and in between these are combined; and they have unavoidably to be combined to care for oneself and others and thus also to be able to uphold society. This combination of the different forms of paid and unpaid work is not at least an individual one in the working arrangements of each person; the question of how people combine gainful employment, housework and voluntary work in all the manifestations named above and further interests of their lives with each other is part of the biographically and everyday arrangements. At the same time the question, how to deal with the different demands is not only an individual decision, but rather depends again on the mediations mentioned above.

In the OECD countries the decisions how to work and to live are connected with the own position in the system of employment, the kind of living as a single person, in a partnership, in a family, etc., and the access to the benefits of the welfare state. Thus it also always depends on the status as a more or less recognized member of society, as far as the citizen rights are concerned. Otherwise, how societies shape the relations between the private industry, the state, the third sector and private households depends on the extent and forms of integration of their workforce, such of men and women, native and migrant people, in the labour market. Biographical and everyday working arrangements are, therefore, always both societal and individual ones (Aulenbacher and Riegraf, 2011). The fact that the Male Breadwinner Model continues to be of great importance in Austria, whilst in Great Britain the transition has taken place towards the Adult Worker Model, can be explained among other things by a look at this configuration of functional differentiation and division of labour and the integration of people mediated by gender, race/ethnicity and class.

In her retrospective view of the history of modern society and in the context of intersectional perspectives of contemporary development, Cornelia Klinger's (2003) social theory turns the spotlight on the named construction of the “other”. The author demonstrates how the divisions of labour are explained by this and how they are legitimised, when they are in conflict with the principles of modernity, such as equal rights or meritocracy. From a historical perspective, the discourses, which tried to focus on differences between the sexes, modernity and tradition, etc., are a good example. They accompanied the beginning of modern society and its development of the concept of the autonomous subject or freedom and citizenship by legitimising, why the status of a citizen, which is characterised in this way, should be reserved for men. And they did so by, in part, references to the different nature of women in biological terms and sanctioned by the developing sciences especially in biology, medicine, etc. (Dölling, 2003). This again is an example that the construction of the “other” can be associated with gender and, as Cornelia Klinger (2003) addressed in the example of slavery, “race” or ethnicity by essentialising and naturalising divisions of labour and unequal chances of social integration and legitimising them by the way.

Historically as well as in a contemporary perspective the second-named approaches of the interpretative paradigm bring the construction of gender and race/ethnicity into play and, within, the question of how labour is distributed and how this is justified respectively legitimised (Wetterer, 2002). The different and unequal division of labour between the sexes, justifications and legitimations of this kind in institutionalist approaches and the analysis of interactions have been rendered visible for numerous sectors and forms of work. From this perspective it is assumed that labour could be considered as a medium of gender construction – well known as “doing gender while doing work” (West and Zimmerman, 1987). Who should do which work that is set, negotiated or regulated as a case of explicit gender conflicts and arrangements or implicitly embedded by example in the relations of class. And when the division of labour is institutionalised, its distribution according to gender appears evident and natural and the gendering of work, the construction of work, jobs, professions, qualifications etc. as male or female, is not visible anymore (Wetterer, 2002). The rediscovery and different reformulations of the concept of intersectionality (Knapp, 2013 and the controversy concerning her paper) have, above all, newly turned the focus onto the category of ethnicity and the doing ethnicity while doing work.

We are not aiming at a discussion about to what extent social theory, institutionalist approaches and perspectives on interaction adopted here can theoretically be linked to each other. Adapting them as analytical tools they may be useful to have a look at biographical and everyday working arrangements as well as on the societal division of labour and the ways they are shaped by the relations of gender, race/ethnicity and class and vice versa – either consciously or unconsciously (Aulenbacher and Riegraf, 2011). Beyond that and additionally a point of interest is, how this connection between the division of labour and diversity or inequality is thematised in the various spheres and sectors or how they become important without being an issue of reflection and how that differs from national society to national society.

Recently a lot of fundamental reflections on the above have joined the discussion as to how the analysis of society can and should be done with the main categories of the debate on intersectionality gender, race/ethnicity and class (Klinger et al., 2007; Klinger and Knapp, 2008; Knapp, 2013). Another question has been, to what extent other categories should be taken into consideration as well. These discussions have led to reflections on the question, how diversity should be thematised in relation to inequality and intersectionality (Hardmeier and Vinz, 2007).

The latter discussion is significant since diversity suggests another phenomenon of contemporary modern societies, namely their advancing pluralisation. Unlike the Male Breadwinner Model, which has already been cited as an example and which stood for a comparably standardised and institutionalised way of working and living, which privileged men in terms of better jobs and less responsibility for family life and the household, the Adult Worker Model unnames the work-life-nexus beyond gainful employment. This construction of the employable adult with reference exclusively to paid work keeps imaginations of work and life, on the one hand, open for a variety of arrangements. On the other hand, non-remunerated labour and thus, finally, the services provided by women are made even less visible than was the case in the evident legal and economical discrimination by the arrangement of the male breadwinner and the housewife.

Similar to the differentiations and inequalities mentioned before, it becomes obvious from that example that there is certain pluralisation and diversification of society, without escaping the tension between equality promised by citizenship and civil rights and inequality rooting in the economic order. On the one hand there is definitely a new range of possibilities and experiences in recognising diversity, unknown so far in history; this is, for example, the central issue of Nancy Fraser's (2003) theory of social justice with the strands of redistribution and recognition. Recognising diversity matters in the ways of life as well as in organisations. And in both perspectives it is significant for the configuration and distribution of labour. The discussion about diversity points that out for pluralisation, to which the practise contributes in the form of diversity management in politics as well as in economy (Hardmeier and Vinz, 2007; Knapp, 2005). On the other hand this happens within the framework of persistent, but nevertheless changing inequalities strongly pointed out by the intersectional perspective (Knapp, 2005, 2013). The main topics which the contributions in this special issue discuss are how diversity, inequality and the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity and class shape the division of labour and the relations of work and welfare and vice versa.

3. Making the difference at work – perspectives and insights of the contributions

Making the difference at work – in a special issue, which invited authors at international level to present their perspectives and findings, this motif cannot be pursued in a stringent reflection on the contemporary development of modernity, diversity and inequality. However, the papers which we received, confirmed us, that looking at the specific patterns of modern society is an interesting starting point to follow the contemporary division and organisation of labour and of gender, race/ethnicity and class. Thus this perspective is perpetuated to present the papers and to show what insights they allow in modern societies, their working arrangements and the question of equality, diversity and inequality.

Shu Ju Cheng presents a qualitative study embedded in research on the Global Care Chain. She deals with the work of Polish immigrants in a selective comparison with Mexican immigrants in the USA, more specifically in Chicago as a town boasting a large Polish community. After detailed considerations of the structures, organisation, regulation and significance of migrant work in private households, she turns the spotlight on an occurrence which probably can only be observed in the context of a distinct, multicultural type of ruling: The division of labour in the context of constructing ethnicity as cultural affinity in modern society and race as a category of differentiation and distinction. On the basis of instructive narratives she shows how Polish people become recognised employees from the point of view of employers for work of a higher quality, rather than Mexicans, and how insights can be drawn from this for the employees, as far as their livelihood, working moral and their life in the USA is concerned, including the question of citizen status.

A further part of the global care chain is illuminated by Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck. She studies the gender-hierarchical division of labour, taking Germany as an example. Along the chain, indeed, Polish women are recruited by private households first and foremost for the three Cs (cleaning, caring, cooking) whilst Polish men take on separate work in areas of a male connotation such as gardening, repairing and handcraft. Moreover, it is particularly interesting that the author risks a glance beyond the national borders and finds herself confronted with paradoxical situations. If, for example, German men liberate themselves by delegating their work to Polish men to spend more time with their family, in particularly their children, then by the same development in Poland the Male Breadwinner Model is perpetrated in a new form with the higher income of the men compared to that of the women.

Whilst the first two papers research the division of labour according to gender, ethnicity and class, first of all with a look at the private household, the following paper concentrates strongly on the biographical decisions of migrants. The case in point focuses on two Turkish migrants in Sweden and thus a country in which a permit residence is granted with by comparison broad social and political rights. Huriye Aygören and Monika Wilinska reconstruct the story of the two women on the way to professional entrepreneurship respectively the rejection of this conceivable work and professional perspective. At its heart, the authors can show that the question of belonging or not belonging to Swedish society is a central issue which is, at the same time, a question of the recognition or non-recognition of their Turkish origin. How this is answered, whether, for example, educational certificates are recognised or not and how the two women react to the decision, not to recognise them, that makes a difference in pursuing or abandoning working opportunities.

The next two papers shed a completely new light on the relational construction of, above all, gender. Louisa Smith deals with the well known, “classical” constellation of feminist organisation studies on the basis of the qualitative research she carried out in Australia: the minority position of women in various sectors of manufacturing and IT work, which is at the same time characterised in a specific way by the aspirations of men with regard to hegemony. These fields of work prove to be cumbersome for women in numerous ways: due to direct discrimination and sexual harassment, to the performance competition within the framework of a male dominated culture, to the one-sided necessity of how to behave towards one's gender on behalf of the women. Isolating oneself or adjusting to the male culture or the examination of it, become, therefore, an additional task only for women. It places a burden on their working and promotion opportunities and restricts their careers as well as the everyday work and life.

The German debate on the subjectivation of work is the starting point of Alexandra Rau. In this debate a new rationalisation mode is at the centre of attention whereby company affairs and the access the company has to its employees tend to include the person as a whole, all of their skills and abilities as well as their attitudes and feelings. At the same time, this being involved in one's work seems to be a gain in autonomy compared to the previous involvement of employees which was more strongly determined by external rules. However, for the author, in this new mode of rationalisation power takes on a psychological character and self-exploitation becomes a factor calculated by companies, which she describes as “psycho-politics”. On the part of the employees, this corresponds to type of the lonesome fighter, which has a male connotation. In the discussion about the new work, feminisation is assumed as an expression of pluralisation and diversification, while the requirements prepare the way for a (re)masculinisation of work and life.

Since the papers previously outlined inspire the private household and commercial areas of earning, the last paper reflects on the configuration of labour and welfare in the northern countries, which at the same time stand for advancements in equality and developed public systems of supply. Birte Siim describes in her paper the challenges of multicultural change for the Nordic welfare states as a result of globalisation, mobility and migration. She addresses an interesting intersection of issues of gender/citizenship and migration background as well as the treatment of both of these. Although the Nordic states are similar in their welfare and gender models they have different policies and practises when dealing with in-/exclusion of ethnic minority groups. The author shows how multiculturalism and diversity challenge societies as well as gender theory and research, which have to explore multiple inequalities and complex differentiations by intersectionalist approaches. Looking at the configuration of diversity, equality and inequality on the labour market and in the welfare state the concept of citizenship has to be reframed beyond the borders of the nation state towards an intersectional perspective.

4. Conclusion

Certainly, information can be gleaned from qualitative case studies to only a limited extent and in only a few areas and sectors concerning how the division of labour according to gender, race/ethnicity and class is currently composed and continued or interrupted. After examining the findings presented, in the mirror of the background of modern society, the pattern of drawing boundaries and the tension between equality and inequality are revealed. Finally, this special issue was able to make three interesting points by discussing the modern pattern of making the difference in its contemporary form:

Each of the papers deals explicitly or implicitly with the motif of hard work connected with the relations of gender, race/ethnicity and class. This encompasses two factors: first, at both the upper and lower end of the hierarchy of sectors, segments and positions, hard work is connected with legitimations of its distribution; via competition-oriented, exclusive “games” played between the highly qualified (male) persons in the combination of “hard work and hard play” or via the reference to modernity as a common culture which allows to delegate hard work to those who are not accepted as belonging to it. Second, another form of hard work then is reserved for those, who are considered to be the “other” from the perspective of the powerful persons representing the mainstream culture or the modernity. The minority or disregarded workers face an additional strain in confronting discrimination and harassment, which makes them work twice as hard: with regard to their work and with regard to their struggle to be recognised.

Without a doubt, all of the papers more or less paint the picture of a pluralistic modernity, when the yardstick for this is some freedom of choice with regard to the way of life and social participation. However, it becomes clear that this continues to apply especially to the native middle and upper classes, in particular to men. Moreover, boundaries, which previously outlined the relations to the outside world, have now been shifted to the inside. Thus, to name only an extreme example, housework in the form of a live-in is characterised by underselling those very standards which were connected with modern life, especially freedom and independence.

Justifiably the pluralisation and diversification of the modern age have, in a new way, made the recognition of diversity an important theme. The contributions in this edition, however, make clear that differentiations according to gender and ethnicity do not automatically lose their inequality-generating effect in this way. The decision, who belongs to and who is excluded from modern society, first of all, is made by its fully accepted members, second is a point of struggling for this belonging by the subaltern people. Despite the pluralisation and diversification of modern societies or, maybe, confronting it in a conservative manner, the essentialisation and naturalisation of social differentiations seem to be ongoing powerful patterns in doing gender and ethnicity while doing work.

With this special issue we aimed to have a look at how the relations of work and gender, race/ethnicity and class are configurated in different societies and in which way the modern pattern of making the difference is an important one in these configuration processes. We would like to thank Regine Bendl for inviting us to be guest editors of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion and to contribute with this issue to the international debate on diversity, inequality, and intersectionality at work and Janice Schmölzer-Rankin for some support with the translation.

Brigitte Aulenbacher and Cäcilia Innreiter-MoserGuest Editors

Note

1. In our context the following editions and contributions are helpful to overview the recent discussion: Klinger et al. (2007) and Klinger and Knapp (2008) concerning social theory and intersectionality, Wetterer (2009) reconstructing the feminist approaches in the tradition of Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Goffman's institutionalist perspective in the frame of the interpretative paradigm, for another adaption of perspectives on interactions and institutions furthermore Heintz (2007).