New technologies and the transformations of women's labour at home and work

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the linked series of changes connecting unpaid and paid labour in the household economy and the market sector, which may be associated with the implementation of new technologies of production and the proliferation of new consumer products.

Design/methodology/approach

One historical and one contemporary example, mass production during the inter‐war period, and ready‐made meals today, are used as exemplary cases for probing changes in women's labour.

Findings

New technologies of home and work alter the relationships between work not only across the processes of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, but also across the boundaries between paid and unpaid labour and between market and non‐market work.

Originality/value

The conceptual schema of the “total social organisation of labour” is used to focus on dynamic interdependence and interaction across and between work undertaken in different socio‐economic modes.

Citation

Glucksmann, M. and Nolan, J. (2007), "New technologies and the transformations of women's labour at home and work", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 96-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150710732186