Women's Part-Time Employment in Coventry Project

Interview tapes and transcripts, cuttings, statistics and field-work notes, 1979-81.

Research papers relating to a study carried out by Veronica Beechey and Tessa Perkins into the employment of part-time women workers in Coventry during 1979-81.

The project was intended to "examine the varieties of part-time work, and the conditions in which part-time women workers are drawn into, and expelled from, the Coventry labour market". The research involved "(i) a statistical profile of part-time women's employment in Coventry since the Second World War (as background); (ii) an investigation of the demand for part-time women workers among a sample of Coventry employers; and (iii) an investigation into the reasons why women enter into part-time employment". It would "investigate the extent of unionisation of part-time workers in the enterprises studied, and the training facilities for part-time women workers in Coventry", would "consider the effects of the Equal Pay, Sex Discrimination and Employment Protection legislation on the position of part-time women workers, and [would] make recommendations as to how the conditions of part-time women workers might be improved" [information taken from Social Science Research Council proposal form].

Sectors of employment studied included education, retailing, engineering and baking.

Reference: V. Beechey and T. Perkins, 'A matter of hours. Women, part-time work and the labour market' (Cambridge, 1987).

This collection is available to researchers by appointment at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/using/

Link to full catalogue: http://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/CVW

The material was deposited by Veronica Beechey and Tessa Perkins in 1986.