Inserting Gender into Burawoy's Theory of the Labour Process

Scott Davies
Additional contact information
Scott Davies: Dept. of Sociology University of Toronto 563, Spadina Ave. Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1 CANADA

Work, Employment & Society, 1990, vol. 4, issue 3, 391-406

Abstract: This paper examines gender bias in Burawoy's influential theory of the labour process and assesses the implications of this bias. Burawoy's theory states that the structure of the labour process, via its relative autonomy and key mechanisms (shopfloor games, internal labour markets and the industrial state) `manufactures consent'. This theory is criticized for ignoring gender as an important element in the operation of consent. It is argued that (a) gender is implicitly assumed in his theory in terms of a male bias, and (b) this gender bias creates a serious limitation since it does not apply to the work conditions faced predominately by women. Discussion focuses on how an analysis of gender highlights the problem of asserting a `relative autonomy' of the labour process.

Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://wes.sagepub.com/content/4/3/391.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:4:y:1990:i:3:p:391-406

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().