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Gender, risk and employment insecurity: The masculine breadwinner subtext

Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business in the Department of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School, ekelan{at}london.edu

The decline of the male breadwinner model goes hand in hand with an increased perception of insecurity and risk in the new economy. This article explores how the perception of and responses to risk and insecurity are influenced by gender. The article is based on interviews with male and female information communication technology (ICT) workers, and it identifies four main discourses through which they conceptualize risk. First, they draw on a discourse which normalizes risk as part of their jobs. A second discourse implicitly suggests that women are less likely to be made redundant. A third discourse is based on the assumption that becoming a breadwinner influences one's perception of risk. The topic of the final discourse is the importance of continually improving one's skills in order to remain employable and maintain one's position as a breadwinner. The discourses all assume the ideal of a neoliberal self-entrepreneurial subject. The article then discusses ageing as a factor that changes perceptions of risks and the ability to remain on top of one's game. While there is little difference in the interpretative resources men and women use to make sense of insecurity, the article shows that the subtext underlying all four discourses is that of a masculine breadwinner. The article contributes towards developing a gendered understanding of risk and insecurity through exposing the masculine subtext with which these discourses are saturated.

Key Words: discourse analysis • gender • individualization • neoliberalism • organization • technology

Human Relations, Vol. 61, No. 9, 1171-1202 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726708094909


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