Female labour market adjustment processes in the UK coalfields.

This study focuses on the processes occurring in the female labour markets of coalfield areas in Great Britain. During the 1980s and 1990s these areas experienced a major loss of male employment as a result of the decline of the coal industry. The research looks at how female employment in these areas was affected by the large male labour supply released by job loss in the coal industry. Do the male and female labour markets provide one pool of labour supply in these areas or do they operate quite separately? Have women taken on a new role as breadwinners or has their traditional role at home, outside the paid labour market remained unaffected? Labour market accounts are constructed for the period 1981-91, mainly using Census data, to demonstrate the adjustment processes which have taken place in the female labour markets in the coalfields. These are compared with male labour market accounts for the same areas and also with female labour market accounts in areas with alternative experiences of employment change. Trends in economic activity and unemployment in the coalfields, among men and women, are also considered in the context of national trends. The analysis reveals that the male and female labour markets in the coalfields appear to operate more or less independently of each other. The major response to the loss of jobs for men was a reduction in labour supply as many men exited the labour market entirely into economic inactivity. Conversely, the demand for female labour increased in the coalfields and new female labour was drawn into paid employment from economic inactivity. The labour market accounts also highlight the insensitivity of conventional measures of unemployment to changing levels of labour demand.