Introduction

This chapter presents a broad outline of the public policy context in which the topic of gender and local labour markets addressed in this book needs to be understood. It lays out our claim that while public policy has engaged very actively with the labour market in recent decades, it has not done so in ways that offer most women – especially poor or disadvantaged women – opportunities for change, achievement of their potential, or equal access to the best rewarded and most influential labour market positions.

In the opening sections of the chapter we outline some of the major structural factors affecting local labour markets in England, noting major demographic shifts and key issues of labour supply and demand, with particular reference to developments in the localities included in the GELLM study. Here our concerns are with population and workforce ageing and with changing family lives and rising demand for care, as well as with industrial restructuring and changing patterns of employment. In the second part of the chapter we give our attention to the different arenas in which policy makers have addressed local labour market issues, often with the explicit aim of influencing and shaping local economies. Here we consider policy emphases and developments relating to labour market activation, to urban regeneration and neighbourhood renewal, to skills and productivity, and to (in)equality and diversity.

Although in recent decades local labour market problems have been addressed in at least some of these ways in all the localities studied, our review emphasises that, overwhelmingly, the actions taken have used ‘gender-blind’ approaches. Without objectives specifically addressing the labour market needs or circumstances of women, local agencies have often missed key opportunities to support disadvantaged local residents in entering or progressing in the labour market, and have struggled to work together to address local problems. Usually the key focus at local level has been on tackling high rates of recorded unemployment (frequently with a focus on local youth unemployment or problems of initial labour market entry, devoting most energy to the situation of young men), or on responding to the collapse of local jobs (often in one major industry where there has been a significant loss of jobs by local men).