Guidelines for the Report on Equal Opportunities


 


Equality and Telework in Europe

Ursula Huws

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This report has been produced with the support of the European Commission, DG Employment and Social Affairs, under the European Social Fund (article 6). Views expressed within the report are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the European Commission.

 

Euro-Telework

Ursula Huws © November 2000

http://www.euro-telework.org

CONTENTS

0.         EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.                  INTRODUCTION

1.1 Health and safety

            1.2 Pay

            1.3 Training

            1.4 Rule systems

            1.5 Equal opportunities

            1.6 The issue of equality

1.7 Why equality matters in the context of ICT introduction

1.8 Significant dimensions of inequality

2.                  GENDER

2.1 Income disparities - differing national contexts

2.2 The gender-based income gap within EU countries

2.3 Segmentation of the workforce by gender

2.4 Differential impact of ICTs

2.5 Other structural differences

2.6 Teleworking and gender: the evidence

2.7 Issues for negotiation or regulation

3.                  DISABILITY

3.1 Is teleworking a good work solution for people with disabilities?

3.2 Issues for negotiation or regulation

4.                  RACE, ETHNICITY AND CITIZENSHIP

4.1 The relationship between teleworking and migration

4.2 Issues for negotiation or regulation

5.         AGE

5.1 Issues for negotiation or regulation

6.         REFERENCES

 

0.         EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The convergence of new information and communications technologies (ICTs), sometimes known as telematics, is facilitating enormous upheavals in the organisation of human activities in time and space.  Whilst only a minority of jobs are directly affected by this relocation - which can be called teleworking - the breakdown of the unity of time and space which underlies traditional employment contracts has general implications for collective bargaining, and could indirectly affect a much larger proportion of the workforce in relation to issues including: health and safety, pay, training, standard rule systems and equal opportunities.  This report focuses on the last of these - equal opportunities 

The report analyses the concept of equality in the context of collective bargaining and identifies several significant dimensions of inequality including:

·         Vertical segregation Whereby the most senior jobs are occupied by members of privileged groups (e.g. able-bodied white men) whilst members of disadvantaged groups are found in the lowest-grade jobs

·         Horizontal segregation  Whereby different groups are concentrated within separate sectors, departments or occupational groups. 

·         Segregation by contractual form  Whereby privileged groups monopolise 'core' jobs with permanent, full-time employee status, whilst disadvantaged groups are found disproportionately amongst temporary, casual and on-call workers and the pseudo self-employed

·         Segregation by working hours Whereby certain groups are concentrated in the least popular shift patterns or in part-time work

·         Geographical segregation  Whereby high-flying jobs with greater opportunities for advancement are based in city-centre offices whilst the more routine low-skilled low-paid jobs are relocated to peripheral regions

In the remainder of the report, the risks and benefits resulting from the introduction of teleworking are examined, taking account of the implications of this segmentation for each group. Where particular dangers are identified, positive remedies are proposed, drawing on the research and experience of the national representatives of the Euro-telework project in the fifteen EU countries and Norway in relation to discrimination on the grounds of: gender, disability, ethnicity, and age.

The main recommendations can be summarised as follows:

 

At the workplace level

·         Ensuring that teleworkers  who so wish have employee status and access to all the rights and benefits of on-site workers

·         Redesigning routine jobs to ensure some variety and inter-personal contact

·         Ensuring that payment methods for low-skilled staff are not based on crude quantitative measures

·         Ensuring that discrimination does not take place, either directly or indirectly, in the selection, training, access to promotion or career progression of teleworkers, on the grounds of gender, disability, ethnicity or age

·         Ensuring that all teleworkers have the right to return to office-based employment whenever they wish

·         Ensuring that the location of work is not regarded as a significant difference in comparisons designed to ensure equal treatment between men and women

·         Integrating telework policies with other policies designed to enhance equal opportunities or improve work/life balance

·         Workplaces to be adapted to ensure that they are fully accessible to disabled people

·         Where teleworking is freely chosen as the optimal solution, any necessary equipment or adaptations to the home to be paid for by the employer

·         Job design to be assessed for its implications for particular disabilities and, where necessary, jobs to  be redesigned and job descriptions made flexible to make them suitable for the widest possible range of applicants

·         Disability audits and disability awareness training

·         Involvement of disabled workers in development of telework policy

·         Mentoring schemes to provide initial training for newly appointed disabled staff

·         Full social integration of disabled workers

·         Provide training and software in appropriate languages

·         Encourage awareness that in an increasingly globalised economy, and with an increasingly diverse population in Europe, a diverse workforce is not simply an asset but often an essential requirement for giving good service to customers

·         Provide training geared towards the needs of older workers (in terms of content and presentation - e.g. print size)

·         Carry out skills audits to identify the hidden talents of older workers (the experience of parenting teenagers, for instance, provides excellent training for managing teleworkers!)

·         Develop mentoring and buddy systems to minimise social isolation and encourage knowledge sharing between experienced workers and new recruits

·         Encourage employers to identify the advantages of older workers - an aging European population means an aging customer base;  who better to understand and serve their needs than an older workforce?

·         Consider the development of phased retirement schemes, perhaps involving a period of telework-enabled part-time working between full employment and retirement

 

At the trade union level

·         Arrange meetings to ensure that part-time workers and shift-workers have full access to decision-making, and that they are arranged in places that are welcoming and accessible to both women and men, to people with disabilities and to people from all ethnic backgrounds

·         Research on the extent of disability amongst the existing membership and problems experienced by disabled members

·         Recruitment literature, websites and newsletters aimed at disabled workers - including presenting information in a variety of formats to ensure that neither sight-impaired nor hearing-impaired members are excluded from access

·         Campaigns to combat discrimination on the grounds of disability - including AIDS and other disabilities which may be stigmatised in certain social contexts

·         Research on the ethnic composition of the existing membership and problems experienced by members from ethnic minorities

·         Active recruitment drives to bring under-represented groups into membership including, where necessary, the appointment of organisers from ethnic minorities and the production of literature in appropriate languages

·         Campaigns to combat racism and xenophobia, and to educate the membership on the social and economic implications of globalisation

 

At the societal level

·         Equal access to training in ITC-related skills for girls and boys, men and women, including the development of training resources and courses which are easily accessible and 'woman-friendly' in terms of their language and content

·         Child-care and elder-care facilities which allow a free choice of where to work

·         Safe, accessible and affordable public transport to make it possible to travel to work for those who wish to do so

·         Housing design which takes account of the multiple activities of teleworkers

·         Transport and other facilities fully adapted for disabled people

·         Where necessary, legislation to ensure that discrimination on the grounds of disability is prohibited

·         ICT equipment and software to be provided free of charge to people with disabilities

·         Day centres and residential homes for the disabled to be adapted to provide high quality learning and working environments for users who wish to become teleworkers or take part in tele-training

·         Training initiatives to help disabled people make up for past disadvantage, and gain access to skills and knowledge to equip them to become e-workers

·         Agencies to help put disabled job-seekers in touch with potential employers

·         Active anti-discrimination policies to combat racism and xenophobia

·         Training courses, where necessary in appropriate languages, to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for access to e-work for all social groups

·         Low-cost public internet access in areas with large ethnic minority populations

·         Research and education on globalisation and its social and economic implications

·         ITC training and internet-based services targeted at older people

1.         INTRODUCTION

The convergence of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) sometimes known as telematics is facilitating enormous upheavals in the organisation of human activities in time and space. Indeed, such is the scale of these changes that there is a widespread belief that they are ushering in a new era in human history. A number of phrases have been coined in the attempt to describe this new era: adjectives or prefixes such as 'virtual', 'cyber', digital', 'electronic', 'knowledge-based', 'information', 'post-industrial', 'post-modern',  'weightless' or simply 'e-' have been attached to such familiar nouns as 'society', 'economy', 'space', 'marketplace', 'workplace' or 'home' in such a way as to suggest that almost all aspects of social and economic interaction now take place in a dematerialised form.

There are, of course, limits to the extent to which social and economic activities can be delocalised through the use of telematics. Some of those which seem likely to remain geographically fixed include the physical care of other human beings, from birth to death; the culture, processing and preparation of food; the manufacture and distribution of physical commodities; and the construction and maintenance of the physical infrastructure (ranging from building railroads to cleaning houses).

Whilst the exact proportion varies depending on the industrial structure of any given economy, it seems likely that about 30% of jobs in most developed countries are wholly or partially 'delocalisable' through the use of ICTs, whilst the remainder are largely 'fixed'. Nevertheless, the breakdown in the link between the place of work and the time of work affecting the minority of delocalisable jobs has implications for all jobs, given the common regulatory framework that prevails right across most labour markets.

Most traditional collective agreements, and most of the labour legislation in European countries, is based on the assumption that there is a unity of time and space: in other words that because (with some exceptions) 'work' is something which takes place on the employer's premises, then 'working time' is the time that is spent by the worker on that site. The employment contract therefore typically assumes that the time which is spent on those premises 'belongs' to the employer, whilst the time which is spent away from the site (again with some exceptions) 'belongs' to the worker, and can be regarded as 'leisure'. This lack of separation between space and time has a number of far-reaching implications. Here are a few examples to illustrate how traditional principles are now being challenged by the development of new forms of working supported by ICTs. 

 

1.1       Health and safety

In the past, if an accident took place on the employer's premises, it was normally deemed to be the responsibility of employer, whilst an accident elsewhere was assumed to be 'outside working hours'.

Now, increasingly, both in formal regulations and in court rulings, it is being recognised that the employer's responsibility for workers' health and safety extends beyond the traditional workplace. For example, a recent ruling in the UK established that when an injury was caused by a laptop used by a worker on an underground train in London being accidentally dropped on another passenger's toe this was the responsibility of the employer.

1.2       Pay

In the past, because most workers were assumed to be on the employer's property whilst they are working, and therefore capable of being directly supervised by their managers, the traditional method of calculating payment in Europe is a time-based one, and over the years trade unions fought long and hard to ensure that this method was preferred to alternatives, such as the payment of piece-rates which may be associated with unacceptable speed-up, stress, precariousness and other undesirable effects.

However, now, there is a marked trend in many European countries towards payment by results and away from time-based pay systems.

 

1.3       Training 

Traditionally, most induction and on-the-job training schemes were based on the idea that the new recruit can sit alongside a more experienced worker and learn directly by example and instruction, with a range of tacit skills being acquired alongside the more formal and explicit ones.

Nowadays, the downsizing of many organisations in combination with the development of multi-site working, virtual teams and teleworking have led to a crisis of training in some organisations, with implications for knowledge management and for the retention of corporate memory as well as for individual career development prospects. When the most skilled and experienced managers are externalised, there is nobody left in the office to train the new recruits.

 

1.4       Rule systems 

The typical European enterprise above a certain size has traditionally produced a staff handbook, or manual, setting out a huge number of fixed rules which are assumed to apply across the board. Whilst these leave little scope for negotiating flexibly at an individual level, they do ensure fairness. In the negotiation of such rule-systems, a formal role is opened up for trade unions to represent their members.

However, some (but not all) European countries are now seeing a trend away from standard, collectively-negotiated rule-systems towards individualised contracts, and the devolution of power to managers to negotiate customised working arrangements with individual workers. Whilst this may in some cases offer new forms of flexibility which are in the interests of workers, this development also carries with it the danger of by-passing trade unions and introducing new forms of unfairness and potential discrimination.

 

1.5       Equal opportunities

In many countries, legislation designed to minimise discrimination on the grounds of gender, marital status, race or other factors works on the principle of finding comparators. In other words, a worker who feels that he or she is being discriminated against must find another worker in a comparable situation who is being treated better in order to prove that this discrimination is actually taking place. In establishing whether the situation is genuinely comparable, the place of work is generally taken into account.

Where workers are dispersed to distant sites, such as call centres or remote back offices, or working from home, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to prove comparability with workers at head offices or on other distant sites. This may act to subvert equality of opportunity. This is not universally the case, however. In Germany the Grundgesetz sets up standards without comparisons[1].

Such examples could be multiplied. These are, it is hoped, enough to demonstrate that a shift in one variable – the location of work – has immense ramifications for all the other variables, and raises fundamental questions for trade unionists about the nature of the collective bargaining agenda in the 21st century.

 

1.6       The issue of equality

Although it sometimes sits in tension with other principles (such as liberty and fraternity) the issue of equality in its most fundamental sense underlies most of the aspirations of trade unions in democratic societies. The history of collective bargaining is a history of the assertion of such principles as 'the rate for the job', 'all for one and one for all' and  'equal pay for equal work', and an insistence that rules of fairness should apply impartially.

Underlying such principles is the implicit recognition that each worker is a unique individual, differentiated from every other by a near-infinite range of personal attributes (such as strength, height, hair colour, attractiveness to the opposite sex, accent, religious convictions, political allegiance, sporting prowess and artistic ability) combined with a belief that it is unfair for employers to treat people more or less advantageously because of these characteristics, provided they have the skills, knowledge and ability required to do the job and conform to the rules which govern the employment relationship. 

Despite this general aspiration towards fairness, however, it has undoubtedly been the case that trade unions have in the past tended to reproduce the dominant value-system of the societies of which they have been a part, and where these societies have incorporated major role divisions based on variables such as gender or race, these divisions have seemed taken-for-granted and have been reproduced in the structure of labour markets, in regulatory systems, and in collective agreements.

It is thus the case that over the years most occupations have become 'typed' as suitable for particular social categories. The most obvious division is gender: some jobs have traditionally been seen as 'feminine' whilst others have been regarded as 'masculine'. In many cases this gender division of paid labour reflects the more general division of labour found in unpaid labour in the home – for instance, jobs involving cleaning or childcare may be typed as feminine, whilst those involving heavy outdoor work, such as refuse disposal, may be typed as masculine. However this typing is undoubtedly shaped by cultural factors and varies from one national context to another. For instance, in India, the 'heavy' work of transporting building materials and digging roads is seen as a woman's job, whilst this is typed as a man's job in most of Western Europe. Gender is by no means the only significant social variable, however. Labour markets are typically differentiated across many other fault-lines, with certain jobs, for instance, being seen as only suitable for younger workers, for white people, for the fit, the physically well-built, slim people with an attractive appearance, heterosexuals or people with a certain type of accent. Those who do not conform to these criteria tend to find themselves herded into occupational ghettos with others who share their characteristics. The stereotypes are self-reinforcing, so that it comes to seem ' normal' that, for instance, office receptionists are attractive young women, street cleaners are older men from recently-migrated ethnic minorities or fire-fighters well-built young white men.

If all workers were paid the same and offered similar working conditions, it can be argued, such differences would not matter very much. It would be possible to imagine a society in which people were 'sorted' into jobs according to their social characteristics which, although it might be boring and antithetical to the fulfilment of individual aspirations, could not be described as 'unequal'. Unfortunately, however, this is not the case. The highly segmented nature of most labour markets translates in practice into different life-chances for different workers depending on their social characteristics. Insofar as these social characteristics, whatever they may be, lead to disadvantageous positioning in the labour market, they therefore constitute grounds for discrimination.

These grounds for discrimination are, however, culturally determined and vary markedly from country to country. In one country, for instance, there may be strong discrimination against certain religious groups, which may be entirely absent in another; other societies may discriminate on different grounds, for instance against homosexuals, or gypsies, or people with certain disfiguring disabilities, or the long-term unemployed or even red-heads.

Given the enormous variety of human characteristics it is clearly impossible to cover all aspects of such discrimination in a report such as this one, covering sixteen different countries each with its unique social and cultural history and demographic makeup.

Since the early 1970s (and in some cases well before this date) in most countries, a body of evidence has been built up on the particular forms of discrimination which give rise to the greatest concern. There has also in many cases been a formal recognition in law, and in some cases in collective agreements, that certain forms of discrimination or inequality are unacceptable, and procedures have been put in place for rectifying these. In some cases these have been reinforced, or superseded, by directives at the EU level. There is therefore a pre-existing context in which issues of inequality can be addressed.

In this report, the approach has been to focus on the four most widely recognised forms of inequality: gender, race (interpreted broadly to include ethnicity, skin colour, nationality and religion), age and disability. In doing so, it is necessary to emphasise that these do not constitute the only bases of inequality at work, nor are they absolute and unchanging categories. The constitution and reconstitution of social differences is a continuing process which takes different forms in different contexts and is shaped by a variety of different social actors. Trade unions themselves, whether consciously or unconsciously, play a role in this shaping process, and it is hoped that this report will contribute positively to a process whereby the development of this role will make a positive contribution to equality of opportunity for all.

 

1.7       Why equality matters in the context of ICT introduction

There is no intrinsic reason why any technology should affect one social group differently from another. We would be unlikely, for instance, to ask ourselves questions like 'How does electricity affect red-heads?' or 'How does the railway affect Catholics?' However we might find ourselves asking, 'How does voice recognition technology affect blind people?' Such a question is justified because there are grounds for believing that the group shares some special characteristic (in this case, a strong dependence on information received or transmitted audibly) that might be differentially affected, either positively or negatively, by the technology in question.

The justification for examining the equality implications of teleworking rests crucially on past patterns of discrimination which have resulted in differential positioning on the labour market. Despite many attempts in the last quarter-century to bring about greater equality in the workplace, the effect of past patterns of segmentation has been to produce labour markets in which different social groups are distributed very unevenly. This means that when new technologies come along which affect some occupations or sectors more drastically than others, the impacts, whether positive or negative, will fall disproportionately onto certain social groups.

 

1.8       Significant dimensions of inequality

Labour market segmentation takes several different forms:

·         Vertical segregation Whereby the most senior jobs are occupied by members of privileged groups (e.g. able-bodied white men) whilst members of disadvantaged groups are found in the lowest-grade jobs

·         Horizontal segregation  Whereby different groups are concentrated within separate sectors, departments or occupational groups. Examples of this might be the concentration of women in industries such as clothing manufacture or food processing, or in occupations such as typing, or the concentration of migrant workers in manual service work such as cleaning

·         Segregation by contractual form  Whereby privileged groups monopolise 'core' jobs with permanent, full-time employee status, whilst disadvantaged groups are found disproportionately in temporary, casual and on-call work and the pseudo self-employment

·         Segregation by working hours Examples of this might include disadvantaged groups being concentrated in the least popular shift patterns (e.g. ethnic minority workers working the night shift) or a concentration of women in part-time work, which may be characterised by lower levels of employment protection, fewer promotion prospects and poor training opportunities compared with full-time work

·         Geographical segregation  It appears likely that with the introduction of ICTs to enable work to be carried out remotely, we may also be seeing the emergence of a new form of segregation based on geography, with high-flying jobs with greater opportunities for advancement being based in city centre offices whilst the more routine low-skilled low-paid jobs are relocated to peripheral regions e.g. in remote call centres or back offices. The former are more likely to be held by privileged groups, and the latter by disadvantaged groups. Introducing a spatial dimension to the gender and/or ethnic division of labour introduces new obstacles to claiming parity of treatment, since most equality legislation requires a complainant to find a comparator based on the same site in order to prove discrimination

 

In the remainder of this report, the risks and benefits resulting from the introduction of teleworking will be examined, taking account of the implications of this segmentation for each group. Where particular dangers are identified, positive remedies will be proposed, drawing on the research and experience of the national representatives of the Euro-telework project in the fifteen EU countries and Norway. Although teleworking can take many different forms, we have focused here mainly on teleworking which takes place away from the employer's premises (home-based working and mobile working). This is not because we do not recognise the importance of other forms of delocalised work, such as call centre work (indeed, these are the focus of other studies within the Euro-telework project). Rather it is because it is work away from the traditional workplace which poses the greatest challenge to traditional forms of trade union negotiation.

 

Example

In Germany, many collective agreements - e.g. at Deutsche Telekom - include a paragraph entitled Benachteiligungsverbot, which prohibits discrimination.

2.         GENDER

In any discussion of inequality, it is important to avoid considering gender as a unitary category. The categories 'man' and 'woman' cover an enormous diversity of characteristics, and it would clearly be simplistic to assume that all men or all women will be affected in the same way by any new development. Women constitute over half the inhabitants of the world and encompass (as do men) an enormous and diverse range of social categories, with variations by class, by age, by ethnicity, by language, by religion, by ability, by qualification, by occupation, by whether they live in urban or rural areas, and by many other variables. No change will affect all these groups equally and for any given change, the impact on a specific individual will be affected by that person's 'place' in society as determined by all these structural variables as well as by the personal human agency which determines that individual's response to changing circumstances. Any given change will therefore be highly differentiated in its effects: some men will be advantaged while others will be disadvantaged; some women will benefit while others will be affected adversely. If women as a group are potentially affected unequally by any given change, this will be only insofar as their existing social position is unequal.

 

2.1       Income disparities - differing national contexts

In order to assess the gender impact of the introduction of the new information and communications technologies, it is therefore necessary to map the relative positions of men and women in the existing societies, and identify how each variable is likely to place them in relation to the new threats and opportunities.

One very obvious variable is income. Although the costs of the new hardware, software and communications infrastructures continue to fall in real terms, it is still relatively expensive for an individual to become a fully-functioning citizen of the knowledge society with a personal computer, access to the Internet and resources to cover the on-line costs of communication. There are significant differences between countries here: for instance, GDP per capita in Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark and Norway is over three times what it is in Greece and Portugal. This cautions us against simplistic generalisations. Although the average Norwegian woman may be poorer than the average Norwegian man, for example, she is still likely to be considerably richer than the average Greek man. 

Such differences are accentuated when combined with the sizeable differences in the costs of access to the Information Economy in different countries, including differences in the costs of hardware and software and in accessing telecommunications. For instance, according to ITU data, the cost of an annual subscription to a phone line ranges from 0.4% of annual income per head in Finland to 1.8% in Portugal[2]. These international differences must be borne in mind when looking at gender differences within EU countries.

 

2.2       The gender-based income gap within EU countries

Setting aside differences between countries, within most countries there are also great disparities of wealth, and in each case women are greatly over-represented amongst the poor. 

Net earnings for women are still on average well below those of men in all European countries, as can be seen from Table 1.

 

Table 1: Hourly earnings of women as percent of men by occupation in ECU (full-time employees) 1995. Note: 15 means EU member states' average, 11 means Eurozone average. (Source:Eurostat (1999) Eurostat Yearbook A statistical eye on Europe: Data 1987-1997)

 

15

11

B

DK

D-W

D-E

EL

E

F

IRL

I

L

NL

A

P

FIN

S

UK

Legislators and managers

66

69

73

75

69

79

65

70

68

71

74

67

62

67

75

81

79

68

Professionals

 

76

75

82

87

80

84

73

78

79

82

84

84

74

80

89

84

88

84

Technicians

 

80

79

86

80

73

80

73

83

86

84

82

88

72

73

85

78

87

73

Clerks

 

83

82

84

85

80

84

81

77

91

77

79

84

75

80

84

94

96

93

Service and sales workers

84

84

80

85

69

74

74

78

88

73

82

81

71

78

83

86

95

82

Craft & related trades

59

58

83

91

76

76

64

71

80

59

77

79

75

69

63

81

91

62

Plant & machine  ops.

75

73

79

89

79

80

76

73

80

73

75

68

68

73

73

82

95

76

Elementary occupations

86

87

84

84

81

82

95

83

87

77

84

81

76

76

83

83

89

81

Total

75

75

81

86

77

90

75

74

77

72

76

84

71

74

72

82

87

74

 

2.3       Segmentation of the workforce by gender

This disparity between men's and women's wages can be attributed to a variety of causes. One is segregation into different industries and occupations. Table 2 compares the distribution of men and women by industry across the EU as a whole. As can be seen, although there are more men than women in total in the EU (15) workforce – nearly 87 million as against just over 62 million – women predominate in the service industries, especially 'other services', whilst men are heavily concentrated in manufacturing, mining, the utilities, construction and transport, where they outnumber female workers by some three to one.

The different positions of men and women in the EU labour force become even more marked if we look at occupational differences: women predominate in clerical work, in retailing, in caring work, in cleaning and catering occupations, and in unskilled and semi-skilled assembly and packing work in the clothing, footwear, electronics and food processing sectors, while men dominate in virtually all other fields, especially in skilled manual work and in technical and managerial occupations.

Table 2: The distribution of men and women by industry across the EU as a whole. (Source: Source:  European Labour Force Survey, 1996)

 

Men

Women

Agriculture (A,B)

4,934

2,580

Mining and quarrying (C)

549

63

Manufacturing (D)

21,906

8,773

Electricity, gas and water supply (E)

1,037

242

Construction (F)

10,674

1,034

Total industry(C-F)

34,166

10,112

Wholesale and retail trade, repairs(G)

12,291

10,245

Hotels and restaurants (H)

2,804

3,099

Transport and communication (1)

6,783

2,073

Financial intermediation (J)

2,681

2,445

Real estate and business activities(K)

5,936

4,819

Public administration (L)

6,704

4,653

Other services (M. N,O,P,Q)

10,262

21,997

 

2.4       Differential impact of ICTs

When information technologies are introduced, the effects differ greatly from occupation to occupation. In some cases, it is men's jobs which are adversely affected: for instance, the decline in the traditional 'heavy' extractive and metal-based manufacturing industries in developed economies has created a fall in demand for the sorts of manual work involving physical strength and endurance in which the traditional male labour aristocracy has been found.

Men made redundant from industries like mining, steel production or ship-building have, by and large, been difficult to reabsorb into the new service industries which tend to require quite different skills, including social skills and keyboard skills, both of which are more likely to be found among women. Indeed, it could be argued that in some cultural contexts, such as the mining and ship-building communities in the UK, the decline of heavy industry in Europe has produced a crisis of masculinity for a generation brought up to believe that being a 'real man' involves exercising physical strength and courage to earn a wage with which to support a dependant wife and children.

It is certainly the case that for many policymakers, the problem of unemployment is perceived primarily as the problem of the unskilled or semi-skilled male manual worker, whether this is an older man made redundant from the declining manufacturing or extractive sector, or a young one leaving education with insufficient or inappropriate qualifications. It must be remembered, though, that for other groups of men – those in white-collar technical and managerial occupations – the new technologies have often presented new opportunities rather than threats.

There have been similar disparities amongst women workers. While some jobs in manufacturing have disappeared, others have been created, albeit in a more precarious global market than before. Clerical work has been at the heart of the restructuring brought about by the introduction of new information and communications technologies. Many clerical jobs have been deskilled or reskilled, and some have disappeared while others have been created. By contrast, the minority of women who have had a chance to upskill themselves have discovered unprecedented new opportunities.

Occupational segregation, therefore, plays a clear role in positioning some men, and some women, differentially in relation to the introduction of teleworking.

 

2.5       Other structural differences

Another structural factor which differentiates the workforce by gender is working hours: women are much more likely to be in part-time employment than men, with over 30% of women in the EU workforce working in this way, compared with less than 5% of men. This varies from country to country – in Finland, for instance, only 15% of women and 6% of men work part-time[3]. Nevertheless, in general this does not just mean that women are likely to earn less during their working lives; it also means that even when they receive a pension in their own right, they receive lower pensions and are more likely to be in poverty in old age. Women are also more likely to be sole parents than men – another group which is disproportionately to be found amongst the very poor. 

The nature of social protection systems also plays a segregatory role in many countries. Where levels of unemployment benefit are linked to past earnings (as in Germany, for instance), benefits will tend to be lower for women because they are more likely to have been in low-paid occupations when they were in work. Where benefits are means-tested (as in the UK), this is often based on the total household income, rather than that of the unemployed individual. In such cases, women who live with male partners are often denied any benefit income in their own right. All these factors taken together mean that women are much more likely to be living in poverty than men, and are thus less likely to be able to afford the cost of entry to the knowledge society[4]. The individually-based systems found in the Nordic countries tend to produce a greater degree of equality between men and women.

A second prerequisite for full participation in the knowledge society is leisure: at least enough leisure to acquire the requisite skills, access information and reflect upon it. Here, too, women are more likely to be at a disadvantage than men. Because they usually carry out a much higher proportion of the unpaid domestic work (including care work) than men, women typically have much less free time[5]. Certainly there are fewer women than men with the freedom to spend their evenings browsing the net.

A third area where men and women are distributed unequally is education. There is a continuing asymmetry in subject choice in most European educational institutions, whereby girls are more likely to be channelled towards the arts, the humanities and modern languages, while boys are directed towards scientific and technical subjects. As a result, the scientific and technical occupations concerned with the design, development, installation and management of the new information and communications systems are heavily dominated by men. Indeed, the EU Task Force on Human Resources, Education, Training and Youth when evaluating the impact of the major EU education and programmes, found that 'the net effect of the programmes was to widen the gap between men's and women's skills.' Women participated in typically female areas such as languages (81% in language subjects of ERASMUS) and in school-based exchanges such as PETRA (about 50%) but were scarcely found in the more technologically-based programmes of FORCE (19%) and COMETT (15-34% depending on the action) and in engineering subjects of ERASMUS (17%)[6].

It must be emphasised that whilst all these patterns exist to some degree across Europe, they differ strongly from country to country. The transition to an information economy must therefore be set against a strongly differentiated background, where 'men' and 'women' cannot be seen as homogenous categories, but must be studied in the specificity of their situations, in which occupational and regional variables play a major role. It is this differentiated background which forms the context in which the impact of teleworking on men, and on women, must be set.

 

2.6       Teleworking and gender: the evidence

If we take a broad definition of teleworking, including all forms of work carried out at a distance using ICTs to process and transmit information, we have to admit that there is very little evidence currently available as to its extent, or the characteristics of the workers involved, although it is hoped that this will be remedied, at least in part, as a result of work currently being carried out[7].

Most of the research on teleworking and gender has been carried out in relation to home-based teleworking, and it is on this aspect that we will focus here.  

Before examining the evidence on gender and teleworking, it is worth pointing out that the distribution of teleworking varies considerably between different European countries, as can be seen from Figure 1.


 


Fig. 1: % of workforce teleworking in Europe:  estimates from EcaTT Survey

 

The EcaTT survey, on which Figure 1 is based, uses a fairly small sample size and a rather loose definition of teleworking, so these results should be treated with some caution. Indeed they contrast strongly with the results of earlier surveys by other researchers, and by the same team which found much higher levels of teleworking in the UK than in Germany, France or Italy. They do, however, correspond reasonably closely with the results of the UK Labour Force Survey which has been tracking home-based teleworking with some precision since 1997. This shows that the numbers of teleworkers working at least one day per week at or from their homes, using a computer with a telecommunications link to the employer or client, has grown from 0.9 million in 1997 to 1.1 million in 1998, 1.3 million in 1999, and 1.5 million in 2000 so that teleworkers now constitute around 5.5% of the UK workforce.  There are, however, some discrepancies in relation to other countries. In Finland, the 1997 Quality of Working Life Survey found that 9% of the working population had agreed with their employer to work at least some working hours at home[8] (considerably less than the 15% estimated by the EcaTT study). Table 3 shows a breakdown of these teleworkers by age and gender.

 

Table 3:  Teleworking by age and gender in Finland, 1997

 
 
 (Source:  Quality of Working Life Survey, Statistics Finland, 1997, taken from data published in Lehto, A-M & Sutela, H, Gender Equality in Working Life, Statistics Finland, 1999)

 

Age

All

Men

Women

15-24

4

7

2

25-34

5

7

3

35-44

5

7

3

45-54

4

6

2

55-64

3

4

3

 

In Germany too, there are considerable disparities: the Fraunehofer IAO estimated that there were 750,000 teleworkers in Germany in 1998 as against the 2,132,000 claimed by EcaTT the following year.

Whatever the exact percentage in each country, it is clear that there are national variations in the patterns of teleworking. I have speculated elsewhere[9] that these may be linked to a number of factors, including affordable access to the technology, the national type of welfare regime, the regulatory climate, the prevailing workplace culture and the degree of urbanisation. It seems possible, however, that despite these differing levels of home-based teleworking, the gender structure may be surprisingly similar between countries.[10]

According to Empirica, who carried out the EcaTT survey, despite making up 46% of the total EU workforce, women make up only 19% of 'regular' teleworkers and 38% of 'supplementary' teleworkers. 'Supplementary' teleworkers are here defined as those who work from home less than one day per week, whilst 'regular' teleworkers comprise three overlapping categories: home-based teleworkers, mobile teleworkers, and telework by self-employed people in SoHos. 

This over-representation of men among teleworkers is echoed in the results of the UK Labour Force Survey which, in 1999, found that men made up 69% of teleworkers, although they constitute only 56% of the total workforce. In Finland, too, there is a gender difference:  8% of the female workforce are estimated to be teleworking, compared with 11% of working men[11]. Table 4 shows the breakdown of the UK teleworking workforce by gender and occupation, and suggests that occupational segregation may provide the explanation for this:  the occupations in which teleworking is most likely to be found are managerial, technical and professional ones, and they are also likely to be male-dominated.

 

Table 4: Teleworking in the UK, by gender and occupation. (Source:  Labour Force Survey, UK, 1999)

 

Men

Women

Managers and administrators

238,972

96,180

Professional occupations

215,816

71,273

Associate prof & tech occupations

156,408

78,170

Clerical, secretarial occupations

20,779

81,948

Craft and related occupations

158,507

6,399

Personal,protective occupations

12,991

8,359

Sales occupations

68,596

24,280

Plant and machine operatives

17,845

2,001

Other occupations

5,747

3,378

 

Women predominate amongst clerical teleworkers, but this category accounts for a fairly small proportion of all teleworkers.

In Austria, it is estimated that between 22,000 and 52,000 workers (depending on the definition) are teleworking, of whom approximately half are self-employed and three quarters are male[12].

Further investigation, however, shows that there are significant gender differences in the pattern of work location. If those who work at home are separated from those who work from home in the UK statistics, it becomes clear that whilst men predominate amongst the nomadic teleworkers who use their homes as a base, women predominate amongst those who use their homes as a fixed workplace, as can be seen from Table 5.

 

Table 5:  Work location of UK teleworkers by gender. (Source:  UK Labour Force Survey, 1998)

 

 

All

Men

Women

Work at home

23%

15%

41%

Work from home

51%

59%

33%

 

A study in the Spanish districts of Castilla and León found that in a context of fairly low uptake of ICTs, the majority of new home-based activities were carried out by the self-employed. Teleworking women fell into two groups: a limited group which was relatively highly educated and high-earning, working in new ICT sectors, including both employees and the self-employed, and a much larger group of low-paid self-employed women in more traditional occupations such as clerical work, translation and journalism[13].

These results suggest that women teleworkers are more likely to be in socially isolated situations than male teleworkers. The UK Labour Force Survey also makes it possible to draw some correlations between homeworking and earnings, the results of which can be seen in Table 6. It should be noted, however, that such analyses are based on a fairly small sub-sample of the Survey, and should therefore be treated with some caution. This analysis, carried out at the University of Leicester, suggests that women who work mainly at home have a much higher incidence of low pay than female employees more generally. However this incidence falls dramatically amongst those who work 'partially' at home and 'sometimes' at home. By contrast, men who work from home are slightly less likely (at 8%) to be low-paid than men in the workforce as a whole (9%). Working at home therefore seems to accentuate the wage polarisation which already exists elsewhere. It seems likely that women who work partially at home and partially elsewhere form part of a privileged minority which has succeeded in entering relatively desegregated professional and executive occupations on a more or less equal basis with men.

As we saw in Figure 5, in general, the occupational profile of teleworkers is biased towards professional, technical and managerial occupations and, in accordance with this profile, to be highly educated. Whilst only 27% of the total UK workforce has achieved a graduate degree, 47% of teleworkers are graduates, whilst 11% have postgraduate degrees, compared with only 5% of all those in employment.

 

Table 6:  Incidence of low pay in the UK by gender (Source:  UK Labour Force Survey analysed by University of Leicester; adapted from Felstead, A., Jewson, N., Phizacklea, A & Walters, S., A Statistical Portrait of Working at Home in the UK:  Evidence From the Labour Force Survey, ESSRC Future of Work Programme, Working Paper No 4, 2000)

%

Mainly at home

Partially at home

Sometimes at home

Employed workforce

Women

32.4

3.6

5.1

18.8

Men

8.2

5.8

2.7

9.1

 

A similar picture can be found in Finland, where 'the largest group of people doing teleworking according to their own reporting were male upper white-collar employees with a high level of education and working in management, research and planning jobs'[14]. The same report also notes that the degree of interest in teleworking rises sharply with the level of education. Among upper white-collar employees in management positions, women (at 49%) are even more interested in teleworking than men (at 35%). 

This finding is echoed in Luxembourg, where 39% of women expressed themselves as 'very positive' about teleworking, compared with only 33% of men. It is interesting, however, that in this study women were also more likely to have negative attitudes, and only 28% expected to become teleworkers in the future compared with 33% of men. Here, too, interest in telework increased sharply with the level of education, reaching 55% in the highest qualification category[15].

Because of this profile, it is tempting to regard all teleworkers as privileged, and therefore not requiring protection. This would be a mistake: the UK evidence suggests that home-based women may represent a very vulnerable minority of the workforce needing special measures to ensure that they are adequately protected. It is likely, however, that this problem may not exist in all countries. In particular, evidence suggests that the existence of such an 'underclass' of highly exploited women homeworkers may be the product of a conjuncture of factors including a means-tested benefit system which creates 'poverty traps' and 'unemployment traps' for low-income households, especially those with no children, a household-based benefit system, the lack (until very recently) of minimum wage legislation, and poor public provision of childcare and other facilities which make it possible to access employment outside the home[16].  It is arguable that this combination has historically created particular difficulties in the UK with its comparatively unregulated labour market. 

Low-paid homeworking is not unique to Britain, however. The work of the Homenet project has shown that it exists on a substantial scale in the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece[17]. In France, this form of work has been studied by Monique Haicault[18].

A recent study in the Netherlands carried out by the Dutch trade union FNV Bondgenoten found that the 'traditional' homeworker still occupies a very vulnerable position on the labour market, with the majority earning below the minimum wage and having received no increase in wages since 1992. Ninety per cent are women and 90% have no labour contract. This compares with only 5% of women amongst those who work partly at home and partly in the office[19].

In Germany, tele-homework developed in the late 1970s as a form of piece-work, poorly paid and mainly carried out by women, much of it involving data entry. Such forms of work appear to be dying out, being regarded as unacceptably exploitative and leading to social isolation. However, in Germany it is still considered that women as teleworkers need special protection because they mostly have to combine paid work with housework, childcare and other types of caring work which can lead to burn-out, working at night and other harmful stresses[20].

It is sometimes argued that 'traditional' forms of homeworking, involving manual work carried out mainly by women paid on piece-rates, has nothing in common with 'new' teleworking. However, empirical research demonstrates that it is impossible to draw a sharp line between the two forms. There is a continuum between 'manual' assembly and packing tasks involving non-paper based goods, paper-based tasks such as stuffing envelopes, or packing greeting cards, and from these to such paper-based 'clerical' tasks as addressing envelopes by hand or with a mechanical typewriter, and from these to their digitised equivalents – typing, type-setting and data entry.

From these, it is a short step to more sophisticated keyboard tasks, such as desk-top publishing, editing, designing web-sites or writing simple programmes, for instance for setting up spreadsheet or database applications. Another short step takes one to computer programming, technical authorship or systems design. Voice-based applications form a similar spectrum. At one extreme is simple telephone-answering or providing basic information by telephone;  at the other extreme is complex telephone counselling, advanced technical support or high-level tele-marketing. In between are countless tele-sales or other 'virtual call centre' functions. 

Some researchers, for instance Monika Goldmann and Godrun Richter in their study of home-based typesetters in Dortmund, have focused on the borderline between these two forms of work, and demonstrated that women have ended up opting for these forms of teleworking as a result of having to make difficult choices between the conflicting demands of work and of parenting[21].

The UK Teleworking in Britain survey also found sharp contrasts between the situations of male and female teleworkers depending on their occupation. Table 1 illustrates this by comparing two female-dominated occupations (data entry and secretarial work) with two male-dominated ones (engineering and financial services) and one 'mixed' occupation (translation - which was the only activity in the survey equally likely to be carried out by men and women).

 

Table 7:  Home-based telemediated work and gender:  selected occupations. (Source: Analytica, 1993)

Occupation

% women

% time spent in the home

Typical employment status

Data entry

96

93

pseudo self-employed

Secretarial

94

70

pseudo self-employed

Engineering

1

1

employee

Financial services

16

15

employee

Translation

50

96

genuine self-employed

 

This demonstrates that the occupations in which women are concentrated are also those which are most likely to be characterised by lack of employee status (which is in turn associated with precariousness, lower pay and a lack of access to training and benefits), while those in which men form the majority typically carry employee status and full integration into the corporate culture and the benefits which accompany this. Furthermore, it is in the former, female-dominated, category that the work is carried out almost exclusively in the home, and is thus likely to be associated with social isolation. The male-dominated occupations, although based at home, involve visits to clients' premises and to the employer's offices and are therefore much more gregarious in nature. 

Because home-based translation is comprised equally of men and women, this group was chosen for a Europe-wide survey of teleworkers designed to explore gender differences while controlling for occupational differences[22]. The results of this survey confirmed the view that differences in labour market behaviour between men and women are not intrinsic, but are strongly influenced by their position in that labour market. In this sample group, many of the differences between men and women found in other surveys of teleworkers all but disappeared. For instance, women were just as likely as men to have a separate room in which to work and there were a number of men who defined themselves as the secondary earners in their households and who took on a major share of the responsibility for housework and child-care. These results imply that occupational segregation is a major cause of the relative disadvantage experienced by women who are teleworkers. However, the survey also confirmed the relative disadvantage of male translators as compared with other male workers.

Virtually all the translators in this survey suffered from stress caused by the insecurity of their employment and experienced periods without work, and therefore without income. Most also had to work very long and anti-social hours in order to meet deadlines during the periods when they were in employment, with work encroaching into family and leisure time. In other words, the results suggest that although women benefit to some extent from sharing their occupational status with men, the price paid by men for entering a mixed occupation is high in terms of precariousness and social isolation;  they have, in effect, become 'feminised' in their relation to the labour market.

Such examples warn us of the danger of adopting simplistic 'one size fits all' solutions to the regulation of teleworking. It may well be that special safeguards will need to be adopted in agreements covering certain occupational groups, or sectors.

 

2.7       Issues for negotiation or regulation

In order to ensure that the development of teleworking enhances equality of opportunity between men and women, the following points should be borne in mind.

1.       In companies or sectors where there is evidence that teleworking is a 'perk' mainly available to men in higher-level occupations:

·         provided that the job is suitable for remote working, the opportunity to work from home should be offered equally to all occupational groups and grades of staff. However this should be a freely available option, and nobody should be discriminated against either for selecting or for rejecting this option

·         this could be combined with other initiatives designed to break down occupational segregation between men and women, e.g. initiatives to encourage women to train for posts in which they are under-represented

·         audit the 'male' occupations for features which indirectly discriminate against women, and investigate the scope for job redesign (which might, incidentally, also benefit many male workers). Examples of this might be introducing measures which make it possible for nomadic workers to work shorter or more predictable hours to make it easier to achieve a good work/life balance, or combining tasks in new ways to achieve a different balance between 'fixed' and 'mobile' activities

 

2.       In companies or sectors where home-based-jobs are of a routine and repetitive nature, and there is a likelihood that they are mainly carried out by women:

·         ensure that teleworkers have employee status and access to all the rights and benefits of on-site workers, including access to training, promotion and the chance to apply for office-based work'

·         redesign jobs to ensure some variety and inter-personal contact, perhaps by stipulating a minimum amount of time spent on site with other workers. The ideal arrangement is one which ensures that the teleworker feels part of the organisation and remains involved with colleagues. The amount of time required for this may vary from individual to individual and from job to job

·         ensure that payment methods are not based on crude quantitative measures (e.g. piece-rates) which are likely to cause stress as workers struggle to maximise their productivity in order to achieve acceptable levels of income. There are several possible alternatives including time-based payment, some forms of payment by objective, and trust-based management

 

3.       In all companies and sectors where teleworking takes place:

·         ensure that discrimination does not take place, either directly or indirectly, in the selection of teleworkers, the training of teleworkers, access to promotion or career progression

·         ensure that all teleworkers have the right to return to office-based employment whenever they wish, for instance if their domestic circumstances change

·         ensure that the location of work is not regarded as a significant difference in comparisons designed to ensure equal treatment between men and women

·         integrate the teleworking policy with other policies designed to enhance equal opportunities or improve work/life balance, including leave provision (e.g. maternity/paternity leave, care leave, and term-time-only working)

 

4.       At the societal level:

·         equal access to training in ITC-related skills for girls and boys, and men and women, including the development of training resources and courses which are easily accessible and 'woman-friendly' in terms of their language and content

·         child-care and elder-care facilities which allow a free choice in where to work

·         safe, accessible and affordable public transport to make it possible to travel to work for those who wish to do so

·         housing design which takes account of the multiple activities of teleworkers

 

 

Example

The collective agreement covering the Florence-based 'Answers Company - the first example of a virtual call centre in Italy - includes special provisions for 'atypical workers' including people with disabilities and women with childcare responsibilities

3.         DISABILITY

It is only comparatively recently, in most European countries, that serious attention has been paid to discrimination on the grounds of disability. For instance in the UK, the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) is only now being implemented, in a series of stages. 

As a result, there is very little information about the extent of discrimination against people with disabilities in the workforce, or the distribution of disabled people in terms of occupation, sector or earning power. There are also considerable problems of definition. In the UK, for instance, before the advent of the DDA, disability was defined in relation to limitations on the ability to work. Using this definition, there were some 85,000 disabled people employed in the UK in 1999. Using the DDA definition, which focuses less exclusively on work-related abilities, 92,000 workers were defined as disabled. However, a number of workers defined as disabled under one definition were categorised as able-bodied under the other. When those defined as disabled under either definition were put together, the total rose to 122,500. People in this combined group constitute both 5% the workforce and 5% of teleworkers. There is thus no evidence that disability plays either a positive or a negative role in selection for teleworking. However, disabled people (using the same definition) make up no less than 11% of the unemployed[23] in the UK. This suggests that there may well be considerable discrimination against the disabled by employers, at least in Britain.

Many countries have legislation, such as the German Schwerbehindertengersetz, which stipulates that employers over a certain size must ensure that a given percentage of their employees are disabled. Unfortunately, such laws are rarely obeyed, and employers generally prefer to risk paying a fine than to take their commitments seriously.

 


Fig.2: Types of disability in the UK workforce (Source:  UK Labour Force Survey, 1999)

 

 


Figure 2 shows the distribution of different types of disability in the UK workforce. As can be seen, the most common types of disability are those relating to respiration, back and neck problems and circulatory problems. These are mainly disabilities acquired relatively late in life by people who have already been educated and acquired work experience. Indeed, many may be the direct result of working in unsafe conditions. Some such workers may well be interested in the opportunity to telework as a means of remaining economically active. There is research[24] which suggests, however, that people who are disabled from childhood are often excluded from the opportunity to acquire the basic skills and experience to enable them to enter the workforce. This may also make it difficult for them to take up telework.

 

3.1       Is teleworking a good work solution for people with disabilities?

It is almost a commonplace of the literature on ICTs that one of the greatest potential benefits of the new technologies is their ability to transcend the physical barriers to working created by disabilities and to enable disabled people to enter the workforce. The technologies overcome these barriers in a number of ways, including:

·         the capability to translate visual symbols into sound and vice versa have made it possible for people with sight and hearing disorders to communicate effectively

·         the digitisation of many activities which formerly involved the physical handling of materials (ranging from cloth to metal type) have reduced the importance of physical strength, dexterity and mobility for carrying out a wide range of tasks, and thus opened them up to a broader range of people

·         the potential for teleworking has reduced the need for physical travel to the place of work

 

These undoubted benefits have led many commentators to suppose that teleworking, in combination with suitable equipment and software, provides the ideal employment solution for disabled people. This assumption is a dangerous one, which should be challenged for several reasons.

Firstly, it places all disabled people into a single category. In fact, as Figure 8  showed, there are many different dimensions to disability, and disabled people are spread across an enormous and diverse range of social categories. It is a mistake to imagine that there could be any universal panacea for all the difficulties they face. Indeed, a solution to the problems of one disabled person might make life more difficult for another.

Research on the employment needs of people with severe disabilities[25] has shown that people who have been housebound by a disability for most of their lives often have a very strong requirement to get away from the home. Indeed, the primary reasons for seeking employment are not a financial ones, but include wanting to be seen to be a fully contributing member of society, making new friends, seeing new places, or 'escaping the prison of these four walls'. For people in this category, teleworking means being 'out of sight, out of mind' and serves to exacerbate existing problems, not solve them.  

People in this category – those who have been disabled since childhood – also frequently lack the basic skills required to access new information technology as well as job-specific skills and knowledge and work experience. It may be particularly important for them to have the opportunity to learn in a social environment where they can absorb tacit skills as well as acquiring formal qualifications.

Teleworking schemes introduced by employers for disabled people also run the risk of being seen as cheap alternatives to adapting the workplace. Many disabled people actually feel that their visible presence in the workplace makes a positive contribution towards countering prejudice against disabled people. Anything which perpetuates their invisibility can thus be regarded as negative.

Having said that, it is also apparent that there are some circumstances in which teleworking opens up positive new options for disabled people. This applies particularly to people who have developed disabilities later in life, after they have already acquired their qualifications and competencies and have built up a secure identity in their chosen field of work. Examples of this might be people who have developed conditions such as multiple sclerosis which cause unpredictable energy patterns, including a frequent need to rest;  people with back injuries; people with severe allergies; and people with certain mental illnesses, such as phobias. In several countries, such as Austria, special teleworking schemes have been set up aimed at creating employment for the disabled[26].

The conclusion which must be drawn is that the principle that teleworking should be a freely chosen option applies even more forcibly in the case of people with disabilities than in other situations.

 

Example

The Leonard Cheshire Foundation in the UK has developed Workability, a scheme which provides remote training in IT and Internet skills for disabled people in their own homes.

 

3.2       Issues for negotiation or regulation

In order to ensure that the development of teleworking creates positive new opportunities for disabled people and minimises discrimination against them, the following points should be borne in mind.

1.       At the company or sectoral level:

·         workplaces should be adapted to ensure that they are fully accessible. Where necessary, other facilities, such as rest rooms, should be introduced to ensure a disability-friendly environment

·         where teleworking is freely chosen as the optimal solution, any necessary equipment or adaptations to the home to be paid for by the employer

·         job design should be assessed for its implications for particular disabilities, and where necessary jobs should be redesigned and job descriptions made flexible to make them suitable for the widest possible range of applicants; for instance, a requirement to deal with telephone enquiries could be altered to dealing with email enquiries to make it suitable for a deaf worker. Working hours requirements should be flexible enough to allow workers to take frequent rests if they need to do so

·         all staff should be trained in disability awareness and audits carried out to identify the range of disabilities in the existing workforce, those which appear to have been excluded, and the barriers which currently exist. Research should be carried out on the availability of equipment and software to overcome any problems currently experienced

·         teleworking should be investigated as an option in the context of the expressed wishes of disabled workers on the subject

·         mentoring schemes and other initiatives should be developed to provide initial training for newly appointed disabled staff with no previous working experience

·         where disabled staff are working from home, special attempts should be made to ensure their full social integration. These might include regular meetings, newsletters, buddy systems, video-conferencing links and other initiatives

 

2.       At the societal level:

·         transport and other facilities fully adapted for disabled people to minimise physical barriers to full participation, and ensure that where teleworking is selected, this results from a genuine exercise of choice

·         where necessary, legislation to ensure that discrimination on the grounds of disability is prohibited

·         ICT equipment and software, suitably adapted where necessary, to be provided free of charge to people with disabilities

·         day centres and residential homes for the disabled to be adapted to provide high quality learning and working environments for users who wish to become teleworkers or take part in tele-training

·         training initiatives to help disabled people make up for past disadvantage, and gain access to skills and knowledge to equip them to become e-workers

·         Agencies to help put disabled job-seekers in touch with potential employers

 

3.       At the trade union level:

·         research on the extent of disability amongst the existing membership and problems experienced by disabled members

·         meetings and conferences should be organised in such a way that disabled members can participate fully in decision-making

·         recruitment literature, websites and newsletters aimed at disabled workers, including presenting information in a variety of formats to ensure that neither sight-impaired nor hearing-impaired members are excluded from access

·         campaigns to combat discrimination on the grounds of disability, including AIDS and other disabilities which may be stigmatised in certain social contexts

 

Example

A disability organisation in the Netherlands, HTA, has set up a skills register and a call centre which to create employment for visually impaired people.


4.         RACE, ETHNICITY AND CITIZENSHIP

The population of Europe is made up of many different races, nationalities and creeds, and is rapidly becoming even more ethnically diverse than it has been in the past. According to the Economist in May, 2000

'As the EU's economies thrive and its populations age, they are turning increasingly to foreigners. In order to keep its working population stable between now and 2050, at current birth and death rates, Germany would need to import 487,000 migrants a year, according to a recent report by the United Nations Population Division. France would need 109,000 and the European Union as a whole 1.6 million. To keep the ratio of workers to pensioners stable, the flow would need to swell to 3.6 million a year in Germany, 1.8 million a year in France and a staggering 13.5 million in the EU as a whole.'  [27]

Despite falling unemployment and the fact that non-white immigrants generally end up doing the kinds of work which indigenous white workers reject, prejudice against refugee and migrant workers and ethnic minorities is on the increase throughout Europe, and racism has become an important issue on the political and trade union agendas in most EU member states.

It is difficult to obtain accurate data on the ethnic composition of the European workforce as a whole. However detailed studies have been carried out in some countries.

In Greece, according to data from the Labour Force Employment Organisation (OAED), the majority of immigrants appear to be unskilled, to be employed mainly in the agricultural sector, and to have a medium level of education; their main country of origin is Albania, which accounts for 65% of 352,632 applications for residence permits. The data also indicate that the vast majority of foreign workers are men..

With regard to skill, 23% are unskilled manual workers or small-scale professional workers. Seven per cent work as skilled technicians, and 4% say  that they work as skilled fishermen, farmers and stock breeders. On the basis of skill during their last period of employment, most immigrants are concentrated in a narrow spectrum of occupations, most of which form part of the hidden economy, with all that that entails for conditions of insurance and employment. It should be noted that 58% of all immigrants (i.e. 205,462), avoided stating their occupation. This can most probably be explained by the impermanent, occasional and informal character of their various types of employment.

The sectors of economic activity where most immigrants are concentrated are the construction, textile and ready-to-wear clothing industries, hotels and restaurants, domestic work and agriculture. The fact that there is a significant level of undeclared economic activity in these sectors impedes legalisation procedures, since it is quite difficult to obtain official evidence on the basis of an immigrant's most recent job. Efforts to find cheap, uninsured labour are widespread in Greek society, and this is of decisive importance in the exploitation of foreign workers.

The number of economic immigrants in Greece who have submitted an application for a White Card work permit to local OAED offices is around 373,000, of whom about 300,000 have been registered and insured under the insurance funds. Of them, 190,000 have obtained a Social Insurance Foundation (IKA) insurance stamp card, 90,000 have declared themselves agricultural workers and have been insured under the Agriculture Insurance Organisation (OGA), and 20,000 have been registered with the Small Businesses and Trades Insurance Fund (TEVE) as self-employed persons. In comparison, to date only 20,000 foreign workers have obtained Green Card work permits (which are issued on the basis of evidence of employment and are renewable) from the OAED.

Although no studies have been carried out relating teleworking to immigration, it is fairly safe to conclude economic immigrants are excluded from the society of new technologies and information. Their level of education, financial situation, terms and conditions of work, as well as their occupations, skills and the sectors of economic activity in which they are employed practically rule out the possibility of linking teleworking with this specific category of workers in Greece.[28]

In the Netherlands, the non-native population also has an unfavourable position on the labour market. However, there is a difference between western and non-western non-natives: natives and western non-natives have a better position than non-western non-natives; the participation rate of the native population is 64%, of western non-natives 60%, but of non-western non-natives only 44%; and the unemployment rate of non-western non-natives is 16%, of western non-natives 6%, and of the native population 4% (1998).

Education is an important factor. Highly educated non-western non-natives have a better position on the labour market than low-educated non-western non-natives. The net participation rate of non-western non-natives with at best junior general secondary or pre-vocational education is 34% (1998), and of those who have finished vocational college or university 67%.[29]

In Finland, too, unemployment is much more likely amongst immigrant groups, standing at 36% across all immigrants and rising to over 70% amongst Somalis.[30]

 

Table 8:  Unemployment in the UK by ethnicity (Source: UK Labour Force Survey, 1999)

Ethnic group

Unemployment rate (%)

White

6.32

Black - Caribbean

11.84

Black - African

12.86

Black - Other Black groups

9.53

Indian

7.06

Pakistani

8.09

Bangladeshi

9.59

Chinese

10.21

Other

9.88

All

6.53

 

In the UK, the Labour Force Survey includes an ethnic breakdown. Table 8 shows the differences in unemployment by ethnicity. As can be seen, black Africans and black Caribbeans are twice as likely as white people to be unemployed, and the rate of unemployment is above average in all other ethnic minorities.

This survey also makes it possible to see the ethnic composition of the teleworking workforce. This is shown in Table 9, which presents the data on all workers who work from home using a computer and a telephone link to the employer or client at least one day a week in their main job. This demonstrates that white people are much more likely to become teleworkers than people of other origins. In view of the fact, noted earlier, that teleworking is most likely to be found amongst higher-grade white-collar workers in positions of trust, this reflects the relatively underprivileged position of most non-white people in the UK workforce. 

 

Table 9: Teleworking and ethnicity in the UK (Source:  UK Labour Force Survey, 1999)

Ethnic group

Percentage teleworking

White

4.45

Black - Caribbean

2.73

Black - African

1.75

Black - Other Black groups

2.07

Indian

3.36

Pakistani

1.45

Bangladeshi

0

Chinese

2.16

Other

3.28

All

4.32

 

Little research has been carried out to establish the reasons for this under-representation, which is odd given that electronic communication actually diminishes the visibility of ethnic difference: on the Internet, one has no colour or gender,  one is neither tall nor short, beautiful nor ugly, and self-presentation is denuded of all external signifiers and reduced only to words. It seems likely that it stems from a combination of factors including:

·         employer prejudice (including prejudice based on accent)

·         relatively poor housing and/or lack of space for teleworking

·         lack of access to skills, equipment and infrastructure

·         lack of training or software in suitable languages

 

4.1       The relationship between teleworking and migration

If we move beyond home-based teleworking and examine the more general delocalisation of work which is enabled by ICTs, we find that a number of contentious issues are raised. At the centre of the dilemma stands the – essentially political – question:  should the new technologies be used to move the jobs to the people or the people to the jobs? In recent years, large numbers of young software engineers have been encouraged to come to Europe from India to help meet skill shortages in the IT industries. In Finland, where many are employed by Nokia, they are typically employed on 1-3-year fixed-term contracts; [31] in the UK, they may be employed by Indian subcontractors, in the practice known as 'body shopping'. [32]

The recent outcry about the German government's decision to issue work permits to Indian software engineers illustrates the dilemma graphically. It may be argued that opposition to such a development represents a dangerous form of racism which should be resisted by trade unions who should therefore encourage such immigration. However, it could also be argued that the local economy will benefit if these skilled workers remain in India where there is a greater likelihood of technology transfer, and their foreign currency earnings will be spent on the purchase of locally-produced goods and services in a process which will boost economic development and benefit the poorer strata of Indian society. A deeper analysis might question the balance of power between employers and workers in a world where capital and information can pass freely across national frontiers, but the physical movements of people are tightly restricted. It is clear that there is an urgent need for informed debate on such issues throughout the European trade union movement.

 

4.2       Issues for negotiation or regulation

In order to ensure that the development of teleworking creates positive new opportunities for disabled people and minimises discrimination against them, the following points should be borne in mind.

1.       At the company or sectoral level:

·         ensure that selection criteria for teleworkers do not indirectly discriminate against people from ethnic minorities

·         provide training and software in appropriate languages

·         encourage awareness that in an increasingly globalised economy, and with an increasingly diverse population in Europe, a diverse workforce is not simply an asset but often an essential requirement for giving good service to customers

 

2.       At the societal level:

·         active anti-discrimination policies involving all relevant social actors

·         training courses, where necessary in appropriate languages, to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for access to e-work

·         low-cost public Internet access in areas with large ethnic minority populations

·         research and education on globalisation and its social and economic implications

 

3.       At the trade union level:

·         research on the ethnic composition of the existing membership, and on problems experienced by members from ethnic minorities

·         active recruitment drives to bring under-represented groups into membership including, where necessary, the appointment of organisers from ethnic minorities and the production of literature in appropriate languages

·         meetings and conferences should be organised in such a way that all members can participate fully in decision-making, regardless of colour, race or creed

·         campaigns to combat racism and xenophobia, and to educate the membership on the social and economic implications of globalisation

 

Example

In Italy the Padua Industrial Association has set up an Information Centre for ethnic minorities, designed to offer assistance in finding employment and stimulating entrepreneurship.

5.         AGE

Age is not often studied as a separate variable in relation to teleworking in Europe. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that it may be a relevant issue. Economic participation rates start declining from the age of 50 in Europe, tapering sharply as they approach the official retirement age.

With a peak of 83% of the EU population economically active between the ages of 30 and 44, and a rate of 80% amongst 45-50-year-olds, the rate comes down to 72% amongst 50-54-year-olds, 54% amongst 55-59-year-olds and only 22% amongst 60-64-year-olds. After the age of 65, economic participation sinks to below 10% of the population.

This overall pattern varies considerably from country to country, however. To illustrate this, Figure 3 shows the activity rates of 55-59-year-olds across the 15 EU member states. Although it is clear that the low level of economic activity of older people corresponds to some extent with higher rates of unemployment amongst older workers, this does not provide a complete explanation.

Neither do gender differences. Both Sweden and Finland, for instance, exhibit a high degree of similarity between male and female economic participation patterns. Yet  the average for both sexes is very different. Indeed, when men and women are taken together, the Finnish rate is much closer to that of Portugal, or of Ireland, where there is a much more marked gender polarisation.

 

Fig.3: Activity rates of 55-59-year-olds in the EU 15. (Source: European Labour Force Survey, 1996)


 

 


It seems likely that industrial structure also plays a key role. In regions where large numbers of workers have been made redundant from declining traditional industries (such as mining, steel or clothing), this is reflected in low activity rates amongst older workers who have not been reabsorbed into the economy in the newer service industries, because of a lack of skills, because employers refuse to recruit them, or because the new jobs are being created in regions which are geographically distant.

In some parts of Europe, these figures may conceal high levels of economic activity in the informal economy which are not recorded officially[33].

A final shaping factor is the nature of labour market regulation and welfare regime which prevails in any given national context. In Italy, for instance, age is a very important issue in the development of active labour market strategies.

The 'cassa integrazione guadagni', a national wage guarantee fund, provided a guaranteed income for a number of older workers made redundant in the industrial reorganisation of the 1980s, but in some cases it created some statistical distortion by encouraging older workers to enter the informal economy when they became unemployed[34]. In Italy, youth unemployment is often seen as a greater problem than the unemployment of older people as it is on other countries, such as Germany. 

The under-representation of older people in the general workforce is reflected in under-representation among teleworkers, at least in the countries for which accurate data exist. In Finland, as we saw in Figure 4, this decline is mainly accounted for by a fall-off amongst male workers.

Table 10 shows the situation in the UK where, as can be seen, teleworkers are strongly concentrated in the middle age-bands.

 

Figure 14:  Teleworking by age in the UK. (Source:  UK Labour Force Survey, 1999)

Age group

Teleworkers as % of all workers

22 - 25

2.27

26 - 35

4.11

36 - 44

5.43

45 - 55

5.44

56 - 65

3.66

All

4.14

 

It is perhaps to be expected that young workers will be less likely to be teleworking. They are likely to be living either with their parents or in relatively cramped housing conditions; they are less likely to be socially settled with children; and they are probably still actively learning new skills and establishing themselves in their chosen occupation or trade. There is overwhelming evidence[35] that most employers will only select for teleworkers those workers who they regard as mature, experienced, highly productive and trustworthy – qualities which almost by definition are unlikely to be found at the beginning of a career.

The period when most workers can be regarded as fully trained and experienced (when they are in their 30s and 40s) is also likely to coincide with the period when their children are young and at their most demanding in terms of time commitments. It is thus not surprising that teleworking peaks during these years.

It is, however, more difficult to explain why it should fall off so markedly in later years, particularly in the light of the remarks of commentators like Charles Handy who regard this as a period when workers enter a new phase and become 'portfolio men' – self-employed consultants working from their homes offering a range of different services to different clients. It should be noted that Figure 12 shows teleworkers in each age-group as a percentage of all those who are in employment in that age-group. Since there is also a fall-off in general economic activity after the age of 50, this represents an even steeper drop in actual numbers than in percentage terms.

One possible explanation is that the older age-group represents a generation who did not grow up with ICTs and are resistant to using them.

Another is that employers prefer younger workers for the kinds of activities involved in teleworking.

A third is that people simply get fed up with being at home once their children are grown up. Perhaps their marriages have collapsed or grown stale (in the UK, more than one marriage in three ends in divorce). Perhaps they have simply become bored with their surroundings. Or perhaps they need new work challenges. Whatever the explanation, there are markedly fewer older people teleworking, and if this results from discrimination, positive measures will need to be developed to address the problem.

 

Example

In Italy, the NonnOnline project trains school students to become IT mentors, with the aim of spreading ITC literacy skills amongst the elderly and other disadvantaged groups.

 

5.1       Issues for negotiation or regulation

In order to ensure that the opportunity to telework is available to all workers, regardless of age, the following issues should be considered.

1.       At the company or sectoral level:

·         ensure that selection criteria for teleworkers do not directly or indirectly discriminate on the grounds of age

·         provide training geared towards the needs of older workers (in terms of content and presentation – e.g. print size)

·         carry out skills audits to identify the hidden talents of older workers (the experience of parenting teenagers, for instance, provides excellent training for managing teleworkers!)

·         develop mentoring and buddy systems to minimise social isolation and encourage knowledge sharing between experienced workers and new recruits

·         encourage employers to identify the advantages of older workers – an ageing European population means an ageing customer base;  who better to understand and serve their needs than an older workforce?

·         consider the development of phased retirement schemes, perhaps involving a period of telework-enabled part-time working between full employment and retirement

 

2.       At the societal level:

·         ITC training and Internet-based services targeted at older people

 

Example

In Sweden, Seniornet has proved a highly successful way of encouraging older people to participate in the Information Society.

 

6.         REFERENCES


[1] Information supplied by Claudia Rudolph

[2] ITU, World Telecommunications Development Indicators, International Telecommunications Union, Geneva, 1995

[3] Information from SAK, Finland, 2000

[4] The relationship between gender bias in benefit systems and flexible employment patterns under four contrasting EU policy regimes is discussed in Huws, U, Flexibility and Security: towards a new European Balance, Citizens Income Trust, London, 1998

[5] Discussed by Gunnarsson, E, in 'Gendered Faces? ' in Gunnarsson, E, and Huws, U (eds), Virtually Free -  Gender, Work and Spatial Choice, NUTEK, Stockholm, 1997

[6] Rees, T, 'Feminising the Mainstream - Women and EU Training Programmes' in Franceskides, R and De Troy, C, A Wider Vision - Reflections on Women's Training, IRIS, Brussels, 1994

[7] The EMERGENCE project, funded under the European Commission's IST Programme, is currently carrying out a survey of employers in 22 countries; it is designed to map and measure the distribution and characteristics of e-work. See http://www.emergence.nu for further information.

[8] Lehto, A-M and Sutela, H, Gender Equality on Working Life, Statistics Finland, 1999:22, p 167

[9] Huws, U, Jagger, N and O'Regan, S, Teleworking and Globalisation, Institute for Employment Studies, 1999

[10] EcaTT web-site - http://www.ecatt.com

[11] Lehto, A-M and Sutela, H, Gender Equality on Working Life, Statistics Finland, 1999:22, p 167

[12] Information from Maria Beham u.a. Status-Bericht Telearbeit in Österreich. Zum Stand der Telearbeit in Österreich vor dem Hintergrund deer Entiwcklungen in der EU, Bundesministerium für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales, Vienna, 1999

[13] Unpublished research from the Cyborg Project, Report of Telework in Castilla and León:  Impact on ability in work and vocational training of teleworker women in the Region, FOREM, Castilla, 2000

[14] Lehto, A-M and Sutela, H, Gender Equality on Working Life, Statistics Finland, 1999:22, p 167

[15] ILRES survey, Télétravail, Luxembourg, May, 2000

[16] See, for instance, Huws, U, Flexibility and Security:  towards a New European Balance, Citizens Income Trust, 1997 and Home Truths -  Key Results from a National Survey of Homeworkers, National Group on Homeworking, 1994

[17] Information from past issues of HomeNet newsletter and from the HomeNet web-site http://www.gn.apc.org/homenet

[18] Haicault, M, ‘Travail et travailleurs ŕ domicile’ in Le Travail Salarié ŕ Domicile:  Hier, Aujourd’hui, Demain, Presses de l’Université de Nantes, 1993

[19] Vries, H F, Thuiswerers onder de Arbowet: een studie naar regelgeving en arbeidsomstandigheden, Vuga uitgevereij, 1998

[20] Information supplied by Claudia Rudolph

[21] Goldmann, M and Richter, G, ‘Business Interests in Flexibility and the Origin of Home-based Teleworkplaces for Women:  Empirical Examples from the Printing Industry’ in Gehrmann, F (ed) Neue Informations und Kommunikationstechniken, Campus-Verlag, 1987

[22] Huws, U, Podro, S, Gunnarsson, E, Weijers, T, Arvanitaki, K and Trova, V,  Teleworking and Gender, Institute for Employment Studies, Brighton, 1996

[23] Using the ILO definition of unemployment

[24] e.g. Huws, U, Ashok. H. and Hall, J., Home Sweet Workplace:  Homeworking and the Employment Needs of People with Severe Disabilities, Greater London Council, 1986 and Bertin, I., Teleworking and Disability Newsletter, Communications Workers Union of Ireland, 1999

[25] Huws, U, Ashok. H and Hall, J, Home Sweet Workplace:  Homeworking and the Employment Needs of People with Severe Disabilities, Greater London Council, 1986

[26] Information supplied by Eva Angerler

[27] 'Europe Needs More Immigrants', cover story, Economist, 6-12 May, 2000

[28] Information supplied by Evangelia Soumeli, INE/GSEE-ADEDY, 2000

[29] Allochtonen in Nederland, CBS, Voorburg/Heerlen, 1999, p 36 en 71

[30] Information provided by SAK, Finland, 2000

[31] Information supplied by SAK, Finland, 2000

[32] Huws, U, Jagger N, and O'Regan, S, Teleworking and Globalisation, IES, Brighton, 1999

[33] Mingione, E, Follow-up to the White Paper:  The Informal Sector, in Social Europe Supplement 3, European Commission DGV, 1995

[34] Information supplied by Renato Rizzi

[35] e.g. from Huws, U, Teleworking in Britain, Employment Department, 1994