Worker control: The bases of women’s support.

A vast amount of research on women and work indicates that women have not gained parity with men in the paid workforce. Workplace democracy is particularly relevant for women. I employ US national survey data from 1991 to analyze women's support for worker control over workplace decision-making. The nature of this support is hypothesized using four branches of feminist theory. An analysis of the gender gap in attitudes is performed and then I incorporate logistic regression to test for cleavages in women's attitudes. The lack of consistency across the items suggests that these speci®c work issues are not re¯ective of a larger, generalized predisposition to workplace democracy. I conclude by considering the relationship between women and the labor movement. Union-supported worker participation is most likely to improve women's working conditions

Community currency in the United States: the social environments in which it emerges and survives

Community currency originated as a means to empower the economically marginalized. This paper studies the US population of community currency systems using locally printed money. Eighty-two systems are identified that have been attempted in the United States since 1991. Internet searches and contact with system coordinators indicate that only 20.7% of all systems are active. Regions in which they occur are described; more than one quarter are in Pacific states. City-level Census 2000 data are employed in analyses of environmental conduciveness to determine in which types of social environments local currencies emerge and survive within. Social movement theory is engaged to identify general, population-based resources for local movements. Economic marginality and labor-market-independence hypotheses are also formulated and tested. The major findings indicate that cities with local currencies are characterized by populations with lower household incomes, higher poverty rates, higher unemployment rates, and larger self-employment sectors. Evidence is also presented indicating that community currencies tend to survive in places with younger populations, higher educational attainment, fewer married people, and less residential stability. Implications concerning the future of the community currency movement and its ability to empower the marginalized are drawn.