The Polarisation of Employment Within Households from 1975 to 2002,

Abstract

From 1975 to 2002, the proportion of people aged 15 to 59 who were neither students nor retired, and who were in employment, rose by 2.4% to 78.6%. At the same time, throughout this period, employment within households became polarised: there were increasing numbers of households in which nobody or everybody worked, while the number of households in which only certain individuals worked fell. One explanation is linked to the changing make-up of households. However, whatever the household make-up, people have contributed to this polarisation. For example, among couples with one or more children, there are more households in which both parents work than in 1975. Gregg and Wadsworth (1996, 2001, 2004) suggest the creation of a polarisation indicator which measures the disparity between a random distribution of employment within households and the real distribution. This article applies their method to the French data.Employment, Households, Distribution of Employment, Polarisation