Working Women's Marginalization in Denmark: Traditional Assumptions And Economic Consequences of Social and Labor Market Policies

Authors

Jennifer G. Schirmer, Harvard University

Abstract

Although it cannot be said that women's marginality in the labor market in Denmark from the 1960s to the present was 'planned' in any formal sense, the premise behind social and labor market policy measures, such as daycare and maternity leave, that women primarily serve as part-time service workers to increase economic growth, indicates a form of assumed and prescribed secondariness for women. By engaging the market and the family on strictly traditional terms, the social policy and labor market measures enacted to encourage women's entrance into the labor force in the late 1960s serve to institutionalize women's marginality within the Danish welfare state and labor market. The irony is that women now consider themselves primarily as workers and are organizing to overcome this structured impediment.

Recommended Citation

Schirmer, Jennifer G. (1982) "Working Women's Marginalization in Denmark: Traditional Assumptions And Economic Consequences of Social and Labor Market Policies," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 9: Iss. 3, Article 8.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.1542
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol9/iss3/8