An Exploration of What Paid Work Means to Women over the Life Course from the Perspective of Older Women Who Work in Low-Paid Customer Service Jobs.

The research on women’s employment has long shown that they are significantly disadvantaged in the labour market compared to men throughout their working lives. Women are more likely to work part-time; they are concentrated in low-paid and low-status industries; they shoulder the bulk of unpaid caring responsibilities which constrains their choices around work; and their retirement savings are significantly lower.

Despite this extensive research on women’s employment, less attention has been paid to how women reflect on their working lives later in their life course. How do older women make retrospective sense of what paid work has meant to them at different points in their lives? How do they feel about the work they have done and how their working lives have unfolded?

To provide some answers to these questions, I present personal reflections on paid work from narrative interviews with women aged 45-60 who work in retail and hospitality industries in Victoria, Australia. By looking at these industries, I also explore the women’s experiences of ageing in low-paid, low-status occupational contexts where youthful subjectivities are prioritised in their affective, aesthetic, and emotional labour demands. Understanding what paid work means to women throughout their working lives is a necessary step for expanding what is known about women’s employment and addressing the disadvantages women experience in the labour market.