Gender and Labour Flexibility in Hotel and Catering

Abstract

Abstract This article examines both conceptually and empirically the relationship between gender divisions in the hotel and catering sector and functional and numerical flexibility. The debate concerning the 'flexible firm' thesis is critically discussed, and it is found, despite certain conceptual flaws, to be heuristically useful in emphasising the previously neglected phenomena of functional and numerical flexibility. The article then shows how these two aspects of flexibility are bound up with gender relations through an historical analysis of the emergence of flexibility in the hotel and catering sector during the 1960s and 1970s.