Theoretical Considerations in Cross-National Employment Research

This article critically reviews a range of theoretical approaches tocross-national employment research in terms of universal, culturalist andintermediary perspectives. These approaches have difficulty accounting forchange and the co- existence of similarity and diversity, as well as being‘gender blind’. Debates on the welfare state or women's employment have shownmore interest in gender although this tends to become an optional variable inthe cross-national comparison, or where there have been attempts to make it morecentral, the meaning of cross-national differences becomes blurred and confused.It is argued that an employment-systems approach, coupled with the gender orderperspective, can provide a useful framework of analysis which enables us toidentify how comparable pressures for change have generated specific interestcoalitions; these coalitions resolve conflicts by agreeing on a particulargender compromise.