Technological Change and Women’s Work Experience: Alternative Methodological Perspectives

This book integrates and critically evaluates the diverse literature on the impact of technological change on women’s work. It also develops a new conceptual paradigm and presents evidence of the impact of technological change on occupational sex segregation. The analysis is based on the premise that the choice of a particular methodological and epistemological paradigm has important implications for the study of women and technology. This premise leads to a careful consideration of the philosophical foundations of three methodological perspectives that have been used to examine technological change–neoclassical economics, institutional economics, and feminist methodology. Burnell’s study assesses the contributions and limitations of each approach.