MODERNIZATION GAPS IN THE COURSE OF HISTO RY - THE DEVELOPMENT OF GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN A CHANGED EUROPE

This article pursues the issue of systematic modernization gaps of fem ale labor and education by providing a historio-comparative analysis b ased an a critical examination of the current individualization theore m. The term ''social difference'' occupies a central position, with it s double meaning in terms of a difference between the sexes and the so cial differences between women. The article then traces the historical discourse concerning equality and difference by using the example of women in the workforce. It becomes apparent that the historical stage is at the same time set for a process of ''gender change'' in occupati ons, which has proven itself to be an effective guarantor of segmentat ion in the labor and education markets. The second part of the article shows the social differences between women as can be attributed to di ffering social and ethnic origins, a historically acknowledged structu re of inequality, which in the course of the current transformation of Europe creates new social patterns and thereby doubtless yields two a spects of a single modernization process. The one aspect typifies a re vived process of devaluated female education, which the author shows t o exist in the phenomenon of the ''East European lady academic working as a servant in a West German household.'' The other aspect typifies a process, limited though it may be, of career development of middle c lass Western women, a process that leads not only to a new internation al division of labor between women, but also to a new political arrang ement between women and men of the same educational level.