Women’s work in the funeral jobs

Abstract

 The article studies women´s work in the funeral jobs in Spain. We analyze the “formal” incorporation women into the professions linked to the death. Due to the lack of statistical data on funeral jobs before the 2000s, the research has focused from the beginning of the new millennium to the present. We used a quantitative methodology: through the collection, exploitation and analysis of data from the still scarce statistical sources available on these jobs. All this has been analysed from a gender perspective. The study reveals, on the one hand, that despite the growing incorporation of women into funeral jobs, although more as demanders than as employed, it is a masculinized sector. On the other hand, the existence of a doublé occupational segregation in funeral jobs in general and in the funeral sector in particular, where women constitutes themselves as a minority in highly masculinized occupations (horizontal segregation) and are concentrated occupying certain labor categories (vertical segregation).