Advanced Research Centre

Women’s Work: The Juggling Act of Multiple Jobs

Social Sciences Hub ARC Public
Date: Monday 26 February 2024 - Friday 08 March 2024
Venue: Advanced Research Centre (ARC), University of Glasgow, 11 Chapel Ln, Glasgow, G11 6EW
Category: Exhibitions

This exhibition builds on the Nuffield Foundation funded research project “Women in multiple low-paid employment: pathways between work, care and health” which is the first to study the nature and extent of women’s multiple low-paid employment in the UK, highlighting relationships between women’s multiple work, caring responsibilities, and health and wellbeing. 

“I’ve been a juggling act for years, that’s just how it is …I’m knackered”
(Lauren, lone parent, voluntary work and three paid jobs - bar work, shop work, and cleaning) 

The exhibition brings to life women’s voices through featuring a selection of key research findings, personal testimonies from women working multiple jobs, and artworks created by artist Ailie Rutherford, with women participants, through a collaboration with Glasgow Women’s Library titled "Pouring Out Pouring In: Mapping Women’s Work" 

The focus on women’s multiple low-paid work is novel yet increasingly important and relevant: analysis for the research shows that almost one in five women experience multiple low paid employment at some point over a decade.   

The exhibition provides space to reflect on women’s work: the types of work women do, the value of women’s work, the protections and supports available (or lack of) for precarious and low paid work, the impact of childcare and informal caring responsibilities on women’s work, and the health and wellbeing implications of multiple low-paid work for women’s lives.   

The exhibition runs for two weeks, ending on International Women’s Day (8th March). 

Key contact: Louise.Lawson@glasgow.ac.uk  

Research Team: Louise Lawson, Tanya Wilson, Mhairi Mackenzie and Ade Kearns

PHOTO CREDIT: "Pouring Out, Pouring In: Mapping Women's Work" by artist Ailie Rutherford with Jackie McMaster, 2023

Back to Events