the first is the idea that macroeconomic policies and events are linked with people and households or percolate through to them via a system of institutions which include the state the market and the community that operates in neither a fully automatic nor a fully organized manner this system functions within a genderbased framework that is founded upon power relations in which a visible maleoriented policy approach dominates or influences an invisible femaleoriented one carrasco and elson a and blau ferber and winkler the introduction of a gendered framework of considerations and factors sends out biased or skewed signals to the market where given the assumption that women workers are expensive employers are reluctant to hire them or once hired to continue to employ them employment decisions therefore entail a process of bargaining and conflict in which both material and immaterial factors wield influence