Politics & Society current issue

Institutions Promoting Gender Egalitarian Families

Olin Wright, E. — 2008-08-07

Creating Gender Egalitarian Societies: An Agenda for Reform

Gornick, J. C., Meyers, M. K. — 2008-08-07

In this article, we describe the social and economic changes that have contributed to contemporary problems of work—family conflict, gender inequality, and risks to children's healthy development. We draw on feminist welfare state scholarship to outline an institutional arrangement that would support an earner—carer society—a social arrangement in which women and men engage symmetrically in paid work and unpaid caregiving and where young children have ample time with their parents. We present a blueprint for work—family reconciliation policies in three areas—paid family-leave provisions, working-time regulations, and early childhood education and care—and we identify key policy design principles. We describe and assess these work—family reconciliation policies as they operate in six European countries widely considered to be policy exemplars: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and France. We close with an analysis of potential objections to these policies.

Long Leaves, Child Well-Being, and Gender Equality

Bergmann, B. R. — 2008-08-07

Of the measures for resolving work—family conflict proposed by Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers, government programs that provide or pay for nonparental child care would advance gender equality. However, paid parental leaves of six months for both parents, and the encouragement of part-time work, would retard it, and possibly reverse some of the advances toward gender equality that have been made in the home and the workplace. Female jobholders would increase their time at home to a much greater extent than would male jobholders, increasing the share women do of child care, cleaning, cooking, and laundry. In the workplace, employers would become more reluctant to place women in nonroutine jobs, where substitution of one worker for another is difficult. Finally, recent studies of the effect on young children of nonparental care are reviewed. They can be interpreted in more than one way, and the lessons drawn from them depend crucially on the opinions of those doing the analysis.

Strong Gender Egalitarianism

Brighouse, H., Olin Wright, E. — 2008-08-07

Perhaps the most intractable aspect of gender inequality concerns inequalities within the family around the domestic division of labor, especially over child care and other forms of caregiving. These enduring gender inequalities constitute a significant obstacle to achieving "strong gender egalitarianism"—a structure of social relations in which the division of labor around housework and caregiving within the family and occupational distributions within the public sphere are unaffected by gender. This article explores three kinds of publicly supported parental caregiving leaves that bear on the potential for public policy to transform this private realm of inequality: (1) equality-impeding policies (e.g., unpaid caregiving leaves), (2) equality-enabling policies (e.g., paid caregiving leaves given to families), and (3) equality-promoting policies (e.g., paid caregiving leaves given to individuals rather than families). The authors defend the third of these as necessary, given the importance of cultural constraints on the slow erosion of the gender division of labor over caregiving activities.

Reforming Care

Folbre, N. — 2008-08-07

This essay argues that concerns regarding the impact of work/family balance on gender inequality should be extended to broader analysis of all care work. Paid or unpaid care devoted to all dependents (including the sick and elderly as well as children) has distinctive characteristics that contribute to disempowerment and underpayment. Expenditures of money as well as time increase economic vulnerability. Public policies should provide greater support for caregiving outside the market, improve the supply and quality of purchased care services, and challenge conventional accounting systems that mismeasure economic welfare.

Global Constraints on Gender Equality in Care Work

Hassim, S. — 2008-08-07

Gornick and Meyers offer proposals for advancing gender egalitarianism in care of children and in the labor market. This article examines the extent to which these proposals can be extended beyond the United States and other wealthy countries. I argue that the Gornick and Meyers proposals are dependent on a particular set of global and national labor market factors, and on a peculiar configuration of institutions and political forces. The article lays out some of these key contours of the global care labor market, as well as the divergent nature of public and private institutions in developing countries. I venture that the Gornick and Meyers proposals for egalitarianism are not universalizable without radical changes in the global arena.

The Political Path to a Dual Earner/Dual Carer Society: Pitfalls and Possibilities

Morgan, K. J. — 2008-08-07

What are the political pathways to the dual earner/dual caregiver model? Are most countries likely to attain only a partial transformation of policies and societies, rather than a full embrace of this model? This article examines the development of work-family policies in Western Europe to probe the politics and consequences of these programs. In many countries, the political context frustrates efforts to enact a unified, comprehensive vision like the dual earner/dual caregiver model. Rather than achieving gender-egalitarian arrangements for work and care, countries may stall halfway there. Advocates should be careful in what they ask for and be aware of the challenge of keeping gender-egalitarian goals at the center of a policy-making process over which they will not have full control.

Class Divisions among Women

Shalev, M. — 2008-08-07

By exploring how gender norms and material interests vary between women in different classes, this article highlights interactions between class and gender that mitigate against the mobilization of political support for activist family policies in the United States. Ironically, while educated women in professional and managerial jobs are ideologically most favorable toward the dual earner/dual carer model, it is not in their economic interest for the state to make it happen. Scandinavian-style interventions would impose costs on relatively privileged women in their role as child care consumers. There is also reason to believe that these interventions would indirectly undermine their labor market attainments.