Feminism and Family Policy

1. Feminism and Family Policy

2. What does the “feminist” in “feminist family policy” mean? Two strands of feminism—equality vs. difference; liberal vs. socialist Women should have the same rights as men. And men should have the same obligations that women have. Feminism requires a theory of what those obligations should be—a vision of a good society.

3. Feminist theory must provide a feasible theory of a good society. By feasible, I mean grounded in a social scientific theory of how human societies organize themselves over time. Feminist theory must try to understand the past in order to shape the future. So, what are the main principles of feminist theory?

4. Three principles that I think are especially important: • Women share some common interests as members of a group. The importance of this dimension of collective identity and interests suggests that other dimensions of collectivity identity and interests such as citizenship, race/ethnicity, and class are also important. • Women have historically been subject to patriarchal systems or “structures of constraint” such as social norms, property rights, and asset distributions.) “Patriarchy” is a set of overlapping structures of constraint rather than merely a “mode of production” • Patriarchal systems have forced women to “over-specialize” in providing care, making them vulnerable to exploitation.

5. The Social Family Contract …is a metaphor for analyzing the way societies distribute the costs of caring for dependents. Under capitalism, the costs of children go up and the economic benefits to parents decline. Not surprisingly, fertility declines. Modern welfare states “socialize” the benefits of childrearing: Young adults are taxed to help finance pensions for the elderly and pay off public debt. The costs of raising children have been less fully socialized. Women pay a disproportionate share of the costs. Even when fathers contribute substantial income to childrearing they typically enjoy more leisure and more power than women. Now that women have more power they are trying to negotiate a better social family contract. If they are unable to negotiate it, they will probably withdraw their care services by reducing their commitments to marriage and childrearing. Most governments in affluent countries are now sufficiently worried about this to be willing to reform family policy. L

6. Feminists want: More equal sharing of care between men and women… because gender division of labor puts women at a disadvantage. More public support for family work in the form of public provision and regulation….in order to encourage both men and women to provide care. More commitment to the development of children’s capabilities. ..which should after all be the purpose of economic development.

7. How to promote equal sharing of care between men and women? Encourage individual women to bargain with partners—which means improving their economic opportunities outside the home. Provide incentives for fathers to participate more actively in child care. e.g. “use it or lose it” paid family leaves from work. Individual taxation rather than family taxation. Progressive taxes can encourage men to devote more time to family. Do not link health and pension benefits to marriage.

8. How to provide more public support for family care? Provide family allowances that help families meet the costs of caring for children and other dependents. Provide paid family leaves from work—long enough to help families but not so long that they reinforce the gender division of labor. Reduce penalties to part-time work; limit mandatory overtime. Reduce scheduling conflicts between school and work. Provide pension benefits that are linked to performance of unpaid care work such as child care and elder care.. Provide high quality universal child care and elder care.

9. How to best develop children’s capabilities? Universal health care. Early childhood education. Improve quality of primary and secondary schools. Free public higher education.

10. How to pay for such programs? “earmarked” taxes and lifetime or “generational” accounting Taxpayers should have a clear picture of what portion of the taxes they will pay over their lifetime represents “payback” for what has already been spent on them, what part represents the cost of insurance for their future health and pension needs, what part is being spent on purely “public” goods, and what part is redistributed to others.

11. Biggest problems/questions facing feminists: Global: weakening of the nation-state, intensification of competition among capitalist countries, increased inequality of living standards. National: how to overcome internal divisions of class, race/ethnicity/ and gender to build strong investments in gender equality, family and community? Local: what is the best balance between public provision and family provision of care services?

12. International Association for Feminist Economics July 7-9, 2006 http://www.iaffe.org For more info contact: Gabrielle Meagher University of Sydney G.Meagher@econ.usyd.edu.au