Feminism and Family Policy

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Feminism and Family Policy
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What does the feminist in feminist family
policy mean?
Two strands of feminismequality 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 bea vision of a good society.
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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?
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Three principles that I think are especially
important

1. 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.
2. 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
3. Patriarchal systems have forced women to
   over-specialize in providing care, making them
   vulnerable to exploitation.

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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
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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
childrens capabilities. ..which should after all
be the purpose of economic development.
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How to promote equal sharing of care between men
and women?
Encourage individual women to bargain with
partnerswhich 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.
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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
worklong 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.
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How to best develop childrens capabilities?
Universal health care. Early childhood
education. Improve quality of primary and
secondary schools. Free public higher education.
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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.
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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?
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International Association for Feminist Economics
July 7-9, 2006
http//www.iaffe.org
For more info contact Gabrielle
Meagher University of Sydney G.Meagher_at_econ.usyd.e
du.au
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