Gender Inequalities in the Crisis of Capitalism: Spain and France Compared

Abstract

In times of crisis, certain characteristics of the capitalist mode of production, social reproduction 1 and the symbolic realm of societal formation become more clearly visible than would otherwise be the case. Capitalism's inherent contradictions come to the fore and constructions of social norms that serve to reproduce the capitalist order may be rearranged or deepened. Additionally, '[o]nce a crisis strikes, inequalities are reinforced as the ability to respond to the shock differs between more powerful and weaker players' (Fukuda-Parr et al., 2013, p. 15). This includes the power asymmetries between capital and labour, as well as inequalities of gender and ethnicity. In the post-2007 world of crisis, it is therefore even more surprising that theoretical approaches in Comparative Capitalisms (CC) research continue to exclude the social construction of gender, ethnicity and gender inequality. Even though gender is sometimes part of the analysis, broader questions of social reproduction, the hegemonic gender order of states and societies and their interplay with firm-centred decisions, are not related to one another. During times of capitalist crisis, the public-private divide and accompanying unpaid labour in the social reproduction of private households is often reinforced, as one of several dimensions of inequality, in order to secure the capitalist mode of production. A range of well-known feminist economics and political economy scholars have shown this, especially regarding the Asian crisis in the late 1990s and numerous crises in

Making Work More Equal: A New Labour Market Segmentation Approach

“…For Prosser (2015), Spain is part of a set of countries where such changes are as much about liberalisation of labour markets and not just dualist tendencies. In terms of gender, ongoing equality measures have not been able to stem the dualist traits within the economy in terms of the position of women (Lux and Wöhl, 2015). Miguelez and Recio (2010) have pointed to the way in which labour market inclusion policies intended to benefit women in Spain have not been fully complemented with policies that have created more family and working-time support.…”

Interrogating the Neoliberal Lifecycle

“…In order to consider the nature of austerity measures and its gendered impacts, there is a need to understand the current crisis of capitalism by incorporating gender inequalities into the analysis. Lux and Wöhl (2014) do so by integrating the social construction of genderin relation to other categories that may cause inequalities and relations of domination, by including the public-private continuum, including social reproduction, and the hegemonic gender orders and gender regimes. Based on value Marxist theory, Charnock, Purcell, Ribera-Fumaz (2014a) focus on the limits of the accumulation of capital in Spain taking into account historical and structural roots of the economic crisis and highlighting financial issues, urbanization factors and policy dynamics.…”

“…Unemployment for men and women has increased, although 4 out of 5 jobs created have been targeted for male workers. A question here is whether cutbacks in male employment reproduces or changes gender norms (Lux and Wöhl, 2014). At the margins of official data, there are many other non-formal jobs that define the Spanish labour market.…”

‚Feminisierung‘ der Politik. Soziale Bewegungen gegen Austeritätspolitik in Spanien als Katalysator der politischen Partizipation von Frauen

“…Drei von vier arbeitende Mütter wurden durch ein Familienmitglied in der gleichen Ortschaft unterstützt, in mehr als der Hälfte der Fälle von ihrer eigenen Mutter (Moreno 2006: 5). Die Doppelbelastung erschwert es Frauen, sich am politischen Prozess zu beteiligen (Lux/ Wöhl 2015). Gleichzeitig haben seit der Finanz-und Wirtschaftskrise 2008 viele Migrantinnen ihre Anstellungen in Privathaushalten wieder verloren (Herrera 2012).…”