Institutionalizing the Universal Caretaker Through a Basic Income?

Zelleke, Almaz

doi:10.2202/1932-0183.1133

Cited by 38 publications

(21 citation statements)

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Section: B Compensating Reproductive Labour and Other Socially Beneficial Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps unsurprisingly, a key argument in support of basic income made by those focused on gender equality is that it would provide a wage to offset the financial penalty faced by women as a result of engagement in unpaid care and domestic work, and thereby recognize the value of reproductive labour (Baker, 2008;McKay & Vanevery, 2000;Zelleke, 2008Zelleke, , 2011. Zelleke (2008) compares several models of provision-income support conditional upon engagement in employment-related activities, increased provision of care through the market or a government scheme, caregiver income, basic income-and finds that the basic income approach best compensates care work in a way that is also favourable for gender equality, and shows the most potential to disrupt the gendered division of labour. This view is reinforced by Baker (2008), who suggests that a basic income can contribute to undoing existing (and unequal) structures of care, in a way that is preferable to both a caregiver wage (which represents payment for care work, and thus requires adjudication of deservedness and could reinforce traditional divisions of labour, as well as the pre-eminence of Western/settler notions of care) and commodification (which some argue can, at best, act as a complement to relations of love and care outside of the market).…”

Section: B Compensating Reproductive Labour and Other Socially Beneficial Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender-Based Violence, Economic Security, and the Potential of Basic Income: A Discussion Paper

Cameron

Tedds

2021

SSRN Journal

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paper commissioned by Women's Shelters Canada, from which we gratefully acknowledge funding that helped support this research. This discussion paper was submitted to the National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence Working Group on Social Infrastructure and Enabling Environments. We thank members of the working group for their helpful comments and suggestions. All inferences, opinions, and conclusions drawn in this paper are those of the authors, and do not reflect the opinions or policies of the Women's Shelters Canada. The authors declare they have no competing interests, either financial or community in nature.

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Section: B Compensating Reproductive Labour and Other Socially Beneficial Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Compensating Reproductive Labour and Other Socially Beneficial Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender-Based Violence, Economic Security, and the Potential of Basic Income: A Discussion Paper

Cameron

Tedds

2021

SSRN Journal

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“…Fraser argued that the only way to avoid these two issues would be to prioritize what she called the universal caregiver model, in which both men and women are encouraged and supported to participate in the labour market as well as the care and work of the household. As noted previously this has been the crux of many advocates' arguments for BI as a feminist proposal, who have pointed out that BI moves toward this type of policy model because the lack of conditionality means that it neither goes down the labourist path nor the care path of citizenship (Bambrick, 2006;Birnbaum, 2012;Fitzpatrick, 1999;Zelleke, 2008). A key missing component is attention to intersectionality, especially differences of class but also race and other social categories.…”

Section: Critique: Intersectionality and Heterogeneity Among Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response to Lindsey Macdonald's 'We are All Housewives: Universal Basic Income as Wages for Housework'

Neilson

2019

Lateral

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International debate regarding universal basic income proposals has increased markedly in recent years. This has included a spirited feminist debate about the merits of basic income (BI) for contributing to gender equality. Advocates have pointed to the potential for BI to correct the paid work bias of contemporary social security systems and to increase women's economic autonomy and power within the household. Critics have argued that BI will do nothing to directly challenge the gendered division of labour and may well reinforce it. As such, the feminist debate about BI is in some ways a microcosm of wider feminist controversies regarding how the state can recognize the unpaid work women largely do without reinforcing existing inequalities. Nevertheless, this focus marginalizes other aspects of gender inequality, particularly intersections between gender and class and race, including the positions of women in the Global South and additional policy issues such as poverty. Using Nancy Fraser's 7 principles of gender equity, this paper demonstrates how a multi-dimensional perspective on gender equality strengthens the feminist case for BI proposals.

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“…However, most BI advocates have cited the policy's neutrality as a key benefit with regard to gender equality, arguing that this aspect of a BI avoids Wollstonecraft's dilemma and contributes to a reconciliation of the 'sameness' or 'difference' tacks via Nancy Fraser's famous 'universal caregiver' model (e.g. Bambrick, 2006;Birnbaum, 2012;Fitzpatrick, 1999;Zelleke, 2008). The unconditional nature of a basic income means no one has to specialize in being a worker or a caregiver in order to fit the citizenship mould or to receive income support.…”

Section: Feminist Debates About Bi and Gender Equality: Controversies Of Carementioning

confidence: 99%

Caring Revolutionary Transformation: Combined Effects of a Universal Basic Income and a Public Model of Care

Uhde

2018

Basic Income Studies

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This paper explores the possibilities of the recognition and valuation of care by implementing an unconditional basic income (UBI) and presents a feminist redefinition of the concept of a UBI. The author proposes the notion of a caring revolutionary transformation as a process of institutionalising the social and economic conditions for recognition of care which is a cornerstone of struggles for women’s emancipation and gender equity. It is a process of practically realisable transformative steps which together with their combined and mutually reinforcing effects enable more radical social changes beyond a mere reform. The author argues that these transformative steps have to address two conditions embedded in the institutionalised structures of late modern capitalist society: the limited understanding of meaningful work as paid employment; and the liberal ideal of the independent and autonomous individual. Whereas a UBI can challenge the first condition, a public model of care questions the second condition by shifting the primary responsibility of care from the family towards a social solidarity. While insufficient when introduced separately, the combination of these two remedies has the potential to radically alter social structures on which gendered inequalities rest.

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Institutionalizing the Universal Caretaker Through a Basic Income?

Cited by 38 publications

References 0 publications

Gender-Based Violence, Economic Security, and the Potential of Basic Income: A Discussion Paper

Gender-Based Violence, Economic Security, and the Potential of Basic Income: A Discussion Paper

Response to Lindsey Macdonald's 'We are All Housewives: Universal Basic Income as Wages for Housework'

Caring Revolutionary Transformation: Combined Effects of a Universal Basic Income and a Public Model of Care

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