Winners and Losers: The Consequences of Welfare State Policies for Gender Wage Inequality

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractCross-national studies of the impact of welfare states on gender inequality tend to overlook socioeconomic divisions among women. This paper challenges the implicit assumption that welfare states have uniform effects on the labour market attainments of all women, arguing that the impact of state intervention is necessarily conditioned by women's relative advantage or disadvantage in the labour market. Based on micro-datasets from 21 advanced countries, the findings suggest that welfare state policies interact with socioeconomic position in determining women's economic rewards, tending to penalize highly skilled women while benefiting the less-skilled. Highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of social policies in light of the particular groups they benefit, as well as their implications for other groups, the paper concludes that more research is needed to explore differentiated approaches to reconciling work and family, rather than addressing universal work-family tensions.1 Winners and Losers: The Contradictory Consequences of Welfare State Policies for Gender Wage InequalityThis study stresses the importance of class differences for cross-country comparisons of gender inequality in general, and for understanding the effect of welfare state policies on gender earnings inequality in particular. Acknowledging the role of class divisions among women, the study draws on insights from the feminist notion of intersectionality, which has become a major theme in feminist studies. While stimulating researchers to study the different life experience of doubly disadvantaged groups (e.g., Browne and Misra, 2003;Collins, 1999; hooks, 1984;, intersectionality has yet to be sufficiently translated into empirical studies that compare different groups of women across the class spectrum The notion of intersectionality has mainly been concerned with the unique experience of black (as opposed to white) women (e.g., Browne and Misra, 2003;Collins, 1999), whereas the literature on the welfare state and gender has focused mainly on comparing the situation of women (as opposed to men) in different institutional contexts. In emphasizing inequality on the basis of gender per se, this literature has primarily highlighted elements that unite, rather than split, women. As women of all societies and social groups share the universal tension between work and family, public policies aimed at easing women's access to independent sour...

Incorporating ‘class’ into work–family arrangements: Insights from and for Three Worlds

“…In absence of the state de-familializing care, however, it is difficult to predict work-family arrangements without reference to the overall level of inequality in a country and a family's social location within it. Under optional, supported, or default Following cross-national research on women's employment outcomes (Korpi et al, 2013, Pettit and Hook, 2009, Keck and Saraceno, 2013, Mandel and Shalev, 2009, Mandel, 2012, I…”

“…While scholars have long argued for joint consideration of gender, family, and class in cross-national research (O'Connor et al, 1999, Orloff, 1993, Korpi, 2000, the nascent empirical cross-national literature attempting to incorporate class has largely focused on women's employment and gender inequality in employment outcomes (Mandel, 2011, Mandel, 2012, Pettit and Hook, 2009, Korpi et al, 2013, Mandel and Shalev, 2009. Little attention has focused on household-level work-family arrangements (for exceptions see Saraceno, 2013 andEvertsson et al, 2009 on mothers' employment outcomes, and Cooke, 2011 on distributions of paid and unpaid work among couples).…”

Abating inequalities? Job quality at the intersection of class and gender in Finland 1977–2013

“…Mandel and Shalev 2009a;Mandel 2012). According to this idea, it is women at the higher end of the skill continuum that are in an unfavorable position in the Nordic countries.…”

“…Controversially, notable gender gaps, according to various work life indicators like wages, job authority and quality of jobs, have been found in the Nordic countries, despite them being regarded as female friendly welfare states (see e.g. Gallie et al 2007;Mandel 2012;Stier and Yaish 2009) Despite intriguing results, these previous studies have limitations: many of the studies are restricted to cross-sectional data or rather short time spans due to a lack of available data (Gallie et al 2007;Holman 2013a;2013b;Stier and Yaish 2014), and thus provide only limited possibilities to make conclusions on long-term polarizing developments or other trends. Furthermore, critically evaluating the research settings in studies that tackle inequalities reveals shortages as class and gender have been treated as two autonomous domains of inequality.…”

The joint effect of ethnicity and gender on occupational segregation. An approach based on the Mutual Information Index

“…For example, in Scandinavian countries, where many women have tertiary education, women follow feminized career ladders in the public sector (Hansen 1997;Mandel 2012). Likewise, highly quali ed members of certain minorities tend to avoid the ethnic penalty (Heath, McMahon, and Roberts 2000) that they might endure in the broader labor market by carving out occupational niches in which they achieve a certain critical mass (Lieberson 1988) To our knowledge, no contribution to the literature would lead us to expect any particular pattern in the way in which the dwindling interaction between ethnicity and gender, if any, might behave, once we account for the human capital characteristics of women and men and of each ethnic group.…”