From his results, the eighteen countries Esping-Anderson studied clustered into three welfare type regimes. The first regime was the liberal welfare state, were means tested assistance prevails and were benefits cater mainly for those on a low income. An example of this type of welfare state is in Northern Ireland and Britain where aspects of the old Beveridge system still prevail. This system has a ‘work ethic’, that is, that low benefits discourage people from opting out of paid work. (Lecture (6) 13-2-01) The second type of regime is the corporatist welfare state, known to Germany, Austria, Italy and France. This welfare state unlike the liberal is highly de-commodifying as the level of benefits are very generous. (Esping-Anderson, 1990: 27) The third regime is the social democratic welfare state native to Scandinavian countries. This regime promotes an equality of the highest standards, not an equality of minimal needs as was pursued elsewhere. This regime is highly de-commodifying and Esping-Anderson notes that it allows for individual independence. (Esping-Anderson, 1990: 28)
Esping-Anderson’s insight to welfare state types however doesn’t give a full picture. Feminist contributions attempt to fill in Esping-Anderson’s gaps. Jane Lewis (1992) in her study which paralleled Esping-Anderson’s found that all the highly de-commodifying countries like Sweden (in Esping-Anderson’s study) had weak breadwinner links. This is because the Swedish government moved towards a dual breadwinner society, with increased childcare and parental leave. However in Britain and Ireland there is a strong breadwinner status. Lewis suggests this is evident from the nature of women’s work (part time), the lack of childcare services and maternity rights and the inequality between husbands and wives with regard to social security. (Lewis, 1992: 161) Sainsbury (Lecture (6) 13-2-02) reiterates Lewis point by stating that de-commodification is less about the generosity of the state as Esping-Anderson suggests but more about supporting the male breadwinner.
Esping-Anderson (1990) is also criticised by socialist feminists Mc Laughlin and Glendinning (1994) for his lack of material on gender relations in the welfare state. They claim although he emphasises the importance of the relationship between work and welfare, and also that the range of human needs that are given the status of a social right is a central definitional issue with regard to the identification of welfare state regimes. It is clear according to Mc Laughlin and Glendinning that he does not think of this definitional struggle between men and women. (1994: 63) Esping-Anderson basically leaves the question of the private sphere unanswered.
By emphasising this Mc Laughlin and Glendinning (1994) have made the varied relationships between individuals, families and state either for men or women more obvious. Mc Laughlin and Glendinning also state that current comparative models of the welfare state such as Esping-Anderson’s offer us little with which to understand both the meaning and principles behind the development of policies around ‘paying for care.’ (1994: 63) And so the feminist contribution seeks to enlighten us on gendered matters of the welfare state, which mainstream theorists such as Esping-Anderson have not done.
Mc Laughlin and Glendinning (1994) note that commodification and de-commodification have been gendered so that men and women occupy different positions in relation to the provision of care for children and elderly dependents. They parallel Esping-Anderson’s (1990) theory by looking specifically at men and women’s relation to the family. They look at unpaid labour and how this familises and de-familises the individual. That is provisions and practises, which vary the extent to which well-being is dependent of out relation to the family. De-familisation is about the terms and condition under which people engage in families, and the extent to which they can uphold an acceptable standard of living independently of family participation. (1994: 65)
In creating this term socialist feminist’s such as Mc Laughlin and Glendinning (1994) have highlighted the extent to which de-familisation has been inadequate in welfare policies relevant to for example the disabled. Finch (1977) reiterates this point by stating that policies devised on non- family care in the community may be appreciated by the disabled as it would give them an heir of independence and maybe give their mainly female careers more time free also. (Ungerson and Kember, 1997: 364) Ungerson and Kember further state how feminist research looks at the significance of women in informal care and the effect this has in differences between male and female participation in the labour market. They also highlight the sexual division of child-care, the way social security assumes and reaffirms women’s dependence on men in the family and the sexual division of caring for the elderly and the disabled. Feminists such as Mc Laughlin and Glendinning (1994), Lewis (1992), Ungerson and Kember (1997) etc have recognised that gender relations in the welfare state are not as simple as mainstream theorists such as Esping-Anderson would have us believe.
Other feminist’s such as Barnes (1997) have also looked into gender differences in the welfare state by studying informal care, and the gendered consequences of it. Barnes claims that women have the main responsibility for informal (unpaid) care. (1997: 13) It can then be assumed, that many policies of the welfare state are at present, not geared towards Mc Laughlin and Glendinning’s de-familisation.
Feminists like Barnes (1997), Finch and Groves (1977), and Ungerson (1987), all articulate what they perceived to be equal opportunity issues raised by community care policies. Ungerson (1987: 11) especially criticises Titmuss (1968) for his understanding as a mainstream theorist of community care. Titmuss in his essay ‘Community Care! Fact or Fiction?’ (1968) did not refer at all to informal carers or to women. He had an image of community care as, “ ……….a sense of warmth and human kindness, essentially personal and comforting.” (Titmuss, 1968: 104)
It was feminist contributions such as the latter, which enable us to see who and what is involved in community care and the gender issues relating to the welfare state which comply with it.
Finch and Groves (1977) argue that policies for community care were, within a context of public expenditure cuts, and were fundamentally incompatible with policies for equal opportunities for women. They claimed that in practice community care equals care by the family, and in practice care by the family equals care by women. (Ungerson, 1987: 494) Because of feminist contributions and increased knowledge of community care the Equal Opportunities Commission commissioned a study of carers and for the first time a serious effort had been made to plot the incidence of caring and to discover the sex ratio. The results found, “ Out of the 116 carers, 87 (75%) were women and 29 (25%) were men.” (Equal Opportunities Commission, 1982b, 3) The ‘Equal Opportunities Commission’ then published a set of recommendations for the support of carers, in terms of services, financial benefits and employment rights. The Equal Opportunities Commission also stated,
“ The carers visible to government statistics are married men aged less than 64 years old caring for their disabled wives and single people caring for infirm parents. Carers are only visible to policy makers when they receive some kind of state benefit, yet many welfare benefits exclude married women….”
(Equal Opportunities Commission, 1982b: 3)
From this came Nissel and Bonnerjea’s study (1982). The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which caring functions of the family operate as a constraint on women’s participation in the community on an equal footing with men’s. The results found from a sample of forty- four married couple households caring for an elderly dependent relative, that the wives spent on average between two and three hours a day undertaking essential care for the relative, irrespective of whether the wives were in paid employment or not and the husbands spent eight minutes. Nissel and Bonerjea added the amount this care cost women who had left paid employment to care for relatives. It added up to eighty-seven pounds per week. They quote, “Clearly the government were getting a very good deal.” (Ungerson, 1987: 11) It is feminist contributions such as these that enable us to see that the gendered ideologies of the female carer still prevail in the welfare state, up to fifty years after Beveridge.
Female patterns of employment also show that the gender divisions from the day of Beveridge still exist today. For example the number of women in employment in relation to men is substantial. As table one shows, in 1998 sixty-three percent of women in comparison to eighty-one percent of men of working age were economically active.
TABLE 1
What proportion of women of working age are economically active compared to men?
(Equal Opportunities Commission, 1998)
The difference complies with Beveridge’s, “She has other duties” (Beveridge, 1942: 64) motto in relation to the housewife. The figures contemplate that men do not have other duties and so are free to participate in paid employment.
Feminist contributions especially liberal feminists, tell us that gender inequalities in the welfare state are not only shown in the number of women in paid employment in relation to men, but in the type of work those women in employment are doing in relation to men. Figures from the ‘Equal Opportunities Commission’, portrayed in table two show only nine percent of females work as managers and administrators. This compares to twenty percent of males.
TABLE 2
In What occupations do men and women work?
(Equal Opportunities Commission, 1998)
Jobs that are classified as low paid are predominately female. Recent figures from the ‘Equal Opportunities Commission’ show, for example, ninety-nine percent of secretaries, typists and receptionists and eighty-seven percent of cleaners, caretakers and road-sweepers are female.
TABLE 3
What is the proportion of women in various low paid jobs?
(Equal Opportunities Commission, 1998)
Joyce Jacobsen (1998) Calls this type of work ‘Pink Collar Occupations.’ She states that, “Men continue to shun these jobs.” (Jacobsen, 1998: 206) Feminist perspectives further aid our understanding of gender relations in the welfare state with their studies on male and female part-time employment. Zoe Irving (2001:181) states that, “Women’s part-time employment is a contributing factor in the continuing economic inequality between women and men.”
She also states that part-time employment is for the most part undertaken by women, whose employment accounted for seventy-four percent of the part-time total in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in 1997. Irving (2001) explains that the characteristics of part-time work are somewhat undesirable. Part-time work she explains is more often that not that of precarious and marginal employment were one would expect to find low rates of remuneration, inferior conditions of service, few opportunities for training and staff development, poor prospects for career progression and reduced rights to social protection. (Irving, 2001: 188)
It is because of things like lack of child-care places that women have to opt out of full-time work into part-time work. ‘Equal Opportunities Commission’, figures show that that number of day nursery places per thousand of the population aged nought to four in Northern Ireland is thirty-five, however this is below the United Kingdom average of seventy-one. The welfare state and its gendered nature seems to assume the position, that women with children are going to stay at home and this may be the reason for lack of child-care places in Northern Ireland. The welfare state however does not assume men are going to be staying at home according to figures of male full-time employment as shown in table ten. Maternity leave is also a minimal of ten weeks leave of employment for men.
Zoe Irving (2001) does however point out that male part-time employment has increased and notes that possibly men’s involvement in part-time work may lead to a change in its status as inferior work. She further states that if men are being pushed towards female patterns of employment then one outcome maybe that the disadvantage associated with these will become a much more significant policy issue. This turn around, evident in the Netherlands just shows whose priorities are taken primarily into account in the welfare state. Without this feminist contribution our understanding of gender relations in the welfare state would be limited to mainstream theorists such as Anderson (1990), Marshall (1950) and Titmuss (1950) who do not approach gender issues to such an extent in their studies, and so because of the feminist contribution our understanding of gender relations in the welfare state is more valid.
With regards to social protection, gender inequalities in old age reflect gender inequalities in paid work during working-age years. In order to get a basic state pension, contributions have to be made every nine years out of ten in employment. However because of most women’s broken careers (because of pregnancies etc.) this is hardly possible. Women are low earners and so their contributions are little and thus to will be their pension’s. This in turn can lead to poverty in old age. (Lecture (7) 26-2-01)
Oppenheim and Harker (1996) state that the social security system often fails to meet adequately the needs generated by unemployment, low pay, having a child or coping with disability. They further state, “Poverty is also caused by policies.” (1996: 47) The ‘Women and Social Security’, booklet states that women are among the majority of poorest pensioners. This reflects a pension system based on male earning which takes insufficient account of their greater longevity and a pattern of low or no earning’s during working-age. (page16) This information shows that gender relations in the welfare state are not always if at all on an equal footing to the needs of both genders.
In response to all of these issues Catherine Hakim (2001) has developed ‘Preference Theory’. Preference theory is concerned primarily with women’s choice between family work and market work and this choice arises equally for women in all social classes. (Pages 1-2) She claims policies should allow women to be either home-centred, adaptive or work-centred and that policies should support lifestyles and diversity. (Lecture (8) 20-2-02) Hakim and feminist’s like her have all given a good contribution on gender relations in the welfare state, Hakim has taken a step further and suggests through preference theory how things should be.
In Conclusion there have been a lot of different impact from different strands of feminism in an attempt to understand gender relations in the welfare state. This feminist thought has mainly come in retaliation to mainstream theories such as Esping-Anderson (1990) and Marshall (1950), who according to theorists such as Pascall and Mc Laughlin and Glendinning (1994), have not been sufficient in their arguments as they have failed to study gender differences/inequalities between men and women with relation to welfare state. Policies inefficiencies such as community care, lack of child care facilities, unpaid informal care, low pensions for low contributors which are primarily women in part-time employment and many other issues have been brought to light by feminist research. Feminists in their criticisms of mainstream theorists and the welfare state have given an invaluable contribution to understanding gender relations in the welfare state, which otherwise would not have been known. The feminist perspective has enabled us to see that gender relations in the welfare state are riddled with inequalities with women being at the heart of the disadvantage.
Because of feminist movements like those mentioned so far, the inequality in gender relations has been realised and to a certain extent addressed by policies implemented, such as the Human Rights Legislation in Northern Ireland that affirms, “ The right to equal opportunities in all social and economic activity, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity.” (Good Friday Agreement, 1998: 314) Other changes made have been the new ‘Statutory Equality Commission’ and the incorporation of the ‘European Commission of Human Rights’ into Northern Ireland law. (Good Friday Agreement, 1998: 314-315) The following website also tells us that changes have been made to the ‘Fair Employment Commission’, regarding gender issues also. (
