Behavioral economics, gender economics, and feminist economics: friends or foes?

ABSTRACT

Behavioral economics may be considered as neoclassical behavioral economics (or ‘as-if’ behavioral economics), which adopts a neoclassical normative model of rationality and explains bias and mistakes as deviations from that model, or it could be envisioned as ‘smart behavioral economics’ that rejects standard rationality of neoclassical economics and adopts ecological rationality to explain that simple strategies, when adapted to the environment, will produce clever decisions. While, feminist economics fully rejects neoclassical economics model of rationality as a determining factor for the development of patriarchy, and adopts a more complex cognitive approach, gender economics adopts the rational choice framework as a consistent model to describe gendered phenomena. The aim of this paper therefore is to demonstrate that the concept of rationality adopted by ‘smart’ behavioral economics makes it consistent with feminist economics, while the concept of rationality adopted by ‘as-if’ behavioral economics makes it consistent with gender economics.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavioral neoclassical economics
• smart behavioral economics
• feminist economics
• gender economics
• standard rationality
• ecological rationality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Giandomenica Becchio is senior Fellow of economics and Professor of History of Economic Theory and Entrepreneurship, and Methodology of Economics at the University of Torino. She is currently working on a book about the history of feminist economics and gender economics (Routledge, In press).

Notes

1 According to Heikes (2010) despite Descarte’s dualism, Hume’s instrumentalism, and Kant’s lack of recognition of the social dimension of reason, they have gained some credit. Namely, Descarte’s idea that human beings possess reason in equal measure, Hume’s endorsement of the importance of passions, and Kant’s commitment to the universality of reason to enrich their notion of rationality.

2 Contrary to this approach, see Angner and Loewenstein (2012).

3 As Camerer recalls, Pareto strongly maintained the urgency of divorcing economics and psychology, ‘by simply assuming that unobserved utility is necessarily revealed by choice’ (Camerer, 2006, p. 89), and putting aside any psychological factors into what he called ‘residuals’ and ‘derivations’ (he later introduced these ideas in his last work dealing with sociology).

4 For a constrasting approach, see Herfeld (2013).

5 In contrast and for a gender-neutral notion of rationality in Descartes’ comments, see Lloyd (1984).

6 People get married ‘when the utility expected from marriage exceeds that expected from remaining single or from additional search for a more suitable mate’ (Becker, 1976, p. 10). Children are durable goods, and their quality is directly related to the amount of income used for them. Fertility depends on income, child costs, knowledge, uncertainty, and tastes. About health, Becker wrote: ‘the economic approach implies that there is an “optimal” expected length of life, where the value in utility of an additional year is less than the utility foregone by using time and other resources to obtain that year’ (Becker, 1976, p. 9). On education, he wrote: ‘persons only choose to follow scholarly or other intellectual or artistic pursuits if they expect the benefits, both monetary and physic, to exceed those available in alternative occupations’ (Becker, 1976, p. 11).

7 This is the case in the gender entrepreneurship gap, i.e., the gap between men and women in taking the risk of becoming entrepreneurs. Evidence proves that that entrepreneurship gap is reduced when women have access to financial support (microcredit), and when other female entrepreneurs mentor them (Butler, 2003).

8 It is a matter of women’s empowerment to fight against social structures that coerce women to be subordinate to men. In many cases, a set rule, which formally brings women to the decision making level does not ensure substantial role for them within the intra-house decision-making process, and the existing gender gap in decision-making persists in favor of men, both in the developing and developed world (Kabeer, 2005; Duflo, 2012).