The crisis of care, international migration, and public policy

Abstract

Focusing on Europe's reconciliation policies, aimed to balance family and labor market work, this paper explores whether some of the legislative efforts introduced in Europe during the past decade could be applied to Latin American countries with important migrant populations, such as Bolivia and Ecuador. This paper argues that there are differences between Northern and Southern countries that would influence the effectiveness of these kinds of policies in the South. Three differences in particular – the availability of domestic service, the extent of the informal economy, and international migration – are taken into consideration. Using the capabilities approach framework, this paper outlines other lines of public policy action that can be useful in designing reconciliation policies for the South. Finally, the paper argues that there is an urgent need for re-thinking gender equity within the emerging gender order across countries.

Keywords:

• Gender equality
• social reproduction
• globalization
• international migration
• capability approach
• social policy
• JEL Codes: B54 F22

Acknowledgments

This paper was presented as part of an International Association for Feminist Economists (IAFFE)/Union for Radical Political Economists (UPRE) panel at Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) meetings, which were held January 4–6, 2007 in Chicago, IL. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the meeting on “Social Cohesion, Policies of Reconciliation and Public Budgets” that was organized by United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA)/Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) in Mexico City, October 24–26, 2005. Many thanks to Luis Mora for getting me to think about this topic, to Dick Miller, Irma Arriagada, Ingrid Robeyns, and Mildred Warner for their useful comments on an earlier draft, and to three referees for their very useful comments and suggestions.

Notes

From the prologue to Luis Mora and María Moreno Ruiz, eds. (2006).

I am referring to the “Ley de Dependencia Universal” (law of “universal dependency”) introduced on March 5, 2006 by the Socialist government and approved on November 30, 2006.

The 2005 UNFPA meeting, which was attended by participants from a variety of countries, was a pioneering effort to discuss reconciliation policies in Latin America (see Mora and Moreno-Ruiz, eds. 2006). Since then, this issue has been incorporated in other regional conferences.

Based on her study of Ecuadorian women in Spain, Gioconda Herrera (2005) reports that nine out of ten immigrant women were engaged in domestic work, the proportion being higher among those without legal papers.

More specifically, Robeyns's work centers on Western Europe.

For example, studies of mobility and the use of transportation show that women tend to move within distances closer to the household whereas men tend to travel longer distances (Eduardo Alcántara de Vasconcellos 2003).

At a seminar I gave in La Paz, Bolivia in which this set of capabilities was discussed, a participant who had conducted research among poor, mostly indigenous women in the Bolivian city of El Alto pointed out that most poor women did not have any leisure time. In fact, when asked what they would do if they had an hour of leisure a day, some of her respondents said that they would use it to do more paid work in order to raise their household income.

For example, some participants in the discussions suggested “being able to bargain at different levels” (for example, in the household, community, the state, etc.) and “being able to develop self-esteem” as important capabilities helping them negotiate with policy makers and local authorities.

For example, subsidies targeted at increasing food availability for family consumption are not likely to increase women's mobility, whereas the effect is more likely to be positive if it is used to increase children's school attendance.

Note that the table does not include a column for parental and care leave. This is because these policies tend to be linked to formal jobs while those in Table 2 are meant to benefit informal workers, yet when mentioned, there was much agreement about the primary importance of this type of leave for working women.

If the Caribbean countries are not included, the value for 2006 is US$54.9 billion (IADB n.d.).