Rethinking the paradox: tradeoffs in work-family policy and patterns of gender inequality

Abstract

On the basis of aggregated data from the most recent ISSP surveys and data from secondary sources, this paper analyzes a wide range of country-level indicators that reflect different dimensions of gender inequality and pertain to the economic position of women in different class situations. The findings reveal that indicators of gender inequality pertaining to women in different class positions are oppositely related to the scope and levels of family policy. Specifically, countries characterized by generous family policies tend to address gender equality among disadvantaged groups, while exhibiting an unequal pattern of gender inequality on indicators related to advantaged groups. By contrast, countries characterized by ungenerous family policies tend to advance equality on parameters related to advantaged groups but perform very poorly on parameters of gender inequality pertaining to disadvantaged groups.

Basándose en datos agregativos de encuestas ISSP más recientes y datos provenientes de fuentes secundarias, este artículo analiza una amplia gama de indicadores – a nivel de países- que reflejan diferentes dimensiones de la desigualdad de género relativos a la posición económica de mujeres de diferentes clases sociales. Los resultados revelan que los indicadores de desigualdad de género pertenecientes a mujeres de diferentes clases sociales están inversamente relacionados con el tipo de políticas familiares existentes en los países analizados. Específicamente, países que se caracterizan por tener políticas familiares ‘generosas’ tienden a favorecer la igualdad de género entre los grupos de nivel socio-económico bajo, pero al mismo tiempo favorecen la desigualdad de género entre los grupos de nivel socio-económico alto. Por el contrario, países que se caracterizan por polít icas familiares ‘no generosas’ tienden a favorecer la igualdad de género entre grupos de nivel socio-económico alto y a favorecer la desigualdad de género entre grupos de nivel socio-económico bajo.

Keywords:

• welfare-states
• gender
• family-policy
• class

Palabras claves:

• estado del bienestar
• genero
• politicas familiares
• clase social

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Moshe Semyonov, Michael Shalev, Haya Stier, and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments. This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

Notes

1. For Canada and Spain – Role of Government, 2006; for Italy – Social Networks II, 2001.

2. The final two indicators refer to single parents, rather than mothers. Nevertheless, most single parents are mothers, and the correlation between the two across countries is very high.

3. The strongest negative correlations are between women's representation in the parliament and women's representation in managerial and supervisory positions (r=−0.60 and r=−0.53, respectively).

4. For a more comprehensive discussion of the ideological and political sources of the different tradeoffs of gender inequality, see Mandel (2009).