Employment and care: The policy problem, gender equality and the issue of choice

Abstract

The issue of how to reconcile employment and care work has become much more prominent on the policy agenda over the last decade, often as a means of tackling a wide variety of problems ranging from low fertility to meeting the costs of aging societies and addressing child poverty. This article prioritizes gender equality and argues that the issue of care is key to developing policies in this field. Family and labour market changes have been dramatic and have presented modern welfare states with new social risks. Policy makers have tended to promote women's employment and to assume that care work will increasingly be commodified. This article reviews the nature of care work and the existing models for providing for it, and then suggests that if the terms and conditions for the shift to an adult worker model family are to be more gender equal, then a variety of policies encompassing time, money and services are necessary if both women and men are to be able to choose to engage in paid and unpaid work.

Acknowledgement

Research for this paper was supported by the ESRC, grant no. 225-25-2001.

Notes

1. This paper cannot consider the politics of policymaking in this field, but see Schweie (2000); Morgan and Zippel (2003) and on the making of parental leave policy in particular: Falkner (1998) and Ross (2001).

2. For an interesting critique of Hakim's preference theory see McRae (2003).

3. Considering the actual choice sets of women cross-nationally is an important challenge for future research.

4. See also Korpi's (2000) typology of family policy, which is based on the extent to which family policies promote female employment.

5. In 1998, a European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions survey on employment options for the future showed that 71 per cent of respondents (from all EU member states) wanted to work a 30–40 hour week, with convergence between male and female respondents towards a preference for long part-time working, which seems to provide support for this policy. However, these are preferences and respondents probably assumed other things – especially income – to be equal.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane Lewis

Jane Lewis is Professor of Social Policy at the LSE. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the royal Society of Canada. Her most recent book is The End of Marriage? Individualism and Intimate Relations (Edward Elgar, 2001) and she is the author of many articles on gender and welfare systems.