Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society - Advance Access

Investing, Facilitating, or Individualizing the Reconciliation of Work and Family Life: Three Paradigms and Ambivalent Policies

Knijn, T., Smit, A. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:54:28 PST

After decades of promoting work–family reconciliation with the aim of advancing gender equality, European Union (EU) discourses around work and family have been reframed. This article distinguishes three currently paramount discourses: The social investment approach, the transitional labor market model, and the individual life-course model. Respectively, they propose investing in, facilitating, and individualizing the new social risks, including the resolution of tensions in the relationship between work and family life. Each has particular assumptions about risk-sharing, public and private responsibility, and the position of the individual vis-à-vis the state and the community. These paradigms have been analyzed in relation to EU policies on the reconciliation of work and family life. We find some traces of these paradigms in the Lisbon agreements, its amendments, and in the National Action Plans that are regularly submitted by the member-states. We conclude that the gender-equality agenda has been subordinated to the focus on creating competitive knowledge-based economies in the EU. Social investment is the most prominent of the three paradigms in this new agenda, yet because it is mixed up with elements from the other paradigms, current policy agendas lack coherence.

Lost in Translation: The Social Investment Perspective and Gender Equality

Jenson, J. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:17:48 PST

The social investment perspective is replacing standard neoliberalism in Latin America as well as Europe. With it come ideas about social citizenship that reconfigure the citizenship regimes of the three regions. The responsibility mix is equilibrated to give a greater role for the state, although as investor rather than spender; access to citizenship rights shifts to incorporate the excluded and marginalized; and governance practices alter to emphasize decentralization to the local and the community. The main idea of the social investment perspective is that the future must be assured by investing in children and ending the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. With this set of child-centered policy ideas, the equality claims of adult women and attention to their needs are sidelined in favor of those of children, including girls.

Gender, Ideational Analysis, and Social Policy

Beland, D. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:21:29 PST

An increasing number of social scientists have argued that ideational processes can have major consequences on politics and policy. Focusing on social policy, the present article explains how students of gender have contributed to the contemporary literature on ideational processes. As suggested, all researchers interested in these processes would benefit from engaging with the gender literature because it draws our attention to at least three broad issues neglected by many non-feminist scholars: (i) the intersection between categorical inequalities and policy ideas; (ii) the role of identities and gendered cultural assumptions; and (iii) the relationship between welfare regimes and ideational processes. Overall, the main objective of this article is to favor a more fruitful dialogue between students of gender, on one hand, and other policy scholars who also explore the role of ideational processes, on the other.