Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society - current issue

Gender, Class, and Varieties of Capitalism

Mandel, H., Shalev, M. — 2009-06-08

The "Varieties of Capitalism" (VoC) perspective is innovative and challenging for the comparative study of gender stratification. However, the project of "gendering the VoC" has some serious shortcomings. While the economic functionalism of VoC theory is in principle gender-neutral, it is in fact implicitly predicated on a man's world. A key proposition of the model, that social protection contributes to the functioning of labor markets is not applicable to women. Moreover, the model's blindness to political forces that are critical to women's employment limits its ability to explain cross-country variations in a major dimension of gender stratification. The VoC perspective is more valuable in explaining differences in women's insertion into the job structure. However, its insights into the effects of skills regimes on women's employment opportunities can be enhanced by attending to the intersection between class and gender. Skill specificity, the critical causal mechanism identified by VoC theorists, has different implications for women in different class positions.

Gender, Inequality, and Capitalism: The "Varieties of Capitalism" and Women

Estevez-Abe, M. — 2009-06-08

How Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism Requires a Wider Lens

Rubery, J. — 2009-06-08

Varieties of Patriarchal Capitalism

Folbre, N. — 2009-06-08

This paper joins Mandel and Shalev in calling for more attention to gender dynamics within the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) literature. However it urges readers to recognize the contribution of social reproduction to production, and to question whether the term "capitalism" accurately captures the most important features of the social formation that we live in.

Is Gender Inequality Greater at Lower or Higher Educational Levels? Common Patterns in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States

2009-06-08

We compare how gender inequality varies by educational level in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States, representing three different welfare regimes: the conservative, the social democratic, and the liberal. With few exceptions, gender inequality in labor force participation, work hours, occupational segregation, and housework are less severe as education goes up in all three countries, with the root cause being the high employment levels of well-educated women. Despite a common pattern across nations, we note that the educational gradient on gender equality in employment is weaker in Sweden. De-familialization policies in Sweden no doubt increase gender equality at the bottom by pulling less-educated women into the work force. One form of gender equality, wages, however, does not increase with education. In the United States, educational differences in the gender gap in wages are trivial; in Sweden and the Netherlands, the gender wage gap is greatest for the highly educated because of higher returns to education for men than women in these nations.

A Nordic Nirvana? Gender, Citizenship, and Social Justice in the Nordic Welfare States

Lister, R. — 2009-06-08

The Nordic model has emerged as some kind of exemplar in much center-left political debate. This overview article starts with a brief account of this political positioning and of the values underpinning the Nordic model. The main focus, however, is the extent to which the Nordic welfare states have been successful in promoting a women-friendly, gender-inclusive model of citizenship, taking account of the differences between the Nordic countries. It offers both a "half-full" and a "half-empty" analysis and ends with the challenge posed to the Nordic model by growing ethnic diversity.

Governance Reforms and Rural Women in India: What Types of Women Citizens are Produced by the Will to Empower?

Everett, J. — 2009-06-08

In 1993, the Government of India reserved one-third of the seats in rural councils (panchayats) for women, and along with NGOs, set up programs to empower rural women. We examine the usefulness of a Foucauldian governmentality framework in analyzing how women participants in panchayati raj institutions in Pune District, India, have been produced and the ways in which they respond. We conclude that the emphasis of a strong Foucauldian perspective on structure at the expense of agency obscures the complexity of women's responses. In contrast, a weak Foucauldian perspective is able to recognize that in some cases these incorporation processes create assertive, reformist, and resourceful citizens.