The ability to produce gender equality represents an important basis of the legitimacy of any social policies meant to reach social justice. The gendered division of labor within families and at work does not only produce economic injustice but also social injustice (Fraser & Ferrarese, 2011). On the one hand, the existing division between paid productive work and free reproductive and domestic work creates economic injustice, since well-paid activities are mostly male-dominated whereas domestic work and lower-paid service activities are mostly women-dominated. On the other hand, it also creates social injustice since women-dominated activities (professional and non-professional) are less socially valued. Therefore, Nancy Fraser assumes that transformative social policies should intertwine two goals - redistribution and recognition - since women's economic disadvantage restricts their opportunities to make their voices heard, hindering equal participation in the making of culture, in the public sphere and in daily life. In times of uncertainties, such as during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is of paramount importance to question, from a gender and an intersectional perspective, the definition of social justice which is at the heart of social policies implemented by Welfare States. Social divisions and social differences do not operate separately to produce a circle of economic and social subordination, they are intertwined. 

This panel proposes to question social (in)justice through the lens of gender and social policies. We welcome papers that consider theoretical and empirical research to explore the relationship between social policies and gender equality outcomes from any of the following or other perspectives: Located between the market and the family how do social policies address gender injustice in family and work arrangements? How are gendered orders transformed by social policies? Do they only address economic injustice through an equal repartition of resources among men and women? Do they also allow for an equal social recognition among men and women? To what extent do social policies, implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, have produced more gender (in)justice? 

Neglecting Reproductive Labour: A Critical Review of Gender Equality Indices 

Caitlin Schmid, University of Manchester

Over the past twenty-five years, increased attention to gender equality on the international political agenda has been accompanied by a rise in the number of indices seeking to measure and monitor gender equality levels across countries. As increasingly central tools of governance and knowledge production, gender equality indices carry political weight, starting with the underlying conceptual framework determining what is considered a constituting element of gender inequality. 

This paper analyses the conceptual frameworks of existing international gender equality indices to assess their adequacy in capturing the key dimensions of gender inequality in order to effectively inform policy development towards social change. Specifically, the paper investigates how existing gender equality indices conceptualise and measure the role of unpaid reproductive labour, given its centrality in perpetuating gender inequality. 

First, the paper offers a comparative overview of the seventeen existing gender equality indices. Drawing out their theoretical concepts and the key dimensions relied on to construct the indices shows that they consistently draw on the capability approach (Sen, 1985), while two exceptions make use of Fraser’s (1997) universal care-giver model. Following this overview, the historical emergence of these indices is broken down into four waves, demonstrating how they evolved in critical dialogue with each other. 

Second, it contributes to the existing debate by highlighting how the significance of unpaid reproductive labour is neglected to varying degrees by all but one of the gender equality indices. The empirical analysis shows that the majority of existing indices neither conceptualize nor measure the gender division of unpaid reproductive labour. By ‘shrinking’ the meaning of gender inequality, these indices offer only a partial understanding of the complexity of the problem and the necessary solutions, as argued by Lombardo, Meier and Verloo (2009). This brings into question their effectiveness in challenging existing structures and informing social policies aimed at transforming the gendered order.

One index does stand out in its explicit aim to overcome and address the invisibility of women’s work – the African Gender and Development Index by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (2004). It does so by conceptualizing and measuring the gender division of unpaid reproductive labour alongside employment and time spent in the market labour. This in turn recognizes the economic value of unpaid reproductive labour, its relation to other forms of labour, and its central role in perpetuating gender inequality.  

Given the empirical findings, the paper concludes by contributing three wider lessons for the improvement of gender equality indices. First, the empirical analysis shows that gender equality indices need not neglect the division of unpaid reproductive labour. Second, data availability need not compromise the coherence of the indices’ frameworks. Rather, by insisting on a comprehensive framework, indices can function as advocacy tools for improved data collection. Finally, gender equality indices can complement their quantitative analyses with qualitative assessments of relevant developments to reduce the overbearing emphasis on quantitative indicators in global governance. Although gender equality indices have increasingly improved across the four waves of development, this paper argues that to capture gender inequality unpaid reproductive labour must feature centrally.

Keywords: Reproductive labour, gender, equality, indices 

La politique d’activation de l’Assurance-invalidité : le traitement handicapiste et genré de la réhabilitation professionnelle des personnes porteuses de déficiences physiques et réactions genrées des sujets

Elena Pont, Université de Genève

Dans les années 2010, nous avons mené en Suisse romande une recherche ancrée dans la sociologie du handicap, les études genre et l’éducation des adultes, sur la reconstruction des trajectoires éducatives et professionnelles des personnes paraplégiques, à l’aune des rapports sociaux de handicap et de sexe. À l’appui de récits de vie recueillis auprès de cinq femmes et cinq hommes paraplégiques, nous avons montré quelles stratégies d’empowerment ces sujets mettent en œuvre au cours de leur réhabilitation, alors que le projet de (ré)orientation éducative ou professionnelle qu’ils et elles sont enjoints d’élaborer, est soumis à des décisions de l’Assurance-invalidité qui peuvent contrecarrer leur autodétermination. L’Assurance-invalidité est entrée depuis sa 5e révision de 2008 et sa révision 6a de 2012, dans une politique accentuée d’activation des personnes dites handicapées vers le travail salarié, avec pour but principal une limitation de l’octroi de nouvelles rentes. L’analyse des récits de vie, au prisme des modèles biographiques de De Coninck et Godard (1990), des épreuves biographiques (Martuccelli, 2015) et des identifications sexuées, signalent que le traitement assurantiel du retour à l’emploi de ces personnes est marqué par les rapports sociaux, tant de sexe que de handicap. Si les femmes ne se dirigent pas vers la sphère domestique, elles retournent à l’emploi en subissant les effets concomitants des divisions handicapiste (Pont, 2018) et sexuelle du travail (Kergoat, 2000). En effet, elles sont généralement encouragées à reprendre un travail de bureau, traditionnellement féminin, dans une palette restreinte de métiers, et subalterne, du fait d’attributions d’incapacités liées à l’existence de la déficience. Quant aux hommes, ils sont également (ré)orientés « au féminin neutre » (Pont, 2018), toujours dans les métiers de bureau habituellement occupés par les femmes, et les femmes porteuses de déficiences en particulier, et ce à l’encontre de leurs autodéfinitions masculines dans les mondes de l’éducation et du travail. Femmes et hommes élaborent alors des stratégies d’émancipation des traitements socio-assurantiels. Des parts de cette expérience sont partagées par nos informateurs-trices; elles constituent ce que nous nommons des modèles d’expérience d’empowerment. Ces dernières sont elles aussi genrées : si les hommes profitent de rôles-modèles de même sexe et de cooptations dans des milieux masculins pour affirmer leur autodétermination, les femmes se virilisent par des soutiens masculins ou vivent un parcours éducatif ou professionnel sur lequel les scansions socio-structurelles ont plus d’impact que sur celui des hommes.

Keywords: Assurance-Invalidité, activation, handicap, genre 

In the name of the child: Mothers’ “obligations” and fathers’ “rights”

Faten Khazaei, Goldsmiths University of London

Through an ethnographic study of two Swiss public institutions’ assessments of children at risk in cases of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) cases, this paper shows how a public hospital and a shelter for victims problematize exposure to IPV as a risk factor for child protection. Because of their legal obligations, these institutions actively investigate the situation of children to assess the extent to which they have been directly victimized or exposed to violence. However, in this process, men and women, as fathers and mothers, are not held to the same level of scrutiny and to the same standards in terms of their responsibilities towards their children’s well-being. A gender bias is evident, which reactivates a gendered attribution of familial roles. Consequently, these institutions focus on women as mothers who are regarded as the primary caregivers and held responsible for protecting their children from harm, even when the harm is inflicted by the fathers as perpetrators. This representation is consistent with a stereotypical portrayal of an ‘adequate’ and ‘appropriate’ mother who is perceived to be able to overcome all obstacles to protect her children and who is willing to sacrifice her own interests, even at the price of putting her own safety in danger. Thus, women are reduced to their mothering role, and are no longer conceived as individuals, women who are victims of IPV. 

At the same time, in the name of the best interests of children, a continuous interaction with their fathers is encouraged. The question of the father’s violence is rarely debated, or else this question is rapidly discarded. Instead, the mother is expected to keep his image positive and to refrain from complaining about his violence and his shortcomings as a husband and father in front of their children. Moreover, women have to ensure that their actions do not harm the children. Maintaining continuous and immediate contact with fathers is predetermined to be a necessity and is not assessed on a case-by-case basis. It is also postulated that abusive husbands—in spite of being the instigators of the violence, who created the harmful situation in the first place—can be good fathers. They are perceived only in terms of their rights in contrast to mothers, who are perceived first and foremost in terms of their obligations. 

Overall, this analysis of the discourse and practices of public agents reveal the ways in which the familial order, and, beyond it, the social order, are conceived in relation to a gendered order. Through the reactivation of a familistic perspective based on a traditional assumption of gendered roles, rights, and responsibilities, blame and protection are attributed in such a way that victims of IPV are viewed ultimately as being ‘complicit’ with the perpetrators for having exposed the children to their violence and for failing to protect the children. The fact that they themselves are victims of violence is not considered to be an attenuating circumstance that attenuates their responsibility with regard to their children; rather, it is perceived as an aggravating condition.

Keywords: Violence, child protection, familialism, gender, law 

Work-life conflict and social policies: what are the target groups?

Irina Gewinner, University of Luxembourg; Bianca Brünig, Leibniz Universität Hannover; Magdalena Ślusarczyk, Jagiellonian University

In the recent years, many industrialised countries formulated their gender equality policies, aiming at reconciling employment and private duties of parents and carers by accentuating accessible and affordable care services to reduce “disincentives for women to work more” (EC 2017). Apart from personal attitudes, women still have fewer opportunities for labour market participation in many countries. The reconciliation of work and private life/parenting is thus signalled out as challenge at all stages of agency. This challenge has reached its peak during the current Covid-19 crisis, which changed work-life balance tremendously, especially for women. 

Work-life balance (WLB) and reconciliation of paid and unpaid work have been addressed not only in research, but also in organisational practice. The shift towards seeking the right combination between work and private life/home has been largely necessitated by the profound changes in the European labour markets in the recent decades. Current research hardly accounts for how the interaction of social policy at the macro level and organisational offers at the meso level are accessed and used depending on individuals’ background (Gewinner 2019, 2020). There is lack of information, which social groups are the factual receivers of policy offers. Therefore, this paper asks, which social groups are targeted by work-life balance policies? Drawing upon the meta-analysis method, it scrutinises the research performed in the last decade (2010-2020) by particularly looking at the target groups addressed in the literature. 

To understand how inclusive WLB policies are, we analyse over 800 papers on WLB published within the last 10 years. We find that even if a significant part of the research concerns women, there is still a lack of appropriate culture- and class sensitiveness. Existing research addresses women's work in relation to the Global North, middle and upper class women. Even when research on specific ethnic groups (e.g. Nigerian or Pakistani) is undertaken, it is done in the national context and includes middle/upper class, well-educated, full-time women working in large companies. Insufficiently explored are the WLB issues of men, working/lower class women, migrant women or the self-employed. Little research is also conducted on the impact of these policies within the private sphere. Thus, the question remains to what extent such research has an impact on social policy and whether the above mentioned groups are or are likely to become its recipients. Moreover, the meta-analysis highlights that a top-down approach prevails which focusses on the implementation of policies within lower levels. However, little focus on the needs and perceptions of social groups and companies regarding WLB policies exists. A second important question therefore remains the inclusion of the unheard and/or overlooked voices of these women in WLB or work-family conflict discourse.

Keywords: Work-life conflict, social policies, meta-analysis, target groups, agency levels