Gendering dimensions of welfare states

Abstract

Mainstream typologies of welfare states fail to provide much indication of what sort of variations might be important to women, and the dimensions of variation discussed in chapter 1 offer few clues. Inherent in much mainstream thinking no doubt is the assumption that the impact of welfare states is roughly the same for men and women. A further obstacle to considering differential benefits according to sex appears to have been underlying assumptions about the superiority of the institutional model and the social democratic welfare state regime. Protagonists of the institutional model seem to have thought that massive state intervention in welfare provision would automatically benefit most people, including women. One of the most telling examples of this sort of reasoning is Esping-Andersen's categorization of the Netherlands as a social democratic welfare state regime. Similarly, the definition of the fundamental goals of the institutional model as redistribution and equality easily reinforces the supposition of similar welfare outcomes for both sexes. In any event, certain variations, unrelated to the amount of state involvement, work either to the advantage or disadvantage of women. The small amount of information on women in the mainstream literature also causes one to wonder how suitable mainstream models and typologies are for analyzing welfare states and gender. Can these models and typologies be used or must we formulate new ones? To answer these questions and to devise a framework of analysis for the next chapters of this book I have adopted a two pronged strategy. The first consists of examining feminist scholarship and its critique of mainstream literature in search of gender relevant dimensions of variation.