Varieties of Capitalism and Cross-National Gender Differences

Abstract

The varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach (Hall and Soskice 2001 for an introduction) did not develop as an attempt to explain cross-national gender relations. It was the insight of Estevez-Abe that it could be used in gender analysis (Estevez-Abe this volume). She built on Iversen’s argument that the patterns of business and individual investments in skills implied by VoC could explain complementarities between welfare state regimes and varieties of capitalism (Estevez-Abe et al. 2001; Iversen 2005). These arguments are summarized shortly. This issue of Social Politics shows at least to my reading that VoC offers a range of important insights and tools of comparative analysis; but as Charles points out (this volume) many key characteristics of occupational segregation are common across advanced economies—blue collar work for example is seldom done by women anywhere. VoC is useful then in explaining comparative differences. In this commentary I first sketch out the VoC approach and why it implies that wage determination and skill formation systems differ substantially across economies. Using these two institutional differences the Estevez-Abe argument is set out the links between varieties of capitalism and welfare states are established and a number of implications for cross-national gender differences are drawn. Finally the relation between VoC and political systems are discussed. (excerpt)