Examining Public Policy from a Gendered Intra-Household Perspective: Changes in Family-Related Policies in the UK, Australia and Germany since the Mid-Nineties

Authors

  • Jerome De Henau The Open University, Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences
  • Susan Himmelweit The Open University, Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences

Keywords:

intra-household inequalities, family policies, gender roles, individual income, Desigualdades dentro del hogar, políticas familiares, roles de género, ingresos individuales

Abstract

Public policy can affect many different gender inequalities. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of policy on gender inequalities within households. This paper analyses a range of family-related policy changes over the last fifteen years in Australia, Germany and the UK to compare their potential effects on intra-household gender inequalities. These include changes in parental leave policies, working time regulation, childcare support and financial support to families. Many of these changes are found to have contradictory effects on within household inequalities, mainly because those that improve women’s incomes in their current gender roles may also undermine incentives to challenge traditional gender roles. All three countries have implemented substantial reforms over the period considered. However, with labour market activation policies tending to favour an inherently unequal one-and-a-half earner household, the effects on inequalities within households did not meet increasingly egalitarian gender role attitudes.

Las políticas públicas pueden afectar a muy diversas desigualdades de género. Sin embargo, se ha prestado escasa atención a los efectos de la política sobre las desigualdades de género dentro de los hogares. En este trabajo se analiza una serie de cambios relativos a políticas familiares que se han dado en los últimos quince años en Australia, Alemania y el Reino Unido, para comparar sus efectos potenciales sobre las desigualdades de género dentro del hogar. Éstos incluyen cambios en las políticas de licencias parentales, la regulación de la jornada laboral, el apoyo al cuidado infantil y el apoyo financiero a las familias. Muchos de estos cambios han tenido efectos contradictorios en las desigualdades dentro de los hogares, sobre todo debido a que los que mejoran los ingresos de las mujeres en sus roles actuales de género también pueden socavar los incentivos para desafiar los roles tradicionales de género. Los tres países han llevado a cabo reformas sustanciales en el período referido. Sin embargo, con las políticas de activación del mercado de trabajo que tienden a favorecer a un hogar de una sola fuente de ingresos y medios inherentemente desiguales, los efectos sobre las desigualdades dentro de los hogares no cumplieron con las actitudes cada vez más igualitarias en cuanto a roles de género.

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Author Biographies

Jerome De Henau, The Open University, Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences

Jerome De Henau is a Lecturer in Economics at the Open University, Milton Keynes. He was a co-investigator on a recently finished ESRC-funded research project that aimed to understand how policies influence gender inequalities within households in OECD countries. He holds an MSc degree (DEA) in Management and a PhD in Management and Applied Economics from Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) – Solvay Business School. His main research interests involve gender, family policies, tax and benefit policies, labour and household economics. He is also a member of the International Association for Feminist Economics and of the UK Women’s Budget Group

Susan Himmelweit, The Open University, Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences

Susan Himmelweit is Professor of Economics at the Open University. She is the coordinator of the policy advisory group of the Women's Budget Group, a think tank monitoring and advising government on the gender aspects of social and economic policy, and a past President of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE). Her research is on gender issues in economics, including a cross-national study of within household inequalities and both policy and theoretical analysis of the economics of care.

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Published

26-02-2013

How to Cite

De Henau, J. and Himmelweit, S. (2013) “Examining Public Policy from a Gendered Intra-Household Perspective: Changes in Family-Related Policies in the UK, Australia and Germany since the Mid-Nineties”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 3(7), pp. 1222–1248. Available at: https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/245 (Accessed: 5 November 2024).