What Women Want: Policy Choices and the Women's Welfare Dilemma

What women want is, basically, to be treated equally, as equally as men are. Women are now, which is absolutely necessary, the most talked about issue in the modern welfare state discourse. Yet, despite the bulk of gender-based studies in welfare literature, it is not entirely clear what women want, especially because there are sometimes different views from different countries on what programs and systems are good, and how good they are, for working women one the one hand, and for caring women on the other.

This divergent views are certainly based on different experiences and the special institutional history of welfare state systems, all applying a conglomeration of schemes, laws and regulations all achieving a very different effect, since they interact with each other, and since diverging cultural, institutional, political and economic realities influence the outcome and the evaluation of specific welfare state programs in particular, and welfare state systems as a whole.

While reading the excellent literature available on women's situation within different welfare state system today, the question of what women want sometimes becomes only more complex and any simple answer seems to fade away, the closer one perhaps comes to the heart of the question's answer.

The one country, to which most fingers point and which indisputably serves as a "quasi" ideal model of a welfare state system, is—of course—Sweden, a (the author supposes) truly lucky country for women to live in. Being contrasted to the German model, the Swedish model appears to be, and is, much more sophisticated what concerns equal treatment of gender in social security and welfare provision.

While entitlement to social security is bound upon the residence or citizenship status of women in Sweden, the entitlement of their German counterparts hinges on their participation in the formal labor market much more than on their residence or citizenship status. While the latter is necessary to be eligible for—comparatively, that is, very generous—social assistance ("welfare") benefits, social security benefits are only accessible to those who contributed directly into the system—i.e., excluding, female and male, taxpayers who contribute to the system by way of income tax and consumption taxes, since most of today's social security (pay-as-you-go) systems are not self-sufficient and need huge subsidies financed out of governments' general revenues.

What is rather astonishing now is that, out of the vast literature on gender studies in comparative welfare state analysis, there stand out a number of voices who actually highlight the proposingly advantageous universal features of means-tested welfare systems in the United Kingdom and Australia. This, without a doubt, can be explained by the comparatively extensive use of means-testing and the wider coverage or the higher benefits offered (similar to the positive effects of a theoretically less positive welfare system for women in Germany, due to higher benefits, and virtual full coverage of women).

When compared to the United States and Canada, it is to be said that both the UK and Australia pursue a different strategy to the provision of a minimum safety net emphasizing limited accessibility-however, not compromising the prevention of dire poverty among female welfare recipients. In other words, welfare benefits range at relatively high levels for those most in need, and this even after a period of welfare state retrenchment and the implementation of work-for-the-dole programs.

Means-tested social assistance, in general and to women in particular, remains to be, in fact one of the most unpopular and perhaps to the most discriminating (considering its effects on welfare dependency and gender segregation) form of welfare provision-even though, the author, agrees in some places more generous benefits and a wider coverage may undo most of discriminating effects of means-testing for women as well.

The universalistic character of means-tested welfare programs is to be understood as the principal possibility of every women, who suffers from the loss or the absence of income support or work, to access welfare provision, this however only after having successfully passed assets tests, or means (income) tests. This, as it is well-known, is not only a very stigmatizing process, but also a very costly process, and artificially creates a poverty trap (i.e., poverty caused by welfare provision itself) for beginning at a certain level or for every dollar (pound, etc.) of extra-earned money there comes the penalty of the reduction of the amount of benefits a women is eligible for. This work disincentive creating effect is also caused by e.g. progressive income taxation.

Attesting to the fact that women are heavily disproportionally disadvantaged by the forces of unprotected, private labor markets in modern capitalist societies and the fact that women are still doomed to provide for 70 percent of care services, the increasing focus on formal universality in gender-specific analyses of welfare provision gives rise to a principal welfare dilemma for the strong, but too often disadvantaged, female gender.

In searching for appropriate—and feasible—solutions in particular to gender specific problems-which, to be clear, are of a structural nature and not all the results of rational choices of individual women (as it is suggested by adherents to neoclassical 'economic' theory)—we must not, though, jump to any simple conclusions on what is good in any case or what is bad in any case, seen from the perspective of women's welfare taken as a whole.

While the Swedish model is (perchance) most desirable for women in societies around the world, it is also the least realizable one, in most countries of the world, in terms of governments' budgets available and the economic reality of the countries in concern, especially in times of globalization.

But, are there other solutions at hand; solutions that have not yet found their way into the mainstream discussion of gender-based welfare state analysis? A systematic comparison of policy tools applied in most of the developed world does, in fact, reveals such additional solutions. Table 1 offers a short depiction of existing principal policy tools in the provision of social security.

Table 1: Gender Effects of Principal Policy Tools in Social Welfare Provision: A Brief Overview

Note: A can be found in Sweden; B in Germany; C in Singapore or Hong Kong; D in Mexico or Chile; E in partly in the US (health care), Denmark (pensions), etc.; F in Canada or the US; G in Australia or the UK; H and I in most parts of the world as partial solutions in combination to (i.e., being a residual component of) other principal policy tools.

From the classical works of Richard Titmuss to the more recent theory of Peter Abrahamson, there is to be observed a strong emphasis on a tripartite classification of social policy approaches—with social rights-based, contribution-based and means-tested welfare benefits at the core of each system. This leaves us with a number of important policy tools in the provision of social welfare unaccounted for; namely, 5 out of 9 principal policy tools, as displayed in Table 1 (while distinguishing also between minimum and maximum variants of both means-tested and targeted social security policies, since they certainly have different effects on women's degree and quality of equality).

The first three neglected variants are the provident fund system/the defined-contribution system (as prevalent in e.g. Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong), the private insurance-based model of Social Security (that we find in its pure form in Mexico and in combination with a low national minimum pension—with a second national pension scheme still existing but now slowly fading out—in Chile), and the category of other pure private market solutions. The other two solutions at the lower end of Table 1, still largely unaccounted for, are the variants with minimum and maximum targeted social assistance systems (which, of course, can also be applied as key policy solutions of welfare state systems), such as targeted family benefits, targeted old-age benefits, targeted rent benefits, etc. Targeted social welfare benefits do not, and must not (per definition), require assets or means tests; their eligibility is solely based on one, or more (which then becomes a very interesting policy tool, and highly effective and welfare-dependency avoiding solutions can be found in applying more than one criteria), socio-economic or socio-demographic characteristic(s) of to be welfare recipients, such as e.g. age, gender, number of children, educational status, ethnic origin, occupational status, tax brackets (for income tax payers), etc.

Table 2 briefly sketches those policy variants that fulfill the formal requirement of equal accessibility—that is, (formal) universality-of welfare provision by both the male and the female gender. The solutions put forward in Table 2 are to be compared to those in Table 3, which reveal a very different picture of possible policy solutions that are both advantageous to women in terms of very broad coverage and the amount of support, without the penalizing and poverty-reinforcing effects of any sort of means-testing.

Table 2: Principal Policy Variants that Fulfill Formal Requirements of Gender Equality in Welfare Provision

Note: See Table 1.

Table 3: Principal Policy Variants that Fulfill Requirements of Real, Effective Gender Equality in Welfare Provision

Note: See Table 1.

Targeted welfare programs are highly flexible and, by definition, can be meticulously designed for specific target groups. Not only, older target groups, such as ethnic minorities as such or unemployed single mothers as such, but even more so (or as an alternative option), e.g. members of ethnic minorities attending tertiary educational facilities (such as practiced in Taiwan), mothers/parents who concluded a tertiary educational facility (such as in Singapore, where family allowances raise with higher educational background of recipients), higher family allowances for parents with more than one child (as practiced e.g. throughout Europe), targeted rent allowances (as practiced in e.g. Australia), targeted old-age allowances (as in e.g. Taiwan), and many more-an in effect endless number of-variants and combinations of targeted social assistance programs, all of which can be painstakingly customized (designed) to fit special target groups, and possibly taking into account major cultural, political, and economic differences in any given societal context.

In a nutshell, the argument of the above-highlighted women's welfare dilemma attempts to draw light on to the danger of upholding the merits of a solution that is mistakably beneficial to women (in general)-that is, in comparison to e.g. much worse solutions, or from a perspective of formal equality rather than real (economic, factual) equality. Some solutions that seem to be—on formal grounds—not so gender-friendly, in effect, may be much more so due to higher benefits levels and coverage of women (Germany, but also to some degree Australia, may in fact serve here as good examples).

Other models of welfare provision, however, may seem to fare much better than they actually are in terms of gender equality, on account of formal, rather than actual, gender equality—that is, the danger of using the concept of (formal) universalism, which is generally perceived as standing for very positive solutions with regard to gendered aspects of welfare state systems, in the context of means-tested welfare provision—such as in the United States or Canada.

by Christian Aspalter (The University of Hong Kong)

Suggested Readings

Abrahamson, Peter (2002), The Danish Welfare State: A Social Rights Perspective, Journal of Societal and Social Policy, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 57-80.

Abramovitz, Mimi (1996), Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present, South End Press: Cambridge, MA.

Boje, Thomas P. and Leira, Arnlaug (eds.) (2000), Gender, Welfare State and the Market: Towards a New Division of Labour, Routledge: London.

Borchorst, Annette (1994), Welfare State Regimes, Women's Interests and the EC, in D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gendering Welfare States, Sage: London.

Bussemaker, Jet and Kersbergen, Kees van (1994), Gender and Welfare States: Some Theoretical Reflections, in D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gendering Welfare States, Sage: London.

Daly, Mary (1994), Comparing Welfare States: Towards a Gender Friendly Approach, in D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gendering Welfare States, Sage: London.

-----(2000), The Gender Division of Welfare: The Impact of the British and German Welfare States, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

Daly, Mary and Rake, Katherine (2003), Gender and the Welfare State: Care, Work and Welfare in Europe and the USA, Polity Press: Cambridge, MA.

Hobson, Barbara (1994), Solo Mothers, Social Policy Regimes and the Logics of Gender, in D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gendering Welfare States, Sage: London.

Kingfisher, Catherine Pelissier (2002), Western Welfare in Decline: Globalization and Women's Poverty, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA.

Lewis, Jane (1993), Women and Social Policies in Europe, Croom Helm: London.

-----(ed.) (1997), Lone Mothers in European Welfare Regimes: Shifting Policy Logics, Jessica Kingsley Publishers: London.

Meyers, Marcia K.; Gornick, Janet C., and Ross Kathrin (1999), Public Childcare, Parental Leave, and Employment, in D. Sainsbury (eds.), Gender and Welfare State Regimes, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Mitchell, Deborah (1997a), Family Policy in Australia: A Review of Recent Developments, Graduate Programme of Public Policy, Discussion Paper, No. 50, April.

-----(1997b), Reshaping Australian Social Policy: Alternatives to the Breadwinner Welfare State, Graduate Programme of Public Policy, Discussion Paper, No. 55, December.

O'Connor, Julia; Orloff, Ann Shola, and Shaver Sheila (1999), States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States, Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK.

Pascall, Gillian (1996), Social Policy: A New Feminist Analysis, Routledge: London.

Pixley, Jocelyn F. (1996), Economic Democracy: Beyond Wage Earners Welfare, in John Wilson, Anthony McMahon, and Jane Thomson (eds.), The Australian Welfare State, Macmillan: Melbourne, Australia.

Sainsbury, Diane (1996), Gender, Equality and Welfare States, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

---(1999), Gender, Policy Regimes and Politics, in D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gender and Welfare State Regimes, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Saunders, Peter (1995), Improving Work Incentives in A Means-Tested Welfare System: The 1994 Australian Social Security Reforms, Social Policy Research Centre, Discussion Paper, No. 56, May.

Shaver, Sheila (1995a), Universality and Selectivity in Income Support: A Comparative Study in Social Citizenship, Social Policy Research Centre, Discussion Paper, No. 58, May.

-----(1995b), Women, Employment and Social Security, in A. Edwards and S. Magarey (eds.), Women in a Restructuring Australia, Allen & Unwin: Sydney, Australia.

Siaroff, Alan (1994), Work, Welfare and Gender Equality: A New Typology, in D. Sainsbury (ed.), Gendering Welfare States, Sage: London.

Watson, Sophie and Doyal, Lesley (eds.) (1999), Engendering Social Policy, Open University Press: Buckingham, UK.

Weeks, Wendy (1996), Women Citizen's Struggle for Citizenship, in John Wilson, Anthony McMahon, and Jane Thomson (eds.), The Australian Welfare State, Macmillan: Melbourne, Australia.