What such writers tell us is that our preferences and desires are created through our interaction with society. Importantly, they ‘internalize’ power and status structures. What we think we want in part reflects what society wants us to want, whether that is to be a domestic goddess or a high-earning financier. Cultural norms and values can affect and constrain our decisions in obvious ways, but they can also do it in these much more subtle ways: they can become internalized.
The idea of socialization suggests that a focus on individual agency and ensuring equality of opportunity is not sufficient for women's freedom. Women may feel that they are freely ‘choosing’ to do particular things ‒ whether that be to choose concealing or revealing clothing, or to aspire to become a housewife or a page-three girl ‒ when in a different world they may have chosen to do something else entirely. Where constraints are internalized rather than externalized, they can be all the more difficult to budge. Doing so requires more than giving individual women the freedom to choose; it is also necessary to tackle the big picture, the wider structures of society.
This, of course, helps explain why patriarchy can be slow to change. It also accounts for why when change does happen, it cannot be understood in terms of a ‘rational, self-interested calculating’ being. Naila Kabeer notes that collective action is necessary for ‘social transformation’.35 Alice Evans notes the importance of ‘norm perceptions’ ‒ of what we think other people think is acceptable. Since most care work is undertaken behind closed doors, it can therefore be difficult to change the perception that care work is ‘for women’ (and is ‘unmanly’). Visibility is therefore key to change.36
However, although it is easy to accept that society can have a powerful influence on our individual choices, the policy implications should not allow others to override the individual preferences of women. When taken to its extreme, the notion of socialization can be used as justification to force individuals to do something against their will – ‘for their own good’. That includes western authorities banning women from wearing headscarves or western feminist groups campaigning against sex work. Here the assumptions of mainstream economics ‒ that of ‘rational, self-interested and calculating’ beings ‒ can in fact help to rein in such thinking. People are, quite simply, assumed to know what is best for themselves. That might be missing something but so too is the opposing view, one which can lead us to incursions on women's individual freedom. Ultimately, we must walk a fine line between the two.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have seen both the benefits of and limitations to women's freedom of economists’ concept of individuals as rational, self-interested and calculating beings. From a feminist point of view, the problem with economists’ assumptions is something other than that identified by behavioural economics: rather, it's the neglect of the body, the family and society.
The historically male concept of freedom has resulted in a neglect of women's bodily autonomy, including their freedom to control their own fertility. This neglect of fertility leads us to the second problem with economics: its neglect of family. In the words of Michelle Baddeley, ‘[t]he standard assumption in economics is that we all behave as if others do not actually exist as individuals’.37 The private sphere of life has, sadly, been seen as entirely separate to the economy. In recent years, economists have, of course, tried to make some connection between the individual and society, developing the notion of ‘social capital’. Furthermore, behavioural economics is increasingly noting the power of social influence, turning to sociology and not just psychology. However, the gender element has been largely ignored.
Once fertility, family and society are brought into the picture, we see the way in which our decisions are shaped by numerous tensions: between what we want and what society expects; between our own inner interests and those of the people we care about; between our need for autonomy but the reality of dependence; and between our hearts and our heads, or our brains versus our bodies. This means that to fully understand the economy, we need to think about both sets of polar extremes: individuality and relationships; independence and dependence; and reason and emotion.38 Rather than opposing one another, the mainstream neoclassical economic model of human behaviour and the behavioural-cum-feminist one need to come together: it is by considering the life that goes on between the two, rather than at the extremes, that we will be able to build a better understanding of the economy, one that can help deliver equitable and sustainable prosperity.39
Notes
1 Wollstonecraft (1792).
2 Bryson (2016), p. 14.
3 Quoted in Samuels (1992), p. 97.
4 Folbre (2009), pp. 117‒20.
5 Sawhill (2014).
6 Wellings et al. (2013).
7 Bearak et al. (2018).
8 This short section draws on Bateman (2015b).
9 Bryson (2016), pp. 148‒9.
10 Becker (1981); Grossbard (2006).
11 Folbre and Hartmann (1988); Bergmann (1995); Woolley (1996).
12 Folbre (1982). Also see Agarwal (1997) and Basu (2006).
13 Zanden, Rijpma and Kok , (2017), ch. 2.
14 Kabeer (1997); Duflo (2003).
15 Howard (2018).
16 Offer (2017).
17 De Moor and van Zanden (2010).
18 Waring (1988); Folbre (1991).
19 Folbre (2009), pp. 124‒5, 130.
20 See Bryson (2016), ch. 11, pp. 254‒5 and pp. 264‒7 for further discussion.
21 O’Hara (2013); Himmelweit (2006).
22 Folbre (2001).
23 Ibid..
24 Himmelweit (2006).
25 Bateman (2017b); Fraser (2016).
26 Bryson (2016), pp. 24, 61,199.
27 Bryson (2016), pp. 24, 61.
28 England (1989): 23; Folbre (2004). Also Sen (1977, 1987).
29 Woolley (1993); Humphries (1995), p. xxxiii.
30 Sen (1987); Folbre (2004); Gammage, Kabeer and van der Meulen Rodgers (2016).
31 Woolley (1993): 496.
32 Folbre (2004); Chambers (2008).
33 Wollstonecraft (1792).
34 De Beauvoir (1973), p. 301.
35 Kabeer (2003).
36 Evans (2016).
37 Baddeley (2017), p. 19.
38 Nelson (1995), p. 136; Bryson (2016), p. 152.
39 England (1989) suggests that the dichotomization is itself mistaken ‒ that rationality and emotions should not, for example, be separated.
Conclusion
Deep within the entrance hall of the Woolworth Building ‒ one of New York's oldest skyscrapers and a living monument to American capitalism ‒ is a golden mosaic. At the very centre can be found the goddess of commerce, flanked on each side by two men on bended knees presenting the goddess with the transport innovations that first enabled globalization: the ship and the railway. Although the mosaic might suggest that feminism and economics are natural bedfellows in the heavenly world of the gods, it is not the case here on earth. As we have seen throughout this book, when it comes to almost all of the big questions ‒ from the causes of prosperity, boom and bust and inequality to debates about the state and the market ‒ economists’ neglect of sex and gender is severely limiting their ability to find the right answers, or to design and deliver appropriate policies.
As we saw in part I, where we looked at the causes of prosperity, the now popular story of how the West grew rich is largely one of male inventors and industrialists, with female liberation presented as a mere by-product. However, the truth is that women were equally important in the rise of the West; it's just that their role has gone relatively unnoticed. At a time when women's rights and freedoms are under attack in large parts of the world, the role of women in creating successful economies must now be recognized. If there is one key difference between the West and ‘the rest’ that can help explain their relative fortunes, it is women's freedom.
Advances in
women's freedom were central to the story of how the West grew rich, feeding through to affect all the factors that drive economic prosperity: technology, savings, skills, entrepreneurism and even democracy. Until greater economic significance is placed on gender equality as the cause ‒ not consequence ‒ of economic success, women's freedom will not be given the importance it deserves, and gender inequalities will go unaddressed. That includes unequal access to markets and resources, the inadequate birth control and unequal distribution of care. If policy makers in poor countries want to identify the obstacles in the way of their own country's growth, they only need to look inside their own homes.
As we saw in part II, if we want to explain the conjunction of a slowdown in western economic growth, together with rising income inequality, we also need to bring women's freedom centre stage. It wasn't so long ago that the world was divided into two: in one half, women had at least a reasonable degree of equality and, with it, an economy on a relatively sound footing; in the other, women had, on average, far fewer rights, even bigger families to take care of, and both they and their economy paid the price. As the world has gone global, these two very different equilibria have been forced together, with the latter acting to undermine the high-wage equilibrium of the former. It is little wonder that western working-class wages have stagnated and income inequality has rocketed. In time, one would hope that women's freedoms would expand across all countries, meaning that we can all converge on the high-wage high-freedom equilibria, and then we can return to the virtuous circle that once existed between rising wages and rising productivity.
However, as we saw in chapter 3, we cannot assume that gender equality is on a naturally improving trend towards full equality. Gender inequality has risen as well as fallen throughout the course of history. Today, birth control is underfunded, leaving many of the world's poorest women without access to the vital supplies they need.1 The UN Family Planning Agency faces a US$700 million funding gap.2 Even in the West, women's freedoms ‒ including their access to birth control ‒ are under threat. So too is their liberty to dress as they wish ‒ whether to fully cover or reveal ‒ and, as we saw in chapter 5, their freedom to monetize their bodies in the same way that they can monetize their brains. We must not be complacent that women's freedoms will forever increase or that women always know what's best for other women. When it comes to policy, we must make sure that women are free to make their own choices, whether or not other women (or men) like the choices they make. The emphasis of policy should be on opening up options for women ‒ not closing them down, such as by making access to birth control more difficult, banning clothes that are either too concealing or revealing, or criminalizing the buying (or selling) of sex.
Sex and gender equality are not only relevant for prosperity and inequality, they also have a bearing on perhaps the greatest challenge we face in the modern world: the depletion of our environment. Despite the fact that the world has been able to sustain an ever-expanding population for the past two centuries, there is a limit to how many people we can realistically fit on the planet without it costing the natural world. Given that it is the world's poorest women who bear the brunt of environmental damage, gender and the environment cannot be separated.3 Indeed, feminist economists have drawn parallels between how the economy ‘free-rides’ on the ‘free labour’ provided by women within the home and how it behaves likewise in regard to the natural world. Addressing environmental issues is often seen in terms of wind farms and other such technologies. However, reproduction is just as, if not more, relevant. As we have seen throughout this book, where women have complete control over their own bodies, they make fertility decisions of their own choosing that, by happy coincidence, fit much more neatly with the ecological limits of the planet than when they have no such choice at all. Birth control is essential to saving the planet and yet, as I have already noted, remains significantly underfunded.
Throughout our discussions, we have seen both the virtuous and vicious dynamics that are at work when it comes to gender and the economy. The gender gap doesn't just reflect gender inequalities; it also feeds into them, making it more likely that women retreat into the home and men become the main income-earners. Equality within the home cannot be achieved until there is equality in the market; however, in turn, equality in the market is difficult to achieve when there is still so much inequality within the home. This serves to explain both why economies can seem trapped in situations of gender inequality but also why, once things start to change, positive feedback effects are created that serve to bring about relatively rapid improvement. And, once gender equality does improve, it places the economy on a stronger footing and, if properly channelled, in turn feeds back to further aid gender equality, creating a further virtuous circle. Trying to get the process started, as happened in north-western Europe in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, is the tricky part. However, as we have seen throughout, markets that provide opportunities for women are a vital part of this story.
Access to markets is key to providing women with an escape from social practices that stand in the way of their freedom. We have seen the way in which opportunities to engage in paid labour brought about radical changes in family life in Britain, including in the elimination of early marriage, all of which culminated in the Industrial Revolution. Access to markets, which in turn requires access to resources, education and training, is equally vital for women in poorer countries today. Evidence suggests that gender inequality is significantly lower in parts of China where more job opportunities have historically been available for women, such as in the cotton textile sector.4
This does not, however, mean that markets are perfect. To make the most of markets, we also need to be ready to question the laws, regulations and institutions that underpin them, all of which can themselves embody heavily gendered social norms. That includes revising property law, family law and employment law, and improving women's political representation so that the experiences of women do not fall under the radar. The expectation that unpaid care is ‘women's work’ remains a major problem in almost all rich economies, something which policy could do much more to address (or at least not perpetuate) through taxation and welfare systems. When ushering in change, we have, however, to be aware of ‘unexpected consequences’ if we are to ensure that policies to ‘empower’ women do not backfire. For example, changes in inheritance law have been shown to increase the murder rate of female family members,5 greater access to reproductive technology (such as abortion) has resulted in women being put under pressure to abort baby girls,6 whilst increasing labour market access can increase the total amount of work expected of women (giving them a ‘double-shift’ of paid as well as unpaid work) and has even been shown to increase domestic violence.7 Many of these effects are precisely the opposite of those predicted by economic models. If such adverse effects of gender equality policies are to be avoided, complementary laws may need to be adopted, such as those tackling violence against women. However, men also need to be brought onboard, and social norms need to be tackled ‒ and this may be best done through popular culture rather than by economic policy. The way men and women's ‘roles’ are represented in everything from soap operas to advertising can greatly affect what men and women expect of one another, creating a feeling of anxiety when their socially constructed identities are challenged.8 To improve gender outcomes in poorer countries, a ‘big push’ is therefore required to target social norms at the same time as women's access to the market is enhanced, and the foundations of the market ‒ its laws, regulations and institutions - are reformed to eliminate gender bias. This big push can help limit the backlash effects, leading to a total effect that is more than the sum of its parts. A half-hearted approach, tinkering here and there, cannot be expected to deliver material change.
As we saw in part III of the book, feminist thinking has a lot to contribute to debates about the state versus the market, highlighting both some under-appreciated downsides as well as some under
-appreciated upsides. Feminism has a lot to offer, wherever you are on the political spectrum. Perhaps the single greatest contribution from feminist scholarship, relevant to rich as well as poorer countries, is to suggest the addition of a vital third sphere to our thinking about state and markets: the domestic sphere.9 It is a sphere that dramatically changes the way we think about the trade-offs between markets and the state, suggesting that they can in fact be complementary rather than conflicted. Only by addressing the ‘crisis of care’ ‒ the way in which the economy depends on ‘free labour’ within the home ‒ can we achieve more equitable and sustainable growth outcomes. When the state cuts back on spending, as has been the case with structural reform in poorer countries and austerity in richer ones, it cannot keep expecting women to pick up the pieces. There is a lesson to be learned from chapter 7: a higher level of women's freedom helped the West to build relatively capable states, ones in which the state and the market worked with, rather than against, one another. Further such progress can still be made on this score today, both at home and abroad.
Altogether, if we want a more prosperous economy, and also one where that prosperity is sustainable and equitable, economists need to start recognizing the transformative power of women's freedom ‒ and doing more to support it.
The Sex Factor Page 24
