TheDaak review

Edited by – Francesca Bettio and Alina Verashchagina, New York: Routledge, 2008.

by Sweta Tripathy

‘Frontiers in the Economics of Gender’ edited by Francesca Bettio and Alina Verashchagina is an anthology of thirteen essays which pertain to the various contours of economics of gender. It critically traces the historicity of gender in economics and evaluates the existing theoretical framework by incorporating gender. 

Marcuzzo and Rosselli¹ have attempted to brush off the ‘dust of obscurity’ from women whose contributions to economic sciences, like any other science, have been systematically neglected. Economics, which claims to be value-neutral and whose theoretical frameworks have extensively relied on the operation of a free market, has actually managed to keep women out of it. Economics as a field stands on the pillars of androcentric biases: for example, its basic assumption is about a ‘rational man’. Assessing history of economic thoughts through a gender lens uncovers many examples of how prejudice had creeped into greatest minds like Marshall, Malthus and Keynes. Historically, professionalization of subjects, here Economics, have been dictated by prevailing gender norms (p.9). So it’s natural that the subject which has evolved over the years conforms to an ideal of masculinity. 

Likewise, the existing narratives of historical events are gender biased. As men have held more political, economic, social and cultural power than women in all past societies, they have been the subject of dominant historical writing (p. 21). In her essay, Hudson² asserts the ways in which gender-oriented research can challenge the existing economic understanding. Given the divide in the public-private sphere, the first thing that can be done to uncover the gender impact on historical writings would be to encourage more research on private everyday lives across generations and even in present times (p.22) i.e. to investigate a sphere which remained confined to women. This doesn’t mean that an attempt would be made to fit women into the conventional narrative, rather it implies a fundamental rethinking from the very base, across generations and time. This essay is located in the literature of feminist challenge to accepted economics. The assumptions that underlie modern economic analysis make it difficult to examine decision-making which is conventionally embedded in patriarchal power relations. Other  examples of gender-oriented research in demography, ownership of capital and investment, provisioning and consumerism, etc. have been pooled to establish the body of this essay, pointing out how feminist economists have advocated for a ‘methodological shift’ which is broader and inclusive. 

Such gender deconstruction of history would imply questioning the very idea of ‘knowledge’, ‘power’ etc. which have historically been associated with a male identity. More light has been shed on this context in the last chapter ‘Gender and the political economy of knowledge’ by May.³ Even while the number of women enrolling in higher education has increased over time, there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in the proportion of female faculty members in educational institutions (p.267). There exists much resistance to women being the producer of  knowledge. May points out how institutional factors have reinforced gender segregation in academia. Institutions of higher education barring women from their faculty  has been cited as an act of ‘status maintenance’ (p.276). 

Mainstream economics is hugely based on the assumption of methodological individualism, i.e. ‘individual’s’ behaviour and decision-making are driven by self-interest. For example, it is assumed that a family is unitary and the head of the family is altruistic (Becker, 1981). But this is not necessarily true as we know that the allocation of household income and resources can be gender-biased given the male-dominance that prevails in our society. In order to counter such biases, the second section establishes novel theoretical frameworks to incorporate gender into microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis. Cigno⁴ has tried to establish  that marriage as an institution is inherently biased against women. In a marriage, two possibilities can be arrived at: either specialising in gender-defined work or non-cooperation between the couple. A woman can only avoid being exploited by her husband by refusing to specialise in child care and retaining control over her own earnings. The underlying assumption is education would increase the recipient’s earning capacity. Given the prevalent gendered division of labor, naturally it is assumed that a woman would tend to cooperate after marriage. Assuming this as a disincentive, girls end up acquiring less education than boys. Incentive lies in increasing her endowments through dowry. But if education could affect a person’s domestic bargaining power, the argument for giving a daughter money rather than education becomes weaker (p.56). This conclusion seems fitting since education can only provide agency if it translates to viable jobs and confer women with some sense of entitlement. 

Chichilnisky⁵ explains the phenomenon of women being underpaid and undervalued in a rational economy via the interaction between the institutions of family and market. Unpaid domestic work performed by women remains unaccounted for and outside government regulation. Given the gendered obligation of women to households, firms perceive them to be less reliable, hence lower wages. Historically, wages of women have been lower than men which reinforce the gendered construct of division of labor (Becker 1985). Basically, inequalities at home lead to inequality in the market and vice versa.  A better solution is possible which would ensure equity in households and firms. But this doesn’t happen in real life because of missing contracts between these two institutions (p.72). Adding another dimension to the issue of gender wage gap, in chapter 11, Eckel⁶ states that it can be well-induced by how women are perceived. It puts forward questions like, if women and men earn different wages because of differences in their preferences, the way others perceive them, or in the ways they are treated by others within a social context (p.225). Through experiments, it’s shown that women are more ‘altruistic’ and hence would accept lower compensation, are ‘risk averse’ which implies that they have lower reservation wage. These aspects can greatly affect wage negotiations. The neoclassical framework for wage determination does not account for such ‘perceptions’ and ‘stereotypes’. But it is very important that we consider people in their social and historical context because identities have a bearing on human behaviour. 

In the essay ‘Ghosts in the machine’⁷, authors emphasise the need to introduce gender into macroeconomics. It criticises the neoclassical paradigm for its inability to incorporate cooperation and conflicts within the household. Subsequently, a Post-Keynesian two-sector model has been developed to analyse the flow between household production and the commodity sector to bring out the fact that even the act of social reproduction and care-giving requires investment, which has systematically been neglected in macroeconomics. Household as an economic entity has been further analysed in the subsequent section adhering to two dimensions – economics of care and intra-household bargaining. By conceptualising care, Nancy Folbre⁸ has tried to point out the complexities involved in care work. Care work involves human emotions and it’s highly substitutable, generally leading to lower remuneration. This chapter ends with a note on the requirement of further research pertaining to this context. Similarly,  Lundberg⁹ explains through general bargaining models that women attending to child care end up having lesser command over resources outside the household which results in their less bargaining power in the process of household decision-making. 

The next section pertains to labor market debates, and provides empirical evidence on disparities across Europe in context of wage gap and occupational segregation.¹⁰ Through a comparative study across the EU nations, it has been concluded that the extent and the structure of the gender pay gap does vary across the countries. Therefore, in order to rectify the pay gap there is a need for a country-specific approach and it has to be targeted at certain groups: older women, segmented markets, part-time workers, and also for highly educated workers in some countries. In the next essay,¹¹ it has been stated that the relation between segregation and gender pay gap has changed. This further reinforces the idea discussed in Chichilnisky’s essay ‘The Gender Gap’ empirically. And if the household bargaining approach is correct, the same gap perpetuates an unbalanced division of labor within households. In the last essay of this section,¹² economic position of women has been surveyed in the context of the transition economies of the Former Soviet Union and Central & Eastern Europe. This empirically argues that given the role of women in the household, risk and uncertainty involved in market reforms can put women in a position of disadvantage. 

Through novel and inclusive theoretical frameworks, this book is an attempt to incorporate gender into the sphere of economics and it outlines the drawbacks of mainstream economics. In other words, it’s a combined effort to make economics more human, and in order to do that it draws significant elements from the works of prominent feminist economists. One thing that can be pointed out is, it’s a story of the Global North. This needn’t necessarily be a drawback of this book but the discussed framework of analysis can be used for the Global South because it’s a possibility that the outcomes would vary. 

Notes

1. Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina, and Annalisa Rosselli. “The history of economic thought through gender lenses.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 19-36. Routledge, 2008.

2.  Hudson, Pat. “The historical construction of gender: reflections on gender and economic history.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 37-58. Routledge, 2008.

3.  May, Ann Mari. “Gender and the political economy of knowledge.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 283-301. Routledge, 2008. 

4. Cigno, Alessandro. “A gender-neutral approach to gender issues.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 61-72. Routledge, 2008.

5. Chichilnisky, Graciela. “The gender gap.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 73-92. Routledge, 2008.

6. Eckel, Catherine. “The gender gap: Using the lab as a window on the market.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 239-258. Routledge, 2008.

7. Akram-Lodhi, A. Haroon, and Lucia C. Hanmer. “Ghosts in the machine: A Post Keynesian analysis of gender relations, households and macroeconomics.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 93-114. Routledge, 2008.

8. Folbre, Nancy. “Conceptualizing care.”  In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 239-258. Routledge, 2008.

9. Lundberg, Shelly. “Gender and household decision-making.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 132-150. Routledge, 2008.

10.  This has been explained in two separate essays:  Dolton, Peter, Oscar Marcenaro-Guttierez, and Ali Skalli. “Gender differences across Europe.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 153-182. Routledge, 2008. And 2.  Bettio, Francesca. “Occupational segregation and gender wage disparities in developed economies: Should we still worry?.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 183-207. Routledge, 2008.

11.  Bettio, Francesca. “Occupational segregation and gender wage disparities in developed economies: Should we still worry?.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 183-207. Routledge, 2008.

12. Malysheva, Marina, and Alina Verashchagina. “The transition from a planned to a market economy: how are women faring?.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 208-236. Routledge, 2008.

References:

1. Becker, G. S. (1981). Altruism in the Family and Selfishness in the Market Place. Economica, 48(189), 1-15.

2. Becker, G. S. (1985) Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor, Journal of Labor Economics , 3 (1): 33–58.

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