Soub94

"Worlds of welfare, illusionary and gender blind?" (Bambra, 2004)

To what extent do you consider Esping Andersen's typology fails to address
the gendered realities of work, health and welfare today.

The objective of this essay is to consider to what extent Esping-Andersen's

typology fails to address the gendered realities of work, health and welfare
today.

In order to address the question posed, the logic behind Gosta EspingAndersen's typology of welfare regimes is briefly explored before moving on
to deconstruct the theoretical perspective underlying his analysis from a
feminist perspective. As noted by Hobson (2005, p.136) feminist theoretical
positions on the welfare state can be divided into three broad
categories, namely, socialist/Marxist, liberal, and radical. Individually
each would offer us a different account of the welfare state reproducing
and perpetuating gender inequalities, however, the term feminist in this
discussion simply refers to all those who have highlighted or are working
towards the alleviation of gender inequalities in the social sphere. It is from
this perspective that this discussion explores some of the main criticisms that
have been advanced from feminists before deciding where EspingAndersen's typology fits in addressing the gendered realities of work, health
and welfare today.

In briefly exploring the logic behind his work, Esping-Andersen (1990)

advises us that his book The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism was
written with two beliefs in mind. The first was the belief that existing
theoretical models of the welfare state were inadequate (EspingAndersen, 1990, p.2). By this he was criticising the tendency of comparative
researchers at that time to theorize or draw assumptions about the nature
of different welfare states based purely on the existence of welfare
programmes and/or the amount of state resources spent on such welfare
programs. According to Esping-Andersen the analysis of expenditure data
alone does not tell us as to why, how, and to whom welfare resources are
spent and distributed. As an illustrative example he highlights how some
welfare states, such as the Austrian one, spend a large share on benefits
to privileged civil servants, while others spend disproportionately on
means-tested social assistance (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p.19). Secondly,
Esping-Andersen felt strongly that only comparative empirical research will
adequately disclose the fundamental properties that unite or divide
modern welfare states (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p3). Therefore, EspingAndersen devised an alternative way to compare and understand why
similarities and differences exist between welfare states in advanced
capitalist democracies.

Influenced by T.H Marshalls conceptualisation of citizenship, composed

of civil, political and social rights, and R. Titmusss residual versus

institutional welfare modeling approach Esping-Andersen analysed and
presented us with a typology of welfare state regimes. As noted by
Stephens & Fitzpatrick (2007, p.202) his typology was informed by two
concepts,

the

most

salient

of

these

being

the

notion

of

decommodification. According to Esping-Andersen, decomodification

refers to the degree individuals, or families, can uphold a socially
acceptable standard of living independently of market participation
(Esping-Andersen 1990, p.37). The second concept is stratification which
refers to the extent to which the welfare state tends to reinforce status
conferred by the labour market and can be contrasted to solidarity
whereby welfare rights are enjoyed equally (Stephens & Fitzpatrick, 2007,
p.202).

Essentially by using these concepts Esping-Andersens analysis led him to

distinguish three ideal type welfare regimes, or Thee Worlds of Welfare,
relative to the 18 countries he used in his sample, namely, liberal,
conservative-corporatist, and social democratic. He characterized each
regime with different distinguishable features, some of which will become
apparent as the discussion moves on. However, the main crux of criticism
advanced from a feminist perspective is there are some important
theoretical flaws inherent in the concepts of decommodification and

stratification

used

by

Esping-Andersen

in

his

analysis.

Hence,

as

encapsulated in an earlier study title by Bambra (2004) the common thread

of much feminist critique to be found in the literature reviewed is that
Esping-Andersens typology is both illusionary and gender blind.

In terms of Esping-Andersens typology being gender blind, Kilkey (2000,

p.2)

like

many

other

commentators,

notes

how

his

concept

of

decommodificaton is constructed in relation to male life patterns, thus

limiting its relevance to women. Lewis (1997a) argues that he fails to
capture the importance of unpaid work by basing his analysis on the
welfare of individuals in paid employment through social transfers of
pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits. Furthermore, that he misses
the fact that women in families have played a huge part in doing this
unpaid work (Lewis, 1997a, p.162). Lewis also contends that much of this
unpaid work revolves around care giving and that to some extent,
especially within families, this care work facilitates men to participate in the
labour market, or assists their mobilization, yet the dependence of men on
womens care giving was not given much thought in 1990 Esping-Andersens
analysis. All in all, the suggestion here is that Esping-Andersens concept of
decommodification is not the same for women as it is for men. As
summarized best by Langan and Ostener (1991a)
Men are commodified, made ready to sell their labour power in the
market, by the work done by women in the family. Women, on the other

hand, are decommodified by their position in the family. Thus, men and
women are gendered commodities with different experiences of the
labour market resulting from their different relationship to family life
(Langan and Ostner 1991a, cited, Boje, 1997, p.21).
With regards to Esping-Andersens concept of social stratification, Kilkey
(2000, p.2) proposes that he fails to capture the implications of the quality
of social rights for gender relations, because it is concerned solely with the
manner in which social rights structure class relations. Esping-Andersen
(1990, p.29) writes that the nature of class mobilization (especially of the
working class); class-political coalition structures; and the historical legacy
of regime institutionalization are the three important factors that best
explain how different welfare regimes became institutionalized. However,
as Lewis (1997a, p.163) observes stratification has a gender as well as a
class and a race dimension, but again he ignored this fact in his analysis.
Essentially, the crux of all these criticisms is that Esping-Andersen's model,
like its predecessors, is not only 'gender-blind', but that the theoretical
perspective underlying his analysis, and the dimensions of variation he
employs, are deeply gendered' (Kilkey, 2000, p.40).

The crux of the illusionary critique directed at Esping-Andersen are more

methodological in nature whereby the charge is that by asserting the three
most important social-welfare programs to be pensions, sickness and
unemployment benefits (Esping-Andersen, p.49), he ignores the variations

between countries that can be found in the delivery of other important

welfare services such as healthcare, education or social services.
(Bambra, 2007, p.1100). According to Danforth (2010) parental leave
schemes, child and elderly care provisions, and active labour market
policies, might be considered especially important from a womans
perspective. Not only do such services and policies assist in shaping the
employment opportunities open to them, they also largely determine the
degree to which women can break their dependence on the family
(Danforth, 2010, p.5). Commentators, such as Kasza (2002) argue that
omitting to include, or assuming that that the provision of other valuable
welfare services will exhibit the same sort of commitment from the state,
characteristic to the regime types Esping-Andersen identified is flawed.
According to Kasza countries are not likely to possess coherent welfare
regimes, on the contrary, Kasza asserts that most countries practice a
disjointed set of welfare policies (Kassa, 2002, pp. 271-282). As an illustrative
example to this effect, Gornick, Meyers, and Ross (1996) examined the
social policies implemented to support mothers employment in 14 OECD
countries. Their findings demonstrated considerable variations which
suggested that Esping-Andersons clusters fail to cohere with respect to
policies that affect womens employment. Based on policy indicators such
as maternity leave, childcare and schooling among others they concluded
that the social democratic regime type disaggregates as Norway diverges

from the other social democratic countries (Denmark, Finland and

Sweden). Within the conservative cluster, they found little commonality,
whereby France and Germany provided an especially sharp contrast.
Lastly they found that Canada was distinctly different in comparison to the
other liberal countries (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United
States), whereby policy support was found to be more extensive (Gornick,
Meyers, and Ross ,1997, p66). While other comparative studies have
confounded Esping-Andersens original clustering between welfare regimes
in respect of chilcare provision, (Leira, 1992) and other areas too, such as
healthcare (Bambra 2005), what is of interest here, is that the authors
aggregated a range of policies affecting maternal employment while
differentiating them from family policies more generally (OReilly, 2006,
p.742). Which brings us to another criticism which is especially prevalent in
accounts advanced from feminist writers and scholars, whereby it is
commonly asserted that there are 'some important differences between
the ways in which the regimes he identifies deal with families and women
within them' (Cochrane, 1993, cited Cochrane & Clarke, 1993, p.10).

In it is in this respect that the focus of the rest of this discussion considers
how women fair today in comparison to men in terms of work, health and
welfare in the welfare regimes characterised by Esping-Andersen in 1990.

It is to the Liberal regime we turn to first, where Esping-Andersen (1990)

proposes that means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers, or
modest social-plans predominate, the emphasis of the welfare state here is
to make state welfare an undesirable option for its citizens. Moreover, the
state encourages the market either passively, by guaranteeing only a
minimum, or actively, by subsidizing private welfare schemes. According to
Esping-Andersen one of the archetypical examples of this model is the
United States. By all accounts one could agree that the Healthcare
provision of the United States is very much in keeping with the
characterization awarded it by Esping-Andersen. The USA welfare state
could be considered very liberal minded when it comes to the health of its
citizens, just as it is in awarding cash benefits. Commentators like Pearsall
(2011) assert that health care security is tied to economic security. In
considering the health of women in the USA today, the focus here is to
provide an illustrative example whereby women are treated differently to
men. Often referred to as gender rating, a study by the National Womens
Law Center (NWLC) in 2008 found that women are often charged more
than men are, even when purchasing identical health care plans. This is
despite the fact that other research indicates that women, on average,
earn less than men do. Women earn approximately 77 cents for every dollar
men earn. (Pearsall, 2011, p.9). Other indications are that women with
employer-based health insurance are almost twice as likely as men to be

covered as dependents, which makes them more vulnerable to losing

their own coverage if they become widowed or divorced or if their
husbands lose their jobs(Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of U.S. Census
Bureau data).

Welfare state provision which discriminates against women, undermining

their freedom in one way or another to form autonomous households can
also be found within Conservative regimes. Esping-Andersen (1990, p.27)
proposed that that the regime here is influenced heavily by the church,
and is strongly committed to the preservation of traditional familyhood,
with the principle being that state assistance should only be sought when
the familiys capacity to service its own members is exhausted. Strauss
(2008p.18) observes that this principal of subsidiarity remains strong in
German society today, whereby state-provided benefits accrue to the
household, are very much underpinned by the view that a traditional
family household should consist of a male wage earner and a female
homemaker. Hence, programmes to facilitate defamilialisation, such as
universal affordable childcare remain underdeveloped. Furthermore, while
there have been some positive steps in women-friendly pension policies
over the years, Strauss observes that Germany remains one of the few
European countries without a minimum pension, the lack of which often hits
women hardest. This is mainly because women with interrupted work

histories and years of unpaid caring work or those who have experienced
familial breakdown, may face significant gender inequality risks in terms of
the generosity (or even adequacy) of their retirement income(Strauss,
2008, p.18).

In stark contrast to the other two regimes, the social democratic regime
is very much characterized by principles of universialism and equality.
According to Esping-Andersen this formula translates into a mix of highly
de-commodifying and universalistic programs that, nonetheless, are
tailored to differentiated expectations (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p.28).
Furthermore, he claimed that levels of services and benefits commensurate
with even the most discriminating tastes; and second, that equality be
furnished by guaranteeing workers full participation in the quality of rights
enjoyed by the better off (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p.27). Within this regime
he placed the Scandinavian countries

presenting Sweden as an

archetypical example. Siim (1997) observes that in general, feminist scholars

comment favorably about Scandinavian welfare states with regards to the
extensive service provision available for women. Lewis cites the positive
comments made by Orlaff (1993) regarding amongst others services, the
extended public responsibilities for caring for children, and on womens
ability to form autonomous households (Orlaff, 1993, cited Lewis, 1997b,
p.144). However, there are still some commentators who have been critical

10

of the employment-orientend model. The thrust of the argument here is

that the Scandinavian Model is not friendly towards caring work because
it tends to force all mothers, including lone mothers, to enter employment
(Siim, cited Lewis, 1997b, p.144). Commenting some twenty years ago,
Langan & Ostner (1991b) were equally critical by asserting that any
advances that have been made in the Scandinavian states which have
accrued to women should be properly seen as gifts which depend not on
womens power but on the fragile and contingent consent of those who
have always so far held state power: men (Lagan & Ostner, 1991b, cited
George & Wilding, 1994, p.149). Some twenty years later, Dacey (2010)
comments that it may have been hailed as a symbolic moment for
womens rights when Switzerland became the fifth country in the World to
have a female majority in government, joining Norway, Spain, Finland and
Cap Verde, but elsewhere in Switzerland, she claims, the picture of
equality between men and women is not all rosy. She cites among other
things big gaps between mens and womens salaries, smaller pensions for
women as a result of lower salaries and an overall struggle to have
financial independence. Dacey also addresses the problems faced by
women juggling work and family life. (Dacey, 2010, no page). Essentially
all the negative views expressed here highlight that gendered divisions exist
even among the social-democratic regimes.

11

To be fair to Esping-Andersen, he did acknowledge sex segregation in the

labour market pertaining female labour force participation, and he also
made it clear in his writings that none of the regimes he identified could be
found in a perfect form. However, what this second part of the discussion
illustrates, is what was encompassed by the comment made earlier by
Cochrane (1993), in that there are some important differences between the
ways in which the regimes he identifies deals with women. As exemplified in
the following quote by Leonard (1992)
What is very striking is how different womens ordinary lives are from mens
ordinary lives. No matter which country we focus on throughout the world,
women are worse off than men. Women have less power, less autonomy,
do more work, earn less money, and often have more responsibility. Women
everywhere have a smaller share of the pie, and if the pie is very small (as it
is in developing countries) then their share is smaller still. Women in rich
countries have a higher standard of living than women in poor countries,
but no where are women equal to men (Leonard, 1992, cited Moore et al,
2006, p132-133).
Close to concluding it could be argued, as does Bambra (2004, p.201)
that Esping-Andersens approach if limited to analysis of specific areas
such as labour market decommodification or defamilisation is neither
gender blind or illusionary. Indeed by his own admission Esping-Andersen
clearly stated that his study undertook a broad approach and therefore
as a trade-off he would not be able to dwell on the detailed
characteristics of the various social programs (Esping-Andersen, 1990,
p.19). Nevertheless, as this discussion has revealed, there are a number of
scholars who assert the opposite. Noting that this discussion has focused

12

more on criticisms advanced from a feminist perspective, as opposed to

the criticisms advanced from scholars concerned with the methodological
limitations of Esping-Andersens typology, it is in this respect that one would
like to conclude. Hence, from a feminist perspective, one concludes that
Esping-Andersens typology fails to address the gendered realities of work,
health and welfare today, just as it did back in 1990. This conclusion is made
based on the literature reviewed, and in conjunction with Lewiss (1997a,
p.162) interpretation of Esping-Andersens typology in that he set out to
consider the relationship between work and welfare, where work is defined
as paid work and welfare as policies that permit, or discourage the
decommodification of labour. Hence, regardless of the numerous attempts
that have been made to replicate his original study so as to highlight any
methodological flaws he made, or claims that his study is outdated, one
asserts

instead

that

from

the

very

onset,

the

concept

of

decommodification he ascribes to is never going to mean the same thing

for women as it does for men.

2899 words including Essay Title, Citations and Quotes in text

13

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