Introduction

Introduction

Feminist and mainstream theorizing and scholarship on welfare states have been informed by different research paradigms resulting in distinctive contributions. As yet there has been little effort to confront the two perspectives and to combine their insights in analysing welfare states and gender. Instead mainstream researchers have largely ignored feminist scholarship, and feminists have primarily engaged in a critique of mainstream analysis. The result has been an intellectual impasse which needs to be overcome.

The purpose of this volume is to gender welfare states – to incorporate gender into the comparative analysis of welfare states – by drawing on a broad spectrum of insights from both feminist and mainstream research. To place this endeavour in the context of the existing literature, it is useful to present briefly the contributions and shortcomings of mainstream and feminist perspectives and subsequently indicate how the essays here aim to move beyond the current state of research.

One of the main contributions of mainstream literature since the mid-1970s has been to devise welfare state typologies and models of social policy. Scholarly interest gravitated towards welfare states and understanding variations – and away from the welfare state and generalizations. The comparative perspective of mainstream scholarship was further enhanced as researchers formulated competing explanations of the emergence and growth of welfare states, which they tested through cross-national analysis. The mainstream research paradigm has focused on explanations related to economic development, social structure (particularly class relations and politics), and state institutional arrangements and capabilities.

A major shortcoming of mainstream analysis has been its neglect of gender. Although the mainstream project has generally been cast in gender-neutral terms, several of its analytical concepts and units of analysis have men as their point of departure. For example, in conceptualizing something so central as different bases of social entitlements, mainstream scholars have overlooked perhaps the most common basis of women's entitlement: rights derived via their [Page 2]husband. The units of analysis in the mainstream literature have been the individual or various collectives – classes, occupational groups, generations or households. Seldom have these gender-neutral units been broken down by sex. Using these sorts of units of analysis and concepts, mainstream empirical studies have often failed to generate much information about women.

As a result, mainstream comparative analysis tells us little about how women have fared in different welfare states or about dissimilar policy outcomes for women and men. Nor has the mainstream research paradigm considered one of the most interesting aspects of the development of welfare states: how women have been incorporated in the core policies of welfare states and the politics of their entitlement.

By contrast, the feminist research paradigm has sought to bring women and gender into the analysis of the welfare state. Among its most important contributions, feminist analysis has documented the inequalities between women and men as recipients of welfare state benefits. Feminist scholarship has also emphasized a different set of determinants shaping the nature of public provision of welfare: the interrelationships of the state, the market, and the family. Feminists have also pointed to the role of familial and gender ideologies in influencing state provision of benefits and services. Furthermore, by examining care and the human services sector, feminists have broadened the analytical focus of the welfare state research in comparison to mainstream analysis, which has tended to concentrate on social insurance schemes and income maintenance policies. In short, the feminist research paradigm has been infused by a critical spirit, seeking to redress gaps in mainstream research.

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