If a UBI is too low, it reinforces gender inequality – it allows longer maternity leaves which reinforces dependency on male breadwinners and blocks women from returning to the labor market. Canada proves.

The central question asked by those sceptical of the viability of a basic income is how the costs incurred would be borne by a society, initially and over time. In terms of the level of payment, Van Parijs and Vanderborght (2017) suggest a quarter of GDP per capita might be appropriate. For Sweden in 2017, this would amount to 114 450 SEK yearly (approximately €950 monthly).The recent Swiss Referendum in 2016 suggested 2,500 Swiss francs (approximately €2,155) per month. The Finnish experiment lands at €560 monthly, which is not sufficiently high to be considered a basic income in the sense suggested by its advocates. It is likely that a basic income payment would indeed be quite low due to the demands even a guaranteed minimum income would make on any tax base (Tobin, 1970). As such, other possibilities for funding might include changes to the tax treatment of capital or banking on public ownership of natural resources (Van Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). In the case that the payment was relatively low, such as is typically the case for ‘cash for care’ policies, this has been associated with women becoming more rather than less financially dependent on their male partners (e.g. Mandel, 2009). Similarly, evidence from the Canadian guaranteed annual income experiment suggests mothers took longer maternity leaves, leading to increased economic dependency on their male partners (Forget, 2011). Policies can be multi-dimensional in the way that they support citizens, going beyond financial support and services. Taking parental leave as an example, this is a policy—in the Swedish context at least—that aims to tackle gendered patterns of behaviour, by promoting fathers’ involvement with small children to a greater extent than might occur in the absence of the policy instrument (e.g. the daddy quota) (Castro-García & Pazos-Moran, 2016; Duvander & Johansson, 2012; Haas & Rostgaard, 2011). Parental leave is also a form of employment protection, and originally was a key determinant for women being able to keep an attachment to the labour force after becoming parents (Cedstrand, 2011). It is also credited with changing norms and behaviours. In Sweden, the reserved part for each parent in the parental leave was intensively debated when first introduced in the 1990s, but then extended without almost any debate in the 2000s (Cedstrand, 2011). So basic income poses a risk in its simplicity if there is the possibility that it might replace more complex policy instruments with financial benefit alone.