UBI will enhance gender hierarchies unless the debate centers gender at the outset

Jacqueline O’Reilly and Anca Gheaus are less optimistic about the positive contributions of basic income to the feminist cause. Gheaus proposes that in order to judge to what extent a policy promotes gender justice, we should assess whether the costs of engaging in a lifestyle characterised by gender symmetry would be smaller than or equal to the costs of engaging in a gender asymmetrical lifestyle. She argues that basic income will raise the costs of gender-symmetric lifestyles. Rather than giving equal support to home- and career-centred women and accepting their preferences at face value, we should “aim to ensure that preferences (of all individuals) are formed under just circumstances” (2008, p. 4). One such deeply unjust circumstance is the devaluation of care; therefore, in the world as it is, a basic income would be an obstacle to gender justice. O’Reilly adds further critical notes to the effects of a basic income when implemented in the real world. She surveys the gender effects of existing social policies and concludes that she is “sceptical that BI could radically address all the causes of gender inequality” (2008, p. 2). The feminist struggle requires a clear spelling out of what kind of gender equality we want and an acknowledgement of the complexity of the multiple dimensions of gender equality. So what can we conclude from this wide array of views? I would suggest that an in-depth feminist case for or against basic income requires considerable additional information other than just the claim that an unconditional basic income will be provided as a citizenship right. First, we need to be more specific about the level of basic income, since different levels of basic income may plausibly have different effects on the gendered distributions of income, labour market participation, and the intra-household divisions of caregiving. Second, we also need information on whether or not child care provisions and provisions for others who are dependent on family care would remain intact or would be expanded in the basic income society, and on what other measures will be implemented to create the flexibility that employed carers need. Third, empirical information about the likely effects on the well-being and the material standard of living of various groups (children, women, men, employed and unemployed adults, employed and nonemployed carers, single parents, dual parents, and so forth) needs to be collected. If we argue as several contributors to this debate do that a basic income would need to be complemented with other measures that redistribute care and unpaid work between women and men, we need to know more precisely what these measures are, their effectiveness, and their public and private costs. These feminist discussions do need to be integrated into the mainstream basic income debate. After all, once a basic income is implemented it may be too late to notice that it adversely affects the gender division of labour and thus women’s position in society, or too late to notice that there is no money left to spend on the merit goods of special importance to women and children. To my mind, the main merit of this debate in Basic Income Studies is that it provides evidence of the consolidation of the conflicting feminist views about basic income proposals when analysed at a general level. Therefore, I believe that it is time to move to a second stage of feminist analyses that needs to focus more on the details of the entire package deal of a basic income society, in an empirically grounded fashion.