UBI impedes gender equality

An International Journal of Basic Income Research, Vol. 3, Issue 3, December 2008)

Which regime promotes the further progress of this revolution, and which impedes it? Government provision or subsidization of child care in a welfare state encourages paid work for mothers. Large cash grants, such as BIG, encourage withdrawal from the paid labor force. So do lengthy paid parental leaves, such as those offered by Sweden, which can amount to an entire year, and can be extended to two years. These long leaves give employers a motive to deny women jobs that have duties that are not merely routine, that require on-the-job training, and that lead to promotions and careers. This provision is probably at least partly responsible for the persistence of the high degree of occupational segregation by sex that is characteristic of Sweden’s labor market. One alleged advantage for women that is claimed for BIG is that it would reduce their dependence on the labor market, a male-dominated arena, and thus a major site of their oppression. In fact, proponents of BIG proclaim that one of their aims is to allow parents to stay home with young children. Under current cultural conditions, the vast majority of those who would do that would be women with a high-waged male partner. A lone mother trying to live on BIG exclusively would be condemned to a standard of living far below the mainstream. For this reason, the full-blown implementation of BIG schemes in the near future should not appeal to those for whom gender equality is an important goal (Robeyns, 2001). Perhaps in the future, participation in housekeeping and parenting activities will have become less differentiated by gender. Then BIG would affect the behavior of both sexes more equally, and would have lost its anti-equality effect. In the meantime, it is not hard to believe that BIG would be more destructive of gender equality than Low Provision would. 4. Conclusion A welfare state with generous child care provision but without lengthy parental leaves would promote progress for women in the labor market, and would deliver goods, services, and cash grants to those with special needs, of which women presently form a major part. A BIG regime, by reducing women’s presence and success in the labor market, would reverse the gains in women’s status and opportunities. It would also fail to respond to the sizeable needs of the increasing cohorts of lone mothers. For those reasons, it would be even worse than the “Low Provision” regime of the United States. In terms of its effect on gender equality, it would be the worst of the three alternatives.