A UBI empowers women to choose their futures – it recognizes caregiving as work and it reduces the child care costs that keep women out of the labor market
Flanigan, 2018 - prof of leadership studies and law at the University of Richmond [Jessica, Jan 25, Slate “The Feminist Case for a Universal Basic Income” https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/01/the-feminist-case-for-universal-basic-income.html Acc 3/23/23 TA]
2. Women Could Make Unfettered Decisions About How to Structure Their Families and Lives Child care is extraordinarily expensive, and women, especially single moms, end up shouldering an enormous burden for this cost. Some parents who would prefer to work are unable to because they cannot afford quality child care for their kids. Women are more likely to leave the workforce for this reason than men. A UBI for mothers and children would enable women who want to work to pay for child care. In addition, a UBI (including child benefits) would formally recognize and reward socially valuable labor that people currently perform outside of the paid economy, such as caregiving for children, disabled people, and elderly relatives. The UBI could amount to “wages for housework,” something feminists in the 1970s pushed for. Furthermore, because a UBI aims to pay all individuals and not households, it allows people to make decisions about marriage and cohabitation based their intrinsic desires, not based on tax policies such as the “marriage penalty” that working couples currently face or means-tested welfare programs that withhold benefits from women when their household income increases after marriage.