Across the rich, developed democracies of Western
Europe, North America, and the Antipodes, we are in the midst
of changes in gendered policy logics from supporting women as
full-time caregivers to requiring and supporting employment for
all, or a series of “farewells to maternalism.” Whether
these changes are “women-friendly”—for
some or all women—depends very much on how state
support for caregiving activities and employment is configured.
This paper analyzes the politics and policies surrounding the
“farewell to maternalism.” First, I will briefly examine
the social policies and politics that have been recently described
as “maternalist,” and the predominant gendered divisions
of labor and patterns of family and household formation which
they depended upon and reinforced, for it is against these backdrops
that current changes are occurring. Next, I take up the politics
and policies which have moved Sweden and the U.S. away from maternalism
and towards support for women’s employment, from supporting
women’s claims as mothers to supporting women’s claims
as workers or citizens and sometimes also caregivers.
I close with some consideration about the potential for the emergence
of new models in continental Europe, and whether it might be possible
to imagine a situation incorporating higher levels of women’s
employment with less displacement of family care to either market
or state services.
Depending on each country’s starting point,
different strategies may be pursued to enhance women’s employment,
while reducing poverty and economic vulnerability, and ensuring
that caregiving activities are supported. Supporting mothers’
employment presents a challenge not only politically and culturally,
but also in terms of state capacities. The ultimate—though
possibly utopian—solution to the problems of reconciling
employment and care and women’s economic dependency in all
systems may be a “universal caregiver” model: to induce
“men to become more like what most women are now—that
is, people who do primary care work” (Fraser 1994, p.611).
Ann Shola Orloff, Professor
of Sociology; Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern
University
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