Welfare state and gender inequality under capitalism: A social reproduction theory approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of the welfare state in the historical transformation of gender inequalities in a coordinated market economy (CME) since WWII. Taking a social reproduction theory (SRT) lens, we empirically examine: 1) how the Belgian welfare state arrangements have evolved in response to changing conditions in capitalist production requiring a growing supply of adequately skilled labour power, and 2) how this evolution has reshaped gender inequalities. Over the past 70 years, the welfare state has shifted from a male breadwinner-female carer model based on a strict gender division of productive and reproductive labour towards a formally gender-equal ‘one-and-a-half earner’ model. During two periods of labour shortages (1953-1975 and 1989-2003), the welfare state partly collectivised social reproduction to make women’s labour available to capitalist production. During periods of growing unemployment resulting from the transnational restructuring of production (1976-1988 and 2004-to date), the welfare state’s investment in collectively organized social reproduction weakened, and buffered less the inherent contradictions between production and reproduction. This led to crises of social reproduction which shifted the contradictions between economic production and social reproduction to households and more specifically to women as main carers. The paper advances current understandings of the causes of persisting gender inequalities by showing how, even in CMEs, welfare arrangements are primarily attuned to the fluctuating needs of the capitalist economy, rather than social reproduction. This is due to CMEs’ strong commitment to resolving the conflict between capitalist production and social reproduction rather than to increase gender equality.