Francesca Bettio

Comparing Care Regimes in Europe

Throughout Europe, the family is still an important provider of care, but welfare state policies of individual countries may support and/or supplement the family in different ways, generating different social and economic outcomes. This article compares and categorizes care strategies for children and elderly persons in different member states of the European Union, while also taking into account the varied modalities for providing care, like leave arrangements, financial provisions, and social services. In EU countries, care regimes function as “social joins” ensuring complementarity between economic and demographic institutions and processes. As these processes and institutions change, they provide impetus for care regimes to change as well. However, because ideas and ideals about care are at the core of individual national identities, care regimes also act as independent incentive structures that impinge on patterns of womens labor market participation and fertility.

Change in care regimes and female migration: the ‘care drain’ in the Mediterranean

Concern over the need to provide long-term care for an ageing population has stimulated a search for new solutions able to ensure financial viability and a better balance between demand and supply of care. There is at present a great variety of care regimes across industrial countries, with Mediterranean countries forming a distinctive cluster where management of care is overwhelmingly entrusted to the family. In some of these countries elderly care has recently attracted large flows of care migrants, ushering in a new division of labour among family carers (mainly women), female immigrants, and skilled native workers. The article explores the interconnections between the feminization of migration, on the one hand, and ongoing change in the Southern European care regimes, on the other hand. Different strands of the literature are brought together and reviewed to illustrate ongoing developments. One main objective is to identify issues of efficiency, equity and sustainability raised by this new ‘model’ of care. The results of recent surveys on provisions and costs of long-term care are accordingly reviewed to set the stage for discussion on the optimal mix of long-term care provisions in place of traditional family care.

Gender segregation in the labour market: Root causes, implications and policy responses in the EU

This report on gender segregation in the labour market examines employment segregation for men and women in Europe through comparative analyses of trends across all 27 Member States plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Specifically, the report looks at the root causes of gender segregation, its consequences and the current and desirable policy responses.

The Pros and Cons of Occupational Gender Segregation in Europe

This paper reviews European policy toward occupational segregation and the gender earnings gap in the light of some basic stylized facts. Using three sources of comparable data for European countries it shows that (i) segregation associates positively with female employment; (ii) redistribution of female employment between occupations toward the male pattern has low and contradictory effect on the gender gap whereas within-occupation redistribution up the hierarchical ladder has some significant impact; and (iii) dispersion of earnings associates negatively with the gender gap. It is argued that these facts may imply trade-offs when desegregation, closing of the gender gap and higher female employment are simultaneously pursued.

Frontiers in the economics of gender

Foreword: Francesca Bettio and Alina Verashchagina, Part One: Historical perspectives 1. Women in the history of economic thought through gender lenses, Annalisa Rosselli and Cristina Marcuzzo 2. The historical construction of gender: reflections on gender and economic history Patricia Hudson, Cardiff University Part Two: Theoretical developments 3. A gender neutral approach to gender issues Alessandro Cigno 4. The gender gap Graciela Chichilnisky 5. Ghosts in the machine: a post Keynesian analysis of gender relations, households and macroeconomics Haroon Akram Lodhi and Lucia C. Hanmer Part Three: A fresh look at households 6. Conceptualizing care Nancy Folbre 7. Gender and household decision making Shelly Lundberg Part Four: Labour market debates 8. Gender Differences across Europe Peter Dolton, Oscar Marcenaro-Guttierez and Ali Skalli 9. Occupational Segregation and Gender wage Disparities in Developed Economies. Should We Still Worry? Francesca Bettio 10. The transition from planned to market economies: how are women faring? Marina Malysheva, Russian Academy of Sciences and Alina Verashchagina Part Five: Lessons from the laboratory 11. The Gender Gap: Using the Lab as a Window on the Market Catherine Eckel 12. The Gender effect in the Laboratory. Experimenter Bias and Altruism Alessandro Innocenti and Maria Grazia Pazienza Part Six: Institutions matter 13. Gender and the Political economy of knowledge, Ann Mary May

To What Extent does it Pay to be Better Educated? Education and the Work Market for Women in Italy

Italian women are doing progressively better than men in terms of educational attainment. While, however, this has not fully materialized as overall employment gains for women, it is contributing to the enhancement of differences among them. Female participation is low mainly because poorly educated women are disproportionately excluded from the (official) labour market. Also, female unemployment remains high and the puzzling association between rising educational attainment and rising unemployment reflects a contradiction between strong incentives to invest in education at the microlevel and the possibility that more education swells the ranks of the unemployed at the macrolevel. We can make sense of this seeming contradiction only if we recognize the different roles that education performs in different institutional contexts, over and above that of augmenting human capital

Which European Model for Elderly Care? Equity and Cost-Effectiveness in Home Based Care in Three European Countries

Long term care for the elderly is growing apace in developed economies. As growth is forcing change in existing production and delivery systems of elderly care services, the question arises as to how different systems compare in terms of cost-effectiveness, equity or quality. Based on an in depth survey carried out in Denmark, Ireland and Italy – the GALCA survey – this articles compares prevailing arrangements of home based long-term care in these three countries, focussing on the overall cost-effectiveness of the provisions as well as on employment equity for the care workers. Comparison between alternative types of provisions within each country suggests that home based care is generally, although not consistently, more cost-effective than care within institutions. Comparison of home care provisions across the three countries suggests that the Italian and the Danish systems are the most cost effective, but the Danish system is more equitable, overall. These latter findings are partly explained by progressive replacement in Italy of unpaid family carers with low cost immigrant workers directly employed by the families and often cohabiting with the elderly, the migrant-in-the-family model of long term care. This new model has spread across Southern Europe and raises complex issues of equity and sustainability from an employment perspective.

Care Regimes and the European Employment Rate

The expressions ‘care work’, ‘care services’ and ‘care regimes’ have recently entered the vocabulary of the socioeconomic literature located at the intersection of analysis of the welfare state, studies on social policy, and feminist research (Lewis, 2001; Anttonnen et al., 2003; Folbre, 2008). In a broad sense, ‘care’ is the activity of looking after people unable to take care of themselves. It comprises health care, teaching and special needs education, and the residual category of social care, or simply ‘care’, delivered mainly to minors, the elderly and the disabled. Although the boundaries among these categories are not clear-cut, because they depend on the inter-relation between the welfare state, the family and the market in a country, the subject matter of the research presented here is mainly social care.

Sex Work and Trafficking: Moving beyond Dichotomies

ABSTRACT This contribution examines how feminist economists have conceptualized sex work and trafficking through the lens of agency and stigma. The ongoing debate about legalization has focused on sex workers’ agency and choice, and on the role of stigma in shaping the supply of and demand for sex work. Building on the analysis advanced by contributions to this special issue, this study contends that theoretical and policy debates about sex work are dominated by false dichotomies of agency and stigma. It argues that the relationship between stigma and agency operates along a continuum of contractual arrangements that underpins a high degree of segmentation in the industry. The higher the stigma, the lower tends to be the agency. Current policies toward sex work therefore need reconsideration – especially mounting support for criminalization of clients, which, by increasing stigma, is likely to detract from the agency and the well-being of sex workers, however unintentionally.

Gender Budgeting in Italy: A Laboratory for Alternative Methodologies?

Gender Budgeting (GB) was introduced in Italy in 2001. Numerous GB initiatives have been carried out since at the local level, although in absence of any organised attempt to build a common methodology and coordinate the different experiences. Taking advantage of the diversity of the Italian experiences, in this chapter we assess the main methodological approaches that have been concretely tried out on the ground. We identify three main approaches, respectively account-based, policy-based and capability-based gender budgeting. Based on our experience, our exchanges with other experts involved in GB and the available records, we briefly illustrate the main advantages and limitations of each approach.