Leann M. Tigges

GENDERING WELFARE STATE THEORY A Cross-National Study of Women's Public Pension Quality

Feminist scholarship on the relative importance of working-class institutional strength in the economy and in the state has led to two divergent conclusions. Radical feminists argue that working-class institutions dominated by men produce male-biased outcomes; socialist feminists hold that working-class institutions promote classwide interests that benefit women as well as men. This article addresses this debate by applying generic and gendered working-class strength models of the welfare state in an examination of womens public pension quality. Quality is measured as womens average pension (1) compared with that of men, (2) relative to womens average earnings, and (3) compared with the average wage in the society. The authors find support for the socialist feminist view. Working-class institutions, having historically organized and represented the interests of working men, benefit women by improving the security and adequacy of their retirement incomes, but it is womens access to working-class economic and political institutions that brings greater economic equality with men in old age.

Embeddedness and capital markets: Bank financing of businesses

Abstract The article examines the social and economic dimensions of capital markets, particularly the effects of bank and capital market structure; lending criteria and bank policies; and demand for credit, on bank financing of businesses. A critical problem in most capital markets is that lenders have inadequate information to assess the risk and creditworthiness of loan applicants. We find that many bankers continue to use assessments of character as a signal of the potential borrowers creditworthiness. Banking deregulation limits the range of signals available to lenders and therefore may have detrimental consequences for banks and local economies.

The class basis of generational conflict in the 1980s: Analysis and critique of the ageist agenda

Abstract In this article I examine the underlying class nature of the problems posed by exponents of generational equity thorough an analysis of age and economic power, focusing in detail on the economic well-being of age groups of workers. I discuss the analytically separate issues of seniority or tenure, returns to experience, and age inequality. Because of the seniority system, some have argued that age is an advantage in the labor market. Age is a correlate of economic power in the labor market, but does not itself bestow power. Age can therefore define social categories but not social classes or fractions of classes. Power associated with age, under attack by proponents of age equity, results from past victories of the organized working class. This paper argues that the forces generating generational conflict are based in the changing resources of class actors. We need to understand not just the interaction of age and class relations, but the historically-specific conditions that affect the dynamics of these relations.

Family Matters: Gender, Work Arrangements, and the Rural Myth

In this chapter, we demythologize rural life and the rural gender ideology by examining the ways in which rural men and women structure their work lives and child-care provisions. We bring a gender perspective to the examination of the work arrangements of the household to explore the gendered underpinnings of the division between standard and nonstandard work. Our multivariate statistical analysis of the data from nonmetropolitan Wisconsin show that the gender ideology of the rural myth persist in rural residents’ lives, in spite of changes in the reality of active labor market participation of women. When considering which individual, family and labor market factors explain the character and extent of men and women’s work engagements in paid employment, we find the strong influence of family and social characteristics on women’s work and not men’s. Family constraints such as the number and age of children as well as being socially embedded in a place through generational links, affect women’s involvement in standard work. The gender ideology that childcare is women’s work persists in a changed form, as they make decisions to spend the money on childcare based on women’s, but not men’s earnings.

Changing Fortunes: Industrial Sectors and Workers' Earnings.

Tables and Figures Preface Acknowledgments The Problem of Conflict and Change Transformation: The View from Academic Sociology Transformation: The New Structuralist View Age, Earnings and Change Within Economic Sectors Data and Decisions Regarding Analysis The Effects of Economic Change on Earnings Social Change and Social Inequality Appendix A: Industries, Detailed Census Codes, and Sectoral Assignment Appendix B: Supplementary Data Appendix C: Regression Analyses for Earnings of Year-Round Full-Time Workers Bibliography Index About the Author