Militarization, Gendered Labor Markets, and the Care Economy

As gender roles within labor markets continue to transform and worsen gender inequalities, this article draws on feminist political economy perspectives to highlight the military as a patriarchal institution. Building upon existing literature, our conceptual framework proposes two hypotheses: (1) militarization exacerbates employment gaps for women, and (2) restructures the gendered composition of the care economy. Our results show that militarization crowds out women from formal and informal feminized work and causes masculinization of the formal care occupation. These findings challenge the conventional analysis of feminized work and thus expose the intricacies at play between militarization, care work, and gendered labor market composition.