The adult worker model family, gender equality and care: the search for new policy principles and the possibilities and problems of a capabilities approach

Abstract There is evidence that policy-makers in most Western welfare states are moving towards a new set of assumptions about the contributions that men and women make to families, based on an adult worker model. This paper first examines this shift in policy assumptions at the EU level and goes on to argue that there are real limits to the pursuit of a full adult worker model based on the commodification of care. In respect of gender equality, this in turn raises the issue of the terms and conditions on which such a shift in policy assumptions are made, particularly about the valuing and sharing of the unpaid work of care. The final part of the paper examines the possibilities offered by the capabilities approach of addressing these issues. Keywords: gender equalitycareadult worker model familycapabilities approachEuropean Commissionsocial policy Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the EUROCAP project, funded by the EC's FP5 Programme and co-ordinated by Professor Robert Salais, and Susanna Giullari also acknowledges the support provided by a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. They also acknowledge the stimulation provided by the invitation given by UNRISD to consider these issues further. Notes The reasons why the father of the child may not hesitate, at least to the same extent, are much debated between those who assume biological essentialism (which hovers around much of the classical literature, e.g. Parsons and Bales (), Becker (), also Gilligan ()) and those who insist on the power of socialisation (which underpins most of the feminist literature, e.g. Oakley ()). New variants of the arguments have come to the fore in face of observations that some lone mothers put the obligation to care before paid employment for reasons that include structural variables (Duncan and Edwards ), while Hakim (, 2003) argues that lifestyle choice alone is the main explanation. It is almost a quarter of a century since Hilary Land published her path-breaking article (1980) on the importance of the way in which the idea of the family wage underpinned social security policies. For a critique of this active/passive dichotomy, see Sinfield (). The issue of compulsion is controversial in European countries compared to the USA. The relationship between economic and social policy is a longstanding preoccupation of social policy analysts (Bulmer et al. ). This has been particularly clear-cut at the nation state level in the UK case (see Newman ). We would like to acknowledge the very helpful comments and advice that we have received on this part of the paper from other members of the EUROCAP project. This is also the most common criticism of Hakim's (, 2003) discussion of preference theory. For a fuller discussion, see Deneulin and Stewart (), Chiappero Martinetti and Comin () and Robeyns (, 2001). Argarwal's () empirical evidence as to women's covert strategies of resistance suggests that they are also self-interested, which leads her to argue that Sen should focus on the constraints or restrictions on their agency, rather than on raising their consciousness. Olson () also assumes that gender inequality results from women's lack of cultural capability.