Gendering Welfare States

This comprehensive volume is the first to synthesize the insights of feminist and mainstream research both in theory and empirical analysis. Because of its emphasis on gender, Gendering Welfare States challenges commonly accepted concepts and approaches and suggests a number of reconceptualizations and new analytical frameworks to include women and men--or to bring women--into the analysis where they have been previously omitted. Next, mainstream frameworks of analysis are applied to new areas in gender. All the chapters contain cross-national comparisons that elucidate how the division of labor among the sexes and gender ideologies shape social provision and, in turn, how social policies affect the life situations of women and men across welfare states. Neither mainstream theory on welfare states and social policy nor feminist analysis has examined the implications of different welfare states for women and men, until now. Clearly written and wide-ranging, Gendering Welfare States fills a void in contemporary theory on welfare states by integrating contemporary research in comparative politics, women's studies, social policy, and economics and will be of interest to students and scholars in these areas.