So much talk about inflation–but not much about its disparate impacts. Nor do differences in the rate of price increases between “necessities” and “luxuries” get much attention. Data that I downloaded from the Data Finder of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that price of three major care services–day care and preschool, nursing homes and adult daycare, and… Read more →
Author: folbre
Justice in the Balance
Instead of trying to walk the tightrope known as work family balance, maybe we should seek work family justice—something we all deserve rather than something we are easily blamed for not achieving on our own. This reformulation, inspired by a great book by Caitlyn Collins, Making Motherhood Work, defined a plenary session of the Work Family Research Network conference June… Read more →
From Dobbs v. Jackson to Rights v. Obligations
Lest we forget the time-hallowed misogyny fueling anti-abortion activism, the cartoon character known as Matt Gaetz pops up to remind us in Trumpian fashion that women who support abortion rights are too ugly to need them. At the other extreme, the NYT’s token conservative Ross Douthat is utterly convinced that feminists are over-reacting, because many opponents of abortion today (including… Read more →
Social Capital vs. Social Climate
Social capital is a delightfully contradictory concept, which explains why academics kind of like it: So much room for elaboration and disputation, both qualitative and quantitative! Personally, I like the Simple English Wikipedia definition, which synchs with my own emphasis on pro-social motivations for care provision: “Social capital is the willingness of people to help each other. It often replaces money… Read more →
Seizing the Moment
Seizing the “Moment” for the Global Care Agenda: From Theory to Practice International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) event, January 25, 2022 Many thanks to IAFFE in general and Mary Borrowman in particular for organizing this forum. Here are my preliminary remarks—subject to revision: I feel grateful to be a part of a long international trajectory of socialist feminism… Read more →
Gender Economics and the Meaning of Discrimination
Shelly Lundberg gave a terrific paper at the session on Identity, Culture, and the Economics of Gender at the Allied Social Science Association Meetings, January 8, 2022, and this is a distillation of my comments on it as discussant. You can find abstracts for the session as a whole here, and the papers will be forthcoming in the May 2022… Read more →
The Child Tax Credit, Singed if Not Combusted
The smoldering heat originates mostly from the coal-fired wealth of Joe Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia who continues to oppose the child tax credit on the grounds that mothers should be required to “work” (meaning, earn money) in order to get assistance. Still, it’s pretty clear that this keystone of the Build Back Better act, this policy that dramatically… Read more →
Gender, Bargaining, and Build Back Better
Some Notes from Panel on The Economics of Gender and Households Southern Economic Association November 22, 2021 This, a great opportunity to cross-fertilize with some excellent economists who represent a variety of different theoretical and empirical approaches to gender and households. At this point in time, Biden’s Build Back Better plan is moving through a torturous political process. Whatever you… Read more →
Why JoeCare Has a Chance
Happy Inauguration Day. We now have a president who wears a mask. Everywhere. Which is something to be grateful for. Hope was that the pandemic would help raise awareness of just how much we depend on care work. This hope grows. A quick list of the three major care-related proposals President Biden has advanced so far: More support (to… Read more →
Republican Women, Intersected
Back in November, if you remember, a much larger percentage of women than men voted for Joe Biden (55% compared to 46%). The big news was that the gender gap remained about the same as in the 2016 presidential election, despite Trump’s callous disregard for women or public health. The race/gender intersection proved more salient: 93% of Black women voted… Read more →