Gender, origin and the consequent privileges/lack thereof are much more important than it sometimes seems - they often determine what we will do in life and what our choices will be, e.g. political. We associate economics mainly with data and figures that reduce the discussion to the GDP index or inflation - but it is impossible to consider economic issues without a social context. One such context is precisely gender and how it gains or loses on classically understood economics. Feminist economics is a scientific proposal for a broader, more inclusive view of the economy; it takes into account care work, wage inequality between women and men, and the participation of women in different sectors.
What is Feminist Economics?
The discipline of economics called feminist economics originates from neoclassical economic theory. Starting from the traditional understanding of economic processes, feminist economics proposes a much more elaborate system of thinking. First of all, she introduced the concept of socio-cultural gender. This is an important definition that says that gender is not just our biological trait and what gender we are influences what role we are likely to play in society. The pioneers of feminist economics were Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer, and representatives Amartya Sen and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, which contributed significantly to the creation of the Social Development Index - Human Development Index (HDI). You can read about the current activities of feminist economics in the magazine Feminist Economics, which was created by International Association for Feminist Economics in 1994.
What does feminist economics study and what does it do?
Research on this child focuses, among other things, on the fact that homework and raising children are not taken seriously, although its consequences are serious for women. First, care work is a role mainly assigned to women - its dimension varies - from caring for children, to caring for people with disabilities, to caring for the elderly. It affects frequent career breaks and discrimination in the labour market. Those involved in feminist economics postulate that ignoring data on domestic and care work contributes to a poor assessment of GDP - leading to undervalued measures that do not take into account unpaid work. Traditional economics therefore understands development in a very simplified sense, leaving aside the fact that the invisible work of women is one of the pillars of the driving forces of economies and at the same time is not remunerated, which can be read more precisely in the following chapter.
We're all losing. The significant impact of gender inequality on overall economic development
Why does the research and development of feminist economics make sense? Because the traditional economic model is based on an equally traditional conception of gender roles (read: ultra-capitalism). It's not just discrimination and social exclusion. These are also very specific economic losses. If women, who make up half of the world's population, are systematically pushed out of the labor market or restricted in their access to it, they cannot be the driving force of the economy. They could participate in it much more. So why, even though logic and data suggest the need to tackle these inequalities, do we still cling so tightly to the outdated economic model? There are several reasons. First: habit. A system based on patriarchal schemes is easier to maintain because it does not require great effort. Nothing needs to be changed, nothing needs to be redefined. And the change of gender role is also a social, cultural, legal change. In short: it is a real, not easy job to do. And why work for whom if it benefits from what is already there? Those who have the most say in the economy today are the people who gain the most in the current order. They are privileged classically, financially and media-wise. They have an influence on public opinion, so they are in no hurry to question anything. This convenience affects the lack of initiative and desire for change. And who loses? Even though we're talking about the “feminist economy,” it's not just women. The less privileged in every configuration are losing: people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, the elderly, the neurodiverse and all those whose presence in the economy is systematically ignored. It is not just a lack of tolerance, but above all a lack of real, political action. In the long run, we all lose. Not only socially, but purely economically. We are losing workers, scientists and innovators. This is a waste of development and, as a result, a better future.
In 2023, she received the Nobel Prize in Economics Claudia Goldin (which is important — as the only winner, not in the team!). It examined the wage gap between women and men over more than 200 years of economic development. Conclusion? Gender inequality has a real negative impact on economic development, and the factor that has continuously influenced the market, more than macroeconomic data, has been social norms. Goldin is the first woman to be awarded alone in this field and only the third woman in history to win a Nobel in economics, which speaks for itself when referring to inequality. The other two Nobel laureates in economics are: Elinor Ostrom (2009 prize for the analysis of the management of the commons) and Esther Duflo (award in 2019 - together with Abhijit Banerjee and Michel Kremer - for an experimental approach to global poverty alleviation) - their work also shows the social dimension in economics.
Data
So let's look at the data that will show us what we're up against when it comes to economics and exclusion. In the beginning, the relationship of education and work. Although women in Europe have a higher education than men - in the 25-34 age group, as many as 49% of women have a university degree (compared to 38% of men) - they are still less likely to work and are less likely to get promoted. In Poland, this difference is even greater: as many as 46.3% of young people have higher education, but between women and men the difference is as much as 19 percentage points in favor of women. Meanwhile, men dominate the labour market: in 2023, 80.4% of men and only 70.2% of women worked in the EU, while in Poland these figures were 77.8% vs 66.9%, respectively. Part of this gap is explained by the so-called “care effect” - women are more likely to work part-time (27.9% vs. 7.7% of men), giving up full-time work due to household chores or lack of systemic support. In practice, this means not only a waste of potential, but a real loss to the economy. And that's what feminist economics is all about — the study of the social determinants of the economy with an emphasis on gender. summary
Feminist economics shows that gender inequality is not only a social problem, but also a real barrier to economic development. Although women in Europe are better educated than men, they are less likely to participate in the labour market, which translates into losses for the entire economy. Feminist economics speaks of growth not only in terms of GDP, but also in the context of equality and justice.
Sources
- https://www.exploring-economics.org/pl/wprowadzenie/ekonomia-feministyczna/
- https://mitsmr.pl/kultura-organizacyjna/ekonomia-feministyczna-a-rozwoj-gospodarczy/
- https://mfiles.pl/pl/index.php/Ekonomia_feministyczna
- https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
- https://op.europa.eu
- https://www.eumonitor.eu
- https://www.statista.com