Luxembourg Income Study Working Paper No. 224
Faces of Inequality: Gender,
Class and Patterns of Inequalities
in Different Types of Welfare States
Walter Korpi
February 2000
Faces of Inequality:
Gender, Class and Patterns of Inequalities
in Different Types of Welfare States
by
Walter Korpi
Swedish Institute for Social Research
Stockholm University
106 92 Stockholm, Sweden
e-mail Walter.Korpi@sofi.su.se
fax 08-15 46 70
phone 08-16 34 50
(Forthcoming in Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society)
Abstract
Research on welfare states and inequality has tended to be bifurcated, focusing either on
class or on gender. This paper combines gender and class in an analysis of patterns of
inequalities in different types of welfare states in 18 countries. Whereas a major dimension of
class inequality can be described in terms of material standards of living, in the advanced
Western countries it is fruitful to conceptualize gender inequality in terms of agency. In
analyses of gender as well as of class inequalities, welfare states have been seen as
significant intervening variables. However, major problems have emerged in attempts to
devise typologies of welfare states that are of heuristic value in analyses of gender inequality
as well as of class inequality.
This paper describes the development of gendered agency inequality during the period after
the Second World War in 18 OECD countries in the arenas of democratic politics, tertiary
education, and labor force participation. Class inequality is measured in terms of disposable
house income based on LIS data. The paper develops a new typology of welfare states based
on institutional structures of relevance for gender inequality as well as class inequality. The
combination of gender and class throws new light on the driving forces behind inequalities
and on the role of welfare states in this context.
Gender inequality is conceptualized in terms of agency. The paper presents a new typology of
welfare states based on institutional structures of relevance for gender inequality as well as
class inequality. The combination of gender and class throws new light on the driving forces
behind inequalities and on the role of welfare states in this context.
1
The study of the causes and consequences of inequality has traditionally focused on the role
of socio-economic class in the distribution of our worldly goods. In this context public
policies, especially those reflected in the development of different types of welfare states,
have been seen as major intervening variables. In recent years, however, in the social sciences
as well as in history, feminist scholars have criticized mainstream analyses of inequality and
welfare states for their neglect of gender aspects (Fraser 1989; Gordon 1990; Hernes 1987;
Hobson 1990; Leira 1992; Lewis 1992, 1997; O’Connor 1993, 1996; Orloff 1993; Pateman
1988; Sainsbury 1996; Shaver 1989; Siim 1988; Williams 1995). They have forcefully argued
that gender is one of the important factors that must be considered in analyses of inequality
and welfare states. Yet, few if any of them maintain that gender should replace factors such as
class, race and ethnicity in the study of distributive processes. Instead there seems to be a
growing consensus that gender as well as class, ethnicity and race are all socially constructed
properties and that each of them must be brought into the analysis without excluding the
others (for example, O'Connor, Orloff and Shaver 1999). Against such a background this
paper attempts to integrate gender and class into a macro-level analysis of different
dimensions of inequality and examines the ways in which these two factors interact with
different types of welfare states in the distributive processes. In such an effort we face major
challenges with respect to the conceptualization of inequality, the development of typologies
of welfare states of relevance for gender as well as class , the analysis of the driving forces
behind inequality, and the unit to be used in analyses of inequality.
One of the challenges posed by an attempt to combine gender and class in the analysis of
social differentiation is how to widen the conceptualization of inequality, now often routinely
confined to differences in terms of occupational standing and material standards of living.
While inequalities with respect to advantage rooted in the division of labor within the sphere
of production have been and remain central for class inequality, in the context of gender
inequality these aspects have to be complemented. We must therefore here reconsider the old
question: Inequality of what? A focus on gender inequality highlights additional dimensions
of the division of labor in society, divisions between production and reproduction, between
paid and unpaid work. Thereby it points to the importance of distinguishing between, on the
one hand, inequality in terms of manifest achievements of wellbeing, and, on the other hand,
inequality in terms of freedom to achieve. A comprehensive analysis of the role of gender in
the context of inequality thus necessitates a broadening of our research focus to consider not
only inequality in actual achievements, but also potential or latent aspects of inequality
reflected in the concept of agency and indicated by the range of alternative achievements and
accomplishments between which an actor has the capability to chose. While such a
broadening of focus is valuable also in analyses of inequalities in terms of class, it is essential
in modern debates on gender inequality. We therefore have to tackle the central question what
aspects of agency that are likely to be fruitful in research on inequality with respect to gender.
Another challenge faces us in the analysis of the role of welfare states for gender inequality.
In recent decades research on inequality and welfare states has to a large extent become
comparative, focusing on the causes and consequences of the ”natural experiments” with
different types of public policies that have taken place in the Western countries. In this
context, typologies of welfare states have come to serve as heuristic tools for organizing and
interpreting the wealth of information available in comparative studies. A question here is if
typologies should be based on broad sets of indicators running from assumed driving forces
over the shape of public policies to policy outcomes, or more specifically on the institutional
characteristics of welfare state policies. Furthermore, as feminist scholars have pointed out,
welfare state typologies have primarily reflected factors associated with class but have
neglected the gender dimension. While this criticism need not invalidate the use of extant
2
typologies in studies on class-related aspects of distributive processes, they underline the need
to design typologies of welfare states that are helpful in comparative analyses of the role of
public policies for gender inequality as well as for class inequality. Such an effort raises the
important question if particular types of welfare states can be expected to differ with respect o
their consequences for inequality in terms of gender and class, respectively.
The integration of gender and class in the study of inequality and welfare states furthermore
requires a reconsideration of the driving forces and actors in distributive processes. Since
class inequality typically has been interpreted in terms of the division of labor in the sphere of
economic activity, the major driving forces generating class inequality have often been
conceived of in terms of actors such as political parties, business organizations and labor
unions. While these major actors are likely to loom large also in terms of gender inequality, in
a gender perspective, additional social forces can be expected to be of significance. Important
among them are actors engaged in the formulation and promulgation of ideologies and
policies related to the family and to caring work, such as churches and women’s movements.
Analyses of the role of gender in distributive processes brings the question of a fruitful unit of
analysis to the fore. As is well-known, in the study of class inequality the family and the
household are typically taken as basic observational units, and in analyses of income
distribution it is conventionally assumed that income is shared equally between husband and
wife. Within the nuclear family, statistically husband and wife tend to have similar socio-
economic and racial characteristics. Nuclear families are however always differentiated with
respect to sex. Unlike class and race, the gender dimension thus constantly cuts through the
nuclear family and draws attention to the role of intra-family differentiation in distributive
processes. The fact that, in principle, all individuals can be described in terms of class as well
as gender suggests the fruitfulness of a simultaneous analysis of the role of these two factors
for inequality, focusing on the possible interactions between class and gender in distributive
processes. Instead of assuming that within the family material resources and other forms of
advantage are equally distributed, it would appear fruitful to view the nuclear family as a
more or less stable coalition of adult individuals with partly shared, partly conflicting
interests, a coalition involved in distributive strife at the societal level as well as in internal
bargaining. The analysis of gender inequality can however not be limited to the family but
must be extended to include all citizens as well as the macro-level (Ferree and Hall 1996). As
formulated by Acker (1989, 239) relations of gender and class may be produced within the
same ongoing practices so that "looking at them from one angle we see class, from another we
see gender, neither is complete without the other."
This paper will discuss the relationships of gender and class to different dimensions of
inequality and develops a typology of welfare states, a typology which hopefully is of
heuristic value in the analysis of inequalities with respect to gender as well as class.
1
Central
questions concern the conceptualization and operationalization of dimensions of inequality of
relevance for gender and class, the driving forces between different types of inequalities, and
the role of welfare states for the modification and shaping of patterns of inequalities with
respect to gender and class. A relatively broad spectrum of dimensions of gender inequality
will be discussed but the focus will be on arenas of agency inequality likely to be affected by
welfare state policies. The empirical analysis covers what now are 18 rich industrialized
countries, that is Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
1
While in many countries race, ethnicity and immigrant status play major roles in the context of inequality, they
can not be considered here.
