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Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers ¹

In our 2003 book, Families That Work, we first presented our collaborative work on policies for reconciling parenthood and employment. During the course of writing our book, we understood that we were making an ambitious policy proposal, and that we had embedded it in a radical end-vision, but we did not overtly conceptualize these components as utopian.

In extending the analyses of that earlier work for this book in the Real Utopias Project (RUP) series, our first task was to identify what exactly defined “our” Real Utopia. As we saw it, and still see it, our Real Utopia is defined by the end-vision of the dual-earner/dual-caregiver (henceforth, “earner-caregiver”) society. The earner-caregiver society is defined by gender symmetry in work and care; by the participation of both mothers and fathers in the care of their own children; by high-quality care for all children, whether by parents or well-trained and well-compensated non-parental caregivers; and by the socialization of a portion of the costs of raising children through redistributive social policies. To advance these ends, we recommend a package of work-family reconciliation policies that we believe would, in the short run, enable individuals and families to care for their children and live more gender-egalitarian lives and, in the longer run, to increase the value that society places on caregiving work, and greatly reduce, and ultimately dissolve, the gendering of divisions of labor.

Wright, in his discussion of emancipatory social science, charges us to develop coherent, credible theories of the alternatives to existing institutions and social structures that would advance the goals of social and political justice. We take up this charge in this essay by organizing our comments to address two of the three criteria he recommends for evaluating social alternatives: the desirability of the ends, imagined without the constraints of feasibility; and the viability of the proposed social and institutional approaches to achieve these ends. The third of Wright’s three criteria, achievability, involves the “practical work of strategies for social change” within the contingencies of present and future conditions. For the purposes of this essay the question of achievability is largely left aside to make room for the central questions posed by the Real Utopias process: What are the ideal ends? And what would be the institutional designs to achieve them?

1.Desirability

As Wright defines it, the project of imagining a Real Utopia begins with the specification and defense of the desired outcomes. Our earner-caregiver society imagines four social outcomes: gender symmetry in market and care work extensive parental involvement in caregiving, particularly during children’s early years; high-quality, non-parental care for children, provided by well-compensated care-workers; and the socialization of a portion of the costs of raising children. Are these outcomes in fact desirable?

First these outcomes may be desired by some individuals, but that there is enormous diversity in family forms, allocations of time to market and caregiving work, and beliefs about gender roles. Ann Orloff takes us to task for not sufficiently respecting the merit to be found in “the different visions of the good held by members of the polity, that is, in pluralism” (Orloff 2009); our Utopia, she adds, is not defined in terms of choice. Michael Shalev argues that, although the majority of women from all class backgrounds reject the male breadwinner model of gender roles, there are also systematic differences by education and occupational class. In Shalev’s view, our proposals are most consistent with the orientations of relatively privileged women. Rosemary Crompton also reminds us that attitudes toward gendered divisions of domestic labor vary widely within and across societies. Lane Kenworthy draws out the practical implications by arguing that our proposal for equal and nontransferable leave benefits may be unacceptable for many families in which mothers want to take longer leaves than do their male partners.

In short, these critics argue that, by specifying the earner-caregiver society as an end-goal, we may be imposing “one size fits all” social arrangements that run roughshod over individual preferences and social and cultural diversity. This criticism could be leveled at each of our utopian outcomes. Some parents may not want to devote time and energy to caring for young children. Others may not want to place their children in any non-parental care arrangements. A fair number of individuals, especially those with abundant private resources, may object to socializing the costs of raising children. Most commonly, however, the critique that our proposals involve social engineering targets the outcome of gender symmetry in both market and caregiving work.

To some extent, these criticisms overstate the extent of social engineering in our policy proposals. When we envision an earner-caregiver society, it is one in which men and women share equally in market and caregiving work on average, and in which children receive intensive parental care and high-quality substitute care as appropriate. Our Real Utopia does not require adults in all dual-parent families to allocate exactly the same time to market and care work, nor does it require all families to use the exact same combination of parental and non-parental care for their children.

That said, we readily admit that our proposed policies do require state action to redistribute resources and secure workplace rights. More subtly, some specific policy features are intended to apply what Norwegian sociologist Arnlaug Leira calls “mild structural coercion” (Leira 2009) to de-gender caregiving and encourage parental care. Most notably, non-transferable, individual leave rights are intended to create incentives for equal participation by mothers and fathers. At the same time, generous wage replacement for paid leaves enables parents to reduce paid hours of work in the first year after the birth or adoption of a child. Limiting paid leaves to six months, and subsidizing non-parental care, makes it feasible for all parents to enter or return to employment shortly after childbirth or adoption.

Can this institutional coercion be reconciled with respect for individual choice and diversity? It can if we recognize that these policies are means to an end, not an end in themselves. Our proposed work-family reconciliation policies are designed to create options for combining market and caregiving work, and parental and non-parental care. In a world in which all adults had these options, unconstrained by gender or private resources, we would be agnostic about the actual distribution of these choices. In the real world, in which gender and parental identities are socially constructed within historical and social contexts that are inegalitarian and overwhelmingly patriarchal, we are not agnostic. While respecting diversity, we cannot and should not interpret existing distributions of family forms and gender relations as revealed preferences – that is, as the “true” distribution of how men and women would choose to spend their time and organize the provision of care in the absence of institutional and normative constraints.

Individuals cannot make unconstrained choices until they have both realistic opportunities and social approbation for those choices. Work-family reconciliation policies can increase parents’ choices by, for example, replacing wages during parenting leaves and subsidizing non-parental care. In the absence of changes in social norms about gender, work and caregiving, however, parents’ choices will remain constrained by their own constructed identities as “male breadwinner” or “female caregiver.” Through the gentle coercion of incentives – for example, for more paternal leave-taking and for higher levels of maternal employment – social policies can also contribute to changes in social and gender norms that allow meaningful choices. As Harry Brighouse and Erik Wright (2009) argue, policies operate not only by changing opportunities and incentives, but also by reinforcing or challenging social norms that inform both public behaviors, such as employment decisions, and private identity formation.

A second, and very important critique of the desirability of our Real Utopia is that the outcomes are limited to de-gendering child care and improving the quality of care for children. As several critics point out, social and gender inequalities result from what Nancy Folbre terms “the general social organization of care,” (Folbre 2009) not just the care of children. Heidi Hartmann and Vicky Lovell (2009), likewise, argue that both moral and practical concerns require us to broaden our policy package to extend support for other forms of caregiving. Johanna Brenner (2009) also urges us to go further “toward socializing and democratizing the organization of care over the life-cycle.” Myra Marx Ferree (2009) places this argument squarely in the American context:

“Rather than expanding maternalism to encompass men in families, as the more progressive elements of the European systems have done, American feminists should expand the concept of ‘social security’ to be more truly inclusive across gender and generational lines.” (Marx Ferree 2009).

In our original formulation of the earner-caregiver society we argued that the provision of care for children in families headed by two heterosexual parents provided the most pertinent “test case” for gender-egalitarian policy design. The birth or adoption of children is particularly disruptive for women’s employment, and an especially crucial moment for the negotiation of gender roles in heterosexual couples. We were also persuaded that the “public goods” dimension of child-rearing, and the lifelong consequences of poor-quality early care, elevated the importance of child care issues.

The essays and discussions provoked by the Real Utopias Project have challenged our thinking on this formulation. As Folbre (2009) argues, arrangements to care for other dependents are often intertwined with care for children, and pose many of the same dilemmas, including the limited substitutability of paid and unpaid care work, the economic vulnerabilities for both paid and unpaid caregivers that result from prisoner-of-love dilemmas, and the regressive distribution of private support for caregiving. Efforts to “de-gender” caregiving for children while ignoring other forms of care are unlikely to bring about the social transformations that we envision.

We have been persuaded that the desired ends of the earner-caregiver society would include de-gendered caregiving for all dependents; realistic opportunities for men and women to be involved in all forms of caregiving for loved ones; high-quality and well-compensated substitute care arrangements for the elderly and disabled, as well as for children; and greater socialization of the costs of these care arrangements.

Broadening the focus of our analysis raises the question of normative justification. The “public goods” argument typically justifies distributing the costs of raising children more broadly on both efficiency and equity grounds because “wellraised” children are expected to be economically productive workers in the future. This instrumental justification could be more difficult to apply to the case of other dependents, such as the disabled and elderly, whose current and future economic contributions are usually limited. As Folbre argues, children represent a specific kind of public good “but care in general also has public good aspects and spillover effects that make it vulnerable to undervaluation by the market. Children cannot exercise consumer sovereignty – neither can other dependents.” (Folbre 2009: 107).

In the end, the strongest justification may be that of social rights: everyone should have the right to care for loved ones and the right to be cared for. In a Real Utopia, these rights would be protected for all, and their costs, in terms of time and money, would be shared between men and women and between the family and the state.

2.Viability

Wright (2009) argues that the viability of all proposals for utopian institutional development or reform must be assessed, because “not all desirable alternatives are viable.” He suggests several criteria for assessing the viability of proposed reforms. First, we should be concerned with “whether, if implemented, they would actually generate in a sustainable, robust manner, the emancipatory consequences that motivated the proposal.” Second, we should question whether there are “contextual conditions-of-possibility” that are needed for the proposed policies to achieve the desired outcomes. Finally, we should consider whether there are potential “perverse” unintended consequences that could actually subvert or prevent the achievement of these outcomes.

We consider three compelling questions below: whether the proposed policies could substantially affect the gendered distribution of work; whether some policies might actually exacerbate gender divides; and finally, whether these policies are only viable in the rich countries and might, in fact, contribute to the exploitation of the developing world.

First, several authors argue that the policies we propose are simply too weak to advance gender equality because men and women will be unwilling to relinquish the immediate rewards of existing gendered divisions of labor. Ann Orloff is especially pointed in her critique of our analysis of the persistence of gender roles. While she recognizes that both men and women are invested in existing gender relations, she emphasizes men’s recalcitrance, in particular, because men stand to lose the most from a realignment of gender roles:

“To my mind, [Gornick and Meyers] take too lightly the deep investments people have in gender … Of particular concern for the prospects of a gender-symmetric utopia that will depend on men’s recruitment to caregiving, men’s attachment to the powers and privileges of masculinity seems to be underplayed in Gornick and Meyers’ account. I am thinking here of men’s attempts to maintain gendered divisions of labor by avoiding dirty work at home and in the workplace, or by excluding women from favored positions in the paid labor force through sexual and other forms of harassment, or through discrimination in hiring, pay, or occupational access.” (Orloff 2009: 137-139).

Cameron Macdonald (2009) makes a somewhat parallel argument about the powerful hold that mothering has on many women, perhaps even more so in the US than elsewhere. Macdonald argues that the

“Power of intensive mothering as a cultural context in which even mothers who lack the financial resources, time, flexibility (or sleep) to approximate the at-home mother will go to great lengths to produce the image of the at-home mother. They produce the image because, in addition to being accountable to others, they are accountable to themselves and to the ideal of motherhood they hold.” (Macdonald 2009: 419).

Macdonald concludes that institutional change cannot be sufficiently powerful to alleviate the fear of being an inadequate mother that plagues so many women. Thus, large numbers of mothers will resist relaxing their intense engagement with their children, regardless of public policy supports.

We agree that both men and women are invested in existing gender roles. Men’s power is bound up with their disproportionate engagement in employment and commerce, and they reap benefits from their higher-status jobs and their greater levels of income and wealth (relative to women’s), and from the various forms of power and control that those resources confer. Many women find deep satisfaction in caregiving, and their greater investment in care work (relative to men’s) provides other forms of status, legitimacy, and power within the family and society. There is no question that preferences for employment and caregiving vary across individuals and sometimes on the part of individuals over time. As we argue above, however, it is impossible to know the extent to which the gendered distribution of these preferences is socially constructed by material conditions as well as social norms. If we believe that gendered identities are socially constructed we must also acknowledge the possibility that they would be different in the context of different conditions and norms.

We are not policy determinists; we know that policies operate alongside many political, social, economic, and psychological factors that shape preferences and inform behaviors. But to the extent that gender identities, expectations, and preferences are socially constructed, social policy is one of the factors that influence them. Orloff reminds us, however, that this understanding of the socially constructed nature of gender, and the capacity of social institutions to change existing norms, may fail to address the strength of existing power and privilege. Power differentials between men and women remain large, and history suggests that existing systems of power and privilege are not easily disrupted. The “mild structural coercion” of policy reform may not be enough to alter the gendered divisions of labor without more direct and forceful action by the state and polity.

On the other hand, we are perhaps more optimistic than Orloff about men’s commitment to current arrangements. Our optimism is shared, to some extent, by Scott Coltrane. He reviews a substantial literature on men’s involvement with care-giving. Coltrane is not sanguine about men’s willingness to alter domestic divisions of labor. He notes that many men resist change because “it is in men’s interest to do so … as [current divisions of labor reinforce] a separation of spheres that underpins masculine ideals and perpetuates a gender order privileging men over women.” (Coltrane 2009: 401). However, Coltrane also finds evidence that new “fatherhood ideals” are emerging in many of the rich countries; substantial numbers of men show signs of willingness to invest more time at home. Synthesizing recent research, Coltrane reports that, “as men’s and women’s jobs and work histories begin to look more alike, they are also likely to share similar family concerns.” (Coltrane 2009: 399). He notes that, in the US, over 60 percent of both men and women report that they would like to work fewer hours on the job, while 60 percent of men and 55 percent of women say that they experience conflict in balancing work, personal, and family life. The majority of both men and women also report that they feel torn between the demands of their jobs and wanting to spend more time with their families. Coltrane concludes that there is good reason to believe that employer and state policies are important influences on men’s engagement in caring and other domestic work. In the end, he says, “[p]olicies designed to help families should assume that both men and women want to contribute to their families through both breadwinning and the provision of everyday care and unpaid support work.” (Coltrane 2009: 406).

The formidable challenge of changing gender roles is closely related to a second especially compelling question. A number of authors argue that, in the absence of a major realignment of gender roles, policies that enable parents to take breaks from paid labor or to reduce working time could actually cause more gender inequality by exacerbating gendered divisions of labor and slowing women’s labor market advancements.

Barbara Bergmann (2009) argues that our policy proposal is, in a word, dangerous. She believes that women will always take up options such as paid family leave and part-time work at higher rates than men. As a result, enacting or strengthening policies that support these options “would have adverse effects on gender equality in the workplace as well as the home” (Bergmann 2009: 64). The only way to ensure an equal labor market is to restrict these options – for intermittent and reduced-hour work – for both women and men.

Michael Shalev (2009) raises a related set of concerns. Shalev draws on his own comparison of labor market outcomes in the US compared to Sweden, as well as on a growing cross-national empirical literature on this question, and concludes that highly educated, highly skilled women in settings with generous work-family policies might face a lower and more impenetrable glass ceiling than will women where policy supports are more limited. Where policy offerings are generous and take-up is disproportionately female, employers are motivated to statistically discriminate against women. That discrimination will be most intense with respect to women in (or seeking) upper-level occupations, because their temporary labor market absences are understood to be especially costly. Shalev cites a recent finding that women’s probability, relative to men’s, of having a managerial occupation is more than 80 percent greater in the US than in Sweden.

Kimberly Morgan (2009) adds to this chorus of worries the possibility that countries could start the process of implementing gender-egalitarian policy packages, but then get stuck with a partial package that could cause harm. “Rather than arriving at a set of gender-egalitarian arrangements for work and care,” she notes, “countries may stall halfway there in a modified male-breadwinner model.” (Morgan 2009: 316). A country might, for example, adopt generous paid family leave but lose the gender-egalitarian requirements and incentives – a result, she argues, that would undermine gender equality. Finally, Kathrin Zippel (2009) warns that, without effective anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies, the policy package that we propose could create more damage than good. She argues specifically that workplace inequalities will foreclose the intended positive effects of work-family policy: “Given the persistence of gender inequalities at work, optional leave and the reduction of working hours are likely to be taken up by mothers, and to reinforce rather than ameliorate inequality in workplace and home.” (Zippel 2009: 213).

We consider the claim that, in the absence of major transformations in gender roles, our proposals for paid leave and reduced-hour work would do more harm than good to be one of the most serious and worrisome critiques in this volume. These concerns about the possibility of worsening gender inequality have pushed us to think more analytically about the potential hazards, and to disaggregate the underlying causal arguments more carefully.

While we are sympathetic with Bergmann’s overall logic that higher take-up of these benefits by women is problematic, we are at least somewhat optimistic that this risk can be minimized through policy design. As she hints in the title of her essay – “Long Leaves, Child Well-Being, and Gender Equality” – Bergmann’s main concern is that long leaves will encourage women to leave employment for long periods of time, with a consequent erosion of human capital and increased risk of being shunted by employers into low-quality jobs. In light of these concerns, and of empirical evidence that suggests that long leaves are associated with greater labor market inequalities, we specifically limit the duration of paid leave to six months following the birth or adoption of a child. Short, highly paid leaves have been shown to increase women’s employment rates, to increase their likelihood of returning to work within a year after birth or adoption, to raise the chances that women return to the same employer, and to diminish the wage penalties associated with childbearing. All of these factors ultimately narrow, not widen, gender gaps in employment.

We find Shalev’s argument about statistical discrimination (presumably associated even with short leaves) and its impact on the glass ceiling for women to be more challenging. As with Bergmann’s argument, the concern that high-achieving women will hit the glass ceiling (due to adjustments that they make for caregiving) assumes that women will be much more likely than men to take up paid leaves and opportunities for reduced-hour employment. Shalev, and others contributing to this growing literature, suggest that, if gendered differentials in take-up persist, employers will impose limits on women’s advancement because they assume that women will be more costly employees than men.

There is no question that this is a worrisome scenario. As we see it, this underscores the enormous importance of policy design. If “god is in the details” in any policy arena, it is surely true in the case of work-family policies. Peter McDonald argues persuasively that “good ideas can founder on matters of detail” (McDonald 2009); we agree wholeheartedly. Policies that support parents’ caregiving time are not necessarily gender-egalitarian, but the converse is true as well: they can be designed to maximize incentives for gender-egalitarian take-up and outcomes. If men’s take-up increases substantially, the glass ceiling may remain in place for parents, but it will become de-gendered. Arguments about incentives for statistical discrimination also remind us that we need to evaluate our policy designs constantly so as to ensure that they subject employers to as little hardship as possible; strains and costs for employers can be alleviated through required notification periods, cost-sharing mechanisms, and the absence of experience rating.

We are also particularly challenged by the political hazards raised by Morgan. The passage and enactment of “half of a policy loaf” could in fact be worse than no policy change at all. Introducing generous leaves for women without options and incentives for men, for example, or without ample quality child care, could have the perverse effect of creating incentives for women to withdraw from the labor market. Raising the availability of part-time work without raising its quality could have the perverse effect of further feminizing part-time work and entrenching the existing part-time compensation penalty. In advancing reform proposals, it is crucial to think not only about the design of each but about potential interactions between policies that have the capacity to further or impede progress toward an earner-caregiver society.

The possible synergy between policies underscores the importance of Zippel’s emphasis on anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies. We agree fully that such policies are part of a comprehensive approach to gender-equalizing work-family policies. To the extent that they protect women’s right to participate on an equal footing with men in the workplace, these laws promote gender equality and reduce the risk that work-family reconciliation policies will have perverse, unintended effects. That said, anti-discrimination laws based on gender may not be enough to reduce the risks associated with supporting parents in their caregiving activities. Our reading of the literature leads us to conclude that it is no longer gender per se, but gendered divisions of caregiving labor – especially mothers’ withdrawals and reductions in employment – that are the primary cause of continued male-female disparities in wages and occupational attainment.

Zippel’s argument prompted us to think again about how anti-discrimination policies should be constructed and targeted. We have come to agree with the many social activists in the US and Europe now calling for anti-discrimination protections aimed at caregivers (men as well as women) as an important complement to protections targeted on women. Employment penalties associated with caregiving harm men’s employment prospects, and women’s even more so. However, even if the (unfair) discrimination against caregivers per se were successfully eliminated, caregivers might still command less compensation and fewer advancement opportunities than non-caregivers. That would be the case if caregivers are less productive in their paid work, all else equal, due to the extra demands on their time and attention. (Whether caregivers are less productive is an empirical question – one that has not yet been resolved.) If they are less productive, the overall question might be: How large a productivity-related penalty is fair? In many rich countries, this penalty may simply be too high now. Equity and reproductive concerns might suggest that states should offer some compensatory support.

A third, particularly compelling, question about the viability of our proposals is raised by Shireen Hassim (2009) in her essay “Whose Utopia?” She argues that, given the existing distribution of resources and state capacities, our proposed work-family reconciliation policies are simply not viable in much of the world without radical changes in economic and institutional arrangements. Even more problematically, the implementation of these policies in rich countries might depend on continued exploitation of the developing world.

In making her case that our proposed work-family reconciliation policies are not viable in much of the world, specifically the global South, Hassim describes formidable barriers to the development of gender-equalizing, redistributive work-family reconciliation policies. Formal economies are dwarfed by informal economies in much of the developing world, while work-based benefits are rare and inequitably distributed to privileged elites. Possibilities for de-gendering market and caregiving work are hampered by both traditional gender expectations and the exclusion of women from the formal economy. Weak and unstable government institutions greatly limit the capacity of the state to redistribute resources, regulate private employers, or extend social protections. The globalization of capital, production and labor markets has exacerbated the problems of the developing world, as have demands by supranational and international financial institutions that poor countries forgo the development of state-centered social protections in order to grow their labor and export markets.

We agree with Hassim that some level of economic and state development is a critical precondition for the implementation of the work-family reconciliation policies that we propose. But this would preclude the development of gender-equalizing work-family policies only if these preconditions can never be achieved. Given the necessary economic and institutional capacity, there is no reason to conclude that currently developing countries will not have the political will to pursue these policy developments. In fact, many developing countries do provide some protections for working parents, if only in the formal economy. Jody Heymann and her colleagues (2007) have studied work-family policies in 173 countries, and found evidence of relevant policy developments globally. Heymann’s team reports, for example, that 169 countries offer some guaranteed leave with income to women in connection with childbirth; 66 countries ensure that fathers either receive paid paternity leave or have a right to paid parental leave; at least 107 countries protect working women’s right to breastfeed; 137 countries mandate paid annual leave; at least 134 countries have laws that fix the maximum length of the working week; and at least 145 countries provide paid sick days for short- or long-term illnesses.

As Hassim points out, these protections are limited when only a small portion of the workforce participates in the formal economy. Many are also maternalist, reinforcing gender inequalities by increasing the costs of employing women relative to men. Although they are far from complete, the adoption of policies protecting the health and time of working parents in so many countries, rich and poor, suggests that there is no absolute North-South divide in the political will to develop work-family policies.

A potentially more damning charge against our blueprint is that it actually depends on the continued impoverishment and exploitation of poor and developing countries. In the broadest terms, this critique suggests that the wealth of the rich countries would not be possible without continued economic imperialism. More narrowly, the argument advanced by Hassim and others is that of a “global care chain” in which the equalization of labor market opportunities for women in rich countries depends on the exploitation of low-wage, often immigrant, female workers who forgo the care needs of their own families to work as caregivers for affluent families in rich countries.

The existence of “global care chains” that exploit female workers from poor countries is well documented. We would argue, however, that the policies that we propose challenge rather than reinforce these arrangements. By valuing caregiving labor, increasing public financing, and regulating the quality of non-parental care, our proposals will increase the skills needed by, and the wages provided to, non-parental caregivers. In the rich countries, these changes hold promise for reducing severe gender imbalances in the paid caregiving workforce and for encouraging workers to shift from the informal to the formal economy, thereby improving their conditions of work. Higher wages for caregivers in the rich countries will also reduce the demand for low-skilled, low-wage labor from developing countries. Whether these policies reduce total demand for non-parental caregiving labor by immigrant and non-immigrant women is an empirical question. Giving parents the right and opportunity to care for their own children is likely to reduce demand for non-parental care for infants, but this may be offset by an expansion of subsidized care for pre-schoolers, and of before- and after-school care for older children. Whether or not these policies would reduce the importation of caregivers, they promise to reduce the exploitation of these workers as cheap alternatives to parental labor.

Higher wages for caregivers in the rich countries may weaken the links in the “global care chain.” They will not directly improve conditions for women in poor countries (including those who may be effectively expelled from care work in the rich countries). For parents and children in the developing world to benefit from gender-equalizing reconciliation policies, the rich countries of the world will need to invest more directly and much more generously in the development of the state, market, and civil society institutions that are a prerequisite to the effective adoption of these policies in developing countries.

Hassim describes one intriguing mechanism for redistribution, first proposed by Ruth Pearson: A “Maria Tax.” Such a tax could be imposed on the value of exports to reflect the proportion of women in the export labor force. It could be levied by governments (on, for example, producers or importers) and reinvested in initiatives to achieve gender equity for women workers. The raised revenues could be spent on child care facilities, healthcare facilities, and insurance, and on educational and social welfare programs.

Less directly, it is reasonable to believe that the adoption of more egalitarian policies in the global North is consistent with, and may even encourage, investments in the developing world. To the extent that we can promote the adoption of egalitarian, non-exploitative work-family policies in the rich countries, we can hope to de-legitimize continued economic imperialism, slow the exportation of neoliberal social reforms to the global South, and reduce international pressures on poor countries to delay investments in their social and educational infrastructures. The more egalitarian Nordic countries contribute more to international aid, as a share of their GDP, than do the less egalitarian rich countries. Rather than intensifying global inequalities, a more egalitarian and gender-equalizing organization of caregiving within the rich countries is compatible with, and might advance, a commitment to greater global redistribution and equality.

As we explain in the essay, our work on the earner-caregiver society was motivated in part by our observation that scholars and policymakers have been engaged in at least three parallel but distinct conversations about work and family life. We hoped to stimulate conversations that link concerns about child well-being in high-employment societies to the problem of work-family balance and to long-standing feminist demands for gender equality in the home and workplace. We had a critical breakthrough in our thinking when we recognized that the apparently competing interests of women, men and children reflected the failure of social, market and policy institutions to address adequately the care of children in high-income societies. The insight that the solution to the triad of problems had to involve men as well as women, and the state as well as the family, informed our subsequent analyses and recommendations for policies that, we believe, promise simultaneously to reduce gender inequalities and improve care for children.

In this essay we have considered a few of the penetrating critiques and challenges to these proposals that were raised by our colleagues during the Real Utopias process. Although we remain convinced that the earner-caregiver society offers both a worthwhile long-term ideal and a useful framework for policy development in the short term, grappling with these issues has been a daunting task.

One of the issues raised by a number of the participants also gives us renewed optimism about the desirability, viability, and ultimate achievability of a more gender-egalitarian, caring society. We are persuaded that expanding the focus of policy development to include care for all family members and loved ones – including the disabled, the ill, and the elderly, along with children – is normatively and strategically sound. It forces us to rethink the justification for these policies and to deemphasize instrumental concerns in favor of the more basic claim that, in a just society, all individuals should have the right to provide care and the right to be cared for. Expanding the focus of concern to include other dependents knits together even more clearly the interdependences within and between families, employers and the state. Recognition of the commonalities in the interests of adults caring for the youngest and the oldest, often at the same time, holds promise for building broader and more effective coalitions in support of gender-equalizing reconciliation policies. Ruth Milkman’s essay further encourages us; she demonstrates the possibility of successful coalition-building in support of policy reforms that meet the “human needs of children, the seriously ill, and the elderly.” As Folbre (2009) astutely observes, there is also a potential political alliance between paid and unpaid caregivers. Acknowledgement of the common interests and continuing exploitation of caregivers – in the home and in the market, in the rich countries of the North and in the developing countries of the South – offers even greater promise for advancing political demands that call for the recognition, honoring and support not only of earning, but of caregiving as well.

References

Bergmann, Barbara R. (2009): Long Leaves, Child Well Being and Gender Equality. In: Gornick, J. C., Meyers M. K. (eds.): Gender Equality. Transforming Family Divisions of Labor. London, New York: Verso Books, pp. 67-78.

Brenner, Johanna (2009): Democratizing Care. In: ibid., pp. 177-192.

Brighouse, Harry; Wright, Erik, O. (2009): Strong Gender Egalitarianism. In: ibid., pp. 79-92.

Coltrane, Scott (2009): Fatherhood, Gender and Work-Family Policies. In: ibid., pp. 385-410.

Crompton, Rosemary (2009): The Normative and Institutional Embeddedness of Parental Employment: Its Impact on Gender Egalitarianism in Parenthood and Employment. In: ibid., pp. 365-384.

Folbre, Nancy (2009): Reforming Care. In: ibid., pp. 111-128.

Gornick, Janet C.; Meyers Marcia K. (eds.) (2009): Gender Equality. Transforming Family Divisions of Labor. London, New York: Verso Books.

Hartmann Heidi, Lovell, Vicky (2009): A US Model for Universal Sickness and Family Leave: Gender-Egalitarian and Cross-Class Caregiving Support for All. In: ibid., pp. 231-254.

Hassim, Shireen (2009): Whose Utopia? In: ibid., pp. 93-110.

Heymann, Jody; Earle, Alison; Hayes, Jeffrey (2007): The Work, Family, and Equity Index: How Does the United States Measure Up? McGill University: Institute for Health and Social Policy.

Kenworthy, Lane (2009): Who Should Care for Under-Threes? In: ibid., pp. 193-208.

Macdonald, Cameron (2009): What’s Culture Got to Do with It? Mothering Ideologies as Barriers to Gender Equity. In: ibid., pp. 411-434.

Marx Ferree, Myra (2009): An American Road Map? Framing Feminists Goals in a Liberal Landscape In: ibid., pp. 193-316.

McDonald, Peter (2009): Social Policies Prinziples Applied to Reform of Gender Egalitarianism in Parenthood and Employment. In. ibid., pp. 161-176.

Milkman, Ruth (2009): Class Disparities, Market Fundamentalism and Work-Family Policies: Lessons from California. In: ibid., pp. 339-364.

Morgan, Kimberly J. (2009): The Political Path to Dual-Earner/Dual-Caregiver Society: Pitfalls and Possibilities. In: ibid., pp. 317-338.

Orloff, Ann S. (2009): Should Feminists Aim for Gender Symmetry? Why a Dual-Earner/Dual-Caregiver Society Is Not Every Feminist’s Utopia. In: ibid., pp. 129-159.

Shalev, Michael (2009): Class Divisions among Women. In. ibid., pp. 255-282.

Wright, Erik, O. (2009): Preface. In: ibid., pp. vii-viii.

Wright, Erik O. (2010): Envisioning Real Utopias. under: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/ERU.htm, last accessed: 21.05.2010.

Zippel, Kathrin (2009): The Missing Link for Promoting Gender Equality: Work-Family and Anti-Discrimination Policies. In: ibid., pp. 209-230.

1Copyright © 2009 by Verso Books (In: Gornick, J. C., Meyers M. K. (eds.): Gender Equality. Transforming Family Divisions of Labor. London, New York, 435-450.)