User:StevenDoyle/sandbox

Wikipedia Proposal

Gender and welfare state regimes are unrepresented within Wikipedia. The goal of this proposal is to highlight the inequalities that evolve from gender issues in society. History has carved what is expected from certain genders. Traditional gender roles view the male as the primary breadwinner, while females are seen to be caregivers. The welfare state is a notion that believes the government should promote equality and wealth for its citizens. Where the idea of gender and the welfare state clash, is the changing view of the traditional gender roles to fit in with the welfare state. ‘Often time’s woman are marginalized, excluded and stigmatized for activities traditionally done by males. One of the important theories within gender and welfare state regime is the feminization of poverty. This is when woman represent a disproportionate share of the poor population compared to males’ (Ball and Tepperman, 2016). The feminization of poverty is created by the lack of employment opportunity. ‘In a study conducted by Hadas Mandel and Moshe Semyonov of Tel Aviv University, the affects of the welfare state on woman labor force participation and occupational achievement was researched. The results yielded that the welfare state promotes woman in the labor force, but in most cases are not desirable or high paying positions’ (Mandel and Semyonov, 2006). In another study conducted by Hadas Mandel and Michael Shalev, it was researched how the welfare state shapes the gender pay gap. ‘The study looked at seventeen different countries that believed in different welfare state regimes. Results varied, but all came to the same general conclusion. The differential gap varied from five percent to almost twenty five percent between the seventeen countries. All of the results imply that woman make that much less than men. This was related to intra-class representational inequality that says women are disproportionally involved in lower paid positions and excluded from the top. The authors highlight two theories to explain what was found. The first theory is decommodification, which wants to decommodify labor to be able to substitute for wages. The issue with this is that it slows the growth of lower paying jobs, effects lower class inequality, and makes part-time and intermittent workers more vulnerable to wage discrimination. As was seen by the study, all of these categories are over-represented by females. The second theory was defamilialization which sees the protection of mothers and wives through paid maternity leave, favorable tax treatment, reduced working hours, and the right to take time off for sick children’ (Mandel and Shalev, 2009). This explained the gender income gap because employers are discouraged to give upper management jobs to people who require so much time off. Thus, part-time work is more suitable because there is a constant flow of workers that makes taking more time off possible. Stemming from income inequality which woman face are the effects that it has on their health. According to a study by Eikemo et al, varying welfare state regimes had different results for how the health of people was affected. ‘Liberal welfare state regimes found in the UK and Ireland, as well as the Social Democratic regime found in the Scandinavian countries, believe in a more universal and equal outlook on social transfers and income protection. The conservative welfare state regime found in Southern and Eastern Europe believes in status differentiating programs, maintaining social patterns, and traditional gender roles. Results showed that the liberal and social democratic regimes observed better self perceived general health than the conservative regime’ (Eikemo et al, 2008). In terms of gender and equality, ‘woman in the welfare state regime who are economically disadvantaged are seen to have a greater risk of health issues. These health issues include vulnerability to infectious diseases, mental illness and increased risk of heart disease’ (Ball and Tepperman, 2016). In regard to the coverage of gender and welfare state regimes on Wikipedia, there is no coverage on the issue. The information covered in this proposal will give a great base and starting point for people inquiring on the subject.

Annotated Bibliography

Eikemo, Terje Andreas, Claire Bambra, Ken Judge, and Kristen Ringdal. 2008. “Welfare state regimes and differences in self-percieved health in Europe: A multilevel analysis”. Social Science and Medicine. 66(11). 2281-2295 This study focused on how different welfare state regimes affected the citizens through comparative research between different regimes. The key findings this study was that liberal and social democratic regimes observed a higher quality of self perceived health than the conservative counterpart. The study provides a great insight into the healthcare scenarios due to various welfare state regimes. This information will be important for describing the inequalities created by the welfare state regime regarding healthcare.

Mandel, Hadas and Moshe Semyonov. 2006. “A Welfare State Paradox: State Interventions and Women’s Employment Opportunities in 22 Countries”. American Journal of Sociology. 111(6). This article focuses on the affects of the welfare state on woman in the labor force. The article looks in depth at woman and labor force participation as well as occupational achievement. The finding in this study showed that welfare states do promote woman in the work force, but these woman do not encompass desirable or high paying positions. This will be important for the Wikipedia article to illustrate how woman are disproportionally in higher quality job opportunities.

Mandel, Hadas and Michael Shalev. 2009. “How Welfare States Shape the Gender Pay Gap: A Theoretical and Comparative Analysis”. Social Forces. 87(4). 1873-1911. This article investigates the income pay gap between 17 welfare state countries around the world. The goal of the study was to determine the relationship between class hierarchy and wage differences between males and females. The importance of this article is to show that no matter what welfare state regime a country posses, women are over-represented in the lower-class job market and under-represented in higher authority positions. This is a large determinant for why women face inequality with class hierarchy and wage earnings. The authors also explain how the theories of decommodification and defamilialization describe why these inequalities occur. The results from this study, along with the theories of decommodification and defamilialization, will be important to the Wikipedia article in explaining gender wage gaps in welfare state regimes.

Ball, Jennifer and Lorne Tepperman. “The Stacked Deck: An Introduction to Social Inequality”. Canada: Oxford University Press. 2016. p.40-42. This book is used for the sociology of social welfare class which is taught at the University of Guelph. The specified chapter and pages provide an introduction to the inequalities which females face as members of welfare societies. An important part of the information in this chapter was the description of the issues women face with job opportunity. This was explained by what the authors call the feminization of poverty. Another important part of the chapter is when the relation of female poverty is connected to the various health issues. Overall, this information will be critical in explaining the opportunity for employment and health care factors which result from gender inequalities in the welfare state regime.

Polachek, Solomon and Jun Xiang. 2014. “The Gender Pay Gap Across Countries: A Human Capital Approach”. IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc. St. Louis. This paper aims to explain the gender wage gaps internationally, focusing on labor market institutions that effect female work. The authors attempt to solve this through analysis of the International Social Survey Programme, the Luxembourg Income Study, and OECD wage data for 35 countries from 1970-2002. The study found that fertility rate, age gap between spouses in their first marriage, and the top marginal income tax rate, correlate with the gender wage gap. Female education was a factor that did not correlate with the wage gap. This imposes that social factors determine the gap between men and women in the work force. This will be helpful in the Wikipedia article because it helps offer a social perspective to the pay gap, as opposed to the institutional perspective which is commonly researched.

Wikipedia project will be done with Jack Ireland. All editing and work will be done in Jack's sandbox. The link for his page is as followed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/User:Jackjvireland11