FINAL - Institutions and Policies Flashcards
(24 cards)
Define institutions –> formal and informal?
“the rules of the game in a society”
- plays a fundamental role in shaping individual behaviour and structuring societal interactions.
- the framework within which individuals make decisions
- Institutions consist of both formal and informal institutions
- formal institutions consist of written rules such as constitutions, laws, property rights, legal system, government bodies.
- informal Institutions includes unwritten social norms, traditions, cultural practices and social conventions that influence behaviour and decision-making
How do institutions shape access to resources, labour, and capital?
- Institutions create the framework within which economic activity takes place - show existing power structures and can either promote equality or reinforce inequality
- Property rights determine who can own land or capital
- Education systems and labor laws determine who has access to job opportunities or skills training
- Credit institutions determines who can get loans to start a business.
How do institutions determine control over economic benefits and decision-making?
- Institutions determine who gets to make decisions and who reaps the benefits of economic production
- In many settings, men are more likely to own property or be the head of a household, giving them more power in both the family and the economy
- Even public policies about taxation, welfare, or pensions can favour male earners
- Institutions are not neutral; they embed social hierarchies and determine the distribution of economic power
How do institutions influence individual choices through constraints?
- Institutions do not just open opportunities, they also limit choices.
- Legal or customary barriers may prevent women from entering certain professions or owning land.
- Social norms may discourage women from participating in politics or higher education.
- These constraints shape individual and group behavior by restricting the set of feasible actions
How do feminist economists critique mainstream institutional theories?
- they critique them for being gender-blind
- Institutions are also gendered structures - they embed and reproduce power asymmetries that disadvantage women and other marginalized groups
- emphasize informal norms and expectations can be just as influential as formal laws in shaping economic outcomes
Policies should be analyzed from a _______ lens, even if they are not designed to close gender gaps
feminist
What is the financial sphere and what are the gendered impacts in the financial sphere?
Financial sphere = banks, credit systems, financial institutions, and the policy and
regulatory bodies that govern them. It controls access to money through loans, credit, interest rates, investment and shapes economic opportunity
GENDERED IMPACTS:
> Exclusion from decision-making: women underrepresented in top financial institutions where big decisions about money supply, credit allocation, and bialours are made → results in policies that don’t reflect or address women’s economic realities
> Credit squeeze and discriminatory lending: during crises, banks become more conservative, making it harder to get loans → view male borrowers as more credible (men are business minded) and that women have less collateral or formal employment history
> Microfinance as an alternative: while commercial credit excludes women, microfinance institutions offer small loans primarily to poor women, but these institutions are often underfunded during crises → their scale is limited and can’t supported growth oriented women-led businesses and women may still face high interest rates or group loan pressure
> Gender norms influence perceptions: women painted as less capable entrepreneurs or as more risk-prone borrowers, even though many studies show women have higher loan repayment rates → lead to unequal access to financial resources *the financial sphere isn’t neutral and actively reproduces economic gender inequality especially in times of crises
What is the productive sphere and its gendered impacts?
Productive sphere = where people work for pay (formal and informal work) → financial crises in the north can be transmitted directly to production in developing countries through falling demand in exports → leads to falling output, employment and earnings in the export sector creating loss of jobs
GENDERED IMPACTS:
> Export sector losses: if a country exports garments and demand drops, women are affected more because they work in garment factories, BUT if its mining, men will lose more jobs → gender impact depends on the industry
> Shift to informal work: when women lose formal jobs they often turn to informal jobs like street vending or home-based sewing → these jobs are not counted in official statistics so it may look like women aren’t affected but they’re really just working in hidden, low-paid jobs now
> Male breadwinner norm: societal norm of male providers → during a crisis, companies may try to protect men’s jobs first believing they need it more → women may be laid off sooner even if they are equally qualified or more in need → they may appear less affected during an economic crisis, but in reality they are pushed into worse. Less secure jobs
What is the reproductive sphere and its gendered impacts?
Reproductive sphere = includes unpaid care work and everything that helps keep people and the society going
GENDERED IMPACT:
> Fewer remittances: when migrants (often men) lose jobs abroad, they send less money home
> Girls are pulled out of school: families under pressure may choose to send only boys to school due to loss job and income → girls more likely to stay home and help with domestic duties
> Government services decline: when government cuts spending on schools, clinics, or food programs, women fill in the gaps → work harder at home to replace what the state no longer provides
> Invisible burden on women heavier during a crisis: men may lose jobs but women end up doing more unpaid work and with fewer resources - this deepens gender inequality and makes recovery harder for families and communities
What are the policy responses in the Financial Sphere, Productive Sphere, and Reproductive sphere that are often used during economic crises?
Financial Sphere:
- Bailouts go to the banks and sometimes favors men
- IMF/World Bank loans often ignore gender impacts
- In times of crises, women borrow for consumption more than men because of their care burden
- Need for gender-equitable credit distribution.
Productive Sphere:
- Government respond to economic crises with fiscal stimulus, but the gendered implication varys depending on the industry the stimulus favors
- If it targets construction, infrastructure which is male-dominated, it would preserve men’s job than women
- Women may shift to informal vending or home-based work with lower income and no protection.
Reproductive Sphere:
- Governments may offer conditional cash transfers, mostly to women. But they reinforce the norm that only mothers care for children.
- Some public work schemes pay below minimum wage, which women may still accept because of their social responsibility for feeding families.
What are the biases of austerity policies adopted during crises?
Deflationary Bias:
Emphasis on keeping inflation low rather than focusing on protecting the most vulnerable
Male Breadwinner bias:
Rights to make claims for social benefits based around a norm of full-time, life-long working-age participation in the market-based labour force
Commodification bias:
Reduction in state-sponsored entitlements, including healthcare facilities, health insurance, schooling and care for the elderly
Risk bias:
Risk is further individualized when governments withdraw in-kind social security spending, specifically on health and education
Credit bias:
When certain groups of people tend to be the subjects of more unfavourable credit terms, as they are viewed as more risky borrowers, which also make them the targets of predatory lenders
What are the types of fiscal consolidation options considered by governments for austerity policies and the gendered impacts of them?
General reductions social spending → employment reduction in those sectors that tend to be female dominated
Social spending cuts → fewer housing benefits, lower pensions, and decreased child-related support → including pregnancy health services, maternity grants, and child benefits *highly impact children
Higher fees and reduced assistance making it more difficult for women to pursue education → reduces job prospects and earning potential, furthering gender inequalities → budget cuts to primary schools also disproportionately impact both children and their mothers, who tend to be the primary caregivers
Funding cuts to social protection services and legal aid → increased risk of violence and abuse against children and women
What are the impacts of infrastructure investment on time allocation?
Evidence has shown that investments in infrastructure help reduce the time spent on fetching water, fuel, and other unpaid household maintenance activities, reduce the care burden and, as a result, raise the earnings potential of both women and men.
In India, infrastructure investment lessened unpaid care work, but women’s employment did not increase:
**complementary employment policies are also required to ensure the substitution of market work for unpaid work.
How does the relationship between gender norms and economic crises explain the disproportionate effects of crises on women and children?
Male-breadwinner norms:
- employers and trade unions might consider men have more right to retain their jobs than women when both occupy similar positions, and an adjustment is needed
- Job losses could be higher for women than for men even if unemployment rates indicate the opposite, depending upon women percentage of informal workers
- The loss in income might imply an increase in unpaid care and housework as an alternative to purchasing household goods. Due to the sexual division of labor within households, this is expressed in extra work undertaken by women (often in worse conditions).
- Extend length and intensity of working days
How does the relationship between gender norms and economic crises relate to the time allocation of unpaid work within households? Do economic crises help to increase or decrease the time spent on unpaid household activities such as domestic work and childcare?
Women’s time allocation during economic crises:
- during the US recession, married mothers increased their paid hours mainly by spending less time on household tasks – childcare, housework, and shopping
- Increases in men’s unemployment risk have been found to directly affect their female spouses, who must spend more time in paid and unpaid work
> Women’s total work time rises approximately eleven times more than that of men in Turkey in response to spouses’ unemployment.
Men’s time allocation during economic crises:
- during the US recession, married fathers worked fewer hours in the labour market but did not take on additional unpaid work, which meant their total work hours declined
Therefore:
- mothers and fathers worked similar numbers of paid hours. Since mothers were doing less unpaid work than previously, the recession contributed to greater unpaid labour time equality
- But with the decline in their total workload, fathers had more leisure time than before the slump and relative to mothers
How did COVID-19 disproportionately impact women in the global south?
There are pre-existent inequalities that caused the gendered effects of the pandemic
- In South Africa, women are overrepresented in informal employment. → informal workers lack access to social protection (maternity leave, sick leave, health insurance).
- 42.6% of households are female-headed → often low-skilled, low-paid, poorer households.
- During the pandemic lockdowns, school closures affected paid employment (difficult to work from home)»_space; pressures fell on women to take care of family members, ill, elderly, tutoring children.
- Lockdowns increased IPV globally; in South Africa, GBV calls surged to over 8,000 in two weeks post-lockdown → Abusers used isolation to control victims, restricting access to support services.
- Southern African rural women, mostly subsistence farmers and informal traders, experienced a severe loss of income and relied on loans from loan sharks to sustain their production and households.
How did COVID-19 disproportionately impact women in Canada?
- More women diagnosed with COVID than men → could be due to more women living in nursing homes and senior’s residences (lots of COVID deaths in nursing homes)
- More women than men after vaccination, have been diagnosed with Covid-19 → higher ratio of women who work on the front lines of health services, caregiving, cleaning, and other essential roles where workers are at high risk of contracting the virus
How did the isolation measure during COVID-19 disproportionately impact women in Canada?
Increased risk of gender-based violence
More economic stress
Increased burden of caregiving and housework
Reduced access to support services
How did COVID-19 disproportionately impact racialized people in Canada?
Toronto report → Black people and other people of colour made up 83 per cent of COVID-19 cases, despite making up 13 per cent of the city’s population.
COVID-19 mortality rate for Black people was 2.2 times higher than non-racialized populations.
Racialized communities experienced a higher rate of COVID diagnosis due to inequitable living and working conditions that make them more susceptible to COVID-19, such as lower incomes, precarious employment, overcrowded housing, and limited access to health and social services.
How did COVID-19 disproportionately impact immigrant women in Canada?
Immigrant women were among the hardest hit at the beginning of the pandemic, due to their concentration in service and accommodation industry work, as well as minimum wage and precarious jobs. Many continued working in jobs where there was higher risk of contracting the virus.
How do parental leave policies affect gender roles?
Some leave programs are restricted to women.
When extended to men, income benefits are crucial to determining whether or not men and fathers take leave.
In most countries, when a parent takes parental leave, they don’t get their full salary. Instead, they get only part of it - usually a percentage and there’s often a maximum limit. Because women usually earn less than men, it often makes more financial sense for women to take the leave. This reinforces traditional gender roles and can affect women’s career growth.
What is a system of parental leave policies that could be better at reducing gender inequalities?
A system where everyone, both men and women pays into a shared fund for parental leave through their jobs, kind of like health insurance. Then, anyone who becomes a parent can take paid leave from this fund, no matter their gender.
- This kind of system reduces the cost of parental leave for individual employers
- It removes the pressure on women to always be the ones to take time off. As a result, employers are less likely to avoid hiring women because they’re no longer seen as a financial “risk” due to potential maternity leave. This makes the workplace fairer for both women and men
What is included in parental leave policies? What impact can parental leave policies have?
- Maternity leave - short-term leave targeted at women at the time they give birth.
- Paternity leave - targeted at men around the time of a child’s birth, and
- Parental leave - generally longer, more flexible leaves that are available to both parents.
- Family support policies»_space; Parents can remain in the workforce, keep connected with their employers
- Simply granting workers the right to time off, the right to go back to the same job.
- Provide wage replacement benefits (not just time, but income support as well). Crucial to avoid families’ impoverishment
impact: * Strengthen labour markets and reduce turnover
Why do public policies affect social groups differently? In which ways might they reinforce gender inequalities?
Public policies have a gendered effect → has a differential impact on individuals based on their gender roles ,responsibilities, and social positioning
* Institutions are not neutral; they embed social hierarchies and determine the distribution of economic power
Even if they claim to be neutral, they affect men and women differently because:
> Society is already unequal (in access to employment, income, time)
> People are assigned different roles based on gender norms (women as caregivers, men as breadwinners)
> Most policies are designed without acknowledging that it affect individuals differently based on gender
> Ex. a public policy that cuts public transport subsidies may seem neutral, but if women rely more on public transportation to do multiple errands (taking kids to school, shopping, caregiving), they are disproportionately affected
