The Gender Dimension of the Welfare State

Abstract

Natalie Rogoff Rams0y (1987) has argued that the welfare state was designed primarily in the image of the adult male industrial worker. Its design took for granted, at least implicitly, that the traditional female role of caregiver and service worker in the family would remain domi nant. This gender-based division of welfare has been dramatically recast, both in terms of clients and employment. Indeed, the contem porary Scandinavian welfare state in many respects has become more important for the welfare of women than for that of men. This holds true for income maintenance as well as public employment. We shall argue that the emergent Scandinavian welfare state-labor market mix has improved the strategic position of women in society. If this is true, it poses a challenge to feminist sociology.1 We will address four central issues in the debate on the gender bias of welfare states. The first concerns the empowerment, or sustained oppression, of women through the welfare state. Here, we argue that feminist arguments about the welfare state as a new social patriarchy are misleading, and so is the related agrument about women's shift from male dependence to welfare state dependence. The second issue addresses the popular contention that the family has gone public, an argument based on the assumption that the family is no longer able to fulfill the functions of caring, and that, therefore, other large-scale organizations?such as the welfare state?had to fill the gap. We argue