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Feminist economics
I view feminist economics as one of the more useful parts of the heterodoxy, perhaps because of its empirical component. I see a few contributions:
1. Repeated insistence that household production is important and that it is lacking in gdp figures. This isn't new anymore but someone has to bang the drum.
2. Criticizing the "dominant patriarchal" assumptions behind standard models of the family, such as Gary Becker's. The Rotten Kid Theorem is interesting as pure theory but it has received too much attention as an actual model of the family. The father is not always a benevolent manipulator, concerned most of all with collective welfare.
3. Insisting that economics is so often done "in a male way." Now I happen to like the "male way of doing economics" -- abstract, analytically cutting, and debate-intense. But I'm happy to see someone linking the method to some general traits of men; put all the feminist excess aside, at some level the point is well-taken.
4. In the history of economic thought, Hazel Kyrk and Margaret Reid are worth reading, there are probably others as well. "Home Economics" should never have been so cut off from regular economics.
5. Gender differences in analyzing the effects of policy. Sweden, no matter what you think of it in absolute terms, is a better deal for women than for men. Overall women are more risk-averse and less interested in accumulating large sums of wealth. The Soviet Union was less bad for women than for men. Many governmental health care systems are better geared toward the needs of women (e.g., easy access to pre-natal care) than for men, who require massive medical innovation to fix their heart attacks. And so on. These points don't receive enough attention.
Feminist economics even has its own journal.
The down side? I've never had much real world exposure to movement advocates (here is one interview). I fear I would be turned off by their posturing, their sympathy for comparable worth, and their lack of a hardheaded willingness to recognize politically incorrect truths about gender or for that matter capitalism. They are too skeptical about what is good in the Chicago-based economic way of thinking. No way is feminist economics a viable alternative to the mainstream, but again improvement is possible through critique at the margins.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 6, 2007 at 07:02 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Shouldn't it be hard-headed willingness?
Posted by: Johan Richter at Jun 6, 2007 8:10:36 AM
Thanks, corrected...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jun 6, 2007 8:15:22 AM
girl brains are too concerned with things like boyfriends, babies and looking pretty to understand and appreciate complex things like economics. Also girls cannot debate without taking things personally, and are terrible at forming effective teams due to their envious nature - ie most girls hate taking orders from other girls. They also talk about one another behind their backs, and cry a lot.
They also find it difficult to debate male economists because they might fall in love with them. This is a noted problem for female politicians as well.
Posted by: andreas at Jun 6, 2007 8:51:27 AM
Economists are borderline autistic, an extreme form of maleness, so it's no wonder few girls can hack it - their brains are simply too emotional.
Posted by: andreas at Jun 6, 2007 8:54:27 AM
Women also have smaller brains than men, and are easy to manipulate and sell stuff too.
Posted by: andreas at Jun 6, 2007 9:34:45 AM
Andreas? Isn't that a girl's name?
Posted by: Mike at Jun 6, 2007 9:36:46 AM
Next, can we have a post considering the merits of the feminist theory of gravity or the feminist theory of plate tectonics?
Posted by: Chris at Jun 6, 2007 10:02:40 AM
But is it not a problem that a woman have a smaller brain than a man? A government scientist, Dr. Yamak, have proved it is size of squirrel!
Posted by: Mr. Noah at Jun 6, 2007 10:16:02 AM
Do feminist economists study the economy on the Isle of Lesbos?
Posted by: haha at Jun 6, 2007 10:40:03 AM
Well this got derailed in a hurry.
Posted by: DRR at Jun 6, 2007 11:40:17 AM
"Women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care." -- Ann Coulter
I think this is true for a lot of women. The remainder largely consists of women who, like me, understand how money is earned but don't want to be the ones earning it.
Posted by: Girl at Jun 6, 2007 11:55:47 AM
Sometimes the comments on this board make me wonder if the median poster is a high school student.
Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at Jun 6, 2007 12:00:28 PM
I'm from Sweden. The feminist economists I've encountered here would cut your throat for claiming that Sweden is a better deal for men then for women. The last time I read something by one of them, she was claiming that it's just a myth that men have more and more severe heart problems than females. A medical doctor made a comment the next day but was shussed away as being a representative of the 'male-domianted welfare state'.
Posted by: Erik at Jun 6, 2007 12:23:09 PM
Most of the high school students I have known are more civilized and polite.
Posted by: Neel Krishnaswami at Jun 6, 2007 12:24:16 PM
Hm... the above comment obviously has an error. I meant ot say that they would cut your throat for claiming that the welfare state is better for women than for men.
Posted by: Erik at Jun 6, 2007 12:24:49 PM
'feminist economics?' what a ridiculous idea, how about male economics? east asian economics? bantu economics? they'd probably make better sense as well... women...
Posted by: adrian at Jun 6, 2007 12:38:37 PM
Well actually evolutionary psychology is showing that races are very different beneath the surface, so that may not be a bad idea :)
Posted by: adrian at Jun 6, 2007 12:46:23 PM
@ Chris -- economics is a SOCIAL science, so gender (esp. if socialized :) matters.
I think Andreas just wishes he had a g-friend.
Seriously -- feminist economics is important on the political-economic border. I'm all for cut-throat competition over DVD rentals, but politics decides war, welfare, etc. and women's POV is necessary. (I'm in favor of gender-quotas in legislatures, eg)
Posted by: David Zetland at Jun 6, 2007 1:21:04 PM
I would be very curious to learn more about Swedish feminists, as so many of the issues feminists here have with the US have been largely addressed in Sweden.
I think to some extent that there will always be feminists willing to complain. Same thing for men. No matter how you structure society, some people will always be getting a bad deal (or worse than average) and some of those will always be complaining.
Posted by: mpowell at Jun 6, 2007 2:36:46 PM
The comments thread so far provides substantial evidence for the need for feminist economics, and feminism in general.
their lack of a hardheaded willingness to recognize politically incorrect truths about gender
Looks like an irregular verb. I am hardheaded, you have a few irrational prejudices, she is squishily averse to reality. In fact, feminist economics is rather more hardheaded and politically incorrect (in a sense that actually has some bite) than much of the rest of the field when it comes to analyzing the role of gender in the family and economic life. Most people's "hardheaded ... politically incorrect" beliefs about the sexes turn out to be pretty mushy. A popular one these days is belief that the social organization of work and family in the United States c. 1950 was effectively selected for in the EEA, for instance.
Posted by: Kieran at Jun 6, 2007 2:54:13 PM
Kieran's comment is good, not all of you are meeting that standard today...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jun 6, 2007 2:57:59 PM
“Sweden, no matter what you think of it in absolute terms, is a better deal for women than for men.”
* Unlike most other countries, including the US, Swedish women have a lower self reported happiness rate than Swedish men.
Life satisfaction advantage in favor of Men in Western Europe:
Portugal -10
Belgium -3
US -4 (Pew poll)
Germany -1
Ireland -1
Denmark 0
Luxembourg 0
France 0
Italy +1
Austria +1
Greece +1
Netherlands +1
UK +2
Spain +2
Sweden +3
Finland +5
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2003/108/en/1/ef03108en.pdf
http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php?AnalysisID=71
* Swedish women are less likely than American women to work full time (they work more part time, which fools people when they look at participation, but the American women work more aggregate hours).
* The relative figures for household production and leisure are almost exactly the same. American women are no worse off than Swedish women, either absolute or relative. American women take care of kids more, Swedish women cook and clean more.
* The Swedish welfare state transfers from men to women. But so does the American system, and in the later households are used to transfer from men to women.
* American women are more likely to hold managerial positions (which should not surprise you, since they work full time carriers more).
* Swedish women have 45% of national assets, American women 51%. In both countries women stand for the exact same share of consumption (absolute higher in US, but Cowen is talking relative here).
The only category Sweden does better is "Political Empowerment". This is measured as a share of female politicians, not voter influence. The striking point is of course that the share of female politicians does not seem to effect women life outcome (surprising for a political economist?).
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2006.pdf
So what is this, the ninth time Tyler Cowen makes a sure and gushy claim about the Scandinavian welfare state without offering any facts?
Feminist theories are mostly wrong. Women actually do like to have families, and policies that push them out don’t work very well. When you follow policy based on a dumb ideology there is little reason to expect the results will be what you expected.
Posted by: Tino at Jun 6, 2007 3:33:49 PM
Yes, it is real "hard headed" to think biological differences are socially constructed and that women are invisibly oppressed.
Here are a couple of hard headed facts for you:
• Studies indicte most stereotypical gender differences are larger than people think (or at least admitt to),
• Women constitute a far smaller share of the high IQ population than men,
• Women are worse natural leaders,
• Women are biologically inferior entrepreneurs, on average,
• Women have their comparative advantage in family and reproduction, men in market production.
• The probably best femalre economist in the world used to be a man.
Posted by: Tino at Jun 6, 2007 3:43:35 PM
I would add to #1 that the trans-disciplinary literature on care and caring labor, econ representatives of which include Nancy Folbre, Julie Nelson, and Irene van Staveren, asks us to think about relations of responsibility and even love, which are hard to do in either ontologically-individualist theories (too small) or structuralist theories (way too big). "Care" entails personalized relations in which carers assume responsibility and also generate knowledge about cared-fors. It seems to me that there are links between this work on the way the production of care services entails making situated knowledge and Austrian insights about knowledge in economy. So far it's been hard to find folks who are sympathetic with both Austrian and Feminist heterodoxy, though.
Let me add that the folks whose interviews you link to are fabulous scholars. We need -- and your post points the way toward -- ways to interact in which we respect political differences and look for ways to exchange insights.
Posted by: Colin Danby at Jun 6, 2007 3:49:22 PM
it is real "hard headed" to think biological differences are socially constructed and that women are invisibly oppressed.
I'd say it's reasonably thick-headed to drag the straw lady out. What exactly in my comment led you to the conclusion that I (or feminist economists) believe that biological differences are socially constructed in the sense that you appear to mean?
Studies indicte most stereotypical gender differences are larger than people think (or at least admitt to),
Women constitute a far smaller share of the high IQ population than men,
Women are worse natural leaders,
These three claims are at least reasonably empirically specific, though in descending order and I wouldn't say that any of them are beyond dispute by any means.
Women have their comparative advantage in family and reproduction, men in market production.
The probably best femalre economist in the world used to be a man.
These two are supposed to be "hard headed facts" on the same plane as the first three? See above re: irregular verbs. Not, I hasten to add, that I'm denying that women have a comparative -- indeed, absolute -- advantage in the ability to bear children.
Posted by: Kieran at Jun 6, 2007 4:17:12 PM
