Economic Woman

Feminist economists are continuing to make inroads in the blogosphere. Earlier this near, Nancy Folbre, an econ prof from UMass Amherst, joined the blogging team at the New York Times’ Economix. (I’ve written about Folbre before, linking to her own blog, Care Talk.) She’s posted a steady stream of intelligent content, and anyone reading this blog should definitely be reading her as well.

Here’s a taste, from a recent post about the Child and Youth Well-Being Index, and the impact of the recession on children:

During this recession, many other problems, including huge bank bailouts, are competing for public attention and taxpayers’ money. Sometimes I wonder how closely the Child Well-Being Index would mirror an Adult Wrong-Doing Index. If I were going to construct such a new index, financial malfeasance would rank high among the measurement domains. But in the composite, apathy among those who could do more to help poor children would receive at least an equal weight.

Susan Feiner discusses James Galbraith’s The Predator State over at Talking Point Memo Cafe’s Book Club. She likes it. The piece quickly segues to a discussion of women’s role in the workplace and at home.

Today’s vision of full-employment rightly includes women. But wait. If women are fully employed what’s going to happen to children too young for school? How many kids catch the school bus at 8:15 and have parents that leave for work at 7:30? The standard workday ends at 5:00 but the school day ends at 3:00. Then there’s the care of the elderly and the infirm. And please, don’t forget to wash the dishes. If the economy is really going to serve the public interest we have to deal with these realities.

And hints at the Bergmann effect:

Today’s liberals are likely to suggest flextime and long paid leaves to improve women’s economic condition. Nonsense. The breadwinner/dependent ideal relies on the same tired logic that seeks energy efficiency through deregulation and economic development through free trade.

This is only vaguely related, but it strikes me that those who advocate for a return to full employment policy spend too much time arguing about morality and compassion when they should be arguing that fiscal policy actually works. Don’t most Keynesian sceptics object to fiscal policy on practical grounds? An ethical argument is of no relevance if you haven’t convinced your opponents that your policy will work. In any case, as in so many areas, I declare myself firmly on the fence. Or lying underneath it. Or something.

In case you’ve missed it, Kathy of The G Spot has a post up on The American Prospect’s Tapped about the economics of paid family leave. I haven’t had a chance to go over it in detail, but it looks exhaustive and interesting. 

Nancy Folbre, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, writes Care Talk, a blog about the economics of care. She describes it better than I could:

I aim to provide resources for students, journalists, and any readers interested in learning more about the “care sector” – that part of our economy devoted to the direct care of dependents through the family, the community, the market, and the state. The provision of care requires money, time, and technology, and includes both paid and unpaid work.

As you might imagine, Folbre’s subject area overlaps with mine, but she has a great deal more knowledge and experience than I do! Also, unlike many academics, she can write. Check out recent posts on the difficulties of measuring child care time in time use surveys and child care in Korea.

Feministing recently put me on to Feminist Finance, and I’ve been poking my way through the archives with pleasure. It’s sort of difficult to explain what this blog is about. It’s loosely organized around finance for women, I guess, but without the irritating self-help nonsense that tends to come with budgeting tips. And there are some posts on pay equity and the dynamics of marriage that would fit in just fine on this site. So you should check it out. Here’s a little welcome post to get you started.

There’s been a link on my blogroll all along, but in case you’ve missed it, anyone who’s enthused about this site should click over to Echidne of the Snakes. Echidne has been blogging about economics and feminism much longer and more intelligently than I. Lately I’ve been reading back through the archives. A good place to start is the series on essays on the gender gap, and the statistics primer.

UPDATED: Echidne (aka J. Goodrich) has also been guest blogging at The Nation.