Are “Effective Economics” Contributing to the Improvement of Women or Just Another Backlash?

Economic efficiency is the idea that economics work most efficiently when there is no rearrangement of resources that would produce greater total output (Palmer, 1992,p.71). Thus, to make the market effective and efficient, government based on neo-liberalism policies encourages people to enter the free market in any sector (input) that creates product/money (output). In the neo-liberalization perspective everyone is an entrepreneur and if one cannot produce money, he/she would be considered as a burden. There are two basic assumptions based on economic efficiency: first, resources are free to move between different uses and between different employees; second, every producer is faced with the same set of prices which are determined by competitive market forces (Palmer, 1992, p.72). What then comes to mind is the woman's status in the household. Since those assumptions neglect the fact that the level of participation of men and women in the labour force is different. The unpaid labour of women leaves questions such as:

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• How do the neo liberalist project women in the household?
  
• Where is their position in the market?
  
• Is paying a wage to the household the solution in order to make women efficient and effective resources?
  

Therefore, the following section will discussed these matters.

The theory of effective efficiency market is contested by Marxist Feminists. According to these Marxist Feminists, the exchange relation that happens in the effective market is a exploitative power relation. The trade-off that prevails between the employees and the employers are not equal, but employees do not have any other choice, because to be productive is to be in the labour force. Furthermore, the fact that they trivialize work in households is what they advocate:.

The work women did-cooking, canning, planting, preserving, childbearing, and child rearing-was as central to the economic activity of this extended family as the workwomen did. But with the industrialization and the transfer of goods production from the private household to the public workplace, women, who for the most part did not initially enter the public workplace, were regarded as ‘non productive' in contrast to ‘productive' wage earning men (Tong, Rosemarie1989, p. 51).

In order to be part of the market, women then work part-time or in an outsourcing system. Simply because they do not have the same education, skills, and access as men, and they still have to do all of the work in households. Types of work that women perform are mostly in informal sectors. Women are being forced to become another input in the effective efficiency market without protection of their rights and security; and most importantly, without a change in structure of the male-biased market. In many developing countries in South-East Asia women work to economically support her family, as street vendors, domestic helpers, part-time workers any other non-secure jobs.

From this perspective then, Marxist Feminists suggest that women should demand that women should be paid for their domestic work. Women in the households perform work (sometimes the workload that they have is even heavier than men), but since it is being done inside the family and unpaid, it is not recognized by the market. However, there are still many debates about this approach that need to be considered.

I argue that to pay household work would result in what Moser (1989 quoted in Palmer 1991,p.70) identifies as a practical gender need. This means that it is a response to an immediate perceived necessity which does not challenge prevailing forms of women's subordination. Valuing women's household work with money may improve their status, but the patriarchal structure that constructs their surroundings would stay the same. This means that paying women for household work would not bring sustainable change, as long as the structure of either the family or the market is still male-bias. In addition, giving wages to household work will only making women's status worse in the long-term, because then women will gain incentives to stay in the house, preventing women to do public work.

We need to develop a more integrative solution, based on strategic gender needs. A strategic policy which mainstreams gender in all sectors of human life is needed. Women are lagging behind because they do not have the same level of education. In other sectors such as health and politics, women's positions and status should also be improved. Providing more equal access and not privatize sectors that are important to public is one of the keys. Their access, information, and control of those areas is crucial in order to liberate them from oppression. Economic efficiency is only portraying women workers as an input, especially in the informal sector. Furthermore, micro level income generation for women would only alienate women and marginalize them from the wider economic process (Vickers,1997, p.20). Therefore, one important step that we need to take is to stop forcing women to be the only workers in the informal and family sectors, and instead look to empower them in more macro-economic levels.

References

Inggrid Palmer. Gender Equity and Economic Efficiency in Adjustment Programmes in Afshar, Haleh and Dennis, Carolyne.1992.Women and Adjustment Policies in The Third World. Londo. Macmillan Press. p.69-87.

Tong, Rosemarie. Marxist Feminism in Feminist Thought. 1989. Boulder and San Fransisco. Westview Press. p. 51-66.

Vickers, Jeanne. Impact of Structural Adjustment on Women in Women and The World Economic Crisis. 1997. London and New Jersey. Zed Ltd. p. 15-43.