**Part 3: Care, Work and Family**

### **Interview With Shahra Razavi: Global Trends, Challenges and Controversies in the Areas of Care, Work and Family Relations**

#### **Kristina Lanz**

#### **1. Introduction**

This interview opens the chapter on transitioning to gender equality in the areas of care, work and the family. In the interview, Kristina Lanz discusses some of the global challenges and controversies related to women's access to work and the distribution of paid and unpaid work inside and outside the household with Shahra Razavi. Shahra Razavi is Director of the Social Protection Department at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and former Chief of Data and Research at UN Women. She is a well-known gender expert and long-term advocate for gender equality.

The interview takes a closer look at the data that are and, more importantly, also at the data that are not, available, when it comes to monitoring progress on SDG 5, in particular in the areas of paid and unpaid work. It highlights that, despite a huge lack of globally comparable data, there are strong indications that gender inequality remains most persistent in the area of unpaid work, with women globally spending about three times more time than men on unpaid care and domestic work. Not surprisingly, this has vast knock-on effects on other areas as well and, notably, negatively affects the quality and quantity of paid employment available to women.

Thus, despite the fact that "women's economic empowerment" is high on the policy agenda of diverse public and corporate actors, women are still less likely to be gainfully employed than men, the gender wage gap is still huge, and the majority of women's employment remains informal, with little or no social protection. In the interview, Shahra Razavi repeatedly highlights the importance of adopting a human rights perspective, not least when assessing claims of "economic empowerment". She also makes clear that, in order to achieve greater gender equality in the distribution of paid and unpaid work and for men and women to be able to realize their rights, social protection systems are crucial.

The interview also picks up important discussions on the role of men and masculinity in these debates, on the intersectional and globalized dimensions of work and care (i.e., care chains), and on the challenges of adopting a non-binary lens, when

analyzing and assessing progress in gender equality, in the areas of care, work and the family.

#### **2. Interview with Shahra Razavi**


However, with the limited data that is available, we can see a number of positive trends. There are increasing numbers of women in parliament, more girls have completed secondary education, and more women have access to contraception. However, overall, efforts to advance gender equality and women's human rights have stalled, and gender inequality remains stubbornly in place in many domains.

For example, women and girls around the world are 4% more likely on average to live in extreme poverty than men and boys, and the risk rises to 25% for women in their peak reproductive years (i.e., 25–34 years) (UN Women 2018). Intimate partner violence remains pervasive around the world, with nearly one in every five women and girls in the 15–49 age group reporting physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner over the past 12 months. Globally, the

labor force participation rate (LFPR) for women aged 25–54 actually decreased from 64% in 1998 to 63% in 2018. At the same time, women spend nearly three times the amount of time that men spend on unpaid care and domestic work. Based on data for 61 developing countries, in 80% of households without access to water on the premises, women and girls are responsible for water collection. While nearly 39% of employed women globally are working in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, only 14% of all landholders are women.

These are global averages, and we need to dig deeper to see where the gender gaps are at their widest. For example, when it comes to the prevalence of intimate partner violence, Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) has the highest prevalence rate (34.7%), while rates in Central and Southern Asia (23.0%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (21.5%) are also above the global average (of 18%). In terms of LFPR among women, the highest rate in 2018 was in Europe and Northern America (80%), while the lowest was in Northern Africa and Western Asia (33%). Not surprisingly, the gender gap in unpaid care and domestic work is also at its widest in the Northern Africa and Western Asia region, where the median female-to-male ratio is almost six.

With progress slowing down, or even reversing in some areas, the picture of gender equality across the globe is far from where it needs to be, and at the current pace, most SDG targets will not be met by 2030. Too many women remain without access to decent work. Long and arduous unpaid care and domestic workloads continue to limit women's enjoyment of human rights in several areas. Violence against women and girls in diverse forms persists. Levels of maternal mortality remain unacceptably high, particularly in situations of conflict and crisis. Women continue to be excluded from decision-making at many levels.


arduous in contexts where even basic infrastructure, such as water on tap or clean energy, is not available, accessible and affordable to help reduce the drudgery of having to fetch water and fuel, grind food ingredients and prepare meals. Additionally, caring for a sick child or elderly parent can be extremely time-consuming and difficult where quality and affordable health services are not within reach, and time and money has to be spent accompanying those who are sick to medical facilities that are far away. This means that less time is available for other activities, such as earning an income, pursuing education or training, political and community affairs, as well as rest and leisure.

Gender inequalities in the division of unpaid care and domestic work are driven by multiple factors. For a start, dominant social and cultural norms that define care work as women's work constitute a significant barrier to the re-negotiation and redistribution of this work between women and men within families. At the same time, the gendered structure of the paid economy, evident in the gender-based segregation of labor markets with persistent gender pay gaps, as well as property regimes that favor men, also reward men as breadwinners and reinforce women's "specialization" in care work. In contexts where the work culture and/or low wages/earnings demand long hours of paid work, and where childcare services are inaccessible and/or unaffordable, couples are effectively incentivized to replicate a traditional division of labor for the care and reproduction of their families, especially if they have young children. For single-parent families, the majority single mothers, it means having to juggle some form of paid work with unpaid care work, sometimes with support from other family members.

Based on data from 40 high and upper middle-income countries with harmonized data, lone mother households with young children have higher rates of poverty when compared to dual parent households with young children across every country (UN Women 2019). The rates and magnitude of this difference in poverty rates varies substantially: Luxemburg stands out with the largest percentage point difference (50.4), followed by Czechia (42.4), Canada (40.0) and the United States (37.2).


and in particular parental leave policies when they are paid, and the availability of affordable childcare services, are two important factors that contribute to the cross-national variation in single-parent poverty. As Nieuwenhuis and Maldonado (2018) show, by facilitating single parents' employment, parental leave—if it is paid—can help reduce the poverty risks of single parents. Generous child benefits and other forms of support, for example with housing costs and childcare expenses, can also make a significant difference in the incidence of poverty, by increasing single parents' disposable income.


However, policies do matter and can make a difference, even if the pace of change is slow. Much has been said about the "daddy quotas" that countries like Sweden have adopted, which mandate a portion of parental leave for fathers on a "use it or lose it" basis. Beyond encouraging men to bond with their young children, policies of this sort also send a powerful message that disrupts dominant masculinities and femininities. Unfortunately, these kinds of policies have little purchase in developing countries, where labor markets are extensively informal and few people have entitlement to any form of leave.

KL: Are there specific national or regional differences that are noticeable in the area of care work, for example regarding the amount of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work done by women and men? How can these be explained? Moreover, is there enough data to compare different regions?

SR: Globally, as already mentioned, women do three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men do, though gender inequalities vary across countries and are particularly stark in developing country contexts. The gender gap in unpaid care and domestic work is at its widest in the Northern Africa and Western Asia region, where the median female-to-male ratio is almost six. The gender inequalities do not disappear in high-income countries, but they are not as glaring. What explains the relatively smaller gender gaps in unpaid care and domestic work in high-income countries? Detailed research in countries like Australia and the United States shows that the narrowing of gender gaps is largely due to the reduction of routine domestic work that has been typically performed by women, by using domestic technology, out-sourcing the work, or simply leaving it undone, while it has been much more difficult to renegotiate the gender division of care work.

Data from Australia and the United States show that women have decreased their housework as their earnings have increased, along the lines predicted by household bargaining models. However, while women do use their income-based bargaining power to reduce their own unpaid work, they either cannot, or "don't try to use it to increase their husband's housework." Instead, they either replace their own time with purchased services, outsourcing some of the work to other women, or leave housework undone. Even when women and men are both in full-time employment and contribute equally to household income, women still do more unpaid care and domestic work than men. The power of social norms is especially evident where women's earning capacity exceeds that of their husbands: in this case, the evidence suggests that women still tend to do more housework than their husbands, as if to "neutralize" the "deviance" of their husband's financial dependence (Bittman et al. 2003).

UN Women, like other international organizations, has, in its various reports, compared data from time use surveys from around the world—but with a big warning sign, since time use surveys are not harmonized. This is a major impediment to rigorous comparative analysis, and there is an urgent need for the better harmonization of time use data and the better alignment of survey methodologies. The other problem in this area is that there are not many countries, especially developing ones, with more than one time-use survey to allow trend analysis; and in some instances where countries have multiple

surveys, they are not comparable, due to changing methodologies. These lacunas point to the need for more harmonization across surveys.


However, I do think that this dominant paradigm is facing some serious questioning, most notably by feminist economics, which has been very effective in showing the importance of the "invisible" economy of care and social reproduction, through both analytical/theoretical as well as empirical work. The idea that unpaid care work reproduces labor—a key factor of production—and thereby creates the foundation of all other economic activities, has had significant resonance within both the economics discipline, as well as in the policy world. Using time use data and "valuation exercises", including satellite accounts,<sup>1</sup> feminist economists have shown the significance and sheer volume of unpaid work compared to other parts of the economy. At the same time, under the auspices of the ILO, the nineteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians in 2013 adopted a resolution concerning statistics of work,

<sup>1</sup> A satellite account measures unpaid activities including childcare, adult care, household services and volunteering services, each of which is an important aspect of people's lives and well-being, but is largely missing from regular economic statistics such as the gross domestic product (GDP).

employment and labor underutilization, which redefined "work activities" to include all forms of work, including unpaid domestic and care work. That resolution, along with renewed efforts at the international and national level, to undertake time use surveys should give further impetus to time use data collection and availability, enabling a more complete picture of work, and of the economy necessary for better policy-making and greater accountability to women.

I think both the arguments and the evidence have made a difference, however small: for example, many countries now include "care credits" in their pension systems for time taken out of paid work to care for a young child. In some countries, concerns about low fertility, due to the incompatibility of paid work with having children, has compelled governments to put in place social policies to support families, for example, through the provision of childcare services. However, I think that we still have a long way to go before policy-makers, whether in national governments or international financial institutions, fully understand that the social infrastructure is as important as the physical infrastructure like bridges and damns, and to re-orient their spending priorities along these lines. Today's dominant austerity mindset, which is eroding the social infrastructure and working at cross-purposes with the 2030 Agenda, is blind to this understanding.


<sup>2</sup> See Roberts (2012). "Financial Crisis, Financial Firms . . . And Financial Feminism? The Rise of 'Transnational Business Feminism' and the Necessity of Marxist-Feminist IPE." *Socialist Studies*/*Études Socialistes* 8: 85–108, p. 85).

The change in discourse is a significant achievement of the women's movement, which has been able to catapult a concept that was developed in feminist research and advocacy networks (empowerment) into the mainstream of policy debate. However, as in the case of other concepts that have gained widespread traction (e.g. participation, good governance and so on), up-take by powerful actors and institutions often means that the concepts are reinterpreted and used in ways that fit the predispositions of those who use them. In the process, they lose their original clarity and edge, and often become fuzzy and ambiguous.

This is quite clear in the way that "empowerment" is being used these days. Some see in women a largely untapped market of consumers (good for boosting profits), while others talk about unleashing women's economic power and potential as a means to solve the lingering problems caused by the global financial crisis and stalled growth (good for growth). No one would deny the importance of nurturing synergies between women's economic empowerment and wider prosperity. Women's participation in the workforce, for example, contributes to economic dynamism, by bringing more income into the household, boosting aggregate demand, and expanding the tax base (and hence the revenues available for public expenditure). A fundamental question, however, that we need to ask is whether these presumed win–win scenarios stand up to scrutiny, and what is in it for women? Does it expand women´s practical enjoyment of their rights? Or does it simply harness their time, knowledge and resourcefulness to serve development ends, with little or no benefit to women themselves?

This is where a strong anchoring within a human rights framework becomes essential. Without a monitoring framework that squarely focuses on women's rights, it is difficult to know what lies behind the lofty claims of "empowering women". Going beyond the headline figures on women's labor force participation or the number of jobs created, we need to ask if women's participation in the workforce translates into concrete outcomes, in terms of their right to a safe and healthy working environment, fair and adequate earnings and access to a pension for their elderly years, and whether they are able to reduce and redistribute their unpaid care work. These are exactly the kinds of questions that we asked in Progress of the World's Women 2015–2016, Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights. The report showed that the world's women are a long way away from enjoying their economic and social rights. Not only is women's labor force participation lagging behind men's, there is a significant global gender wage gap (on average, 24%) that has changed very little over the past decade; the bulk of women's employment (75% or more in some

developing regions) remains informal, and with little or no social protection, and women around the world spend considerably more time on unpaid care and domestic work compared to men.

However, now that we have women's economic empowerment on the agenda of such diverse, and powerful, actors as the development agencies and banks and the United Nations, we need to be more probing, to make sure that the right laws, policies, resources and social norms are in place, to make meaningful changes in women's concrete enjoyment of their rights. As Gita Sen (2004) has argued, the struggle of getting women's rights on the policy agenda "is not a once-and-for-all event . . . winning the struggle over discourse is only the first step".

In moving forward, those advocating for women's economic empowerment would do well to keep their eyes on the ground, to scrutinize the extent to which women are able to enjoy not only their equal right to work, but also their rights at work—to decent work with social protection, equal and adequate earnings, safe and healthy working conditions, and access to quality child care services. Women's economic empowerment cannot mean factories that collapse on their workers, casual work in global value chains that comes with low wages, no right to social protection, and work that leads to "burn out" in a short time. Nor can it mean an extended "double shift" made up of paid work added to an unchanged load of unpaid care work.


of gender-based segregation, the gender pay gap, or the social rights that come with work.

However, even when we look at such a blunt indicator, there are reasons to be concerned. Not only are gender gaps in employment still significant in many parts of the world, progress in closing gender gaps has stalled over the past couple of decades, except in Latin America and Western Europe. Additionally, this is despite significant improvements in female education. In some regions, such as South Asia, the gender gap in labor force participation has actually grown.

Moreover, despite the gains in female education, there is little evidence of women moving out of traditional, female-dominated activities and diversifying the paid work that they do. Nor have we seen a movement in the opposite direction, i.e. men diversifying their paid work and moving into female-dominated occupations. A number of studies in developing countries, in fact, show that from 1980 to 2011, labor market segregation by gender has grown in more countries than where it has fallen. Gender-based labor market segregation underpins the persistence of the gender pay gap.


women from more affluent households seek paid work outside the home. To say that 21st century realities point to "care going global" is not to suggest that care labor migration and its social and familial consequences are historically unprecedented. It is well known, for example, that the great bulk of immigrants from Ireland to the United States, before, during and after the Irish famine of the 1850s were young, unmarried and impoverished women and men seeking wage work; large numbers of the women worked in domestic service, much like their counterparts in Europe (Donato and Gabaccia 2015). Perhaps what is new, is that those who migrate to work as domestic and care workers are married women who leave their own children behind to be cared for by a female relative or migrant woman from the rural hinterland.

Equally important, as you say, and as reports such as those by McKinsey do not say, is that in the case of women in low-income households who cannot afford to out-source their unpaid care and domestic work to others lower down the class/racial/global hierarchy, an increase in paid work often means a "double shift" that leaves them depleted and/or compels them to reduce the time they allocate to care (for themselves and others). As informal women workers interviewed in a WIEGO study by Laura Alfers put it, "our children do not get the attention they deserve" (Alfers 2016). In the absence of affordable care services, and men's reluctance to take on more of the unpaid work, women in poor households have to make harsh choices between earning an income and caring for their dependents and themselves. Likewise, commenting on the challenges of parenting in the Caribbean region, Rhoda Reddock (2009) describes how poor women in Trinidad and Tobago, some of whom work as janitors and security guards to support their families, complain of their inability to monitor their children's behavior, or pay others to do so.


To enhance women's economic autonomy, in addition to much-needed investments in basic infrastructure like water on tap—to reduce the drudgery of unpaid domestic work—the key priority must be to invest in care systems, as in the case of Uruguay, which has become "best practice" in the region. Starting in 2007, the Government of Uruguay engaged in extensive civil society consultations in order to redesign its social protection framework. Women's rights advocates actively participated in this process, placing care squarely onto the government agenda. The ensuing National Care System is explicitly framed around gender equality and the human rights of caregivers, both paid and unpaid, as well as care receivers, including children, older people and people with disabilities. In developing countries, investments in early childhood education and care services (ECEC) are particularly urgent. This is because of the very large gap between the supply of childcare services and the need for such services, owing to the relatively small childcare workforce and the high proportion of young children in the population.

Yet, social policy, like economic policy, can look over (or over-look) gender equality, as Mary Daly (2011) puts it, when it is oriented to other objectives, for example, investing in children's human capital or school readiness. Gender equality and the rights of adult women—whether as unpaid family caregivers or childcare workers staffing ECEC programs—are all too often an afterthought. While the availability, affordability and quality of childcare services, including their location and opening hours, are pivotal for women's ability to access paid work, ECEC services are not often designed with women's needs and aspirations in mind. However, there are examples to show that both objectives can be achieved.

Apart from Nordic countries where children's rights and development have been center stage along with strong public support to promote gender equality, there are also a handful of developing countries where efforts are being made to gradually transform ECEC provision in ways that respond to women's rights. In both Chile and Ecuador, for example, service quality has been up-graded and adjustments have been made to the schedules of childcare centers to better respond to the needs of working parents, and to improve the employment conditions and wages of their predominantly female staff.

Furthermore, when the conditions of employment are good, investments in care services can also generate "decent work". Using a simulation exercise, we looked at what it would cost to extend *free* childcare services for children under

the age of five in two countries: Uruguay and South Africa (UN Women 2018). In South Africa, for example, making these services universally available for all children under five would take a gross annual investment of 3.2% of GDP. This represents a significant fiscal outlay, but the potential returns are also high. The expansion could create 2–3 million new jobs, for example, and raise female employment rates by 10 percentage points. Additionally, the new tax and social security revenue from these jobs would help recover more than a third of the initial fiscal outlay.


I think on the whole, feminists have been attentive to "difference", i.e., recognizing that women are not a homogeneous social group, and that their experiences of injustice and discrimination are shaped by other dimensions of their identities, especially those of race and class. This perspective in fact grew as a result of feminist contestations and praxis, even before the term intersectionality was coined. Socialist feminists, for example, understood that subordination was differently experienced by women who occupied different places in class and racial hierarchies. There were lively, and sometimes bitter, debates in the

context of international women's conferences about North/South and East/West hierarchies, when feminists from the South and East (the "Communist bloc") argued that white Western feminists could not speak for all women. Differences in sexual identity were another source of debate, with lesbian women claiming their own place in women's movements and exposing the heteronormative presumptions of some feminists.


The need to open up gender identities beyond the male/female binary is an important on-going debate, again, at times, highly contentious, which is putting many (perhaps especially older) feminists (like myself) outside of their comfort zones. From a human rights perspective, categories that put people in a straitjacket are stigmatizing and discriminatory, and hence need to be disrupted, though I am not sure where that will take us in terms of measurement/statistics. At the very least, as is happening in some countries, individuals can be given the option of choosing a gender identity that is neither

male nor female in national ID cards and vital registration systems. It should also be possible for household surveys to do the same.

In policy terms, the issues can be clearer. As we show in the 2019–2020 Progress of the World's Women Report, older LGBTI people, for example, can experience specific hurdles in accessing care as they age, because they are more likely than their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts to live alone, to be single, to not have children and to not be in touch with their biological families. For example, in the United Kingdom, just over a quarter of gay and bisexual men over the age of 55 and half of lesbian and bisexual women over 55 have children, compared to nearly 9 in 10 heterosexual people of the same age. This means that their care needs may be left unaddressed. With smaller family support networks, many older LGBTI people may rely on non-familial care services to meet their care needs as they age, as well as on friends and community members who may form a self-defined "family of choice". Reliance on external care providers can come with particular anxieties for older LGBTI people. They may worry about experiencing stigma and discrimination by care providers, or feel concern that their same-sex partner or "family of choice" will not be recognized as next-of-kin for medical decision-making. They may also worry that their LGBTI identity may be "eroded" in care settings. For example, carers may overlook medical issues related to the sex that transgender older people were assigned at birth, such as osteoporosis or prostate cancer. Hence, countries that rely heavily on families to meet long-term care needs will inadequately cover the needs of LGBTI populations.


but also the benefits of, investing in care systems, both in terms of employment generation (which was done very well in the 2018 report on Care Work by the ILO) (ILO 2018), as well as its benefits in many other ways; for example, by having more inclusive societies and dynamic economies.

#### **References**


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### **Care and Work Matter: A Social Sustainability Approach**

#### **Charlotta Niemistö, Je**ff **Hearn and Carolyn Kehn**

#### **1. Introduction**

While focusing primarily on gender equality, UN Social Development Goal (SDG) 5 is interlinked with, and has profound implications for, all SDG goals. As UN Women states:

Women and girls, everywhere, must have equal rights and opportunity, and be able to live free of violence and discrimination. Women's equality and empowerment is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, but also integral to all dimensions of inclusive and sustainable development. In short, all the SDGs depend on the achievement of Goal 5. (UN Women 2020b)

According to the UN, reaching gender equality by 2030 requires urgent action to eliminate all the different kinds of discrimination that continue to restrain women's rights in both private and public spheres (UN Economic and Social Council 2019). These discriminations range from gender-based violence, child marriages, and restrictions in sexual and reproductive rights, to limited access to positions of power in political spheres and working life. Gender equality and women's empowerment are thus central to the fulfilment of all SDGs.

Furthermore, gender inequalities—as well as other types of discrimination persist; moreover, they are often obscured by societal expectations related to gender, age, generation and care, in families and households, and paid work, employment and workplaces: in short, work–family life relations. In this way, many economic, social and political discriminations and inequalities are founded upon inequalities around gender, care and work. Importantly, the home, family and household are both a place of unpaid work and care—as in unpaid domestic activities, childcare, care for old people and dependents, and indeed agricultural, industrial and family business work—and for some a place of paid work and employment, as in home-based work for money. Additionally, for some social groupings, such as old people and people with disabilities supported with care services, their home becomes a workplace for professional carers and other workers, often not under their control. Care not only signifies *caring about* someone or something in a general sense, but also involves

*caring for* someone or something in a material and practical way (see Tronto 1993), and thus often involves work, as represented in the notion of *care work*, along with freedom from violence and the threat of violence.

Feminist scholarship has demonstrated how care is a central category for analysis of societies, states and welfare states (Tronto 1993; Pfau-Effinger 2005), with intersections between state, market, and family. Unpaid care and domestic work are unequally distributed: women on average do about 2.6 times these kinds of work than men do, in terms of time use (UN Economic and Social Council 2017). This hinders women's participation in working and political life, and restricts their economic independence at a given point in time, and cumulatively later in life. A more gender-equal, global re-distribution of work that addresses questions of work and care for men, women and further genders is undoubtedly needed (Littig and Griessler 2005, p. 72). Thus, this chapter examines these issues of care and work, in terms of the central importance of care itself, and the relations of care, work, family and life, through a social sustainability approach, which considers the ability of society to maintain its demands for production and reproduction given its current means, all of which presently are intensely gendered.

#### **2. Social Sustainability**

These questions of the relations of care, work, family and life are usefully approached through social sustainability, one of the three pillars of sustainability, along with environmental and economic sustainability (WCED 1987; UN 1992). Regarding analytical and theoretical underpinnings, the social dimension of sustainability has been described as the least clear of the three aspects of sustainable development (Lehtonen 2004; Littig and Griessler 2005). Social sustainability comprises both: (i) the sustainability of people in terms of health, knowledge, skills and motivation, sometimes referred to as 'human capital'; and (ii) the sustainability of institutions where 'human capital' can be maintained and developed (or not), also referred to as 'social capital' (Bourdieu 1986; Coleman 1988; Putnam 1995; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998; Woolcock and Narayan 2000).

Social sustainability is further defined as a 'quality of societies', signifying different kinds of relations of nature and society mediated by work and gendered relations more generally within society (see Littig and Griessler 2005, p. 72). The social and the societal aspects of social sustainability are often blurred, incorporating political (institutions), cultural (cultural practices and social orders, moral concepts and religion) and local sustainability (Hearn 2014), including, for example, the quality of communal, family, household and marriage relations (Ahmed 2008). Separating

the economic from the social, and assuming economy can be detached from social context, have been critiqued (Lehtonen 2004), for example, in terms of the possibilities for and extent of poverty alleviation (Ahmed 2014). Work, paid or unpaid, and care are central to sustainable development in terms of production and reproduction (Littig and Griessler 2005).

#### **3. Social Relations of Care and Work in Diverse Contexts**

The gendered social relations of care and work are one of the central questions in the intersections of working life, changing family and household forms, technological development and innovation, and demographic change. There is clearly a vast array of different family and household forms across the globe (Blofeld and Filgueira 2018). In some parts of the world, the supposedly traditional nuclear family of two heterosexual parents and children living together is in fact far from the norm, whether through the persistence of extended and communal family forms, the growth of single-person households, the level of separations and divorce, and of reconstituted and rainbow (LGBTIQA+) families, and the impacts of shorter- or longer-term migrations, such as when parents work elsewhere and send remittances, whilst grandparents, family members and neighbours care for children and each other. Global care chains are key parts of transnational relations of care and work (Yeates 2009; Orozco 2010), simultaneously enabling what may appear to be a more liberating and egalitarian situation for some, and yet reproducing inequalities for others.

Similarly, in terms of what is understood as work, there is a large spectrum of diversity across paid and unpaid work; for example, in some countries, work includes the daily drawing water from a well, whereas in others it might largely concern childcare or production line work. According to UN Women (2020a), women are especially strongly represented in informal work, making up as much as 95 percent in South Asia and 89 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa of those doing such informal work as street vendors, subsistence farmers, seasonal workers, domestic workers. As the International Labour Organization (ILO) explains:

In the world of paid work there is a continuum that runs from employed to underemployed to unemployed to discouraged workers. On another axis, we can distinguish workers by status of employment such as employer, employee (salaried and waged worker), own account, causal/temporary/informal, and unpaid family worker; there is yet another distinction in terms of the place of work between street, home-based, or formal place of work. In the world of unpaid work, there exist differences

between the type of activity (subsistence production, direct care, indirect care, procurement of intermediate inputs) and location (home, private or common lands, public buildings) where the activity is performed, as well as who the direct individual beneficiaries are (household members, communities, institutions). (Antonopoulos 2009, p. 11)

In many parts of the world, (post-)industrial working life is intensifying, with the 24/7 economy, impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and polarization between high unemployment for some and overwork for others. In many Western and post-industrial societies, there have been trends towards increasing labour market participation of women, more dual-career relationships, and demographic change through ageing and an ageing workforce. Some regions have seen de-development and emiseration of large populations, often concentrated in urban locations and megacities. Major aged, gendered emigrations have affected some areas, for example, parts of Central and East Europe, with severe implications for gendered, ethnicized/racialized care and the care economy in locations both with and without net immigration.

The prevailing strong emphasis on employed work in many societies, perhaps especially in post-industrial societies but also elsewhere, has brought increasing discussions around the sustainability of these changing working life patterns. Even between Western countries, there are significant differences in care ideologies with different levels of more familialistic and de-familialistic contexts. This means different welfare state models and societal views on who should provide care: the family, the state or the market? Different regimes of care can be distinguished, in terms of public and private care regimes (cf. Strell and Duncan 2001; Pfau-Effinger 2005). Previous research has shown connections between different welfare state models, gender contracts and expectations for policies for reconciling work with care responsibilities (Lewis and Smithson 2001) or their existence (Lyness and Kropf 2005; den Dulk 2001), with observed differences depending on socio-political contexts. In societies with more equal gender contracts and/or strong welfare state models, women are likely to participate more fully and more equally in the labour market and, at the same time, these employed women are more likely to feel more entitled to flexible policies to reconcile work with care responsibilities. It has also been shown that having more female superiors in organizations tends to enhance the organizational culture in terms of reconciling work with care responsibilities (Lyness and Kropf 2005). Furthermore, young adults in different welfare state contexts accustomed to different gender contracts probably have different expectations regarding divisions of labour at work and at home. Likewise, knowing about other contexts, for example, more egalitarian contexts, may also affect the expectations of young adults in these respects (Lewis and Smithson 2001).

The context of state and corporate policies is certainly an important element in the social relations of care and work, and thus of social sustainability. The primary influences on the development of state and corporate level policies for reconciling work with care responsibilities for children include the national legal and cultural context, the level of the state influence in the family sphere, the level of female employment, and the gendered form of the social divisions of care (cf. Esping-Andersen 1990; den Dulk 2001; Lewis and Smithson 2001; Lyness and Kropf 2005). Gender-egalitarian policies on work and care may include, or even converge with, family policies, as feminism is often associated with initiatives for shared responsibilities between spouses. For example, equality policies that aim to encourage greater participation of men in family life and caring responsibilities, and greater participation of women in employment, have been strong in the Nordic region and some other parts of Europe, in contrast to those societies where there is low state or communal support for more equality in care or where a 'housewife culture' has persisted. However, even where the political context broadly promotes equality, this by no means equates with more thoroughgoing realization of gender equality throughout society, and thus indeed social, or societal, sustainability.

In the Anglophone world, the development of family-friendly policies has been largely corporate led (Scheibl and Dex 1998), whereas in the Nordic countries, development has been state led. Even with state-level policies and initiatives towards gender equality and family-friendly work practices, birth rates have declined in many Western countries. Despite such policies, women do not necessarily feel that they can feasibly combine paid work and children (Hobson and Fahlén 2009). In most countries, there is greater reliance on organization-specific policies rather than national legislation. For example, in the United States there is no legal right to take paid leave for care work and maternity leave specifically is limited to a twelve-week period of unpaid leave, a provision largely inaccessible for lower-class women or those in unstable occupations (Berger and Waldfogel 2003). In this context, new policies such as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020, which recently provided all federal employees twelve weeks of paid parental leave following childbirth or adoption, are praised for their comprehensive coverage (National Defense 2020). While institutional requirements do improve the situation for a certain population, in this case approximately two million US federal workers, they lack the political empowerment or reliability of a national plan to compensate care work for the majority. The NDAA, similar to many organizational policies, introduced a measure that would improve care work for its own employees. Yet, given the social and unequal nature of care work in modern society, it is clear that individual steps in the absence of a national standard have little effect on overall culture change.

Importantly, the societal organization of care, as in the private and public *mix* of care, has informed extensive debates and theorizations on gendered welfare (state) and care regime typologies (Anttonen and Sipilä 1996; Boje and Leira 2000). The concept of social care (Daly and Lewis 2000) engages with various complications, tensions and fragmentations in these relations between institutions and between domains that are sometimes dichotomized in the welfare regime literature, such as public and private, formal and informal, paid and unpaid, types of provision, cash and care services. Very often, care provisions are designed for non-migrant, heterosexual family forms; by having a broader focus on social care, many everyday situations of, for example, migrant and LGBTIQA+-families, are made more visible. This visibility, in turn, leads to more nuanced policies on behalf of federal governments and employers which provide greater equality and social sustainability for all workers.

Moreover, in some countries, institutional changes have brought significant shifts in the state of citizenship in relation to care:

The borders demarcating differences in care regimes have become less distinct in retrenched welfare states, as reflected in two processes signaling a weakening of social citizenship rights. First, the expansion of private markets in care services, sustained by low-waged migrant labor that has been occurring across welfare regime types (Hobson et al. 2018; Shire 2015; Williams 2017). The second is the shifting of care obligations back to family members (more often women), particularly for caring for the elderly (van den Broek and Dykstra 2016), generating a new concept in gendering of the welfare state lexicon, refamilialization (Saraceno and Keck 2011). (Hearn and Hobson 2020, p. 157)

Social care, seen as a broad approach to care, caring and care work, is one key building block of social sustainability, even with the complicating trends noted above. Importantly, the societal, and indeed transnational/trans-societal arrangement of social care needs to be considered as differentiated and intersectional, for both analytical and policy purposes. The diverse relations of individuals, families, groups and collectivities to, for example, citizenship, migration, location, and LGBTIQA+, and their associated rights or lack of rights, all relate to the general analytical concept of social sustainability, the development of just legal and policy processes and outcomes, and how these matters are experienced and enacted across time and space.

For example, LGBTIQA+ people may not have equal access to citizenship, migration possibilities, asylum, and thus in turn social care provisions. In addition, policy development and reform necessarily depend on both broad consistent governance frameworks, as well as how implementation works in detail on the ground.

#### **4. Care, Time and Life Stages**

Care is gendered (Tronto 1993; McKie et al. 2008). In many contexts, women are still seen as the primary caretakers (Acker 1990; Hochschild 1989, 1997), and globally women carry most care responsibilities in households. The differences between the time allocated by men and women in unpaid and paid work are indeed truly amazing, with huge policy and practical implications for gender equality (Swiebel 1999; Fälth and Blackden 2009). One way of representing this is by considering the amount of time, daily or annually in hours and minutes, spent by women and men on unpaid and paid work, where unpaid work is generally considered to comprise care work and household labour. Reliable data measurements on this are somewhat uneven across the world, for example in parts of what are sometimes referred to as the 'global South' or 'developing countries'. Estimates from UN Women (2020a) suggest that in 'developing countries' women complete an average of 5.09 hours paid work a day and 4.11 hours unpaid work, while the figures for men are 6.36 and 1.31, respectively. In so-called 'developed countries', comparable figures reported are 4.39 hours paid and 3.30 hours unpaid for women, and 5.42 and 1.54 for men, respectively. Table 1 reproduced the latest country figures for OECD countries, along with China, India and South Africa.

Even more telling is the ratio of time spent in *unpaid* to *paid* work for men and women (Table 2). For example, in Italy women report spending over twice as much time on unpaid work as paid work (2.30), whereas men report a quarter of that ratio (0.59), and while the Nordic countries are by no means totally egalitarian, the ratio for Sweden demonstrates the highest parity between the genders.


**Table 1.** Time spent in minutes daily in unpaid and paid work by women and men. Source: (OECD 2020).


**Table 2.** Ratio of time spent in unpaid work to time spent in paid work by women and men. Source: (OECD 2020).

As care is gendered, the distribution of care affects women's situations both in households and in labour markets at any given time, both in the present and over the course of life. This is especially important in relation to not only the gender pay gap, but also the even larger gender pension (and older age income) gap (European Commission 2014). Intersections of age, class, (dis)ability, gender, generation, ethnicity/racialization, sexuality and care are significant in understanding shifting life situations and life stages. This means that the broad figures for time use on paid and unpaid work, as in the tables above, are likely to vary much in terms of such intersections, for example, of gender and ethnicity/racialization, as well as with the intersections of gender at different life stages. For example, many people in their adult and middle years are caring for both their children and their elderly parents. They are often referred to as "the sandwich generation" (cf. Burke and Calvano 2017). This phase of care is very much gendered. In the intersections of gender and age, shifts in gender contracts in different societal and organizational contexts are relevant and show the dynamic nature of these relations (Krekula 2007). Studies of age and generation, and intersections of age, care and life stages, remain relatively neglected in many studies of working life, despite the extensive research on 'work–life balance' or 'work–life relations'. These latter approaches do concern the division of work and care, though sometimes only implicitly so, as care for women often represents the dominant part of life outside of paid work. In short, debate and policy on 'work–life balance' is also very centrally about production and reproduction in societies.

#### **5. 'Work–Life Balance': The Case of Care and Work in Post-Industrial Times**

To illustrate the relation between work and non-work, including family life and care, the constructs of 'work–life balance' or 'work–family reconciliation' are often used, even if these constructs have been widely criticized (cf. Lewis 2003; Lewis et al. 2007; Pringle and Mallon 2003; Greenhaus and Powell 2006; Reiter 2007; Kalliath and Brough 2008). They continue to be used for scrutinising the relations of paid work and home, or non-work, as separable gendered domains in time and place, despite the blurring of boundaries across those interfaces (Clark 2000; Lewis 2003). Previous research has concluded the definitions of work and life to be "slippery and shifting" (Pringle and Mallon 2003). From a historical perspective, whereas the division of (two) separate domains was developed in the industrializing era (ibid.), in the present post-industrial 'knowledge work economy,' which increasingly provides flexible employment with regard to location and work hours, the traditional concept of a workday is slowly eroding (cf. Lewis 2003).

One of the major characteristics of knowledge work is a strong blurring of the boundaries between work and 'life', or 'non-work', or 'family-time' (Kossek and Lautsch 2012; McDonald et al. 2013; Moen et al. 2013; Lewis 2003; Ashforth et al. 2000). Relatively little is still known about the effects of the blurring boundaries on individuals, organizations and societies. With the blurring of boundaries, in many cases in dual career families, the core question of combining paid work with care responsibilities remains the same. Indeed, managing to combine paid work with care responsibilities does not necessarily mean that an adequate balance between them is found (Crompton and Lyonette 2006).

Previous research and critical commentary has concluded that the concept and policy framing of 'work–life balance' is itself a way of constructing the reality and acknowledging the widespread need to prevent paid work from invading too much into people's individual and family lives (Lewis et al. 2007). Yet, it is said to reproduce the deeply gendered debate about managing the combination of paid work and care responsibilities (Lewis 2003; Lewis et al. 2007). On the other hand, some research suggests that highly educated women are more prone to find the demands of (early) mothering unsettling but claim that this has more to do with demands targeted towards them from their work organizations, presented as historically masculine subjects not being especially interested in the reproductive function of their female employees (Hollway 2015).

Within neoliberal developments, knowledge-intensive work has become increasingly scattered and boundaryless (Roper et al. 2010; Pringle and Mallon 2003; Bailyn and Fletcher 2002). Yet the related work–life balance discourses are seemingly gender neutral, accepting the values of dominant neoliberal forms of capitalism, thus, ignoring structural, cultural and gendered constraints at workplaces and in societies more generally (Lewis et al. 2007). The 'long hours' working culture remains strong and often unchallenged, and the expectations of the 'ideal worker' today increasingly include both men and women. Thus, work may appear, superficially at least, more gender-neutral, even if it is not (Guillaume and Pochic 2009). In line with the neoliberal tendencies (Harvey 2005), employers seem to be scrutinized into non-gendered individuals as productive workers. Family still seems to have a greater impact on women's careers than on men's, as women more often accommodate their careers with family, whereas men have more freedom to prioritize work over family and care responsibilities (Hearn et al. 2016; Jyrkinen et al. 2017; Valcour and Tolbert 2003). Therefore, even if steps towards gender equality are taken in many societies, care in relation to work seems to be as downplayed as ever. This is despite the strong increase of women in the labour market in many societies, especially

in post-industrial societies. Post-industrial work is supposedly less burdensome, for example, through new technologies and automation, than work done during previous historical periods; yet, in its boundarylessness, post-industrial work invades private spheres and becomes burdening and stressful in other ways, which in turn takes away time and focus away from care and caring. To see reproduction and care as crucial parts of individual and collective long-term productivity is essential for social sustainability.

#### **6. Concluding Comments: Towards Increased Social Sustainability?**

The social relations of care and work, of reproduction and production, of social care and care work, represent some of the most fundamental aspects of gender relations in society (O'Brien 1981; Orloff 1993). They underpin many wider and intersectional inequalities and discriminations. This chapter has highlighted the central importance of care and care work, in individuals, families, communities and workplaces, and in relation to work and working life. Even if some steps are taken towards gender equality, many unequal structures remain. If care work, formal and informal, paid and unpaid, does not receive the recognition and respect it deserves, and if production and reproduction are not seen as more equally important, a deficit in willingness to engage in policy development around reproduction and care is likely to occur. Furthermore, without the necessary policy development, care work will remain the domain of the marginalized. It is important to emphasize that when this work is uncompensated, this marginalization is furthered by economic insecurity. These questions, though crucially dependent on local and national context, increasingly need to be understood transnationally, even whilst the actual delivery of care is immediate and embodied. More gender-equal, socially sustainable ways of distributing care and work—paid and unpaid work, formal and informal, and thus removing obstacles to education and entrance to working life, as well as career advancement for girls and women—are vitally important steps towards a socially sustainable, gender-equal future.

**Author Contributions:** The authors have worked collectively with Niemistö as lead, Hearn providing overview, and Kehn data investigations. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research has been conducted within the project "Social and Economic Sustainability of Future Working Life (WeAll)", funded by the Strategic Research Council, Academy of Finland (292883).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

### **Ideas of Family and Work—Their Impact on the Careers of Young Men\* and Women\*** †

#### **Diana Baumgarten and Andrea Maihofer**

† The present text largely corresponds to ZGS discussion paper Nr. 2 (Baumgarten et al. 2018). By using the gender asterisk, we want to emphasize the variety of masculinities and femininities. We do not depart from a sexual original, which understands "other" forms of gender as "included", but rather we understand every gendered sexual existence as a variant.

#### **1. Introduction**

The division of the professional sphere into female- and male-dominated occupational areas is more pronounced in Switzerland than in other countries (Estévez-Abe 2005; Charles and Bradley 2009). While the educational levels of women\* and men\* have become largely even on a vertical scale (BfS 2009), horizontal, gender-specific segregation in the professional world remains widespread (Charles 2005; Leemann and Keck 2005). Thus, occupations with high percentages of women are characterized by comparably low salaries, fewer (financial) opportunities for advancement and worse work conditions (Levy et al. 1997; Buchmann and Kriesi 2009). In contrast, in occupational fields with high percentages of men, paused employment or working part-time is difficult to realize. This circumstance is, in part, responsible for the persistence of gender inequality. In this respect, the path to more gender equality can only be paved with a precise and complex understanding of the respective relationships (as specific simultaneity of change and persistence). For this purpose, context-specific studies such as this analysis are of great relevance.

Gender-atypical work interests often remain untracked, and young adults are usually not institutionally encouraged to pursue them (Maihofer et al. 2013). The one-sided focus on occupations that correspond to social gender stereotypes means that women and men can only make limited use of their talents and gifts. Switzerland thereby loses a great potential of skills and abilities. Furthermore, distinct segregation in the professional sphere contributes to an intensification of the shortage of skills in technical and social jobs.

The starting point for our project, "How do ideas of family and work impact the careers of young men\* and women\*?", was the hypothesis that, first of all, the ideas of a future family and one's own occupational activities reciprocally influence each other, and secondly, that it is precisely this interrelationship that causes occupational gender segregation.<sup>1</sup> Based on previous research projects (see (Maihofer et al. 2013; Schwiter et al. 2014; Wehner et al. 2012)), we looked not only for institutional factors, such as the absence of paternity leave and inadequate and expensive childcare provisions, but also for subjective positions and motives such as ideas of family and gender norms as an explanation for the persistence of occupational gender segregation.

We thus assumed a complex interaction of subjective, institutional and gender-normative factors, which we all understand as the structural elements of the dominating, heteronormative gender order. According to our findings, these ideas already influence career decisions at a point where the question of starting a family is not yet present for many. The refore, we focused on adults of about 30 years of age. At this age, they have already gained some professional experience and have developed both professional and familial prospects for the future.

To answer our research question, we conducted 48 problem-centered interviews with thirty-year-old women\* and men\*, who work in gender-typical, gender-neutral and gender-atypical jobs.<sup>2</sup> We asked them about their perspectives regarding the possibility of starting a family,<sup>3</sup> as well as asking about their further careers.

In the first step, we explain how the interviewed men\* and women\* conceptualize family and work, and what ideals, expectations and attributions form the basis of these positions. In the second step, we illustrate how these ideas of family and work impact their further careers.

#### **2. Anticipated Fatherhood and Occupation**

#### *2.1. Today, Being a Father Means Taking Time for Your Kids*

It has been widely proven that men\* today want to be active and present fathers. We have described the currently predominant perspective in our Discussion Paper I (see (Maihofer et al. 2010)) as that of the emotionally involved, present,

<sup>1</sup> The project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation was carried out at the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Basel under the direction of Professor Andrea Maihofer (duration 2014–2016).

<sup>2</sup> A gender-typical profession is defined according to the fact that more than 70% of the professionals therein belong to one gender (e.g., dental assistants\* or social workers\* are female-typical professions, while train driver\* is male-typical; the retail business is a gender-neutral occupation).

<sup>3</sup> For most interviewees\*, founding a family has not taken place yet. In a few cases, interviewees\* were pregnant at the time of the interview.

breadwinner father. This shows a strongly changed attitude toward the norm of the single breadwinner. Thus, being an involved father means spending time with the child and building up a continual emotional relationship.

In the interviews, it was striking how important these ideas about relationships are for future fatherhood. The (yet childless) men\* considered that it is of the utmost importance to consciously take the time with the child for oneself, but also to develop a father–child relationship. We understand this as a clear rejection of the "absent breadwinner-father", who mostly sees his kids asleep or on the weekends (Maihofer et al. 2010; Wehner et al. 2010).

By now, men\* also include the baby and toddler period in their notion of fatherhood. In the past, when fathers referred to their already grown children (see (Schwiter 2011)) in their reflections on fatherhood, our recent interviews showed how important their relationship with their child had been to them from birth. Watching their own children grow up means being there from the very beginning, as opposed to merely when the children are already a little older.

#### *2.2. The Desire to Spend Time with the Child Changes the Relationship between Men\* and Full-Time Work; It No Longer Represents an Unquestioned Normality*

Due to the desire to have time together with the child, men\* begin to think critically about their workload (see (Baumgarten et al. 2017a)). Consequently, they appraisingly deal with the question of if, in their profession, it is possible to reduce their work time in order to realize their ideals of fatherhood. The engagement with part-time work is not only based on the wishes of men\* themselves. Increasingly, this is an external (normative) demand. The current change in the fatherhood ideal is also reflected in the fact that talking about fatherhood now includes addressing questions of how to spend more time with one's children and if part-time work would be possible, at least temporarily.

This does not mean that all men\* want to work part-time, but rather that their relationship to full-time work changes through altered expectations and the desire for an intense father–child relationship. Part-time work is increasingly considered as a possible component of a male employment biography, and working full-time is no longer an unquestioned normality.

When it comes to part-time work, most of the interviewed men\* and women\* understood an 80% workload. The y talk about this extra day off, notwithstanding weekends and holidays, as "dad-day" (see (Schwiter and Baumgarten 2017)), where men\* are solely responsible for taking care of the child. The reby, quality time with the child, where the mother is absent or uninvolved, has become a priority.

#### *2.3. Industries Di*ff*er Strongly in the Practicability of Part-Time Work for Fathers*

The wish of future fathers to spend time with their child and, therefore, the desire for part-time work are in contradiction with the (normative) demands of a full-time employment, as well as the possibilities for professional development and career opportunities. Regarding its realistic implementation, the industry and the respective job culture are of central importance. In some occupational fields (mostly in female-typical or gender-neutral jobs such as teaching), men\* view themselves as being in a part-time-friendly work environment, where their requests are easily negotiable. In other, often male-typical professions, such as consulting, part-time work is difficult or even impossible. Here, possibilities are limited to all but those who become self-employed or find a different occupational field.

All in all, the interviewed men\* hoped to find individual arrangements with their superiors and work teams but were insecure about whether they would manage to do so. The currently prevalent work culture is being perceived as extremely resistant. Interestingly, they often come to this conclusion without ever having taken an active interest in the company's internal policies regarding part-time work. The structural conditions of the professional world are predominantly seen as a given and, therefore, as unchangeable, and they do not address the possibility of campaigning in solidarity as employees for changes in the company.

#### *2.4. The Idea of Professional Development Is a Central Part of the Male Understanding of Their Careers*

According to men\*, gainful work is, on the one hand, necessary for economic security. On the other hand, they also want to actualize their talents and affinities and take pleasure in their work: "*One has to like what one does*". This is due to the amount of time they spend at work.

Apart from remuneration, the need for professional satisfaction is especially evident, i.e., when the interviewed men\* saw how their efforts were making a difference. The importance of salary and content is evaluated pragmatically: "*I am not an idealist who says that the salary does not matter. (* . . . *) No, I want to have a job where I also receive some money and where I have the feeling that I am worth it*". The refore, gainful work is essential for societal inclusion and achieving broad recognition.

Beyond this, advancement orientation is not only a central part of the male understanding of a career; it is also part of their expectation of normality. After education and years of travel, professional consolidation naturally takes place which takes into account the commitment and diligence of the initial period. Medium-

and long-term career and development opportunities are very important to men. We found such an idea among women\* only in exceptional cases.

#### *2.5. Men Are Still Supposed and Want to Be the Main Breadwinners*

Next to men's\* desire to be present fathers, the demand that they are responsible for the financial subsistence of the family continues to exist. Taking responsibility for the financial stability of the family is not only demanded societally of men; often, women\* also expect this, as much as men\*. Admittedly, their work should correspond to their interests; yet, especially with regard to anticipating starting a family, it should also enable them to take on the role as the main breadwinner. The reby, the wish to spend more time with the children is contradictory to the workload they accept, willingly or otherwise. For men\*, there is an increasing problem of reconciling what would be characterized as "good" or "desirable" fatherhood activities with the demands of gainful employment.

#### **3. Anticipated Motherhood and Occupation**

#### *3.1. Gainful Work Is an Inherent Part of Female Identity, Which Is Why Women\* as Mothers Want to Be Steadily Employed*

The women\* from our sample had, at the time of the interview, distinct professional confidence. After their education, all of them found their way into a job which suits them, with which they can identify and which gives them economic independence and self-reliance. All had been through advanced training and have evolved in their professions. However, in contrast to the interviewed men\*, they talked about this without expressing desire for further, long-term career advancement.

Part of their professional understanding is the feeling of being needed, the possibility of participating meaningfully or the experience of a good and productive work atmosphere. Generally, for women\*, gainful employment is as much a form of societal inclusion and recognition as it is a part of their identity.

For this reason, they want to remain employed after starting a family, even with a part-time work schedule: "*I do not want to do without being a part of the professional world—in any way*". The y were concerned about being out of touch with working life and "*hav(ing) a foothold in employment*". With regard to starting a family, gainful work is an important addition and change from everyday family life, but it also enables women\* to participate in a social environment beyond that of their family.

What is striking is that none of the women\* mentioned financial necessity as a reason for seeking steady employment. The ir earnings after starting a family were often considered as additional. Not being bound to sustaining a family with their jobs and relying on their partners for economic security, therefore, form the basis of their attitudes towards their careers and their expectations of normality.

#### *3.2. Motherhood Continues to Be a Central Part of Female Identity, about Which Women\* Want to Decide Autonomously*

The women\* from our sample wishing to become pregnant demanded from themselves that they would spend a lot of time with their children. The y identified as the "key carer" with a strong emotional tie with the child. "*That is the way it is: the Mom remains the Mom*". The y often mentioned their own mothers\* as positive role models for shaping their motherhood. The reason for being the main parent is based on the biological abilities of giving birth and breastfeeding. The reby, a special proximity between woman\* and child evolves. The se preconditions suggested a gender-typical arrangement.

At the same time, the women\* refused to view their biological characteristics fatalistically and emphasized their autonomy in the distribution of familial tasks, but also with regard to establishing a family. In accordance with this self-determination, there is a demand for them to decide for or against motherhood and to develop their own ideas of what form this should take. The reby, the women\* often understood family as being private in nature, i.e., where they are, in contrast to the workplace, their own bosses. Family life represented for them a counterpart to work, where the atmosphere is structured by competition and heteronomy. The decision to start a family was therefore not only understood as a self-determined withdrawal from full-time work but also as a form of autonomy in the familial sphere.

#### *3.3. The Female Professional Understanding Stands in Tension with the Ideal of Motherhood*

For most interviewees, family plans became more concrete when they were in their early thirties. At this point, the conflict between their professional understanding, which implies steady employment, and their ideas of motherhood increased ever more (see (Baumgarten et al. 2017b)).

Upon starting a family, women\* anticipate a great shift in their emotional priorities towards the child and family: "*When I have kids, then I have the feeling that (my) priorities would lie more strongly with the kids and the family*".

Such an adjustment of everyday life presents a major organizational and mental challenge: "*I just know that this could be something that would bother me*". Through the (anticipated) focus on familial care work, they fear a loss of attractiveness, independence and a sense of belonging. At the same time, they assume that their employment could make it difficult for them to be adequately present in the family,

both emotionally and time-wise. This means that even before having children, women\* are noticeably struggling to reconcile conflicting wishes and demands. In addition, they also believe that resolving these issues is their own responsibility. This means that the persistent expectation that women\* are mainly responsible for the family and children leads to a nearly unsolvable dilemma. On the one hand, they have to justify their professional employment both to themselves and to others, and on the other hand, an exclusive focus on family can lead to being seen as backward and overly maternalistic. Anticipated motherhood already leads women to continuously reflect upon their (potential) behavior and to justify it against criticism or even hostility. According to the contradictory ideal of the "*emotionally involved, present breadwinner-father*" formulated for men\* (vgl. (Maihofer et al. 2010)), for women\*, the prevalent ideal of motherhood can be summarized as the "*part-time employed involved mother, who is the key carer of the child*".

#### *3.4. Industries Di*ff*er Strongly in the Practicability of Steady Employment for Mothers*

In many industries, women\* are confronted with a job market that is oriented toward the ideal of a male full-time employee; entailed therein are intense time requirements, undivided availability and a job history without interruptions. In opposition to this, women\* wish to pursue their employment in a manageable manner with a high degree of flexibility. Employment is outlined as an addition to everyday family life with a part-time workload of between 20 and 40 percent, or in some cases, 60 percent. With regard to their ideas, which, as they know, differ from a normal employment relationship, they already anticipate professional disqualification and reduced career perspectives: "*One has to be aware of the fact that you cannot simply pick a fun job anymore. (* . . . *) that you, rather, will be doing periodical work as a clerk*".

For the interviewed women\*, the possibility of (part-time) employment is inherently dependent on a *concession* from the company. Knowing about the structural obstacles, they only introduce their want for employment in a defensive manner and formulate it cautiously: "*That I might be able to stay with a reduced workload*".

As for men\*, the choice of industry plays an important role with regard to opportunities for part-time work: In rather female-typical jobs such as care-givers\* or psychologists\*, part-time work is more attainable. The re, women\* are more likely to be able to combine their professional aspirations with motherhood and are more flexible in terms of balancing out both realms. Even in this field of employment, women\* do not anticipate promotion prospects for employed mothers.

#### *3.5. The Responsibility for Childcare Is Part of Self-Determined Motherhood, Which Should Ideally Be Passed on to the Private Sphere*

Apart from the few supportive structures in the professional sphere, the personality of the child also plays a central role in determining the extent to which the mother provides childcare or to which she is gainfully employed. Children are imagined as being very different in character, which is why it might be difficult to estimate how much presence and care they are going to need. Although the interviewed women\* hoped to be able to plan their everyday lives more independently as their children grew older, they expected themselves to meet the children's needs first and foremost. The concept of self-determined motherhood includes a distinct amount of personal responsibility on the part of the woman\* for taking care of and supporting the children: "*This is not the responsibility of the society. Just because you have children now, others do not need to care about it*". This includes fathers. Women\* expect very little responsibility for childcare from the fathers. If fathers take on childcare work, it is because they have expressed a wish to spend time with the child. The refore, it is not to be taken for granted that care work can be handed over to the father. The "dad-day" is thus more of a supplement, rather than a clearly demanded engagement.

Public support for childcare work was seldom anticipated by the interviewed women\*. Daycare centers are mainly conceptualized as institutions for families especially single mothers—who are unable to reduce their workloads. The opposite of the self-determined mother who is mainly responsible for the child is, therefore, the mother who is driven by financial struggle and restrictions, whose economic situation does not allow her to take over the care work herself. For their own children, they value daycare centers as places of exchange with other children. This should take place from one to three days per week. The y often explicitly rejected the idea of handing over a child to a daycare five days a week. In total, the interviewed women\* imagined childcare to be privately organized. The intimate, small family was, in the minds of most of the interviewed women\*, the first and most important form of childcare.

#### **4. Synopsis—Anticipated Parenthood and Familial Labor Division as a Couple**

Even though we did not interview any couples, the anticipated ideas of gendered labor division and the organization of everyday life among the interviewed men\* and women\* complemented each other astonishingly well.

Current ideas of (heterosexual) partnerships are still based on the complementarity of men\* and women\*.

For a successful partnership, it is important, according to our interviewees, to meet the needs of the partner and to value his/her respective accomplishments. However, this complementarity is not the traditional one. This is the basis upon which couples nowadays negotiate the division of care work and employment, and the individuality of partners\* in a relationship must be catered to in such negotiations.

In this understanding of labor division as a collaboratively negotiated consensus, there is astonishingly little awareness of how gender-stereotypical the ideas of employment and family, and thus the foundation for this decision-making process, still are.

In this way, the mutually formulated regulation of the division of labor usually leads to a high level of male employment, i.e., with a workload of 80 to 100 percent, with one "dad-day" at most and a great responsibility of the mothers in terms of childcare, with supplementary employment of 20 to 40 percent, or, in a few cases, 50 or 60 percent. Even though men\* and women\* regard it as important that the father build an intense everyday relationship with their children and thus take on a "dad-day" if possible, the latter is not considered a non-negotiable part of the division of childcare, much less is it mentioned as a possibility for the woman's\* return to work after giving birth. Childcare provides relief and thus enables the woman\* to pursue a career, while the private, predominantly female environment, i.e., the woman's\* parents or in-laws (including grandfathers), sisters, friends and godmothers, as well as other mothers in the close circle of friends, plays an especially central role.<sup>4</sup>

The accurate fit of the gender-specific attribution of responsibility for care work or gainful employment leads to a reciprocal complementarity (in terms of "complementing each other").<sup>5</sup> Even though we conducted individual interviews, the interviewed men\* and women\* drafted a congruent idea of a (heterosexual) partnership, for which the clear division of responsibilities implied a simultaneity

<sup>4</sup> This can be explained with the specific conditions in Switzerland: the different cantons and communities are responsible for family-complementary childcare. The role of the federal state is subsidiary. Of all OECD countries, Switzerland invests the least in childcare, a 0.2% share of its BIP. Despite an impulse program initiated in 2003, in the context of which 370 million Swiss francs have been invested and almost 60,000 daycare places have been created, Switzerland exhibits a bland supply of family-complementing childcare and in most regions, there are large gaps in supplies. At the same time, the costs for external childcare in Switzerland are higher than in any other OECD country. A full-time space in a daycare can reach up to two thirds of the mean income.

<sup>5</sup> Contrary to childcare and gainful employment, we did not ask about the division of housework in our interviews. Insofar, we cannot make any statements about the ideas of our interviewees in this regard. Housework, however, was not mentioned in any interviews as being important.

of change and persistence. On the one hand, the anticipated familial arrangements were clearly reminiscent of the bourgeois ideal of the family, but at the same time, there, momentous changes could be observed, not least the idea of an equal form of negotiation of the division of labor among the family. In this sense, both the work culture and society in general were perceived as being of little help. However, changes are also not demanded in such a decisive manner.

#### **5. Conclusions for Current Gender Relations in Switzerland**

In total, our analyses show the interconnections of institutional and individual perspectives. The y show how the present socio-cultural living and working conditions may act as the basis for possible family arrangements (keyword: reconciliation). However, gender norms internalized through lifelong processes of socialization and cultural perceptions regarding the abilities of men\* and women\* have an equal impact on the way in which young adults imagine their familial and professional obligations, and how this influences the career perspectives of men\* and women\*.

First of all, with regard to gender relations, two things can be stated: Currently, for both genders, there are strong tensions between notions of work and family, between the requirements of masculinity and femininity and between ideas of fatherhood and motherhood.

For men\*, fulltime gainful employment and an orientation towards a professional career continue to be an important part of their identity. At the same time, we find an increasing problematization of this one-sided orientation. The y increasingly want to be fathers who are involved in everyday family life.

Due to this simultaneous juxtaposition of traditional demands toward masculinity and new ideas of fatherhood, men\* have to deal with their role as the breadwinner and come up with ideas as to how they can engage in raising their children in an active and present way. Through the changed relationship of men with generativity, they increasingly formulate their own problem of reconciliation.

For women\*, in contrast, the ideal of the mother who puts her needs after those of the child and the family, and who is carrying the main responsibility for domestic duties, continues to be the dominant orientation.

At the same time, it has by now become a part of their self-understanding to be gainfully employed and to have an identity as a working woman\*. The refore, there is an increasing tension for women\* between the previous norm of motherhood and the new ideas of gainful employment and their intensified identification as an employed woman\* or mother. Even though ideas of motherhood are beginning to

change, the problem of how to reconcile family and work is being yet intensified through the demand to be a flexible and constantly available (good) mother and the desire to hold continuous and close-to-fulltime employment.

All in all, both genders\*—albeit in an inverted manner—are now struggling with the contradictions of traditional and new gender ideals and requirements. Through reflection and awareness of the old order (Woltersdorff 2013), both know much more clearly than before about the deficits of traditional gender concepts and practices, such as the lack of inclusion of fathers in the everyday lives of children, given their persistent responsibility for the family income, as well as the nonexistent personal and professional development perspective of the mother, given their domestic responsibilities.

Thus, men\* and women\* cannot fully exhaust important aspects of their identity, their abilities and their life plans. This is aggravated by the fact that neither gender can rely on new role models. Equitable ideas of work and family have to be laboriously tested and realized against professional and fiscal incentive structures, against the conditions and demands of the employment sphere (availability, flexibility, mobility) and against established and obsolete stereotypes in everyday life.

This does not make it easy for individual perspectives to be positively experiential beyond normative restrictions. Demanding and forcing through new ideas of work and family are thus often perceived as exhausting and energy-sapping.

Secondly, "traditional" gender norms have become more flexible and individual, but they are still very powerful for those involved.

In the interviews, most presented themselves as being open to alternative familial work arrangements, with the caveat that these have to fit the "type" of partner they have. Furthermore, the idea of a special relationship of a woman with her child—due to pregnancy and the possibility of breastfeeding—suggests a clearly modified, yet still "traditional" work division for most of the interviewed men\* and women\*. The reby, they clearly no longer understood biology as "imperative fate", but rather as a foundation for pragmatic action according to physical constitutions. The y were aware that, just as many women\* have to learn how to take care of their children adequately, so do men\*. In this combination, i.e., of an imagined division of work as a potential reality and the simultaneous restriction of the practicable validity of this notion to certain "types" of men\* or women\*, the current handling of gender norms becomes visible: These are no longer rigid but rather offer some leeway. At the same time, they are still very effectual; everyone is aware of what "deviation from the norm" consists of, and of which critiques and sanctions are threatening or which difficulties still exist vis-à-vis their structural implementation. If, for example,

work arrangements are defined as different, or if the caring behavior of fathers is equated with the idea that "*men want to be more involved nowadays*", then notions of the "other", "new" and "changed" clearly point to the extension of the norm or the emergence of new possibilities. Still, women\* and men\* try to conform to normative gendered expectations, e.g., when they see themselves confronted with the notion of being a "good mother" only when mainly focusing on the family, or of being a "proper man" only when working full-time. Who is doing which work in both the household and childcare and when they are doing it is no longer conventionally prescribed, yet it has always been defined qua gender. Even though social norms have become more flexible, this does not mean that deviations therefrom do not underlie a process of disciplining and normalization. Those who transgress central gender norms, such as when women\* do not have kids or when men\* would rather be "househusbands", are, despite flexibilization, continuously confronted with critical questions.

The individual shaping of family lifestyles is still an arduous and by no means sanctionless process. The possibility for the realization of such is highly dependent on the specific context as well as the ability to act in a self-determined manner which corresponds to one's own wants and skills, even if it does not match the dominant norms.

Simultaneously, we can state that, thirdly, the interviewed women\* and men\* assumed an equitable relationship between man\* and women\* in the family sphere. This assumption was seen as foundational for the current self-conception of men\* and women\* and their organization, and the shaping of everyday family life.

Thus, familial arrangements are understood as individual solutions between two equal people who do not have a hierarchical relationship (any longer). In their understanding, gender does have normative power, for instance, regarding some of their ideas of motherly or fatherly tasks, but it is a question of differentiation, not stratification.

Furthermore, an "equitable" division of gainful, household and childcare work does not mean a distribution in the sense of both parties doing 50 percent of each. Rather, both take over the part which corresponds to their preferences. Especially when viewing collaborative task divisions from a perspective of gender equality, gendered structuring seems unimportant or even individually desired. The reby, the interviewed women\* and men\* did not anticipate the way in which, within the context of starting a family and despite their assumptions regarding equity, a dynamic evolved, which leads them toward a nonequitable situation, and therefore one that is traditionally structured in terms of gender. The discourse of individual

uniqueness leads to a masking of persistent, or emerging and intensifying gender inequalities.

The previously described potency of gender norms leads to a situation where couples, in starting a family, establish a hierarchical relationship with each other. The imbalance resulting from the division of work, e.g., 100% (him) and 40% (her), is not always noticeable right away in relationships, but in the long term, its effects unfold through, e.g., the risk of a social decline for women\* in the case of separation or inadequate pensions after retirement, or, in the case of men\*, the pressure of (in future) bearing sole responsibility for the family, as well as the risk of becoming an "alimony-dad" with 14-day visiting rights with the children in case of a separation. Furthermore, like this, both parties cannot fully exhaust their abilities and desires with regard to employment and family.

Fourth, an individualized notion of cultural life and work forms could be observed in the ideas of the young adults interviewed.

Anticipated difficulties in the compatibility of work and family ideas were also perceived as a societal-structural problem. Following neoliberal logic, however, in the interviews, it was the responsibilities of the individual that were being talked about, i.e., to design a life plan independently of the surrounding living and work conditions, and to solve the tasks arising from starting a family as an individual (see (Schwiter 2016)).

Oftentimes, luck was mentioned, e.g., of having a good job, a tolerant boss\* or an optimal workplace, so that the reconciliation of gainful employment and having a family can be lived according to one's own ideals. According to this, the failure of one's life plan was regarded as being the result of one's own unsuccessful planning. The interviewed individuals were not aware of the notion and thus did not claim that beyond their own responsibilities, there is also a responsibility of society as a whole for the implementation of equality in terms of the compatibility of family and work.

Socio-cultural life and work conditions were seldom mentioned in the interviews as either impeding or enhancing, and hopes or expectations were seldom formulated with regard to changing parameters. Political demands directed toward society or the professional sphere, or toward public institutions, and which would entail structural and material support or the recognition of parenthood were not expressed

by the interviewees.<sup>6</sup> According to this evidence, changing current work and living conditions is rarely thought about or proposed.<sup>7</sup>

The attitude of self-responsibility and the growing freedom of decision making and choice, which has been strongly established within the framework of modern neoliberal processes of transformation, lead to a lack of critical reflection regarding persistent power relationships, as well as relationships of dependency and inequality. The reby, inequality is being individualized and privatized, which consequently intensifies the phenomenon whereby mutual decisions in the process of forming familial arrangements lead to inequity.

Finally, it has become clear that through individualized responsibility and privatized gender inequality, young women\* and men\* do not form alliances and do not formulate claims.

Our results show that the neoliberal rhetoric of self-responsibility intensifies the fact that, at present, there are hardly any ideas of governmental or societal responsibility for the concrete implementation of equality, and thus for the development of solutions to the current problems of the reconciliation of women\* and men\*. This makes it more difficult to uncover persistent gender discrimination and inequalities. Such connections only become clear through a thorough analysis of both the concrete structural living conditions and individual gender stereotypes. A simultaneous overview of both the structural and individual dimensions of gender norms is indispensable for achieving gender equality. By individualizing collective problems (e.g., of parents) and not regarding them as common, solutions cannot be found, and no claims for a new work culture or for necessary societal, legal or political and institutional changes can be made, even if individuals would profit from such (Schwiter 2016).

All of this is, however, indispensable, for, as paradoxical as it might sound, the more individualized that life plans and family arrangements become, the more they are dependent on socio-cultural frameworks (Maihofer 2016). The livability of the current life plans of women\* and men\* depend not only on the will of the

<sup>6</sup> This stands in contrast to the French-speaking part of Switzerland, where there is a bigger demand for family-complementary care facilities, and where parents demand more governmental support.

<sup>7</sup> An exception existed in the statements regarding paternal leave. This does not only represent a plausible demand among most people interviewed, but many also regard the current regulations as problematic or even scandalous. Paternal leave may be described as a legal reenactment of the described changed practices within which the parental roles remain unequally distributed—where parental care is not exclusively the role of the mothers and, thus, where fathers have the right to undertake (restricted) care time in the first year of their child's life.

individual and its consequences but also on the necessary societal and institutional living and work conditions. If these are not given, the gap between growing possibilities for individual ways of life and the withholding of the conditions needed for these is becoming ever more obvious. Consequently, people, without actually wanting it, have to decide against the life plan they prefer as an employed and involved father or employed and involved mother.

**Author Contributions:** All persons who meet authorship criteria are listed as authors, and all authors certify that they have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content, including participation in the concept, design, analysis, writing, or revision of the manuscript. Furthermore, each author certifies that this article is based on other publications which all appear in the references.

**Conflicts of Interest:** All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

#### **References**


Levy, René, Dominique Joye, Olivier Guye, and Vincent Kaufmann. 1997. *Tous égaux? De la stratification aux représentations*. Zürich: Seismo.

Maihofer, Andrea. 2016. *Familie? Was ist das?* Luzern: Sozialalmanach, pp. 101–18.


© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

### **Gender and Intersectional Climate Justice**

#### **Sybille Bauriedl**

#### **1. Introduction**

Climate change affects all people, but to varying degrees. Apart from regional differences, this is mainly due to social structures. Being affected by the consequences of climate change also depends to a relevant extent on gender-conforming behaviour and a gender-unjust distribution of resources. Women and men are affected differently by the effects of climate change. A central reason for this is their social understanding of their roles and role behaviour and the social and economic inequality associated with them. Thus, climate change-induced problems and responses are deeply connected to gender justice.

#### **2. Climate Change Meets Hierarchical Gender Relations**

Sea-level rises and extreme weather events are the negative effects of man-made climate change. Loss and damage are the 'externality' of fossil fuels and other polluting industries visited upon the people and communities who have done the least to cause climate change. Tropical regions and especially arid and coastal areas are particularly affected by climate change impacts. There, we meet a large number of people who are particularly vulnerable due to their limited access to global prosperity. Those with the least power and the least resources are the worst impacted. This, of course, means that communities made vulnerable due to gender, sexuality, race, class, age, and legal status are in the worst position to deal with the impacts of climate change (Richards 2018, p. 2). Gender broadly refers to a collection of characteristics. They vary and change over time and context, and are shaped by their intersection with other types of social difference such as race and class, as sexism is entangled with other hierarchies.

When sudden extreme events such as floods, heat waves or hurricanes occur, more women regularly die than men. In a study by the London School of Economics, deaths due to extreme weather events were examined according to gender and social status. Between 1981 and 2002, 4605 catastrophes were recorded in 141 countries. The number of deaths of women after disasters was significantly higher in countries with particularly high inequality in social and economic status between women and men (Neumayer and Plümper 2007). There is no current study with a similar number

of cases. However, it can be assumed that this difference has tended to increase, as the gender-specific household and family-related workload of women increases in regions with strong climate change impacts.

In the Global South, the unequal mortality rate during climate-related natural disasters is more evident than in the Global North. However, gender-specific vulnerability is not a phenomenon limited to developing countries alone. The negative consequences of climate change, e.g., health burdens from heat waves, are also showing a gender-unequal trend in Europe. During the heat wave in southern Europe in the summer of 2003, extreme cardiovascular stress caused 70,000 additional deaths, so-called "heat deaths", in the affected countries. The elderly and people with weakened health were particularly affected. Throughout the heatwave, the gender ratio of deaths was balanced, but on the hottest days, women were affected in 60 percent of cases (Robine et al. 2007). There are no reliable explanations for this striking phenomenon either. One relevant factor is probably that older women in particular are more likely to live in neighbourhoods with higher heat stress due to their income. They cannot afford more climate change-resistant residential areas with better ventilation, cooling architecture and lower building density, which are among the most expensive residential areas in all cities. On hot days with daytime temperatures above 30 ◦C, the temperature in densely built-up districts with heavy traffic is regularly 5 ◦C higher than, for example, in residential areas near a city park. In addition, old women much more frequently live alone and thus without rapid healthcare in acute heat stress (WEN 2010, p. 11f). The European Parliament has now recognised the relevance of the problem and stated, in a report on 16 January 2018, that "women are many times more likely to die in natural disasters than men" (EP 2017, p. 5).

Even consequences of climate change that are not directly life-threatening have an unequal impact on men and women. Diseases spread faster due to higher temperatures or floods. Since, in many societies, it is mainly women who provide nursing care, their (unpaid) workload increases. During prolonged heat waves in dry areas, it can be observed that women and girls have to cope with a much higher additional workload for the energy and water supply of their families and have to walk long distances to water points and firewood sources (Dankelmann 2010). In Africa, women produce more than 90 percent of the food supply. However, they often do not have the financial opportunity to react to climate change and adapt production to changing environmental conditions (EP 2017). Why women are more vulnerable to climate change than men has hardly been systematically researched. However, observations suggest the relevance of the gendered division of labour and

gender-unequal access to resources. Gender norms are, thus, a decisive vulnerability factor, as is the need to adapt to climate change. Women's empowerment at household and community levels is an excellent strategy for more effective and equitable disaster preparedness (Terry 2009, p. 170).

#### **3. Men Adopt to Climate-Related Natural Disasters Di**ff**erently Than Women**

Migration is a form of adaptation to the consequences of climate change. However, not all people can benefit from this form of adaptation in the same way. When migration takes place in response to sudden climate change-induced extreme events, firstly, access to means of transport plays a major role, then, secondly, the consideration of the dangers during flight and, thirdly, the responsibility to care for relatives. All these aspects are very strongly gendered. For example, the particularly high death toll of women in flood disasters in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh is explained by the fact that women in these flood-prone countries have less mobility opportunities: they have neither learned to swim nor do they own motorised vehicles. They have less access to relevant risk information and they are responsible for protecting their children. Almost everywhere in the world, family care work is done more often by women than by men. As a result, women are more tied to persons in need of care and assistance in the household and are excluded from safety nets and information for coping with climate change. Thus, they are also less likely than men to succeed in fleeing as a result of suddenly occurring extreme events and to find a safe place. However, even refugee camps bear the risk of sexual violence and the struggle for limited food.

There are two crucial questions to explain climate vulnerability and climate change-induced migration: the first is the question of vulnerability due to caring responsibilities (Who is responsible for housekeeping, childcare, and the care of sick and elderly family members?). Secondly, there is the question of vulnerability due to mobility restrictions (Who has access to transport? Who can move around in public and in what manner?). As a rule, both questions affect women who live in gender-conforming families and on low incomes to a particularly high degree.

The gender-related studies on climate vulnerability and adaptation show a stereotypical gender representation. Women only become visible in their reproductive phase of life and in their function as mothers in household and childcare work. Men are depicted as absent from the family community. These gender representations eliminate gender diversity and transitions of gender norms, and non-gender-conforming or non-heteronormative role behaviour (Hawkins and Ojeda 2011, p. 241).

Furthermore, an over-reliance on the discourses of care, mothering, and subsistence labour can have negative strategic consequences. Feminist scholars take into account the cultural baggage of the ethics of care discourse. In "the context of a white male-dominated society that constructs and enforces women's capacity to care, ecofeminism should not romanticize but politicize this capacity. Ecofeminist arguments that celebrate women's caring for people and the planet without condemning its implication in oppressive political economic systems risk affirming sexist notions about women's place in society" (MacGregor 2010a, p. 22).

#### **4. Climate Change as an Amplifier of Existing Social Inequalities**

The decisive factor for gender-specific climate vulnerability and migration opportunities is not biological gender, but social gender. Social gender expresses the socially determined understanding of gender roles and role behaviour that is associated with structural inequality, e.g., when women are seldom appointed to management positions or have more difficult access to financial resources due to the more passive, emotional behaviour attributed to them. Due to patriarchal gender norms in family and household care, an individual flight from extreme events seems less legitimate for women. These forms of structural inequality become even more evident in regions with frequent extreme events caused by climate change, since it is precisely there that the follow-up costs (e.g., care of the injured, family care under difficult conditions, the search for scarce food) are borne by women.

However, there is no mono-causal link between social gender and climate vulnerability—not all women are fundamentally more affected by climate change than men. Climate vulnerability is a multi-causal phenomenon. A lack of property rights, income poverty, a lack of school education and public healthcare and low social rights also play a role and affect other social groups. In studies on gender-specific climate vulnerability, for example, social differences within countries and regions remain unquestioned. However, it would be important to take this into account in order to be able to recognise the entanglement of gender relations with class relations and social relations based on racist hierarchies, which also regulate access to work, income, land ownership, technology, loans and political decision-making processes (Bauriedl and Hackfort 2016).

#### **5. Gender (In)Justice in International Climate Policy**

The different impacts of climate change on men and women are internationally recognised, but they are not a top issue in international climate policy. The international negotiations for climate agreements are conducted by the United

Nations—an intergovernmental organisation of 193 states with decisions by consensus and without legally binding force. As a result, the national economic interests of the participating countries (the parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Chance) mostly come first. Even though the United Nations Women's Organisation (UN Women) stated as early as 2009 that the risks of climate change are not gender-neutral (UNWW 2009, p. 8), this has so far had no consequences for binding agreements or even gender-related financial compensation.

In 2005, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) decided that a coordinated global strategy on the issue of gender and climate change was needed. IUCN and WEDO, together with the UN Development Programme and the UN Environment Programme and more than 25 other UN agencies and civil society institutions, co-founded, in 2007, the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA) at the UN Climate Summit in Bali and made the following demand: "No climate justice without gender justice". The primary goal of the GGCA is to ensure that climate change policies, decision making, and initiatives at the global, regional and national levels are gender-responsive and that financing mechanisms on mitigation and adaptation address the needs of poor women and men equitably. The alliance considered the Lima Work Programme on Gender as outcome of the UN Climate Summit in 2014 (decision 18/CP.20) a great success. It called on all state parties of the UN Climate Programme to take gender aspects into account in their annual report on the implementation of national climate targets to ensure that climate actions are gender-responsive and promote women's participation in decision making. However, as with all gender policy agreements of the UN contracting states, no sanctions are provided in the event of non-implementation of the programme. Its impact, therefore, remains limited (GenderCC 2019). At the UN Climate Summit in Marrakesh, 2016 (Conference of the Parties, COP22), a "Gender Action Plan" was agreed upon under the Lima Work Programme to bolster the role of women in climate action. The Gender Action Plan sets out activities that will help achieve this objective. "These range from increasing knowledge and capacities of women and men through workshops and information exchanges, so that they can systematically integrate gender considerations in all areas of their work, to pursuing the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in national delegations, including women from grassroots organisations, local and indigenous peoples and women from Small Island Developing States." (UN Women 2017, p. 1). Delegations of international, feminist non-governmental organisations are also very present at public framework events of climate summits, such as the People's Climate Summit in Bonn, 2017 (Figure 1).

This is about the representation and participation of women in negotiations, in order to support the implementation of gender-related decisions and mandates in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, following from the idea that the increasing participation of women promotes gender-responsive climate policy and the mainstreaming of a gender perspective (UNFCCC 2017). While the numbers of women on UNFCCC boards, bodies and government delegations have improved slightly in recent years, women continue to be underrepresented, particularly in high-level positions. In national delegations, nearly 30 percent were women at UN Climate Summit / Conference of the Parties (COP25) in Madrid in 2019, with 20 percent being heads of delegations (GenderCC 2019). This is about the representation and participation of women in negotiations, in order to support the implementation of gender‐related decisions and mandates in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, following from the idea that the increasing participation of women promotes gender‐responsive climate policy and the mainstreaming of a gender perspective (UNFCCC 2017). While the numbers of women on UNFCCC boards, bodies and government delegations have improved slightly in recent years, women continue to be underrepresented, particularly in high‐level positions. In national delegations, nearly 30 percent were women at UN Climate Summit / Conference of the Parties (COP25) in Madrid in 2019, with 20 percent being heads of delegations (GenderCC

(Figure 1).

2019).

impact, therefore, remains limited (GenderCC 2019). At the UN Climate Summit in Marrakesh, 2016 (Conference of the Parties, COP22), a "Gender Action Plan" was agreed upon under the Lima Work Programme to bolster the role of women in climate action. The Gender Action Plan sets out activities that will help achieve this objective. "These range from increasing knowledge and capacities of women and men through workshops and information exchanges, so that they can systematically integrate gender considerations in all areas of their work, to pursuing the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in national delegations, including women from grassroots organisations, local and indigenous peoples and women from Small Island Developing States." (UN Women 2017, p. 1). Delegations of international, feminist non‐governmental organisations are also very present at public framework events of climate summits, such as the Peopleʹs Climate Summit in Bonn, 2017

**Figure 1.** Gender justice protest group GenderCC at the climate summit in Bonn (COP23) on 4 November 2017. Credit: © S. Bauriedl. **Figure 1.** Gender justice protest group GenderCC at the climate summit in Bonn (COP23) on 4 November 2017. Credit: © S. Bauriedl.

5 Climate justice and gender justice have always been closely linked struggles of environmental movements in India, Brazil, Kenya, Germany and many other Climate justice and gender justice have always been closely linked struggles of environmental movements in India, Brazil, Kenya, Germany and many other countries. At the alternative climate summits of the international climate movement and the accompanying demonstrations, there are always protests for gender justice. Furthermore, the young protest groups of the Fridays for Future movements were

led by women as speakers from the very beginning in order to make gender positionality visible.

#### **6. Market-Based, Globalised Mitigation Strategies Are Deepening Gender Inequality**

The valorisation of nature and the valorisation of women's labour are controlled by the same mechanisms. In climate policy, this valorisation can be observed in the mechanism of emission certificate trading. This trade is based on the idea of offsetting carbon emissions and was the focus of negotiations at the Climate Summit in 2019 in Madrid (COP25). The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as well as other international development organisations and private companies in the voluntary emission certificate trade have also been using the unpaid reproductive work of women for several years by investing in the distribution of energy-efficient stoves in so-called developing countries (UNFCCC 2012). Since 2007, energy-efficient stoves have also been accepted as a measure in international emissions certificate trading (Clean Development Mechanism). These stoves reduce the use of fuel (wood and charcoal) and its emissions. For the use of an energy-efficient stove in a so-called developing country, a so-called industrialised country can be compensated by one ton of carbon emissions per year. The spread of efficient stoves has reached enormous proportions in East Africa and South Asia. The German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) distributed 1.45 million energy-efficient stoves in Kenya alone between 2006 and 2014. This means that more than one million tons of carbon emissions have been offset for the national emissions budget of Germany by the unpaid reproductive work of Kenyans (which is almost exclusively done by women there). The emission certificates for the use of efficient stoves receive the additional certificate "Empowerment of Women".

As long as the use of efficient stoves is linked to gender stereotypical roles in reproductive work, the positive effect within patriarchal family structures is not automatically fulfilled. Stoves with less unhealthy smoke development are undoubtedly preferred, and, yes, it is a good idea to secure the energy supply at household level. However, why is the empowerment of women limited to access to pre-industrial technologies that reproduce and legitimise their role as unpaid care workers? Poor women in the Global South are obviously only meant to participate in the new world of green growth as unpaid care workers and with very modest production resources. Efficient stoves are, therefore, unsuitable for the structural empowerment of women.

A second example of the unpaid work of women for climate mitigation strategies is the growing agriculture bioeconomy. In the Paris Agreement of the UN Climate Summit 2015 (COP21), a long-term strategy for a prosperous and climate neutral economy, named a "bioeconomy", is a key solution. The goal of a bioeconomy is to present a vision that can lead to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 through a fair and cost-efficient transition. At first glance, the term "bioeconomy" sounds marginally innovative, since the production of bio-based goods and the consumption of renewable resources has been practiced since the birth of agriculture. With this term, international chemical and agricultural corporations promise nothing less than food security and energy security with the simultaneous substitution of fossil resources at a global scale. Bioeconomy is about increasing production (in absolute terms) and increasing productivity (per area and per plant) through genetically optimised biomass production (also known as synthetic biology) to meet the forecasted, skyrocketing demand for food and post-fossil resources. The rapid expansion of biofuels and biomass production as resource for a decarbonised, so-called green economy creates gendered risks in food insecurity, pressure on resource access and biodiversity, and employment discrimination (Nelson and Stathers 2009, p. 82).

This modernisation of agriculture has massive second-order effects like green grabbing, the transformation of traditional farming in Africa (Newell and Paterson 2010), and gendered labour division in small farming. In particular, the spread of contract farming is associated with negative consequences for women in small farming areas in Africa. In the system of contract farming, farmers are provided with optimised seed if they commit themselves to producing a certain quantity of a crop. The purchase price of the yields is fixed by the agricultural enterprises just at the time of harvest. The risk of price fluctuations and crop failures, therefore, lies solely with the small farmer. Contractors are almost exclusively men. Women farmers are regarded merely as unpaid family helpers. Since, due to the expansion of large farms, less land is available for subsistence farming, farmers in many areas are dependent on income from contract farming and women no longer have the opportunity to secure basic needs through subsistence farming (De Schutter 2011).

The impacts of climate-mitigation activities are widely felt, but the empirical evidence is limited. The use of climate protection technologies already shows that the global and gendered division of labour is being used to place greater burdens on women in the Global South. United Nations forest protection programmes also often have a negative impact on the security of supply and food sovereignity for women, who are dependent on collecting roots and fruit on common land. Thus, if a forest area serves to reduce carbon in the atmosphere (carbon sink), it must

no longer be used for multiple purposes. In many regions, women in the Global South are more affected by the consequences of global climate protection than by climate change. Feminist critics warn against the privatisation and feminisation of environmental responsibility (MacGregor 2010b). The end-of-pipeline strategy (i.e., carbon sequestration from the atmosphere instead of reducing emissions from industrial production) of environmental politics usually represents more work for women since they are responsible for reproductive labour.

#### **7. A Sustainable Planet Needs Intersectional Climate Justice**

In 2019, millions of young people held demonstrations and global climate strikes all over the world. The so-called Fridays for Future protests "were the result of decades of mounting, tangible evidence of environmental collapse, strong scientific research and longstanding grassroots movement-building for just and sustainable alternatives by frontline communities." (AWID 2019, p. 1). In the Anthropocene (the geological era of industrial mass production), the interrelation of the ongoing daily violence of state and corporate extraction, exploitation and colonisation became more and more obvious. However, young people, with young women at the forefront, are not only protesting for generational justice, but global justice. They collaborate with the movements of Black and People of Color, environmental and climate justice collectives and indigenous people, the formerly enslaved, and anti-colonial movements. They direct people's attention to the conditions of the climate crisis.

"Forced resource extraction for profit [ . . . ] has led to our current climate crisis. [ . . . ] The climate crisis is caused and exacerbated by a capitalist model of development that prioritises [profit at the expense of people and the planet]" (AWID 2019). Movements like Fridays for Future are creating an intersectional climate movement and demanding a climate policy including decolonial, queer feminist and ecological perspectives. Social injustice and environmental degradation are both consequences of the same entangled structures of oppression and exploitation. Indigenous and black people, those living in the Global South and "racialised communities have continuously fought for land rights against large-scale deforestation and resource overexploitation, with [women at the forefront]" (AWID 2019).

As long as patriarchal and imperial lifestyles are not an international issue, the responsibility for climate change and the burden of climate protection will remain unequally distributed. Moreover, this inequality runs along (neo-)colonial boundaries, along normative gender roles and along economic power relations. Women are not naturally more concerned about the consequences of climate change, but their allocation and readiness for domestic and emotional care work is functionalised in the

climate policy debate. In order to be able to recognise this patriarchal practice more clearly, the feminist discussion on the connection between the imperial, patriarchal and heteronormative division of labour in capitalism should be taken seriously.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


Dankelmann, Irene. 2010. *Gender and Climate Change*. London: Routledge.


© 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

### **About the Authors**

#### **Diana Baumgarten (she/her)**

Baumgarten Diana (she/her) is associated researcher and lecturer at Department of Social Science, Center for Gender Studies at the University of Basel. She is currently dealing with the gender balance in the Swiss cultural sector. Her research focus is on family, family division of labor, ideas of masculinity and fatherhood, ideas of femininity and motherhood, the interrelationships between family and professional ideas. She regularly holds seminars on all topics at various universities and technical colleges. At last she co-edited *Zeitdiagnosen Männlichkeiten Schweiz* (2021, Seismo, Zürich) and is co-author of many articles like "Kinderwunsch, Familie und Beruf" (with Maihofer, A. and Wehner, N. Springer 2020); "Elternschaft, Erwerbsarbeit und der Faktor Geschlecht" (with Maihofer, A. 2021 Budrich); "Stay-at-home fathers on the wane - In comes daddy-day!" (with Schwiter, K. 20217, Human Geography).

#### **Persson Perry Baumgartinger**

Persson Perry Baumgartinger is an independent scholar, senior researcher, and senior lecturer for applied linguistics, trans studies, social history, and social work. He teaches, writes, consults, and coaches in critical diversity and social justice, trans,\_inter\*queer, sexgender diversity, language and communication, activist research, critical research, and writing. He has been active at various universities and NGOs, including University of St. Gallen, HU Berlin, FH Campus Vienna, University of Vienna, etc. Since 2014 he has been Senior Researcher at Dreilinden gGmbH (Rainbow Philanthropy 3-5). Publications, research projects, and lectures, including *Trans Studies* (Zaglossus, 2017); *Die staatliche Regulierung von Trans* (transcript, 2019); *Kultur Produzieren* (transcript, 2019); *Is a safe space possible? The potential of 4 principles in group learning settings* (2019); *queeropedia* (2007, 2009, 2013, and 2019); "language . power . discrimination . resistance – a collage" (nonoverlag, 2012); *Trans Personen am österreichischen Arbeitsmarkt* (diskursiv, 2008, with V. Frketić); "Strategies Against Transphobia" (Prius, 2005, with V. Frketić).

#### **Sybille Bauriedl (she/her)**

Sybille Bauriedl is Professor of Political Ecology at Europe University of Flensburg (Germany) and represents the subject areas of urban geography, political ecology, cultural geography, social geography, developmental geography, and education for sustainability with environmental related questions. Her research projects deal with local energy transition, smart urbanism, and climate justice. She has been involved in disciplinary theory building as well as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary applied research for many years. Her recent publications include "Platform Urbanism: Technocapitalist Production of Private and Public Spaces" (with Strüver, A., *Urban Planning*, 2020), "Luxusmodelle für den Klimaschutz? E-Carsharing in Großstädten als Experimentierfeld der Automobilund Digitalwirtschaft" (Transcript, 2020), and "Queer-feministischer Blick in "Schlafstädte" und "Smart Homes"" (Opladen, 2020).

#### **Kathy Davis**

Kathy Davis is senior research fellow in the Sociology Department at the VU University (The Netherlands). She was co-editor of the *European Journal of Women's Studies* for many years. Her research interests include sociology of the body, intersectionality, travelling theory, and transnational practices; new forms of body activism; the use of emotions in critical inquiry, biography as methodology and critical and creative strategies for academic writing. She is the author of many articles, anthologies, and books, including *Reshaping the Female Body* (Routledge, 1995), *Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences* (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), *The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves: How Feminism Travels Across Borders* (Duke, 2007), and *Dancing Tango: Passionate Encounters in a Globalizing World* (NYUPress, 2015). She is currently working on the *Routledge Handbook of Intersectionality Studies* with Helma Lutz and *Silences, Neglected Feelings and Blind-spots in Research Practice* with Janice Irvine.

#### **Rahel El-Maawi (ra)**

Rahel El-Maawi is a community activist and a freelancer in gender equality work and lecturer at various universities for applied studies. She advises institutions on the development of a diversity-oriented corporate culture. Previously she was a lecturer and head of the Competence Centre Civil Society and Participation at the Institute for Sociocultural Development at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Switzerland). For several years she has been working with body in space and time, exploring ways in which movement and dance can expand sociocultural work. She is co-founder of Bla\*Sh — Network of Black Nonbinary People and Black Women in German-speaking Switzerland.

#### **Antke A. Engel (they/them)**

Antke Antek Engel holds a guest professorship for Gender and Queer Studies at the distant learning university FernUni Hagen (Germany) from 2019 to 2022, where they recently published introductory videos to queer theory (https://e.feu. de/queer-theory-videos). In 2006, Engel founded the Institute for Queer Theory in Berlin (http://www.queerinstitut.de) and since then functions as its director. As a trained philosopher with a PhD from Potsdam University (Germany) Engel is engaged in queer, feminist, and poststructuralist theory, political philosophy, and visual cultural studies. They were Asa Briggs fellow at the University of Sussex (UK) and visiting fellow at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics (UK), as well as the Institute of Cultural Inquiry Berlin (Germany), and held guest professorships at TU Darmstadt, ASH Berlin, and University of Hamburg (Germany). Engel co-edited *Hegemony and Heteronormativity* (Routledge, 2011) and *Global Justice and Desire: Queering Economy* (Routledge, 2015), and published numerous essays and the monographs *Wider die Eindeutigkeit* (Campus, 2002) and *Bilder von Sexualität und Ökonomie* (Transcript, 2009).

#### **Sherine Hafez (she/her)**

Sherine Hafez is Professor and Department Chair of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She is the Co-Editor of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (JMEWS) and served as President for the Association of Middle East Anthropologists (AMEA). Hafez's research focuses on Islamic movements and gender studies in Arab and Middle Eastern cultures. Her most recent book *Women of the Midan, The Untold Stories of Egypt's Revolutionaries* (Indiana University Press, 2019) discusses Egypt's revolutionary women and gendered corporeal resistance in the Middle East.

Hafez authored two earlier monographs on her work with Islamic women activists, *The Terms of Empowerment: Islamic Women Activists in Egypt* (The American University in Cairo Press, 2003), and, *An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion*  *And Secularism In Women's Islamic Movements* (New York University Press, 2011). She co-edited, *Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium*  (Indiana University Press, 2013) and her articles have appeared in *American Ethnologist; Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society; Feminist Review; Journal of Middle East Women's Studies and Journal of North African Studies*.

#### **Jeff Hearn**

Jeff Hearn is Professor Emeritus, and Research Director of the GODESS Institute, Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; Senior Professor in Gender Studies, Örebro University, Sweden; Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield, UK; and honorary doctor, Social Sciences, Lund University, Sweden. He was Professor Extraordinarius at the Institute for Social and Health Studies, University of South Africa 2018–2020. He is co-managing editor of *Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality* book series, coeditor of *NORMA: The International Journal for Masculinity Studies* and was (co-) chair of *RINGS: International Research Association of Institutions of Advanced Gender Studies* 2014–2020. His recent books include *Men of the world: Genders, globalizations, transnational times* (Sage, 2015); *Revenge pornography: Gender, sexuality and motivations, with Matthew Hall* (Routledge, 2017); *Engaging youth in activism, research and pedagogical praxis: transnational and intersectional perspectives on gender, sex, and race,* co-edited with Tamara Shefer, Kopano Ratele, and Floretta Boonzaier, Routledge, 2018; *Unsustainable institutions of men: Transnational dispersed centres, gender power, contradictions*, co-edited with Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila and Marina Hughson (Routledge, 2019); *Does knowledge have a gender?* Co-editor (Örebro University Press, 2020); and *Age at work: Ambiguous boundaries of organizations, organizing and ageing*, with Wendy Parkin (Sage, 2021).

#### **Carolyn Kehn (she/her)**

Carolyn Kehn is an affiliated researcher for the GODESS Institute, Hanken School of Economics (Finland), and a US Army Officer in the Medical Service Corps studying for her Master of Social Work degree at the University of Kentucky. A recipient of the 2018 Fulbright-University of Helsinki Award and the 2019 Roth Thomson Award, she graduated with her Master of Social Science (MSSc) degree in 2020 from the University of Helsinki. Prior to that, she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2018. Ms. Kehn's master thesis research focused on the entry-exit narratives of women veterans from the Finnish Defence Forces. Her other academic interests include sense of belonging, work–life balance, and theoretical conceptualizations of military institutions and occupations. Ms. Kehn's most recent publication, in collaboration with Jeff Hearn, Charlotta Niemistö, is entitled "Career women and motherhood within the 'Finnish Dream': Slow progress in professional knowledgeintensive organisations". It is available digitally here: https://journals.sagepub. com/doi/full/10.1177/0950017020987392.

#### **'Mathabo Khau**

'Mathabo Khau is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth (South Africa). Her research focuses on using participatory visual methodologies in addressing gender, sexuality and HIV and AIDS issues and integrating HIV and AIDS into higher education curricula. Her Science Education (Biology and Chemistry) background and interest in inclusive education provides a frame for working towards the inclusion of those who are marginalise — using 'intersectionality' and 'research as social change' frameworks. Mathabo is a 2010 GEXcel International Collegium Research Fellow with the Universities of Linköping and Örebro (Sweden), and a 2017 Nordic Africa Institute Research Fellow. She is the 2020 Nelson Mandela University Faculty of Education Researcher of the Year. She has published several peer reviewed articles and book chapters. She is the Co-Editor-in Chief for *Educational Research for Social Change*, an online journal.

#### **Kristina Lanz**

Kristina Lanz works as a senior policy advisor on "development policy" at Alliance Sud and is part of the Advisory Committee on International Cooperation, advising the Federal Council of Switzerland and several federal offices. She holds an MA in International Studies and Diplomacy from the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Berne (Switzerland). For her PhD thesis and as a consultant for Mokoro, she has carried out several long-term participatory research projects on gender and land issues in Ghana, Mongolia, and Tanzania. She has published several academic articles and policy papers on questions related to gender equality, sustainability, and global, social, and environmental justice.

#### **Andrea Maihofer**

Andrea Maihofer is professor emeritus at the Department of Social Sciences and Gender Studies, University of Basel (Switzerland). Her research focuses on gender theory, men and masculinity research, change and persistence of gender and gender relations, family research, change of gender arrangements in the family, moral, legal, and constitutional theory, and social theory and gender studies. Her recent publications inculde "'Antigenderistische' Angriffe - wie entgegnen?" (with Thym, A., Barbara Budrich, 2021), "Kinderwunsch, Familie und Beruf" (with Baumgarten, D. and Wehner, N., Springer, 2020) and "Zur Aktualität von Marx' Verständnis der Menschenrechte und der Idee eines pluralen Universalismus" (Campus, 2020).

#### **Charlotta Niemistö**

Charlotta Niemistö was previously Project Leader of the research projects *Social and Economic Sustainability of Future Working Life,* financed by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland, and is now Project Leader of the research projects *Alone but connected? Digital (in)equalities in care work and generational relationships among older people living alone*, financed by the Academy of Finland. She is Director of the Gender, Organisation, Diversity, Equality and Social Sustainability in transnational times (GODESS) Institute at the department of Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics (Finland). Charlotta is Associate Editor of the journal *Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal*. Her recent publications include two co-written chapters in *Age at work: Ambiguous boundaries of organizations, organizing and ageing*, a book by Jeff Hearn and Wendy Parkin (Sage, 2021); and the article "Career women and motherhood within the 'Finnish Dream': Slow progress in professional knowledge-intensive organisations" in *Work, Employment and Society* with Jeff Hearn, Carolyn Kehn and Annamari Tuori (2021). The article is available online ahead of print: https:// journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0950017020987392.

#### **Margo Okazawa-Rey**

Margo Okazawa-Rey, Professor Emerita San Francisco State University, is an activist and educator working on issues of militarism, armed conflict, and violence against women examined intersectionally. She has long-standing activist commitments in South Korea and Palestine, working closely with Du Re Bang/My Sisters Place and Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, respectively. Her life work was shaped by having been a founding member of the Combahee River Collective.

Professor Okazawa-Rey serves on the International Board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe in Bern, Switzerland, and Board Chair of Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). Her recent publications include "'Nation-izing' Coalition and Solidarity Politics for US Anti-militarist Feminists", *Social Justice*  (2020); *Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives*, Oxford University Press (2020); "No Freedom without Connections: Envisioning Sustainable Feminist Solidarities" (2018) in *Feminist Freedom Warriors: Genealogies, Justice, Politics, and Hope*, Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Linda Carty (eds.); *Between a Rock and Hard Place: Southeast Asian Women Confront Extractivism, Militarism, and Religious Fundamentalisms* (2018).

#### **Sarah Owens**

Sarah Owens is Professor of Visual Communication and Visual Cultures at Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland), where she chairs the subject area, graduate program and research unit in Visual Communication. In her teaching and research, Owens focuses on social and anthropological aspects of the history, production and circulation of visual artifacts. In particular, she is interested in marginalized or hidden epistemologies and practices, in processes of unlearning and decentering hegemonic knowledge, and in educating for uncertain times interests that correlate with outreach efforts of co-directing and co-organizing cultural events that focus on Black film, literature and fine arts. Owens holds a Ph.D. from the University of Reading and M.A.(RCA) from the Royal College of Art and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, UK. In 2009, she was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. She has chaired several academic symposia and conferences, and has edited and contributed to numerous volumes on design research, history and theory.

#### **Ruchika Ranwa**

Ruchika Ranwa is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the School of Liberal Arts, IMS Unison University (India). She holds a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India. Over the last few years, she has worked as Research Assistant with University of Pune (India) and Uppsala University (Sweden). Her research interests include Heritage, Tourism, State, Social Movements, Gender and Development. Her most recent publications include "Heritage, Community Participation and the State: Case of the Kalbeliya Dance of India" (2021), published in *International Journal of Heritage Studies* and "Impact of Tourism on Intangible Cultural Heritage: Case of Kalbeliyas from Rajasthan, India" (2021), published in the *Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change*.

#### **Shahra Razavi**

Shahra Razavi is the Chief of the Research & Data Section at UN Women, where she is research director of UN Women's flagship reports, including Progress of the World's Women. Prior to joining UN Women, Razavi was a senior researcher at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and Visiting Professor at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies at Universities of Bern and Fribourg (Switzerland). She specializes in the gender dimensions of development, with a particular focus on work, social policy, and care. Her publications include *Seen, Heard and Counted: Rethinking Care in a Development Context* (Blackwell, 2011), *The Gendered Impacts of Liberalization* (Routledge, 2009) and *Gender Justice, Development and Rights* (with Maxine Molyneux, Oxford University Press, 2002). Razavi received her bachelor's degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her master's and doctorate from Oxford University.

#### **Suruchi Thapar-Björkert**

Suruchi Thapar-Björkert is docent and senior lecturer at the Department of Government, University of Uppsala (Sweden). Her research trajectories cover the following areas: gender, colonialism and nationalism, gendered violence(s), ethnicity, social capital and social exclusion, social protection schemes and marginalized communities, racism in healthcare, civil society and deliberative democracy, assisted reproductive technologies and feminist research methodologies. She has published widely in these research areas in journals such as *Ethnic and Racial Studies; Feminist Review; Feminist Theory; Gender; Place and Culture; Sociological Review; Interventions*. She is the recipient of many research awards including university research award (Kraftpaket för Jämställdhet) at Uppsala university in 2012. She is involved in four Swedish Research Council funded projects on *Civil Society and Deliberative Democracy* (2015–2017, PI), *The paradoxes of empowerment - Employment Guarantee, Women and Dalits in India* (2016–2019, co-applicant), *From Waste to Profit: Gender, Biopolitics and Neo-liberalism in Indian Commercial Surrogacy* (2017–2021; coapplicant) and *Understanding racism in healthcare: Developing and implementing antiracist strategies through shared knowledge production and evaluation* (2018–2021; coapplicant). She has recently co-edited a book, *Postcolonial and Postsocialist Dialogues: Intersections, Opacities, Challenges in Feminist Theorizing and Practic*e (Routledge, 2021).

#### **Vanessa E. Thompson (she/her)**

Vanessa E. Thompson is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies, European University Viadrina (Germany). She was previously a Fellow at the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA). Her research and teaching are focused on critical racism studies, black studies (especially black social and political movements), transnational feminist theories, post- and decolonial feminist theories and methodologies, urban studies, critical theories of policing and abolition. Her recent publications are: "Policing in Europe: Disability Justice and Abolitionist Intersectional Care" (*Race & Class*, 2021), a Special Issue on State Violence, Race and Mental Health (*Race & Class*, 2020), and "Decolonizing City Spaces and Images. Black Collective Solidarity and Conviviality in Paris" (Darkmatter, Special Issue on Racial Imagery, 2020). Forthcoming: *Abolitionismus. Ein Reader* (together with Daniel Loick) under contract with Suhrkamp.

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