The Handbook on Gender and Social Policy edited by Sheila Shaver is an important all-in-one contribution of feminist conceptualizations of social policy. Each of the twenty-four chapters takes a different perspective to produce a wide-ranging interrogation of how various aspects of social policy are gendered and have gendering impacts. It includes contributions by both seminal authors in the field and comparatively new researchers, providing well-rounded engagements with long-standing problems of welfare and social policy.
In Part 1 of the Handbook, ‘Perspectives’, the authors show how various standpoints on gender and social policy frame politics and policy questions in the field. The ‘Perspectives’ chapters discuss broad conceptualizations and theoretical considerations with regards to social policy questions like the idea of equality and its relevance for the welfare state or the relevance of men’s experiences in social policy from a transnational comparative perspective. In ‘Intersectionality, gender and social policy’ Fiona Williams expands and elaborates on the ‘gender lens’ to demonstrate how intersectionality as a way of thinking about the dynamics of multiple social relations of power is relevant to social policy. Shahra Razavi and Silke Staab explore the meaning of care policies in the countries of the Global South, shifting the focus from Europe-centric considerations in ‘Rethinking social policy: a gender perspective from the developing world’. The chapter by Joyce Outshoorn, ‘Policy reforms on prostitution: the quest for control’, examines the policy discussions on sex work arguing against forced labour.
Part 2, ‘Inequalities in Work and Care’, tackles the gendered division of labour, paid and unpaid work, and care work. Chapters in this section focus on research on family policy and family models mainly in OECD countries, contributing to debates on the interactions of family, employment, and the economy in the Global North. The nexus is explored for instance in the chapters on gendered economic inequalities, pensions policy, social investment, poverty, and care policies. Importantly, Valeria Esquivel’s ‘Care policies in the South’ relocates the locus of analysis to the framings of care policies in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America, bringing nuance to the meaning of care transnationally. Following from that, Deborah Brennan and Elizabeth Adamson examine ‘Care and migration’ and the debates resulting from the growing demand for care services in the Global North that draw migrant care workers from the Global South, demonstrating the intersecting ‘push and pull’ factors in employment policies that impact care provision and the globalization of care today.
What becomes clear when reading this edited volume is the long-standing feminist assertion that a gendered perspective is indispensable in exposing the complexities of social policy. As the chapters of Part 3 on ‘Family Policy’ show, the legal changes in the field of marriage and family relations and the emergence and persistence of more diverse family structures have consequences and challenges for the protection of vulnerable persons. Family policy should therefore compensate for and reduce the impact of fluctuations and transitions in family life rather than force families to comply with outdated notions of marriage and family, as Belinda Hewitt and Michelle Brady claim in ‘Making and unmaking families’. ‘The movement towards marriage equality in advanced industrialized countries’ by Mary Bernstein and Brenna Harvey examines the politics of same-sex marriage in the Global North, exploring the impact of state structures on the types of relationship recognition demanded by LGBTQI+ activists.
The concluding part of the Handbook ‘Case Studies, Countries and Regions’ presents original case studies of social policies in particular countries or regions, balancing out the theoretical focus of Part 1 of the Handbook with empirical cases. While the case studies do not stand for a selection of welfare models (including chapters on the Netherlands, Spain, USA, Norway, Latin America, China), they expose context- and site- dependent social policy issues steeped in specific institutions, culture, and politics.
Nuance and context-dependent knowledge lie at the heart of feminist intersectional social policies. The Handbook is an excellent starting point and overview for students and scholars who want to delve into the field of social policy. My main critique of the volume is the lack of pluralistic voices and a strong Global North angle. Except for a couple of non-Western and non-Europe-centric contributions, most of the discussions in the volume either centre on Global North/OECD countries or look at Global South countries condensed into large composite regions. What is more, there is a clear need of more comprehensive analysis of racialized inequalities in social policies and welfare state models, especially when discussing contexts other than the US.
Overall, the ‘Handbook on Gender and Social Policy’ reaffirms the feminist position that challenged the initial ‘gender neutrality’ of mainstream social policy analyses. In this edited collection, social policy is convincingly examined as not only a gendered and gendering, but also an intersectional, policy field that maintains and (re-)establishes inequalities in welfare regimes and family models.
