How Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism Requires a Wider Lens

Abstract

Mandel and Shalev's (2009) response to the efforts made by Estévez-Abe (2005) and Soskice (2005) to ‘gender the varieties of capitalism’ (VoC) has provided a valuable critique focused on two major topics, the explanations of variations in participation rates of women and the explanations of variations in gender segregation. Both of these elements of the critique can be further widened and deepened to underline the need to move beyond the rather narrow lens of the varieties of capitalism perspective. In the first stage of their critique, Mandel and Shalev argue that the division between coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs) does not and indeed cannot, within the constraints of the current VoC framework, explain variations in female participation. The main divisions are found among CME countries not between CME and LME country groups. As these differences in access to employment constitute the most important dimension of difference in economic opportunities for women in a cross-country perspective, this gap in the varieties of capitalism (VoC) framework must be considered a major flaw. The partial explanations offered by both Soskice and Estévez-Abe are rejected by Mandel and Shalev as either inconsistent with the VoC framework or as blatantly functional and viewed entirely from a male perspective. Inconsistency with the framework occurs when both Estévez-Abe and Soskice attribute the explanation for the social democratic provision of public services to exogenous political will, even though, according to Mandel and Shalev, political will in the VoC framework is expected to be mobilized in the interests of the business community, not those of excluded women. Functionalism is apparent in Soskice's suggestion that it is possible to regard both the provision of public services in Scandinavia and the use of incentives for stay at home housewives in Germany as two answers to the same business imperative—that of ensuring that male employees are able to focus on their skilled work and firm-specific training without being distracted by domestic commitments. The weakness of this explanation is in effect acknowledged by Soskice in his admission that the VoC framework offers no explanations for which solution would be adopted.

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