Making Visible the Hidden Economy: The Case for Gender-Impact Analysis of Economic Policy

Susan Himmelweit ()
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Susan Himmelweit: Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University

No 42, Open Discussion Papers in Economics from The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper makes the case for analyzing the gender impact of economic policy, based on the existence of an unpaid as well as a paid economy and on structural differences between men's and women's positions across the two economies. Economic policy is targeted on the paid economy. However, unintended impacts on the unpaid care economy may limit how effective any policy can be. Gender-impact assessment will not only make the effects of economic policies on gender inequalities transparent; it will also enable policy makers to achieve all their goals more effectively, whether or not these goals relate explicitly to gender. The introduction in the UK of a new Working Families' Tax Credit (WFTC), designed to make employment pay and help reduce child poverty, provides an example of how genderimpact assessment could have been used to improve an initial design. The paper also suggests criteria for evaluating economic policy, so that its full gender impact and its effects on both paid and caring economies can be assessed.

Keywords: Gender-impact assessment; economic policy; tax and benefit system; paid and unpaid economies; care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-08
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Published in Feminist Economics, Volume 8, Number 1, 1 March 2002 , pp. 49-70(22)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:opn:wpaper:42

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