This week, the New York Times’s Catherine Rampell muses about the efforts to improve highly-educated women’s presence, efficiency, and productivity in the US economy, in spite of the challenges posed by child birth and child rearing. Rampell noted the converging gender-parity policies being promulgated by the EU, individual european nations, and the US such as such as paid paternity leave, flexible scheduling, e-commuting, and on-site childcare. In the United States, with less of welfare state and less corporatist rapport between business and government than in Europe, similar initiatives have largely been adopted by progressive, wealthy states (California, New Jersey) or individual corporations, rather than nationally. Rampell also notes the relative dearth of US parity policies compared to Europe, indicating that a policy convergence may still be in its infancy.
The normative importance of narrowing the pay and opportunity gaps between mothers and fathers (a recent Government Accountability Office study shows that as of 2007, managers who are mothers are paid 79% of what managers who are fathers are paid) , is accompanied by expanded economic importance caused by declining workforces in developed countries. As Rampell notes, by 2050, the ratio of working-age Americans to those or retirement age is projected to decline from 4.7 in 2008 to 2.6 in 2050; further, she cites a recent study that attributes up to one fifth of recent economic growth to more efficient work allocations to underemployed groups, such as highly educated women. In short, the importance of maximizing the contributions of qualified workers will continue to grow in developed countries if we are to continue meeting our social obligations to ourselves and to compete in the global economy.
This ongoing international discussion, as well as the convergence of policies aimed at eliminating the glass ceiling (or “diffusing the mommy bomb”) such as paid maternity and paternity leave, flexible hours, and on-site childcare, is shaped by, and possibly the product of, by globalization mechanisms. However, with roots in economic and normative arguments, it may be hard to fit the resultant policy convergences into only one of the prevailing convergence theories as defined by Daniel W. Drezner. It is clear that the motivation for these policies is not externally or structurally imposed, and therefore they are not a product of the Race to the Bottom or the World Society theories. While motivations for EU-based policy mechanism may be the result of Neoliberal cooperation, this is unlikely for convergences involving US and European policies, in which the benefits of such policies would not be shared (although the financial motivations for parity, and the perceptions of disparity as an economic externality, contribute to greater overlap with the Neoliberal theory).
In this case, the closest theory would be the Elite Consensus theory, which fits the scenario only imperfectly. What if history documents that the prevailing motivation for this convergence is that as women gained level of parity in society and the workplace, including policymaking positions within States, National Governments, and large companies, they seek to redress a disparity which is naturally of interest to them using solutions gleaned from global counterparts? In that case, it would be agent based, and due to compositional and normative factors; this corresponds to the Elite Society theory, but the theory stipulates that interdependence precedes convergence (It is hard to imagine a situation in which New Jersey and Netherlands are economically interdependent on a level which affects regulations regarding professional mothers). In this case, the Elite Society theory may be overstating the importance of global interdependence in the diffusion of value-based policy advancements.
References
Drezner, Daniel W. Globalization and Policy Convergence. 2001. International Studies Association.
The Government Accountability Office. Women in Management: Analysis of Female Managers’ Representation, Characteristics, and Pay. Sept 20 2010. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10892r.pdf
Rampell, Catherine. How Shared Diaper Duty Could Stimulate the Economy. April 2 2013. New York Times Online http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/how-shared-diaper-duty-could-stimulate-the-economy.html?_r=0
The normative importance of narrowing the pay and opportunity gaps between mothers and fathers (a recent Government Accountability Office study shows that as of 2007, managers who are mothers are paid 79% of what managers who are fathers are paid) , is accompanied by expanded economic importance caused by declining workforces in developed countries. As Rampell notes, by 2050, the ratio of working-age Americans to those or retirement age is projected to decline from 4.7 in 2008 to 2.6 in 2050; further, she cites a recent study that attributes up to one fifth of recent economic growth to more efficient work allocations to underemployed groups, such as highly educated women. In short, the importance of maximizing the contributions of qualified workers will continue to grow in developed countries if we are to continue meeting our social obligations to ourselves and to compete in the global economy.
This ongoing international discussion, as well as the convergence of policies aimed at eliminating the glass ceiling (or “diffusing the mommy bomb”) such as paid maternity and paternity leave, flexible hours, and on-site childcare, is shaped by, and possibly the product of, by globalization mechanisms. However, with roots in economic and normative arguments, it may be hard to fit the resultant policy convergences into only one of the prevailing convergence theories as defined by Daniel W. Drezner. It is clear that the motivation for these policies is not externally or structurally imposed, and therefore they are not a product of the Race to the Bottom or the World Society theories. While motivations for EU-based policy mechanism may be the result of Neoliberal cooperation, this is unlikely for convergences involving US and European policies, in which the benefits of such policies would not be shared (although the financial motivations for parity, and the perceptions of disparity as an economic externality, contribute to greater overlap with the Neoliberal theory).
In this case, the closest theory would be the Elite Consensus theory, which fits the scenario only imperfectly. What if history documents that the prevailing motivation for this convergence is that as women gained level of parity in society and the workplace, including policymaking positions within States, National Governments, and large companies, they seek to redress a disparity which is naturally of interest to them using solutions gleaned from global counterparts? In that case, it would be agent based, and due to compositional and normative factors; this corresponds to the Elite Society theory, but the theory stipulates that interdependence precedes convergence (It is hard to imagine a situation in which New Jersey and Netherlands are economically interdependent on a level which affects regulations regarding professional mothers). In this case, the Elite Society theory may be overstating the importance of global interdependence in the diffusion of value-based policy advancements.
References
Drezner, Daniel W. Globalization and Policy Convergence. 2001. International Studies Association.
The Government Accountability Office. Women in Management: Analysis of Female Managers’ Representation, Characteristics, and Pay. Sept 20 2010. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10892r.pdf
Rampell, Catherine. How Shared Diaper Duty Could Stimulate the Economy. April 2 2013. New York Times Online http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/how-shared-diaper-duty-could-stimulate-the-economy.html?_r=0
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