Basic income: The potential for gendered empowerment?

Alison Koslowski, Ann-Zofie Duvander

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Basic income is likely to gain momentum as the next social welfare trend to sweep over the world with ideas of how to improve the fairness and efficiency of distributing money. Other earlier movements with similar ambitions to transform societies, ranging across the political spectrum from socialism to neo-liberalism, have led to very different consequences for strata of citizens, but have in common that they have de-prioritised gender equality in favour of other interests. Advocates of basic income suggest that in addition to pragmatic gains, such as a more efficient state administration, primarily a basic income will empower citizens, leading to the potential for greater human flourishing. Our question is whether this empowerment will be gendered and if so, how? So far, the basic income debate addresses gender only in so far as it would raise the income of the poorest, of whom a larger proportion are women. However, it is less clear how it might contribute to a transformation of gendered behaviour, making possible divergent shapes of life where binary and set notions of gender are not a restriction. We discuss the idea of basic income from a perspective of gender equality in the Swedish context.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8-15
JournalSocial Inclusion
Volume6
Issue number4
Early online date22 Nov 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 Nov 2018

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • basic income
  • gender equality
  • Sweden
  • universal worker model
  • parental leave

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Basic income: The potential for gendered empowerment?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this