Jill Rubery Manchester Business School

1. Regulation and Gender Equality Jill Rubery Manchester Business School

2. Task for the World Bank • Review the labour market regulation/labour market flexibility debate with respect to its implications for female labour market participation and gender equality • Focus on developed economies (my expertise and the prime focus of the debate) but extend also to transition and developing economies. Conclude by considering how regulations may be used to promote gender equality. Additional task for today • Consider implications for the supporting jobs into recovery agenda

3. Outline of talk • Why focus on gender issues within regulation debate? • Key review findings: developed economies Gender mainstreaming specific policy analyses • Key review findings with respect to developing economies • Outline of approach for reregulating for gender equality • Implications for policy to support jobs out of the recovery for women

4. 1. Why focus on gender issues within regulation debate? Gender equality issues are taking on a higher profile within the OECD flexibility debates • Regulation recognised as not incompatible with good overall employment performance- argument now focused on adjustment to shocks and impact on employment composition. • Vulnerable groups associated with outsider status • Women seen as ‘outsiders’ - excluded by regulations that promote longer term employment relationships/labour hoarding and regulations which raise costs/reduce job creation. • Testing for gender effects in cross national pooled time series data

5. 2. Key review findings: developed economies • In reality testing for sex effects not gender searching for cross national and cross time underlying differences in labour market experiences by sex differences in gender regimes captured by country fixed effects. • Recognition that labour market regulation explains very little of evolution of female employment • Impact of gender-specific regulations (tax on part-time work, tax on second income earners) stronger than general labour market regulation effects.

6. Figure 3.1 Index of employment protection legislation scores (2003) and female employment rate 2008 by country b Gender employment rate 2008 a Employment protection legislation 2003 ) Source: OECD (2004) and OECD (2009)

7. 2. Key review findings: developed economies • Results, even within this framework, mixed and inconclusive Stronger for relative unemployment than for relative employment – but raises issue of whether women without work have same propensity to regard themselves as unemployed rather than non employed across countries Different impacts on female full-time and female part-time work Sensitive to selection of countries included Presumption that labour market policies interact in same way with sex/gender across countries ( but entitlements to benefits differ, union policies differ) More attention to levels of regulation than to coverage and asymmetries Regulation indices do not take account of differential effects by gender across the components- for example the Rigidity of Hours index within the Doing Business Index or the extent of asymmetry within the Employment Protection Legislation Index • Limited number of studies- but multiple references –evidence thin as well as mixed.

8. 2. Gender mainstreaming specific policy aeas: ‘The devil is in the detail’ Cross national policy by policy analysis does not allow for: • Differences in interactions related to differences in gender regimes across countries- for example differences in social attitudes, working time preferences, continuity of employment, household systems of welfare and taxation, relationships to trade unions and collective bargaining etc. • Differences in interactions related to differences in the specifics of particular policies (differences in coverage, in orientations, in eligibility conditions) • Differences in interactions with gender related to differences in institutional regimes-impact of policies depend on bundles of policies – on different paths or logics of capitalism not on incremental policy by policy change. Considered nine policy areas: employment protection, working time, unemployment, active labour market policies, trade unions and wage setting, minimum wages, product market regulation, tax regimes, mobility policies (transport and housing).

12. Table 4.1 Benefit receipt among the unemployed and the gender gap Note: based on European Community Household Panel Survey – the question asked is ‘Do you receive unemployment benefit or assistance?’ Source: Azmat et al. 2006

13. 3. Key findings with respect to developing economies Some cross national studies mix developed and developing economies • Is it possible/sensible to seek to find a common relationship between regulation and gender employment patterns in such a diverse country set? • Weak or non existent effects by gender in some of these studies, e.g.Botero et al. 2004 • Some single country/ region specific studies find regulation has negative effects on employment /women but timing sometimes mismatched e.g. Argentina • More promising to look at regime types (Abu Sharkh ILO)- particularly between systems with strong versus weak family structures.

14. 3. Developing country specific approaches: Analyses need to be multi-sectoral, family and community-specific , sensitive to globalization Regulating with a large informal sector • Some feminized areas all within informal sector- not just an issue of promoting labour mobility into formal sector but of formalizing economic activity • Any displacement effects from regulation/ minimum wages need to b e analyzed through a gender lens- segregation within as well as between sectors. • Minimum wage may act as reference point for fair wages in informal sector • More important to develop social protection covering informal sector as well as formal than EPL Regulating under globalization • Scope for action to improve employment conditions depends on how footloose FDI actually is- positive examples depend on active commitment by MNCs .

15. 4. Re-regulating for gender equality Gender is a social construct Regulation debate takes gender difference as a given- as sex difference Aim of regulation • Reduce gender difference in labour supply • Create more inclusive labour markets- reduce differentiation between female- and male-dominated workplaces

17. 5. Implications for policy to support jobs out of the recovery for women: Lessons from this review Avoid gender stereotypes i.e. women as contingent labour • Many women are breadwinners or income vital for their own and family subsistence • Contingency may be reinforced by other policies such as household-based tax and welfare policies Gender segregation matters • Women may benefit from stabilisation of employment through regulation/ not always vulnerable to exclusion Country, regulatory and gender regime matter- not one size fits all • Differences in extent of gender difference in employment continuity, hours, access to social protection, coverage by trade unions/collective bargaining etc. Regulation for inclusion not just exclusion • Form of regulation matters and in particular extent of coverage but absence of regulation does not generate inclusiveness • Extend employment codes/ social protection to non standard and informal workers • Coverage of policies to stabilise employment or to redeploy/retrain must include female-dominated as well as male dominated segments Policies should be individual not household based • Otherwise women likely to be excluded/ face problems of withdrawal of support if improve own employment position

18. Conclusions • Doom mongers’ predictions of impact of regulations not borne out before- women’s employment has risen despite new regulations • Regulations may act to protect status quo/insiders but also stabilise employment/reduce risks • Deregulated labour markets may intensify gender differences- and women interested in quality not just quantity of employment • Need a new positive agenda to address multiple dimensions of women’s inequality • Aim should be to reduce women’s role as outsiders -not regard gender difference as a biological/ inevitable characteristic.