Lectures on Social Justice and the Family,
Havens Center, University of Wisconsin, 1-2 December 2009.
By Ingrid Robeyns, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Lecture 2 (Wednesday December 2nd)
Can the Traditional Gender Division of Labor be Justified?
Please note: this lecture is based on work in progress and should therefore not be cited without
permission. Comments are very welcome and can be sent to robeyns <at> fwb.eur.nl
1. The surprisingly conflicting views on the gender division of labor
This lecture starts from the following observation regarding the traditional gender division of
labor – an observation which I find surprising.
On the one side there is a group of people, both inside and outside academia, who are
strongly convinced that the traditional gender division of labor is deeply unjust. Especially
feminist scholars have written at length about why the traditional gender division of labor is
unjust. Other work in political philosophy takes it for granted that the traditional gender division
of labor is unjust, and that we need to find ways to make the gender division of labor more equal
(Brighouse and Olin Wright 2008). If you (the reader or listener of this lecture) belong to this
group, then you may wonder why I think it is necessary to answer the question that forms the title
of my paper. Isn’t it obvious, really, that the traditional gender division of labor is deeply unjust,
and that we will never reach a gender just society as long as we don’t manage to make that
division more equal?
Yet on the other side there is an equally important group of people, also both inside and
outside academia, who fail to see what is wrong with the traditional gender division of labor.
They need not all be right-wing or conservative people, nor need they be stupid; indeed, we will
later in this lecture come across an example of a smart left-wing philosopher who has explicitly
posed into question the claim that the traditional gender division of labor is unjust. Moreover, we
observe that very large numbers of families throughout the world practice some form of the
traditional gender division of labor, and do not seem to be particularly bothered by its alleged
unjust nature.
I believe that the reason why this stalemate is possible, is that political philosophers have
not done enough work to carefully argue that the traditional gender division of labor is unjust.
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Contemporary political philosophy has, in my view, a rather dismal track record when it concerns
analysis issues of gender injustice in the family. In her seminal work, Susan Okin (1989)
analyzed how a number of major theorists, such as John Rawls, Michael Walzer, and Robert
Nozick, deal with the family and the gendered division of labor in particular. Okin shows that
these theories do not examine whether the family is just, but instead implicitly assume that the
family is a just institution. Most theories of distributive justice are either excluding justice within
the family from their scope, or are discussing the family in a false gender neutral way, that is,
without acknowledging that one’s well-being within the family might depend a great deal on
whether one is a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. Reviewing the liberal egalitarian literature,
Will Kymlicka has claimed that liberals have nothing to say about “how domestic labor should be
rewarded or distributed” and have betrayed their own principles of commitment to autonomy and
equal opportunity by not questioning the traditional gendered division of labor (Kymlicka 2002:
386). He argues that “given the centrality of the family to the system of sexual inequality, it is
crucially important that theories of justice pay attention to the effects of family organization on
women’s lives. The neglect of mainstream theories to do this is often explained by saying that the
family has been relegated to the private realm. But in a sense this underestimates the problem.
The family has not so much been relegated to the private realm, as simply ignored entirely”
(398). G. A. Cohen (1997) has argued that choices that are not regulated by the law do fall within
the scope of principles of justice, and that one of the consequences is that the unjust division of
labor and power relations within the families needs to be scrutinized. Similarly, Richard Arneson
(1997: 315) holds that political philosophy should investigate issues of justice and equality within
the family, and not try to hide behind the popular intuition that the state should not intervene in
families. He argues that the structure of marriage is already to some extent determined by state
regulations.
My aim in this lecture is to contribute to the normative analysis of the gender division of
labor. I want to answer the question whether the traditional gender division of labor can be
justified in some way. I use the term traditional gender division of labor to refer to the division
of labor in heterosexual couples, whereby the husband does significantly more paid work than the
wife, and the wife does significantly more unpaid care and household work than the husband.1
1
Historically there have been times when this particular gender division of labor was not the traditional household
form. Yet in contemporary discourse the term ‘traditional gender division of labor’ is associated with the particular
arrangement whereby men do more paid work, and women do more unpaid care and household work.
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This can be a breadwinner household where the man is the only breadwinner and the woman does
no paid work at all, or it can be the modified version whereby the women has a small part-time
job while the man holds a full-time job.
I hope to take the normative analysis further by introducing a distinction which is by and
large absent from the existing literature, namely the distinction between the household gender
division of labor and the societal gender division of labor. The household gender division of
labor tells us how, within a particular household, partners divide up the paid and unpaid labor.
The societal gender division of labor is the aggregate household gender division of labor in a
society, that is, the dominant household gender division of labor within a particular society.
My analysis will proceed as follows. First, I present some stylized facts about the societal
gender division of labor and the household gender division of labor in affluent post-industrial
societies. I then conduct an outcome-based evaluation. Of course, most philosophers would
object to outcome-based evaluations, as it is generally accepted in liberal political philosophy that
outcomes themselves do not matter, but whether or not people have real opportunities to certain
outcomes. However, an outcome-based evaluation can be a good starting point for two reasons.
Firstly, Anne Phillips (2004) has argued that when analyzing group inequalities, the most
plausible assumption is that all groups should have the same rate of success to transform
opportunities in outcomes. In other words, if the individuals in two groups have the same
distribution of opportunities, we should expect that they should have the same distribution of
outcomes. If this is not the case, the groups are either confronted with different structural
constraints that limit their choices, or they have systematically different preferences that explain
why they systematically choose differently. Phillips argues that the “safer bet” is that different
groups would, given similar opportunities, have the same outcomes, and that the burden of proof
should fall on those who claim otherwise.
A second reason to look at outcomes has been offered by Iris Marion Young (2001).
Young has argued that comparisons of groups on measures of well-being or advantage can help
to identify social structures that constrain some individuals more than others, and privilege some
more than others. Ultimately, we are not interested in groups as such, nor are we interested in
their outcomes. Instead, we are interested in whether individuals have had the same real
opportunities to these outcomes. But groups-based outcome evaluations are “necessary and
justified because it helps to identify structural inequalities”. However, Young (2001: 15-16) adds,
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“we are not warranted in the full evaluation […] unless we can tell a plausible structural story
that accounts for the production of the patterns”.
That structural story will be told when I present in section 5 the conditions for a just
societal gender division of labor and ask, in section 6, whether these conditions are currently met.
Section 7 considers an objection to my argument that has been put forward by Philippe Van
Parijs, and rejects it. The final section, before concluding, asks what consequences can be drawn
for individual households and their choice for a traditional or egalitarian gender division of labor.
3. Some stylized facts on the gender division of labor in affluent post-industrial societies
Empirical studies on the gendered division of labor in North America and Europe societies show
that, despite some national variations, the gendered division of labor is remarkably similar across
countries (Brines 1994, Goldschmidt-Clermont and Pagnossin-Agilisakis 1995, Joshi 1998: 169177, Layte 1999, McFarlane et al 2000, McMahon 1999: 22-23, UNDP 1995: 88-89). In most
heterosexual couples, men specialize in market labor while women do the bulk of domestic labor,
i.e. care and household work. While there are some cross-national variations, mainly due to
different types of welfare state arrangements, the most reliable time-budget studies confirm that
this is roughly the same picture in all Western societies.2
One consistent finding from these studies is that women’s increase in paid work over the
last decades has mainly been drawn from a decrease in their own unpaid labor (especially
housework). Men have increased their levels of household work only slightly, and the amount of
men’s domestic work is not significantly affected by their partner’s labor market status (Layte
1999: 37, McFarlane et al 2000: 70-73). Full-time working women put in the most total hours,
and enjoy the least leisure. In several countries, full-time employed women work significantly
more hours than men. For example, in Canada, full-time working women work 127 hours a year
more than full-time working men, and this rises to 211 hours for parents with at least one child
under 19 at home.3 And even where the total burden of work is equal, it has been argued that
women endure higher levels of work-related stress because they are more often responsible for
domestic work that can not be postponed (Phipps, Burton and Osberg 2001). Moreover, even the
2
For the effect of welfare state arrangements on the gendered division of labor (especially of parents), see Janet
Gornick and Marcia Meyers (2003). See Gershuny (2000) for a comprehensive cross-national analysis of time
budget data.
3
Own calculations based on 1992 data in McFarlane, Beaujot, and Haddad, Ibid.
4
most refined of quantitative studies do not measure who is ultimately responsible for the planning
and management of the domestic work (Layte 1999: 154-155) which is likely to create an
underestimation of women’s share in the burden of domestic production and care. Another issue
is that the quality of women's leisure seems to be lower than men’s, as they have shorter spells of
leisure and are more likely to combine childcare with leisure activities (Bittman and Wajcman
2000).
There is evidence that the gendered division of labor has become more egalitarian for
younger generations, but the change has been much smaller and slower than often assumed
(Brines 1994, Joshi 1998, Gershuny 2000). Many researchers are critical about the generational
change in the gendered division of labor. Anthony McMahon (1999: 11-37) has argued that
despite a disproportionate attention of the popular media for the so-called new fathers, men’s
share in care and household work has increased only marginally, and it remains mainly ‘helping
out’ their wives instead of bearing equal responsibilities. Moreover, it is certainly not clear that
the more egalitarian division of labor for younger generations will eventually lead to a
completely equal division of paid and unpaid work. Arlie Hochschild (1990) argues that we are
witnessing a stalled revolution. Studies of people’s attitudes show that there is now a broad
subscription to the values and ideology of gender equality, and a commitment to equal intimate
relationships, but that in reality couples do not live up to those principles (Joshi 1998: 177,
Komter 1989, Layte : 132-133, McMahon 1999).
4. An outcome-based assessment of the gender division of labour
How does the current gendered division of labor affect men’s and women’s well-being
outcomes? First, specialization in unpaid household labor leads to substantial economic risks,
especially financial risks at divorce (Bergmann 1981). Empirical studies show that economic
dependence on a husband can have disadvantageous consequences in the case of marital
breakdown. In the USA, women’s standards of living decline between 13 and 35% after divorce,
while men’s standard of living increases by 11 to 13% (Peterson 1996). In Britain, the mean net
income after divorce increases slightly for men, whereas it decreased with 14% for women and
18% for children (Jarvis and Jenkins 1999).
However, in many countries men also run a risk with the traditional household gender
division of labor, namely the risk to lose custody after divorce. If one endorses the view that
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being able to raise children is a relational good that cannot be substituted by other intimate
relationships (Brighouse and Swift 2006), then it does follow that the flourishing of fathers is also
jeopardized in cases of divorce, when either the social norms or the legal practice is biased in
favor of giving mothers custody.
But even if the household stays intact, there are material risks and consequences attached
to specializing in domestic labor. If women are not participating in the labor market, their human
capital will depreciate, and their total expected lifetime income will drop. If a woman quits the
labor market completely, she will not only lose her income, but also some non-pecuniary
advantages, such as social interaction, contact with a network of colleagues, a place to
demonstrate her competence and a source of self-respect and self esteem. Depending on the
welfare state characteristics, a woman holding a part-time job will also have smaller -if anypension rights and health insurance. Even if both partners would pool their incomes, then this
may still affect the decision making power and have some psychological effects. One’s share of
household earnings is likely to affect one’s perceived and real entitlements to spend those
earnings on personal expenditures.
Second, the gendered division of labor has an impact on gender differences in political
and societal power. As men occupy most of the powerful or influential jobs, such as politicians,
bankers, religious leaders, publishers, investors, directors, professors, and media makers, they can
claim more resources, influence public policy, determine public agenda setting and shape social
norms. Those men are typically also better integrated in networks of other men who can provide
them with valuable information and jobs. Women are more likely to have less command over
money, resources, jobs, and networks of powerful people. Okin (1995) argues that as long as
women bear the main share of unpaid and care work, they will be severely constrained to gain
power in politics, business, media and so forth. The gendered division of labor is thus one of
those factors that help men gain power, and prevents women from getting an equal share of
power.
Third, some authors also discuss the role that the unequal division of labor within families
has on public justice and democracy (Nussbaum 1999; Okin 1989, 1995; Phillips 1991). They
argue that families have to form the moral characters of children, and prepare them to be just
democratic citizens. Parents who do not treat each other as equals are likely to raise children who
will have a hard time to treat others in society as equals.
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Fourth, the gendered division of the labor has an impact on all women through statistical
discrimination, a form of indirect discrimination based on the fact that a person belongs to a
group that has certain average characteristics. These characteristics are used as proxies for the
productivity of the members of that group. The average woman has one or two children and takes
some maternity leave. Women also work fewer hours on the labor market than men, and bear
more responsibility for the household and the care of the elderly and children. They have more
career interruptions and are more often absent from the workplace. Some women quit their jobs
and stay at home to take care of their children.4 All these factors might make many women less
attractive employees for most jobs. Due to incomplete information, it is rational for an employer
to estimate the productivity of an individual woman by looking at the average productivity of all
women, as the employer has no information on her productivity and career commitments.
Employers will have rational grounds to discriminate against any woman (by not hiring her or
offering her a lower wage) because the employer has no exact information on her productivity
and therefore the perception of the average productivity of a broader group of women will count.
A woman who wants to make a career, and who does not want children or does not bear many
household responsibilities, will still bear the consequences of the fact that other women are less
committed to the labor market, and more committed to the members of their household.
In sum, an outcome-based evaluation of the gendered division of labor will point at the
fact that this division works at the material and political disadvantage of women. But this is only
part of the outcome-based evaluation. There are two aspects that should also be taken on board,
but on which I have not found any empirical data.
The first is the question how the household gender division of labor affects the well-being
of children. I can see no reason to assume that children would fare better under a traditional
gender division of labor. In fact, children may benefit from having good relationships with both
of their parents, which would, all other things equal, be an argument in favor of a more
egalitarian gender division of labor.
The second question is how we can evaluate the psychological and emotional benefits and
burdens of the household gender division of labor. This is a notoriously difficult question to
answer. On the one hand, one could argue that care is emotionally very rewarding, and less
stressful, than working in the hard, anonymous and competitive labor market. One the other hand,
4
See Gornick and Meyers (2003) for empirical details.
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many homemakers find household chores the least rewarding of all labor, feel that they have few
opportunities to develop their own talents and realize their personal ambitions, and feel very
isolated in their homes. Domestic work gives very little social status and recognition.
Houseworkers feel often very little appreciated for the work that they do. They might also take
joy in caring for some hours a day, but not the whole day. Similarly, market work can be
stressful, tiring and boring, but can also be rewarding, giving a feeling of self-development and
purpose. Summing up, in general terms it is impossible to say whether domestic or market labor
leads to higher levels of emotional and psychological well-being. However, the opportunitybased evaluation will shed some additional light on this thorny question.
Based on the above outcomes-based analysis, one could argue that the traditional gender
division of labor is producing harmful effects that could be avoided under another gender
division of labor, and therefore is unjust. However, this type of analysis won’t convince many
theorists of justice, and probably many lay people either. They will argue that from a normative
point of view opportunities rather than outcomes count: men and women should be given the
same equal opportunities. If we focus on outcomes rather than opportunities, we are imposing
certain views of the good life and the good society on households, which is illegitimate both from
a philosophical and from a political point of view.
In fact, non-feminist philosophers often assume that both partners have the same
opportunity sets and will decide autonomously how to divide work, based on differences in skills
and preferences. They assume that the household gender division of labor is the result of an
implicit contract between equals where both partners have equal opportunities. In such an ideal
situation, there is nothing wrong with whatever household or societal gender division of labor
would result from this, since it results from a voluntary choice that rational and autonomous
agents have made. Yet are we entitled to make this assumption, that both partners have the same
opportunity sets and will decide autonomously how to divide work? I believe this is not evident
at all, and needs to be investigated rather than taken for granted. Therefore, in the next section I
will spell more carefully the conditions that need to be met for the household gender division of
labor to be just, which should allow us to check whether these conditions are met or not.
At this point in the analysis, I introduce the distinction between the household gender
division of labor and societal gender division of labor. The reason is that in public discussions on
the justice or injustice of the household gender division of labor, we often switch between the
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household and the societal level at which the gender division of labor manifests itself. Yet, as I
will hope to show in section 8, the answer whether the household gender division of labor is
unjust depends on the answer whether the societal gender division of labor is just or not. So our
first task is to analyze whether the societal gender division of labor can be justified based on an
analysis that the opportunities for men and women would be equal.
5. Three conditions for a just societal gender division of labor
The societal gender division of labor is one particular institution that is part of the gender
constellation. In order for the societal gender division of labor to be just, I posit that the following
four conditions need to be met for the societal gender division of labor to be just:
Condition 1, Equal Opportunities: the opportunity sets for men and women should be
the same. The only inequalities between men and women that are justified, are those
where human intervention cannot make a difference to the outcome, either by avoiding
the outcome, rectifying the situation or compensating for the inequality.
The first condition for a just societal gender division of labor simply amounts to an equality of
opportunity principles, whereby opportunity sets are specified to be capability sets, in
combination with a view on justice which limits the scope of justice to the area in which human
intervention can make a difference. Both are fairly standard and widely endorsed principles in
contemporary theorizing on justice.
Condition 2, Neutrality: the basic structure of society should be such that no incentives
are introduced against a particular household gender division of labor.
The second condition for a just societal gender division of labor is a liberal principle that protects
the plurality of views on the good life that citizens should be allowed to endorse. At the ideal
level, it is not enough for justice that we nominally allow all forms of household division of
labor, but in the way the government regulates the economy, for example, make the costs for
choosing for one particular type of household gender division of labor more costly. All other
things equal, society, and in particular the government, should remain neutral towards the
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household gender division of labor which people want to endorse, and should therefore not
introduce social and economic institutions and practices that will create incentives which violate
this neutrality.
Condition 3, equal constraints on choice: the constraints on choice from the capability
set should not be structured according to morally irrelevant characteristics, such as
gender.
Basically with this principle I endorse the view, which has been expressed in a long and enduring
feminist tradition, that in a just society gender should cease to exist as a social structure. The very
essence of gender is that it is guiding the behavior of men and women to particular social roles
and that it is using the working of social norms to influence their behavior and decisions (Okin
1989, Lipsitz-Bem 1993, Robeyns 2007, Brighouse and Olin Wright 2008). A particular
gendered lifestyle should be open to all, but then it would be entirely chosen, rather than subtly
imposed on someone.
Condition 4, just pay-offs: the ‘pay-offs’ of the different options in the capability set
need to be justified.
The ‘pay-offs’ are the net sum of burdens and benefits of a certain position. Principle 4 requires
that the pay-offs of the options that men and women are given, are in themselves just. This means
that the status, pay, and non-pecuniary benefits of occupations and other social positions should
be just. One aspect of them being just is that these pay-offs do not reflect gender ideologies.
Thus, this principle requires that jobs or other social positions that are numerically dominated by
either women or men should not systematically be rewarded lower pay-offs without any plausible
justification. For example, jobs dominated by women tend to be worse paid than jobs paid by
men. If this were the case because these jobs are much more pleasant, or much less stressful, then
this might be a justification for this lower pay. But if, as many studies suggest, these jobs are
worse paid because they are culturally labeled ‘feminine jobs’ or because they are performed
predominantly by women, then the principle is violated. If child care workers or primary school
teachers are paid worse and have lower status compared with other jobs that require similar
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amounts of skills, effort, dedication because it is culturally labeled to be a feminine occupation,
then this is an injustice.
6. Are the conditions for a just societal gender division of labor met?
Are these four conditions met in post-industrial affluent societies? To answer that question, we
must review the empirical literature that is relevant for these four conditions. Turning to that
condition shows that none of the four conditions is met.
The first condition, the condition of equal opportunities, is not met. Given the evidence of
discrimination against women in the labor market, both in terms of access, promotion and wages,
women’s option sets will not include the same labor market options as men’s. One of the reasons
why, ceteris paribus, women earn less than their husbands, is gender discrimination. Despite
popular belief to the contrary, a number of studies confirm the persistence of gender
discrimination (Darity and Mason 1998, Goldin and Rouse 2000, Hopkins 2002, Neumark, Bank
and Van Nort 1996, Neumark and McLennen 1995, Valian 1998, Wennerås and Wold (1997).
Discrimination affects people’s opportunities, but also affects the payoffs of their opportunities,
like their wages. Discrimination does violate both the condition of equal opportunities, and the
condition of equal payoffs. Moreover, discrimination lowers the ratio of the wife’s wage relative
to the husband’s, which has been shown to lead to a more unequal gendered division of labor
(McFarlane et all :63-64). Discrimination thus indirectly also violates the condition of neutrality,
since by lowering women’s wages it provides incentives for a traditional household gender
division of labor.
Many people in Europe and North America do not believe that gender discrimination in
the labor market persists, because they are genuinely convinced that in Western societies people
endorse the principle of equal treatment of men and women, and they cannot believe that men
continue to discriminate against women. But this popular reasoning is deeply flawed.
Discrimination can occur perfectly well without being intentional through the workings of
stereotypes (Valian 1998, Kelly and Roedder 2008). Moreover, another fallacy in this reasoning
is that it is men who discriminate against women. Instead, gender stereotypes are used by both
men and women. Women also discriminate against women in professional settings (Valian 1998).
The second condition, ‘neutrality’, stipulates that the basic structure of society should be
such that no incentives are introduced against a particular household gender division of labor, is
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not met in most countries. As was just mentioned, discrimination leads indirectly to a violation of
this condition by increasing the likelihood that a husband is better paid than his wive. Moreover,
this condition requires that many jobs are also available as part-time positions, such that couples
are able to make a genuine choice between one of them working 50 hours and the other being a
homemaker, or both of them working 25 hours a week. There are very few countries in Europe
and North America where such part-time jobs are widely available, and where workers choosing
them are not unjustifiably penalized by earning, for example, a lower hourly wage or by not
being entitled to health care benefits and other job-related benefits.
Several important social institutions depend upon and take the gendered division of labor
for granted, and thereby provide incentives to reproduce it. Most importantly, the labor market is
still overwhelmingly organized around the assumption that employees do not have substantial
caring responsibilities. For example, many interesting or well-paid jobs are only available fulltime, whereas many domestic tasks can only be done during office hours. In many countries,
children have to be picked up from school, in the early afternoon or during the lunch break, when
most full-time employees are still at work. Child care is in some countries not widely available,
or of dubious quality. All these elements make that for parents or other adults with caring
responsibilities, trying to combine two full-time jobs or two 80% jobs is more difficult than one
full-time and one small part-time job.5
Sometimes the neutrality condition is even violated by the legislator. Here are two
examples. In a recent legal case, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the Dutch ministry
of agricultural has the legal right to reserve its nursery places exclusively for its female
employees and male employees who are single fathers.6 While the ultimate aim of increasing the
number of women working in this ministry might be laudable, the effects are perverse. This
ruling suggests that it is the mother’s responsibility to secure a place in a nursery. Moreover,
given the shortage of high quality affordable child care provisioning in the Netherlands, such a
5
Surely, some will hasten to add that it does not have to be the husband who is pursuing his career while his wife is
managing the family. But this is what Okin (1989) calls a false gender neutral claim. Women who have a demanding
career often still bear household responsibilities, while many men working at the same level, have supporting wives.
Given gender roles, historical patterns and traditions, it is possible for a man to find a wife who will support his
career by exempting him from childcare and household responsibilities. However, given the same gender roles,
historical patterns and traditions, there is hardly any chance for a woman to find a man who will support her career
and become a homemaker. The number of male partners willing to sign up for the homemaker role is very limited,
whereas this is not the case for female partners. These preferences should not be taken at face value, but should be
understood as preferences formed by gender norms and socialization from birth onwards.
6
Lommers vs. Ministry of Agriculture, case C-476/99.
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ruling might also affect the wives of the male employees working at the Ministry, who might not
be able to hold a job because of the lack of child care. The court acknowledged that such a
measure might perpetuate a traditional division of roles between men and women, but this did not
affect its judgment.
A second example of a legal violation of the neutrality condition relates to the maternity
leave provisions in EU states (Foubert 2002). Most EU states provide women with several weeks
of maternity leave before the due date, and some weeks after the birth of the child. In most EU
states mothers are given 10 to 14 weeks after the birth. Let us take as an example that women
receive 12 weeks after the birth. We know from the medical literature that women need 6 to 8
weeks to physically recover from childbirth. Yet this implies, as Foubert (2002) rightly pointed
out, that women receive 4 to 6 weeks of maternity leave which is not related to them giving birth,
but rather because their gender status. Fathers hardly anywhere receive 4 to 6 weeks of fully paid
leave; indeed, in some EU states, such as the Netherlands, they receive as little as 2 days of paid
paternity leave. This specific maternity leave design thus provides very strong incentives for a
traditional gender division of labor in the weeks after birth, and it is not very farfetched, I would
submit, to expect that this will have consequences for the household gender division of labor in
the long run.
In addition, the current dominant household gender division of labor, whatever kind of
division that is, has another edge over alternative, less standard, household gender division of
labor. Many men and women find it convenient and attractive to stick to the dominant gendered
division of labor. Following the classical gendered division of labor can be seen as ‘an
intergenerational habit’. Following such habits is easier because previous generations give
examples of how a household balance between labor and care can be established, and it gives less
psychological uncertainty for how practical decisions should be made. Moreover, we know from
the literature in the behavioral studies that defaults have a significant effect on people’s behavior
and choices. In decisions such as whether or not to be an organ donator (Johnson 2003) or how
much to save for one’s pension (Madrian and Shea 2001), it has been shown that whatever the
default is, people are much more likely to choose the default than the non-default option. In the
domain of choosing a household gender division of labor, one could argue that a traditional
gender division of labor is currently seen as the default, and there are subtle psychological
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incentives to choose that division. Putting everything together, I think it is correct to conclude
that the neutrality condition is not met.
The third condition, ‘just constraints on choice’, entails that the constraints on choice
from the capability set should not be structured according to some morally irrelevant
characteristics, such as gender. Is this condition currently met? Again, this condition is not met.
The structural nature of gender shapes the context of our choices, and influences our choices,
throughout life, especially when it comes to choices related to work and care. This has been
documented in detail by gender scholars (Bubeck 1995, Kimmel 2000). Children grow up in a
gendered way, with girls becoming more skilled in caring than boys. In addition, the gender
norms that are created by socialization and reinforced through the media, discourses and social
interaction. For example, boys who have an interest in activities that are socially labeled as
‘feminine’ are discouraged by their peers and parents to pursue these interests. Artificial gender
differences are reinforced in daily lives, for example by making the wearing of skirts compulsory
for school girls (even if they would prefer to wear trousers). Social and legal norms regarding
parenting continue to reinforce the idea that caring is a woman’s responsibility, as in the earlier
mentioned legal childcare cases of the European court, and as can also be seen from the current
maternity leaves in Europe.
Moreover, as long as there will be social norms related to notions of masculinity and
femininity, they will have an influence on our choices. As Kevin Olson (2002: 392) puts it, ”the
choices [men and women] make … will express not only what is rational in a self-interested
sense but, equally important, what it means to be a man or woman in their society”. Given the
current dominant notions of masculinity and femininity, a woman will strengthen her gender
identity by doing domestic work and caring. In Western societies, notions of femininity have
evolved sufficiently to allow a woman to have a paid job without endangering her femininity. In
some classes and cultures, however, a mother would be seen as violating norms of good
motherhood, if she works many hours on the labor market. For men, the situation is different and
not symmetrical. Men can gain masculinity-status by holding a job, but in most Western
subcultures doing homework and caring is lowering a man’s sense of masculine identity. This is
exactly what men are voicing when they refuse to do a particular household chore with the
excuse that it is ‘women’s work’. Julie Brines (1994) argued that the fact that unemployed
husbands of employed wives in the USA tend to do much less domestic work than any other
14
group of men, is precisely because doing domestic work would jeopardize their masculinity,
which is already been endangered by being unemployed. Controlling for a range of other
explanations, Brines provides empirical evidence for this effect.
The fourth condition, the condition of equal pay-offs, is not met either. Indeed, typical
‘feminine’ jobs are generally worse paid than typical ‘masculine’ jobs, even when they require
the same skills and effort. Moreover, when women move into a certain occupation in significant
numbers, its relative wages go down. This has been the case with clerks/secretaries, doctors,
teachers, and perhaps also politicians (at least in some countries). A more difficult issue is
whether the pay-offs outside the labor market are justified. When a parent works part-time for the
sake of the children, is it justified that he or she becomes financially more vulnerable? One could
argue, along the lines set out by Okin (1989) that all earnings and benefits should be shared
equally between the partners. The pay-offs of the different positions in the gendered division of
labor are currently very unequal, with the partner who specializes in unpaid work losing out
most.
In conclusion, based on available empirical evidence, I conclude that none of the four
conditions is currently met. It therefore follows that the societal gender division of labor is
currently unjust.
7. The ‘Different but Equal’ objection
Some have argued that the different constraints that men and women face, do not, upon closer
scrutiny, pose a problem of justice. They advocate a position that could be labeled ‘different but
equal’ or ‘separate but equal’. This position has a long history in political thought (Pateman
1987). It advocates that men and women take up different roles in life, whereby their sets of
constraints are different but equally good. Another way to present this is by thinking of men’s
and women’s opportunity sets as overlapping, but not identical, whereby it is claimed that both
sets are equally valuable. Theorists of distributive justice have not written much on gender
inequality and the division of labor, and thus it is difficult to assess to what extent this position is
endorsed. However, two statements by very prominent political philosophers are revealing.
Ronald Dworkin has suggested that it is impossible to judge in objective terms whether having a
career would be more valuable than “to be able to raise children free from the need to work
outside the house” (Dworkin 2000: 137). A second recent example is Philippe Van Parijs (2001:
15
129), who agrees that the gendered structures on constraints do exist. But he denies that this
would carry any normative implications:
“But can we imagine such a world [without gendered preference formation mechanisms and gendered constraints
on choice]? And if so, should we, women and men, wish to live in it? Whether gender-related or not, the
expectations that float around us and help shape our behaviour because of the importance we attach to fulfilling
them are the very stuff of social recognition. It does not make sense to abolish them. And is there a way of
making them ‘fair’ apart from giving people the right and the power to escape them? True, even an equal power,
or an equal possibility, to give up one’s employment in order to look after one’s children will not lead to an equal
probability, if men and women face different expectations with which they wish to comply. I cannot see good
reasons for expecting equal probability to be the ideal.”
This is puzzling. Why would we need these constraints in our lives in order to get social
recognition? Why would we need the present set of constraints rather than another set which
leads to less unequal opportunity sets? Why would it not make sense to abolish, or at least
change, these gendered constraints if they are unjust? If, as I have argued above, these constraints
create injustices, then justice would require that either they should be abolished, or they should
be modified or replaced by constraints that are as fair as possible.
Let us analyze this ‘different but equal’ position in somewhat more detail. What is the
challenge that this position poses to the analysis that I have presented so far? The
counterargument entails that for an opportunity-based evaluation it does not suffice to show that
constraints on choices are gender-dependent. Theoretically, it could well be that the constraints
are different, but equally fair and thus just. In other words, it could be possible that those
constraints limit men’s and women’s freedom to the same degree but in different ways, or
different directions. To prove that the gendered division of labor does not pass the equal
opportunity test, we would then also need to show that those constraints generally advantage
men, and disadvantage women. In other words, the constraints on choices are predominantly
positive or facilitating endorsements for men, while they are mainly negative or hampering
restraints for women.
To show that this is indeed the case, we need to return to the outcome-based evaluation of
the gendered division of labor, which precisely drew the conclusion that on the whole women
tend to lose and men tend to gain. Moreover, there are at least two other arguments providing
support for the claim that overall the gendered constraints hamper and limit women more in their
opportunities than men.
16
Firstly, women have organized themselves in the women’s movement to change these
gendered constraints. In contrast, we don’t observe many men arguing that gender related
constraints act to their disadvantage. If men would feel systematically disadvantaged or unfairly
constrained by the expectations gender roles place on them, one would expect that men would
have organized themselves to fight against these social structures. The fact that in society men
hardly ask for a change of gender roles, is a strong suggestion that they have more to gain than to
lose with the current gender roles, even if not all men are consciously aware of that fact.
Empirical evidence shows that more women than men favor an equal sharing of paid and unpaid
work, that more women than men would want to make their household division of labor more
equal and that more women than men are unsatisfied with the current division of labor
(Hochschild, McMahon 1999, Komter 1989). Ferber and Young (1997) argue that men have a
stake in preserving the traditions and the status quo within the family, as many see little to be
gained from doing a larger share of the household work. As some have argued, the gendered
division of labor cannot be understood if one is not willing to acknowledge the privileged
position that men have, which makes them defend their interest in the current division (McMahon
1999). Risman argues that “many women would choose egalitarian marriages if they could, but
the pool of men interested in actual equality is quite small” (1998: 102). Qualitative research
shows that many women do want their partner to do more household and care work, and struggle
to get this division changed, but find it very difficult and encounter much resistance (Hochschild,
Komter). Thus, there is some empirical evidence that the current divisions of labor is serving
men’s interests more than women’s; therefore, it would be irrational for men to try to change the
structures that frame this division. The evidence on men’s unwillingness to change the gendered
division of labor also sheds some additional light on the thorny question posed earlier, of whether
the emotional and psychological outcomes of market and domestic labor are equal. The fact that
people who carry most of the burden of domestic work resist the current division, whereas there
are hardly any signs of discontent among those who do not, suggests that in general the net
personal benefits from the position of most women are lower than those from men’s positions.
One could counter-argue that one cannot deduce from this ‘lack of complaint’ that these
gender constraints are not having a negative effect on men’s lives. In general lack of protest
should indeed not be taken as conclusive evidence of lack of injustice. Perhaps men suffer from a
form of false consciousness, and do not realize how much these gender constraints badly affect
17
their well-being. However, we have good reason to think that in this case, lack of protest does
show that men know they have something to lose when the gendered division of labor and the
structures that sustain it would change. In those cases where there is clear evidence that the same
set of gendered constraints harms men’s interests, men do resist the gendered constraints. Indeed,
there is a growing number of divorced fathers who are fighting against the fact that their ex-wives
are much more likely to get custody over their children, which is often based on the social norms
that children need their mother more than their father, or the idea that children will be better
cared for by their mother. In those situations where men feel that they are worse off, they do raise
their voices – which makes it all the more plausible that they do not raise their voices in all other
cases because they know that in those circumstances the gender constraints give them a more
favorable outcome.
A second indication why gendered constraints in general, and gender norms in particular,
disadvantage women is that people who are not doing a substantial part of household work, or
bear no responsibility for it, tend to underestimate and undervalue this work. Liberal societies
tend to undervalue unpaid work (not only financially but also with regard to recognition and
respect for that work). The results of a project in Iceland (Einarsdottir 1998), and of a study on
caring fathers in the Netherlands (Duindam 1999), suggest that men who are taking parental
leave, or shift to part-time work, are surprised to see how demanding household work and caring
is, and start valuing the work much more once they (have had to) do it for a while by themselves.
Sticking to traditional gender roles will probably imply that household work and caring will
continue to be underestimated and undervalued by men who are only ‘helping out’. Thus, as long
as men remain in their privileged positions, their claims that the traditional female role is
‘different but equal’ will be based on romanticized notions of domestic work, and are likely to be
a rationalization of a social arrangement which, all things considered, serves them well.
8. What about justice at the level of the households?
So far I have argued why the traditional gender division of labor at a societal level is unjust, since
men and women do not have equal opportunities against a just background to choose the
household gender division of labor that they would like. Yet it does not follow from the argument
that every individual household where a traditional gender division of labor is practiced, poses a
18
problem of injustice. To see this, we have to move our analysis from the societal level to the level
of the household.
There are two possibilities. Either the conditions for a societal gender division of labor are
met, or they are not met. If the four conditions for a just societal gender division of labor are met,
then the traditional household gender division of labor is just. The background conditions are in
place to secure that the choice is made under just conditions, and if the emerging household
choice leads to a traditional gender division of labor, then I don’t see how we could object to this
gender division of labor on grounds of justice. For example, suppose a woman would like to
establish a career as a painter, but this turns out to be a hard thing to do. She may then well agree
with her husband that she will take care of the children when they come home from school and
do the household, if that means that she is given some hours each day in which she can work on
her artist’s career. In this case there are reasons to do with the differences in intrinsic preferences
of people that explain why the traditional gender division of labor is a good arrangement for
them.
What can we say about the situation in which the four conditions for a just gender
division of labor are not met, and hence the societal gender division of labor is unjust? In that
case, four remarks are in order.
First, if the societal gender division of labor is unjust, and thus the background conditions
of justice are not met, then a traditional household gender division of labor may be unjust, but
nevertheless the best thing to do, all things considered. For example, if large part-time jobs are
unavailable, and the couple has small children, than in the interest of the care for the children
they may decide that one parent stays at home (which, given gender norms and discrimination
against women in the labor market, will most likely be the mother). Children need time with their
parents, and for infants there is compelling evidence that both parents working full-time will
likely harm the development of the child (Waldfogel 2006). From this it does not follow that it is
not possible for parents of young children to have jobs while at the same time meeting their
children’s needs; indeed, if both parents work three or four days a week, and the child spends
some days in high quality child care and in parental care, then the needs of the child can be met
while having a gender egalitarian division of labor. Yet if these part-time jobs are either
unavailable, or are only available at high costs (such as losing pension benefits or not having
19
health care insurance), then parents may reasonably judge that they should prioritize their
children’s wellbeing over an egalitarian household arrangement.
Second, it is very difficult to say in a particular case whether a traditional gender division
of labor is unjust, since we don’t know whether the choice for this division is due to difference in
‘true’ preferences that are not deformed by gender norms, or whether they are rather caused by
the gendered nature of the opportunity set, the choice processes and the payoffs.
Third, even against a background of an unjust societal gender division of labor,
households can choose for an egalitarian household gender division of labor. Yet this will come
at an extra cost to some or all individuals in that household, such as the social disapproval of
violating dominant gender norms.7 The division of labor the household endorses may thus be just
in itself, but the price that individuals have to pay to uphold gender justice within their household
is unjustified.
Finally, if one endorses the view that the government is not the only agent of justice, but
that individuals and groups are agents of justice too, then it follows that individuals within
households will have some scope to act more or less justly. Current dominant gender norms
support traditional women who want to pressure their husbands in being the main financial
providers for the family, and keep men out of the domain of raising the children. These norms
also support (the much larger number of) men who want to have a family yet remain unhampered
in pursuing their paid work or career, and prefer their wives to take responsibility for raising the
children. Men and women in these situations should be aware that they are privileged by the
gender constellation to pursue their preferred arrangement, and should not behave unfairly by
using that advantage in the gender constellation to get the household gender division of labor
which fits them best. By relying in their negotiations of the household gender division of labor on
dominant gender norms, they are making unfair use of their gender privileges.
9. Concluding thought
In this paper I have analyzed whether the dominant traditional gender division of labor is just. I
have motivated the importance of this analysis by showing that this gender division of labor
produces unequal outcomes for men and women. I then formulated a set of conditions that need
7
There are many autobiographical pieces reporting on the costs of pursing a gender egalitarian family arrangement
in a gender unjust society, e.g. Lipsitz-Bem (1998) or McGourty (2001).
20
to be met before the gender division of labor at the societal level can be considered just. The
available evidence shows that these conditions are not met, and that therefore the currently
dominant traditional gender division of labor is unjust. The analysis also shows that it is very
hard for individual households to choose a just household gender division of labor in a society
where the societal gender division of labor is unjust. Yet it does not follow from this analysis that
in the current gender inegalitarian world each individual instance of a traditional gender division
of labor at the household level is necessarily wrong, since households can have overriding
reasons why they choose for this arrangement. Nevertheless, this doesn’t dispense individuals
from the moral duty to question their own privileges in the gender constellation, and to aim for a
just household gender division of labor rather than for a division that benefits their own interests
most.
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