"Creating Supportive Institutions!" ❤️

Gender Ideologies | & The Problem

Today’s The Hindu

16 October 2023

#newspaperinlearning

Today, let us look at yet another insightful article written by Sonalde Desai, Professor at the NCAER & University of Maryland.

So what is the Problem foregrounded in this article?

The gender pay gap in the workforce!

And what pray, is the reason for this gender pay gap?

Gender ideologies!

What is the possible solution to the problem, offered by the Professor?

Creating supportive institutions!

***

Prof. Sonalde Desai’s article has all the ingredients of a good academic paper, with authentic statistics, reliable historical evidence, citations from illustrious writers including Nobel Laureates and feminists.

The author concludes her write-up offering a possible solution to the crisis [problem], under the subheading, ‘Reshaping the environment’.

Says Prof. Sonalde Desai –

While increased male participation in household work and childcare would help, we must also find ways of reshaping both the work and social environment so that they are conducive to developing a work-life balance for both men and women.

This means having work structures that are respectful of workers’ time and do not emphasise very long work hours.

This makes both social and economic sense.

Stanford economist John Pencavel has shown that longer working hours do not mean more productivity and, in some jobs, lead to increased mistakes and injuries.

But if we need to rein in the greedy workplace, we also need to rein in a variety of institutions that demand more and more of our time.

This includes schools that rely on parents to supervise homework and urban developments that place homes far from workplaces.

Until we can create these supportive institutions, it will be hard to write the last chapter for the grand gender convergence in labour market outcomes that Claudia Goldin advocates for so fiercely.