Redistributing Work: The Role of The Welfare State

Abstract

Contemporary social policy has to contend with two profound and stressful transformations. In the labour market, mass unemployment and work flexibilisation have unravelled social cohesion and undermined personal security. In domestic life, the slow demise of the male breadwinner and the partial convergence of gender roles have unhinged the sexual division of labour and underlined the distinction between working and having a job. Many people believe that in order to reduce unemployment and speed up progress towards gender equality without endangering the environment through unrestrained economic growth, society needs to find ways of redistributing paid and unpaid work: between job-rich and job-poor households, between men and women, and between people in different age groups. In this chapter, I discuss what exactly is meant by ‘work’, why the redistribution of work matters, how this objective might be pursued and what obstacles stand in the way of its achievement.