ABSTRACT
The full extent of the impact of the global financial crisis on the United Kingdom’s economy is, andwill continue tobe, the subject ofmany academic debates. Questions relating to gender impact have not featured prominently in those debates thus far. Rather, they have been marginalized to a number of specific studies focused on “women and the recession,” with specific reference to the world of paid work (see for example TradesUnionCongress [TUC; 2009, 2010a]).Headlines relating to the impact of the global financial crisis on employment and the resulting economic recession have referred to a “mancession,” a phrase coined by economists in the United States describing trends in unemployment in the early stages of the downturn. The
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
INTRODUCTION
The full extent of the impact of the global financial crisis on the United Kingdom’s economy is, andwill continue tobe, the subject ofmany academic debates. Questions relating to gender impact have not featured prominently in those debates thus far. Rather, they have been marginalized to a number of specific studies focused on “women and the recession,” with specific reference to the world of paid work (see for example TradesUnionCongress [TUC; 2009, 2010a]).Headlines relating to the impact of the global financial crisis on employment and the resulting economic recession have referred to a “mancession,” a phrase coined by economists in the United States describing trends in unemployment in the early stages of the downturn. The
conclusion drawn from the initial statistics was that the recession appeared to be hurting men more than women. However, this recession is distinct from previous recessions, not just in
termsof its causes and severity, but also in termsofhownational governments have reacted to it. The substantial sums of public monies provided to major financial institutions to keep them afloat, coupled with a decline in economic activity, has resulted in a sharp deterioration in public finances. This is due to the fact that government borrowing throughout most of Europe has escalated, and many national governments have entered into a period of public spending restraint. As European governments seek to control levels of public spending, it is likely that mancession headlines will subsequently be replaced by a focus on the very negative impact these cuts will have on women, as both providers and users of public sector services. At the time of writing, the scale of the proposed cuts in social spending and increased taxes across Europe had resulted in widespread protests, led primarily by workers’ organizations concerned with the threats to jobs and pensions.OnSeptember 30, 2010, tens of thousands ofmarchers fromacross Europe gathered in Brussels to protest against proposed austerity measures; workers in Spain also voiced their opposition to the Spanish government by staging a general strike. In the UK, the newly elected Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition
government made their stance on tackling the public debt explicit in an emergency budget announced a month after the May 2010 general election. The June 2010budget contained a rangeof proposals,most notably including an increase in indirect taxes, a public sector pay freeze, and welfare benefits cuts, all aimed at securing rapid fiscal consolidation. The four-year public spending plans, set out in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in October 2010, outlined the full extent of those proposals. In order to meet their target of reducing the level of government borrowing from a peacetime record level of 11 percent of the GDP in 2009-10 to just over 1 percent in 2015-16, the UK government announced £81 bn (US$125 bn) in public spending cuts between 2010 and 2015. Apart from health and international development aid, the government is committed to reducing expenditure in all other areas by an average of 19 percent by 2015. Welfare spending in particular was targeted for a budget cut by some £18 bn (US$27.7 bn) between 2010 and 2015 (HMTreasury 2010a). TheUK government’s Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts a reduction in public sector employment of around 490,000 by 2015, representing a fall of 8 percent compared to the total level of public sector employment in December 2009 (OBR 2010). Thus, the public sector in the UK will be subject to a prolonged period of spending cuts with negative consequences for both jobs and services. Given the very different ways in which men and women interact and relate to the public sector across a range of services and functions, the impact of the cuts will be felt differently. A gendered analysis of
the consequences of both the recession and the recovery process is therefore all the more relevant to understanding the impact of the spending cuts. Drawing upon a feminist economics approach, this contribution
will highlight the gendered nature of the recent recession and the subsequent recovery program in the UK. While the narrowly defined effects of the recession on the labor market, such as adjustments in employment/unemployment rates, are readily identifiable by gender, many of the wider consequences on women in particular are not immediately visible and have long-term ramifications. Public spending cuts, which are framed as a strategy to promote economic recovery, have especially negative effects on women’s incomes, access to services, and future job and training opportunities. Such cuts are therefore more visible when seen in terms of women’s overall economic welfare. In order to fully understand and accurately account for the effect of the recession and its aftermath, it is essential that impact analysis from a gender perspective operates as an integral feature of the public policymaking process.
