ABSTRACT
Work-family policies intend to reconcile the demands of paid employment with caregiving responsibilities and have been at the forefront of a feminist economic policy agenda. Work-family policies can expand women’s and men’s capabilities in combining employment and caregiving. While the debate around US work-family policies highlights its potential to reduce gender inequalities, these policies also have implications for other forms of inequality, in particular, those faced by low-income women, single-mother families, and women of color, with the potential to reduce or to reproduce these intersectional forms of gender inequality, depending on how they are structured. Liberal regimes tend toward employment-based social welfare programs (some are voluntary while others are mandatory) for most but not all workers coupled with more meager means-tested (based on level of income) programs designed for those that at the time of the policy development were not expected to be employed—notably single mothers and disabled adults.
