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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:52 2006 |
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I wonder if one aspect of a "feminist critique" of economics ought not to be a
tremendous reluctance to indulge in "pure theory".
Pat Gunning asks:
"Eric, when the economist says that, other things equal
and given the definitions of the terms, a rise in
demand will lead to a rise in price, I wonder which
value is being introduced or disguised."
Real world example: the demand for nurses has increased tremendously in my
province over the last several years. At the same time, the typical nurse is
working fewer hours at less than full-time wages. Nursing graduates are
leaving the province because (despite the documented scarcity) they can't find
full-time jobs at what they consider a competitive wage. Why aren't full-time
jobs being created?
Any economist can understand it: New grads are a minority in the
profession. The nursing union has been able to exploit the scarcity by
demanding part-time (lower waged) jobs that the majority of its members prefer
because, by combining part-time jobs, they can attain a flexibility in hours
worked that full-time jobs don't allow. That is, they choose to take part of
their wage in increased leisure. There is nothing here inconsistent with
either rationality or economic theory.
I think, though, that gender might be relevant. When asked why they prefer
lower waged part-time jobs, nurses typically cite the difficulty of accessing
affordable daycare for shift work, working shifts while being a single mom,
and, generally, their difficulty meeting what they consider an inflexible
demand for household labour.
This seems to me gendered, and (while it's clearly a policy matter) it turns
out that perfectly rational women sometimes make different decisions than
equally rational men. (That is, neither the objective nor the constraints on
the utility function are gender-blind). If we ignore the gendered division of
labour (both in the market and in the household) economists simply reinforce
the view held by other social scientists of the (ir)relevance of our theory.
Evelyn L. Forget
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