Economics assignment on: Welfare state
A welfare state represents that concept which a government uses in the preservation and the promotion of the social well-being and economic welfare of the citizens. This concept follows principles: equal opportunities to all the members of the society, equal distribution of wealth and also a sensitive attitude and responsibilities towards public. A government on the basis of its welfare state has the responsibility of providing benefits in the form of pensions and insurance schemes, also facilitating childcare, transportation facilities,special access to public parks and libraries as well as many free services (Kemp, P & Glendinning, C, 2006). These are the services which the welfare state attempts to provide, but again there are associated difficulties in making this system an efficient one. This concept also implies an active supervision, ready justice for the people, a scheme which should be totally free from any duplication, corruption, infidelity etc. It is pointed that some countries are not able to distribute the facilities equally among the citizens of the state. Also, the specific population which was completely dependent upon the government for the resources and necessities to be provided actually suffered. The problem that has been raised is also dealing with the problem faced by a specific gender in the society (Obinger, H, Leibfried, S & Castles, F, 2005). The ‘women’ are that portion of the society which is neglected because males are given the prime importance in an Australian Welfare State. Therefore, the Australian welfare state could be called a gendered one.
It is important to elaborate upon the concept of patriarchy that has been eating the social system like a worm with the passing course of time. This concept is prevailing across cultures and nationalities and therefore has become a part of the social system and welfare state because that is where it is exercising itself. So, it is not merely relevant in Australian continent but elsewhere too. This concept has been maintaining its powerful role by subjugating women in a heap of cultures and through various forms of welfare state (Wisegeek 2012). Patriarchy more than being a conscious exercise it is that people somehow get involved in this process because of its endurance and traditional presence. The roles are as if already designed and are assigned to the men and women (as if they have one to play). So, it is that most of the people unconsciously get involved in this, but that remains harmful for the whole social set up, as one strict fundamental is rigid and unhappy for the welfare of the state. Under patriarchy, women remain under oppression and are treated differently than men, if men enjoy the pleasures by working or living in a state of affairs, women are the voiceless elements of the same society. In fact many social thinks have asserted that patriarchy has been a ubiquitous concept, and only if some movements have been there in resisting it, they have so far not been acknowledged (Kemp, P & Glendinning, C, 2006). This concept has been trumping other ideologies, socio-political set ups and religious policies. Gender inequality has always sown the seed of struggle and more precisely, ‘power-struggle’. To highlight upon the UN report on the state of the world’s population underlines this blunt reality in the number of girls: “At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are ‘missing’ from various populations, mostly in Asia, as a result of sex-selected abortions, infanticide or neglect.”
According to the facts it is brought out that there is a huge gap between the retirement savings of Australian men and women. As the superannuation system is connected to the paid work, therefore it remains unfavourable for women, who in the working-life stick to frequent leaves in terms of healthcare, childcare or maternal. Thus, it means the working criteria remains conditional in case of women as they have to spend more time at home because of the pressing circumstances, which make men attain a liberal space in the society, and women continue to earn less than men creating a gender gap in the domain of retirement savings. The facts brings that women have significantly less money saved for their retirement – half of all women aged 45 to 59 have $8,000 or less in their superannuation funds, compared to $31,000 for men. Currently, the average superannuation payout for women is a third of the payout for men – $37,000 compared with $110, 000.2In Australia, the public policies have been based on gender divisions. This set up completely out of reason but is only constructed stereotypically, where the government determines the roles of women and men both, notion that woman’s prime job is to stay within households, take care of the family, food, children and market activity, whereas a man has to be the sole breadwinner for the family. In Australian context, it is important to see how the phenomenon of gender discrimination is embedded in Australian social security and its implication for the abdication of a social responsibility. The Australian social security system was founded on contrasting assumptions about the designation of women from its very commencement in the early decades of the twentieth century in the matter of assisting socially. The after effects of the World War II were such that social assistance was given to women from the introduction of flat-rate income system, widow’s pension, and sickness benefit schemes, thus morally and economically empowering women. On the other hand, women’s commercial related status was seen as dependence upon the partner to which she was married. Paradoxically, the Australian System of Welfare Payments was only superficially helping out women and thus was indulged in strengthening male autonomy (Wisegeek 2012).
Australia’s welfare state has made policies on the basis of archetypal roles that have been assigned to females. In stance of Caring work that is to be done, though rationally the responsibility comes to both the genders equally, in case of people caring for disabled/elderly spouse/relative/children,96 per cent of all lone parents receiving such a pension are women. They are receiving98 per cent of family grant payments and 99 per cent of family allowance complement payments. Compared to the male population receiving such allowances, it is women, however, comprising only 35 per cent of those receiving paid-work pension, as the chief reason is that women caring for their disabled or elderly spouses who receive age or worthless pensions, are eligible for mates’ pension. When carer’s and wives’ pensions are fixed together, women comprise 97 per cent of those receiving these allowances. Such is the case because their retiring age is 60, five years lesser than male’s, also because unlike in a natural setting they are much less likely than their male counterparts to have private savings, fixed deposits or superannuation.The welfare state in Australia does initiate gender inequality if the implications of the industrial relations are seen with respect to the aspect of wage decentralization. This situation has become widespread in the last 25 years mainly, one may point out that wage reorganization altogether has been unfavorable to the women who are working for two chief reasons: First, the aptitude in addressing the already established practices has weakened itself through time. Secondly, for the first time in the century the minimum environments and securities have considerably been reduced, the latest commercial policy reforms also disconnect the association between the remunerations and the cost of living. This renewed system is the hindrance for women in the labor force because it is seen in statistics that more women in proportion with men rely completely on minutest conditions and the awards that they deserve out of their pay. This time therefore is representative of a significant policy crisis in the employment history of Australia. It is believed, that such investigations in this labor market domain are not new, but what is marked in the literature of the time is an abstract of the neo-liberal alterations in the entire system which have affected women in the labour force of Australia (Obinger, H, Leibfried, S & Castles, F, 2005). On throwing light upon various indicators of discrimination among working force one may openly work towards the eradication of such unfairness in the system, sometime in the future. This reformation is particularly to be seen in the new legislative administration, which can only be achieved once the system acquires a balanced approach that is equality among the working conditions and a strict no to patriarchy. This reformation in the whole system would include entities like trends in labour force, the participation rates of men and women, casualization, the working hours, Australian Workplace Agreements and the gender gap in earnings of the respective persons (Annual Reviews 2012).
It is important to relate to this issue with the general impact on genders when the welfare state is imbalanced and does not hold the right approach. Shaping the character of the welfare state are the concepts of- division of labour (hierarchical), compulsory conditioning of the society like heterosexuality, gendered rules of citizenship, the criteria of political participation, different set of ideologies related to masculinity and femininity etc. Only, the set regulations and the commandments set by the government cannot determine that how the genders are going to work. The heterosexual population is majorly dependent upon the cultural factors and specific roles that determine their conditioned role sin the society. The men behave in a particular way because they have been taught to behave in a singular fashion. It means acquiring a larger space and a better living situation. With such fundamental psychologies around the leading bodies, as the fact remains that in the entire twentieth century all the male prime ministers have reigned Australian government, thus they have regulated the whole welfare state under their patriarchal system. Therefore, the impact on the two genders is such that it has always been beneficial to men and is compromising for women. Hence, the parameters of social facilitations—the bundle of social help, related insurance programs and the nature of the citizenship determine the ‘welfare state’ and its effect on the gender issues. Until lately, two maintactics to gender locations and welfare states outweighed: one which supervised the states sharing with the social imitation of gender hierarchies, and a second which saw the nation-states having an upgraded impact on gender discrimination. More recently, the new researches have taken place on the variations in the social policies which effect genders and they are working for the betterment of the system, by devising a balanced approach.There is an important contemporary example can be brought of an Australianwoman, Amanda Findley, who raises voice against the prevailing patriarchy in Australia, in her essay she brings out the periods in the history which had an impact on female’s reproductive rights and how the whole social system always has been hindered by the dominant patriarchal ideologies. According to her the women have been long campaigning for the reproductive autonomy, if not that then the balancing. At the end of the nineteenth century women have largely conducted campaigned, for birth control and birth control, and that was an achievement in itself because it was much of an outspoken discourse in a society that was dominantly patriarchal (Amanda Findley 2011).
In order to analyze the position of men in any society is to emphasize on the fact that masculinity has always been a predominant phenomenon. Many contemporary women thinkers are of the view is that visiting the history of a place or the literature of any time is a futile attempt because that way women only glorify male power. The women’s stories do act as antithesis that relevantly brings out the necessary portrayal of the actual situations to which an average woman is subjected as a product of patriarchy. The social processes and the historical evidences are the ones, which acknowledge that how the genders working in a society are divided even in the commercial and professional domains on the basis of their biological differences and the reproductive capacities. Thus, such conditioning is logical to the precursors of such a welfare state that makes men to embody power role without being a more responsible being in the personal sphere of life. Impact on gender is in fact not only restricted at the face of it, or it doesn’t merely affect the representational roles of the women or men, but also brings the proportional changes in the economy and family. The welfare state being biased towards men in the economic and other structures only strengthen the patriarchal tradition and further empower their masculinity and their dominance. According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis on the concept of femininity and masculinity is this that “If “masculinity” simply meant the characteristics of men, we could not speak of the femininity in men or the masculinity in women” (Western, M, Baxter, J, & Gellecum, Y 2008).
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