How ‘women’s equality’ becomes a pawn in workforce policy
by Christopher Sarlo, MercatorNet:
In Women Are Key for Future Growth: Evidence from Canada the International Monetary Fund recommends that Canada spend eight billion dollars annually on a daycare program that would pay for itself. The catch? Mothers must be forced to work. The authors reveal their political leanings early on, and hence their framing of the research.
In so many words, they are saying: Our purpose as human beings is not to find our own way, to make choices that serve our own objectives and to pursue personal self-fulfillment. Rather, our purpose is to work; earn an income; and to pay taxes to feed the Leviathan (to use Hobbes’ accurate term for the State). Oh, and most of us have one other function – as reproducers. That function is particularly important because it provides to the system ever more future workers who will pay more taxes to fatten up the already obese and highly intrusive State.
The appeal to “women’s equality” is an interesting and convenient device in making their case for a bit of social engineering. For the authors, any differential between female and male participation in the labour force must be due to artificial barriers and cultural issues (i.e., discrimination) and not to women making personal and often difficult decisions about how they wish to use their time within a family context.
So, if there is a “gender gap” in participation, the State has the ability (and, the authors argue, the obligation) to provide incentives to tip the balance on a very personal choice towards paid employment and away from staying at home. Why should the State do this? Because our birth rate is declining and longer term demographics show a decrease in the proportion of working age people. The solution is to put more women to work. The paragraph at the top of page 17 makes it clear that women need to do more to help solve our “economic problem.”
Put more honestly, the authors want the State to ignore the natural choices and wishes of women and trick them into working to help feed the system. Without State interference, they would have made the decision to stay at home and absorbed whatever reduction in material living standard because they have determined that they (and their) family were better off by doing so.
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