The Gender Division of Welfare: the Impact of British and German Welfare States. (Book Reviews).

Mary Daly, The Gender Division of Welfare: The Impact of British and German Welfare States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. $64.95 hardcover, $23.95 papercover.

Daly's The Gender Division of Welfare is a comparative analysis of the welfare state outside the tradition of typology-building advanced by Wilensky, Titmuss, and Esping-Andersen which differentiates itself from this line of comparative scholarship empirically and theoretically. To avoid the difficulties inherent in constructing welfare state regimes with a limited number of cases where many nation-states must be "dragged" into particular categories Daly opts to examine two cases in-depth.

Using the lens of gender division and stratification, Daly traces the development of the British and German welfare state with particular emphasis on family policies which she suggests have been largely relegated to the sideline in comparative research. Critical of "mainstream analysts'" tendency to employ macro-explanations which support either convergence or divergence among regimes, Daly suggests that the feminist perspective is rarely content with this broad-brush approach or heavy reliance on quantitative indicators. Yet Daly identifies shortcomings within the growing body of feminist scholarship, noting that while the feminist perspective has highlighted the subordinate position of women with respect to welfare state regimes, this work has failed to provide a larger theoretical explanation for the gender-based differences. Daly's ambitious objective is to counter both of these failures using a case study methodology within a theoretical model.

Chapters 1 and 2 review and critique conventional approaches to welfare state analysis (which Daly classifies as functionalism, neo-marxism, and "social-interpretation") before moving on to feminist scholarship specifically. There are various alternative approaches to classifying welfare state literature. One is a historical-evolutionary method which views the literature as evolving within distinct periods, with each generation punctuated by competition between a functionalist and socio-political perspective. The first generation features the development of grand theory which explain the emergence of the welfare state (for example the functionalist perspectives of industrialization and the socio-political theory of marxism). These grand theories are predicated on inductive logic and develop explanations for the rise of the welfare state by applying theoretical constructs to the experiences of a few nation states. The second generation empirically elaborates the theories developed in the fist generation (from the functionalist side, convergence and the emergence of the distinct regime perspective from the socio-political realm) with a third and emerging generation devoted to refining and extending the discoveries from the second generation (for example globalization as an extension of the functionalist perspective and the within the socio-political line such as refinement of the distinct regime perspective and the feminist view). This type of conceptualization places the feminist contribution into the mainstream of theoretical analysis of the welfare state.

The second half of Chapter 2 develops a framework for analyzing the influence of gender on the development of the welfare state. Chapter 3 begins with a historical account of the British and German welfare state, in which Daly highlights the divergence (and less frequently commonalities) between the two systems in terms of ideology. Operationalizing the framework presented in chapter 2, Daly examines the characteristics of support for families with children during the 1980s. Contrasting the British and German model across six variables related to social provision--the type of program, related policy objectives, targeted beneficiaries by socio-economic status and gender, level of support and availability of publically funded child care--Daly identifies some differences in the configuration of the two systems which are more a matter of degree than of kind. When examining ten specific risks (illness, accident, unemployment, old age, maternity, survivorship, divorce, lone parenthood, and provisions for the care of children and others) there is less divergence. Both countries place the first six social contingencies squarely within the protection of social insurance; with divorce and lone parenting within the purview of social assistance and the final two categories not afforded coverage or classified as a categorical payment.

Daly suggests that this finding is evidence of a "gender fault-line" in which traditional female social risks (divorce and lone parenthood) are treated similarly in both systems. When replacement rate data are added to the analysis, there are visible differences between the two approaches, with German rates consistently higher than those of the UK for the first six social contingencies. However, with the exception of replacement rates for maternity, there is a significant decline in replacement rates afforded by the UK and Germany for the identified female social risks. Thus with the use of quantitative data, similarities between the two otherwise dissimilar welfare states appear with respect to treatment of social contingencies disproportionately affecting women.

Chapter 4 examines the cash-transfer system that perpetuates the social policy models elucidated in chapter 3. Chapter 5 turns to the issue of income inequality and the relationship between the state model and family composition. The focus of chapter 6 is the measure of poverty, a common proxy in gender-based analyses, with the latter part of the chapter devoted to an examination of the respective role of state and family in mitigating the effect and occurrence of poverty. Chapter 7 turns more specifically to the influence of marriage and family on women's labor-market activities. The final chapter of this work attempts to bring together the various findings of the preceding chapters, concluding with the author's call for a reconceptualiztion of welfare state efforts placing greater significance on the family and the relative positions of the respective members.

This book will be of interest to welfare state scholars seeking recent and well-informed observations from the feminist perspective, however the empirical data (from the mid 1980s) relied upon to support the analysis leaves an open question as to whether the differences found endure. On the negative side, the style of writing is unduly complex and suitable only to a dedicated scholar with steadfast determination to comprehending the complexities of this work.

Rebecca A. Van Voorhis
California State University, Hayward