An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literalmeaning
attached to the phrase. Some phrases which become figurative idioms,
however, do retain the phrase's literal meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. Idioms occur frequently in all languages; in English alone there are an estimated twenty-five million idiomatic expressions.
Derivations
Many
idiomatic expressions were meant literally in their original use, but
sometimes the attribution of the literal meaning changed and the phrase
itself grew away from its original roots—typically leading to a folk etymology.
For instance, the phrase "spill the beans" (meaning to reveal a secret)
is first attested in 1919, but has been said to originate from an
ancient method of voting by depositing beans in jars, which could be
spilled, prematurely revealing the results.
Other idioms are deliberately figurative. For example, "break a leg" is an ironic
expression to wish a person good luck just prior to their giving a
performance or presentation. It may have arisen from the superstition
that one ought not utter the words "good luck" to an actor because it is
believed that doing so will cause the opposite result.
Compositionality
Love is blind—an idiom meaning a person who is in love can see no faults or imperfections in the person whom they love
In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality. That compositionality is the key notion for the analysis of idioms is emphasized in most accounts of idioms.
This principle states that the meaning of a whole should be constructed
from the meanings of the parts that make up the whole. In other words,
one should be in a position to understand the whole if one understands
the meanings of each of the parts that make up the whole. The following
example is widely employed to illustrate the point:
Fred kicked the bucket.
Understood compositionally, Fred has literally kicked an actual,
physical bucket. The much more likely idiomatic reading, however, is
non-compositional: Fred is understood to have died. Arriving at the
idiomatic reading from the literal reading is unlikely for most
speakers. What this means is that the idiomatic reading is, rather,
stored as a single lexical item that is now largely independent of the literal reading.
In phraseology, idioms are defined as a sub-type of phraseme, the meaning of which is not the regular sum of the meanings of its component parts. John Saeed defines an idiom as collocated words that became affixed to each other until metamorphosing into a fossilised term. This collocation of words redefines each component word in the word-group and becomes an idiomatic expression.
Idioms usually do not translate well; in some cases, when an idiom is
translated directly word-for-word into another language, either its
meaning is changed or it is meaningless.
When two or three words are conventionally used together in a particular sequence, they form an irreversible binomial.
For example, a person may be left "high and dry", but never "dry and
high". Not all irreversible binomials are idioms, however: "chips and
dip" is irreversible, but its meaning is straightforwardly derived from
its components.
Mobility
Idioms
possess varying degrees of mobility. Whereas some idioms are used only
in a routine form, others can undergo syntactic modifications such as
passivization, raising constructions, and clefting, demonstrating separable constituencies within the idiom. Mobile idioms, allowing such movement, maintain their idiomatic meaning where fixed idioms do not:
Mobile
I spilled the beans on our project. → The beans were spilled on our project.
Fixed
The old man kicked the bucket. → The bucket was kicked (by the old man).
Many fixed idioms lack semantic composition, meaning that the idiom contains the semantic role of a verb, but not of any object. This is true of kick the bucket, which means die. By contrast, the semantically composite idiom spill the beans, meaning reveal a secret, contains both a semantic verb and object, reveal and secret. Semantically composite idioms have a syntactic similarity between their surface and semantic forms.
The types of movement allowed for certain idioms also relate to
the degree to which the literal reading of the idiom has a connection to
its idiomatic meaning. This is referred to as motivation or transparency.
While most idioms that do not display semantic composition generally do
not allow non-adjectival modification, those that are also motivated
allow lexical substitution. For example, oil the wheels and grease the wheels allow variation for nouns that elicit a similar literal meaning.
These types of changes can occur only when speakers can easily
recognize a connection between what the idiom is meant to express and
its literal meaning, thus an idiom like kick the bucket cannot occur as kick the pot.
From the perspective of dependency grammar, idioms are represented as a catena
which cannot be interrupted by non-idiomatic content. Although
syntactic modifications introduce disruptions to the idiomatic
structure, this continuity is only required for idioms as lexical
entries.
Certain idioms, allowing unrestricted syntactic modification, can be said to be metaphors. Expressions such as jump on the bandwagon, pull strings, and draw the line all represent their meaning independently in their verbs and objects, making them compositional. In the idiom jump on the bandwagon, jump on involves joining something and a 'bandwagon' can refer to a collective cause, regardless of context.
Translation
A word-by-word translation of an opaque idiom will most likely not convey the same meaning in other languages. The English idiom kick the bucket has a variety of equivalents in other languages, such as kopnąć w kalendarz ("kick the calendar") in Polish, casser sa pipe ("to break his pipe") in French and tirare le cuoia ("pulling the leathers") in Italian.
Some idioms are transparent. Much of their meaning gets through if they are taken (or translated) literally. For example, lay one's cards on the table meaning to reveal previously unknown intentions or to reveal a secret. Transparency is a matter of degree; spill the beans (to let secret information become known) and leave no stone unturned
(to do everything possible in order to achieve or find something) are
not entirely literally interpretable but involve only a slight
metaphorical broadening. Another category of idioms is a word having
several meanings, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes discerned from the
context of its usage. This is seen in the (mostly uninflected) English language in polysemes,
the common use of the same word for an activity, for those engaged in
it, for the product used, for the place or time of an activity, and
sometimes for a verb.
Idioms tend to confuse those unfamiliar with them; students of a
new language must learn its idiomatic expressions as vocabulary. Many natural language words have idiomatic origins but are assimilated and so lose their figurative senses. For example, in Portuguese, the expression saber de coração 'to know by heart', with the same meaning as in English, was shortened to 'saber de cor', and, later, to the verb decorar, meaning memorize.
In 2015, TED
collected 40 examples of bizarre idioms that cannot be translated
literally. They include the Swedish saying "to slide in on a shrimp
sandwich", which refers those who did not have to work to get where they
are.
Conversely, idioms may be shared between multiple languages. For example, the Arabic phrase في نفس المركب (fi nafs al-markeb) is translated as "in the same boat," and it carries the same figurative meaning as the equivalent idiom in English.
According to the German linguist Elizabeth Piirainen, the idiom
"to get on one's nerves" has the same figurative meaning in 57 European
languages. She also says that the phrase "to shed crocodile tears,"
meaning to express insincere sorrow, is similarly widespread in European
languages but is also used in Arabic, Swahili, Persian, Chinese,
Mongolian, and several others.
The origin of cross-language idioms is uncertain. One theory is that cross-language idioms are a language contact phenomenon, resulting from a word-for-word translation called a calque. Piirainen says that may happen as a result of lingua franca
usage in which speakers incorporate expressions from their own native
tongue, which exposes them to speakers of other languages. Other
theories suggest they come from a shared ancestor language or that
humans are naturally predisposed to develop certain metaphors.
Dealing with non-compositionality
The non-compositionality of meaning of idioms challenges theories of syntax. The fixed words of many idioms do not qualify as constituents in any sense. For example:
How do we get to the bottom of this situation?
The fixed words of this idiom (in bold) do not form a constituent in
any theory's analysis of syntactic structure because the object of the
preposition (here this situation) is not part of the idiom (but rather it is an argument of the idiom). One can know that it is not part of the idiom because it is variable; for example, How do we get to the bottom of this situation / the claim / the phenomenon / her statement /
etc. What this means is that theories of syntax that take the
constituent to be the fundamental unit of syntactic analysis are
challenged. The manner in which units of meaning are assigned to units
of syntax remains unclear. This problem has motivated a tremendous
amount of discussion and debate in linguistics circles and it is a
primary motivator behind the Construction Grammar framework.
A relatively recent development in the syntactic analysis of
idioms departs from a constituent-based account of syntactic structure,
preferring instead the catena-based
account. The catena unit was introduced to linguistics by William
O'Grady in 1998. Any word or any combination of words that are linked
together by dependencies qualifies as a catena. The words constituting idioms are stored as catenae in the lexicon, and as such, they are concrete units of syntax. The dependency grammar trees of a few sentences containing non-constituent idioms illustrate the point:
The fixed words of the idiom (in orange) in each case are linked
together by dependencies; they form a catena. The material that is
outside of the idiom (in normal black script) is not part of the idiom.
The following two trees illustrate proverbs:
The fixed words of the proverbs (in orange) again form a catena each time. The adjective nitty-gritty and the adverb always
are not part of the respective proverb and their appearance does not
interrupt the fixed words of the proverb. A caveat concerning the
catena-based analysis of idioms concerns their status in the lexicon.
Idioms are lexical items, which means they are stored as catenae in the
lexicon. In the actual syntax, however, some idioms can be broken up by
various functional constructions.
The catena-based analysis of idioms provides a basis for an understanding of meaning compositionality. The Principle of Compositionality can in fact be maintained. Units of meaning are being assigned to catenae, whereby many of these catenae are not constituents.
Various studies have investigated methods to develop the ability
to interpret idioms in children with various diagnoses including Autism, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Developmental Language Disorder and typically developing weak readers.
The empathising–systemising (E–S) theory is a theory on the psychological basis of autism and male–female neurological differences originally put forward by English clinical psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. It classifies individuals based on abilities in empathic thinking (E) and systematic thinking (S). It measures skills using an Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemising Quotient (SQ) and attempts to explain the social and communication symptoms in autism spectrum disorders as deficits and delays in empathy combined with intact or superior systemising.
According to Baron-Cohen, the E–S theory has been tested using
the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemising Quotient (SQ), developed by
him and colleagues, and generates five different 'brain types' depending
on the presence or absence of discrepancies between their scores on E
or S. E–S profiles show that the profile E>S is more common in
females than in males, and the profile S>E is more common in males
than in females. Baron-Cohen and associates assert that E–S theory is a better predictor than gender of who chooses STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The E–S theory has been extended into the extreme male brain (EMB) theory of autism and Asperger syndrome, which are associated in the E–S theory with below-average empathy and average or above-average systemising.
Baron-Cohen's studies and theory have been questioned on multiple grounds. The overrepresentation of engineers could depend on a socioeconomic status rather than E-S differences.
E–S theory was developed by psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen in 2002,
as a reconceptualization of cognitive sex differences in the general
population. This was done in an effort to understand why the cognitive
difficulties in autism appeared to lie in domains in which he says on
average females outperformed males, along with why cognitive strengths
in autism appeared to lie in domains in which on average males
outperformed females. In the first chapter of his 2003 book The Essential Difference, he discusses the bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, written by John Gray
in 1992, and states: "the view that men are from Mars and women Venus
paints the differences between the two sexes as too extreme. The two
sexes are different, but are not so different that we cannot understand each other." The Essential Difference had a second edition published in 2009.
The book [The Essential Difference]
has been five years in the writing, partly because he deemed its
subject too politically sensitive for the 1990s, and partly because he
first wanted to float his ideas about autism [E-S theory] at scientific
conferences, where he says reaction has been largely supportive.
— David Adam, referring to Simon Baron-Cohen, The Guardian
Prior to the development of E-S theory, Baron-Cohen had previously proposed and studied the mind-blindness theory in 1990, which proposed a homogenous (single-cause) explanation of autism as due to either a lack of theory of mind, or developmental delay in theory of mind during childhood. Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states
to themselves or others. The mind-blindness theory could explain social
and communication difficulties, but could not explain other key traits
of autism including unusually narrow interests and highly repetitive
behaviors. Mind-blindness was later largely rejected by academia in
response to strong evidence for the heterogeneity of autism, although some proponents in academia including Baron-Cohen existed as of March 2011.
Research
According to Baron-Cohen, females on average score higher on measures of empathy
and males on average score higher on measures of systemising. This has
been found using the child and adolescent versions of the Empathy
Quotient (EQ) and the Systemising Quotient (SQ), which are completed by
parents about their child/adolescent, and on the self-report version of the EQ and SQ in adults.
Baron-Cohen and associates say that similar sex differences on
average have been found using performance tests of empathy such as
facial emotion recognition tasks and on performance tests of systemising such as measures of mechanical reasoning or 'intuitive physics'. He has also argued that these sex differences are not only due to socialization.
Fetal testosterone
While
experience and socialization contribute to the observed sex differences
in empathy and systemising, Baron-Cohen and colleagues suggest that
biology also plays a role. A candidate biological factor influencing E
and S is fetal testosterone (FT). FT levels are positively correlated with scores on the Systemising Quotient and are negatively correlated with scores on the Empathy Quotient. A new field of research has emerged to investigate the role of testosterone levels in autism.
Correlational research demonstrated that elevated rates of testosterone
were associated with higher rates of autistic traits, lower rates of
eye contact, and higher rates of other medical conditions.
Furthermore, experimental studies showed that altering testosterone
levels influences the maze performance in rats, having implications for
human studies.
The fetal testosterone theories posit that the level of testosterone in
the womb influences the development of sexually dimorphic brain
structures, resulting in sex differences and autistic traits in
individuals.
Evolutionary explanations for sex differences
Baron-Cohen presents several possible evolutionary psychology
explanations for this sex difference. For example, he says that better
empathising may improve care of children, and that better empathy may
also improve women's social network which may help in various ways with
the caring of children. On the other hand, he says that systemising may
help males become good hunters and increase their social status by
improving spatial navigation and the making and use of tools.
Extreme male brain theory of autism
Baron-Cohen's work in systemising-empathising led him to investigate whether higher levels of fetal testosterone explain the increased prevalence of autism spectrum disorders among males in his theory known as the "extreme male brain" theory of autism. A review of his book The Essential Difference published in Nature
in 2003 summarizes his proposals as: "the male brain is programmed to
systemize and the female brain to empathize ... Asperger's syndrome
represents the extreme male brain".
Baron-Cohen and colleagues extended the E–S theory into the
extreme male brain theory of autism, which hypothesizes that autism
shows an extreme of the typical male profile. This theory divides people into five groups:
Type E, whose empathy is at a significantly higher level than their systemising (E > S).
Type S, whose systemising is at a significantly higher level than their empathy (S > E).
Type B (for balanced), whose empathy is at the same level as their systemising (E = S).
Extreme Type E, whose empathy is above average but whose systemising is below average (E ≫ S).
Extreme Type S, whose systemising is above average but whose empathy is below average (S ≫ E).
Baron-Cohen says that tests of the E–S model show that twice as many
females than males are Type E and twice as many males than females are
Type S. 65% of people with autism spectrum conditions are Extreme Type
S. The concept of the Extreme Type E brain has been proposed; however, little research has been conducted on this brain profile.
Apart from the research using EQ and SQ, several other similar
tests also have found female and male differences and that people with
autism or Asperger syndrome on average score similarly to but more
extremely than the average male.
For example, the brain differences model provides a broad overview of
sex differences that are represented in individuals with autism,
including brain structures and hormone levels.
Some, but not all, studies have found that brain regions that
differ in average size between males and females also differ similarly
between people who have autism and those who do not have autism.
Baron-Cohen's research on relatives of people with Asperger
syndrome and autism found that their fathers and grandfathers are twice
as likely to be engineers as the general population.
A follow-up study by David A. Routh and Christopher Jarrold found
disproportionate numbers of doctors, scientists, and accountants were
fathers of autists, while "skilled and unskilled manual workers are less
common as fathers than would be predicted". They hypothesized that this
observed overrepresentation of science and accounting among autism
fathers could be due to a sampling bias. Another similar finding by Baron-Cohen in California has been referred to as the Silicon Valley phenomenon,
where a large portion of the population works in technical fields, and
he says autism prevalence rates are ten times higher than the average of
the US population.
These data suggest that genetics and the environment play a role in
autism prevalence, and children with technically minded parents are
therefore more likely to be diagnosed with autism.
Another possibility has been proposed that spins the perspective
of the extreme male brain. Social theorists have been investigating the
concept that females have protective factors against autism by having a
more developed language repertoire and more empathy skills. Female
children speak earlier and use language more than their male
counterparts, and the lack of this skill translates into many symptoms
of autism, offering another explanation for the discrepancy in
prevalence.
Development of brain structures
The fetal testosterone theory hypothesizes that higher levels of testosterone in the amniotic fluid
of mothers push brain development towards improved ability to see
patterns and analyze complex systems while diminishing communication and
empathy, emphasising "male" traits over "female", or in E–S theory
terminology, emphasising "systemising" over "empathising". This theory
states that fetal testosterone influences the development of certain
structures in the brain, and that these changes relate to behavioral
traits seen in those with autism. Males generally have higher levels of
fetal testosterone contributing to their brain developing in that
particular way.
The extreme male brain theory (EMB), put forward by Baron-Cohen
suggests that autistic brains show an exaggeration of the features
associated with male brains. These are mainly size and connectivity with
males generally having a larger brain with more white matter, leading to increased connectivity in each hemisphere. This is seen in an exaggerated form in the brains of those with ASD. Another feature of male brains is having a smaller corpus callosum in at least some regions leading to decreased inter-hemispheric connectivity. This is also seen in those with ASD. Individuals with ASD were found to have widespread interconnectivity abnormalities in specific brain regions. This could explain the different results on empathy tests between men and women
as well as the deficiencies in empathy seen in ASD as empathy requires
several brain regions to be activated which need information from many
different areas of the brain.
A further example of how brain structure can influence ASD is looking
at cases where the corpus callosum does not fully develop (agenesis of
corpus callosum). It was found that autism is commonly diagnosed in
children where the corpus callosum does not fully develop (45% of
children with agenesis of the corpus callosum). A further example of brain structures relating to ASD is that children with ASD tend to have a larger amygdala, this is another example of being an extreme version of the male brain which generally has a larger amygdala.
These brain differences have all been shown to have an influence
on social cognition and communication. High levels of fetal testosterone
have also been shown to be related to behavior associated with autism,
such as eye contact. Studies examining the relationship between prenatal
testosterone levels and autistic traits found that high levels
correlated with traits such as decreased eye contact.
These were present in both sexes. This suggests that fetal testosterone
(fT) is the cause of sex differences in the brain and that there is a
link between fT levels and ASD. In general females with autism have a
higher rate of medical conditions which are related to high androgen
levels and both males and females with autism have higher than average
androgen levels.
Males have higher fT levels naturally meaning that there is less of a
change required in the hormone levels to reach a point high enough to
cause the developmental changes seen in autism. This is a possible cause
for the male prevalence seen in autism.
affective or emotional empathy, the ability to emotionally respond to another's mental states. Affective empathy can be subdivided into personal distress (self-centered feelings of discomfort and anxiety in response to another's suffering) and empathic concern (sympathy towards others that are suffering).
Studies found that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
self-report lower levels of empathic concern, show less or absent
comforting responses toward someone who is suffering, and report equal
or higher levels of personal distress compared to controls.
The combination of reduced empathic concern and increased personal
distress may lead to the overall reduction of empathy in ASD.[45]
Studies also suggest that individuals with ASD may have impaired
theory of mind, involving the ability to understand the perspectives of
others. The terms cognitive empathy and theory of mind
are often used synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing
theory of mind with types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are
equivalent.
Notably, many reports on the empathic deficits of individuals with
Asperger syndrome are actually based on impairments in theory of mind.
Baron-Cohen argued that psychopathy is associated with intact
cognitive empathy but reduced affective empathy while ASD is associated
with both reduced cognitive and affective empathy.
The empathising-systematising theory has been criticised on multiple grounds. Time magazine wrote that Baron-Cohen "most dramatically wandered into fraught territory in 2003, when he published the book The Essential Difference,
which called autism a manifestation of an extreme 'male brain'—one
that's 'predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building
systems,' as opposed to a 'female brain,' one that's 'predominantly
hard-wired for empathy'—and ended up on the wrong side of the debate on
science and sex differences." A book review published in the journal Nature, wrote:
"The
idea that males are more interested in systemizing than females merits
serious consideration ... It is unquestionably a novel and fascinating
idea that seems likely to generate a rich empirical body of literature
as its properties are tested. The second part of the theory—that females
are more empathic than males—is more problematic ... Other measures,
however, show that males are highly socially skilled."
Others
criticize the original EQ and SQ, which form most of the research basis
behind the notions of empathising and systemising. Both measure more
than one factor, and sex differences exist on only some of the factors. Isabelle Rapin and Helen Tager-Flusberg said about the theory;
Isabelle
Rapin ... finds Dr. Baron-Cohen's theory "provocative" but adds that
"it does not account for some of the many neurological features of the
disorder, like the motor symptoms [such as repetitive movements and
clumsiness], the sleep problems or the seizures." Others worry that the
term "extreme male brain" could be misinterpreted. Males are commonly
associated with "qualities such as aggression," says Helen
Tager-Flusberg ... "What's dangerous is that's the inference people will
make: Oh, these are extreme males."
Some research in systemizing and empathizing in early life indicates
that boys and girls develop in similar ways, casting considerable doubt
on the theory of sex differences in these areas. A cognitive style that more naturally opposes empathizing is Machiavellianism, which emphasizes self-interest and which has been shown to be strongly correlated with competitiveness; evolutionary theory
predicts that males will be more competitive than females. In contrast,
research has generally shown a weak negative correlation between
empathizing and systemizing.
The extreme male brain theory has also been criticized, with
critics saying that the tests behind this theory are based on gender
stereotypes, and not on hard science. Professor Catherine Lord of UCLA says the theory is based on "gross misinterpretations" of developmental data. Professor David Skuse of University College London
claimed that communication differences between genders are likely to be
small. Meng-Chuan Lai, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, says the results have not been replicated.
As a basis for his theory, Baron-Cohen cites a study done on
newborn infants in which baby boys looked longer at an object and baby
girls looked longer at a person. However, a review of studies done with very young children found no consistent differences between boys and girls.
Critics say that because his work has focused on
higher-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders, his work
requires independent replication with broader samples. A Nature
article published in 2011 says, "Some critics are also rankled by
Baron-Cohen's history of headline-grabbing theories—particularly one
that autism is an 'extreme male' brain state. They worry that his theory
about technically minded parents may be giving the public wrong ideas,
including the impression that autism is linked to being a 'geek'."
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences characterized The Essential Difference
as "very disappointing" with a "superficial notion of intelligence",
concluding that Baron-Cohen's major claims about mind-blindness and
systemizing–empathizing are "at best, dubious". The Spectator
says that "The emphasis on the ultra-maleness approach is no doubt
attributable to the fact that Baron-Cohen works mainly with higher
functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome."
In her 2010 book Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine used Baron-Cohen's views as an example of "neurosexism";
she also criticized some of the experimental work that Baron-Cohen
claims supports his views as being methodologically flawed.
In the 2017 book Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story, science journalist Angela Saini
criticizes Cohen's research, arguing that he vastly overstates the
significance of his findings and noting that the study on babies on
which he bases much of his research has never been successfully
replicated, while his studies of foetal testosterone levels have
consistently failed to provide any evidence for his theories.
Another neuroscientist, Gina Rippon, criticizes his theories in her book The Gendered Brain: The new neuroscience that shatters the myth of the female brain. She has criticized Baron-Cohen works, cataloguing his book The Essential Difference as "neurotrash" because of its weak research methods. Reviewing her work for Nature, neuroscientist Lise Eliot
has supported Rippon's approach, arguing "The hunt for male and female
distinctions inside the skull is a lesson in bad research practice".
Rippon also argues against using "male" and "female" for describing
different types of brains which do not correspond to genders.
Oxytocin is also available in intranasal spray form for
psychiatric, endocrine and weight management use as a supplement.
Intranasal oxytocin works on a different pathway than injected oxytocin,
primarily along the olfactory nerve crossing the brain blood barrier to
the olfactory lobe in the brain, where dense magnocellular oxytocin
neurons receive the dose application.
An intravenous infusion of oxytocin is used to induce labor and to support labor in case of slow childbirth if the oxytocin challenge test fails. Whether a high dose is better than a standard dose for labor induction is unclear. It has largely replaced ergometrine as the principal agent to increase uterine tone in acute postpartum hemorrhage. Oxytocin is also used in veterinary medicine to facilitate birth and to stimulate milk release.
The tocolytic agent atosiban
(Tractocile) acts as an antagonist of oxytocin receptors. It is
registered in many countries for use in suppressing premature labor
between 24 and 33 weeks of gestation. It has fewer side effects than
drugs previously used for this purpose (such as ritodrine, salbutamol and terbutaline).
Oxytocin has not been found to be useful for improving breastfeeding success.
Contraindications
Oxytocin injection (synthetic) is contraindicated in any of these conditions:
Excessive dosage or long-term administration (over a period of 24 hours or longer) has been known to result in tetanic uterine contractions, uterine rupture, postpartum hemorrhage, and water intoxication, sometimes fatal.
Oxytocin was added to the Institute for Safe Medication
Practices's list of High Alert Medications in Acute Care Settings in
2012. The list includes medications that have a high risk for harm if administered incorrectly.
During pregnancy, increased uterine motility has led to decreased heart rate, cardiac arrhythmia, seizures, brain damage, and death in the fetus or neonate.
Certain learning and memory functions are impaired by centrally administered oxytocin. Also, systemic oxytocin administration can impair memory retrieval in certain aversive memory tasks.
However, oxytocin does seem to facilitate learning and memory
specifically for social information. Healthy males administered
intranasal oxytocin show improved memory for human faces, in particular happy faces.
Injection: Clinical doses of oxytocin are given by injection either into a muscle or into a vein to cause contraction of the uterus. Very small amounts (< 1%) do appear to enter the central nervous system in humans when peripherally administered. The compound has a half-life of typically about 3 minutes in the blood when given intravenously. Intravenous administration requires 40 minutes to reach a steady-state concentration and achieve maximum uterine contraction response.
Buccal: Oxytocin was delivered in buccal tablets, but this is not common practice any more.
Under the tongue: Oxytocin is poorly absorbed sublingually.
Nasal administration: Oxytocin is effectively distributed to the brain when administered intranasally via a nasal spray, after which it reliably crosses the blood–brain barrier and exhibits psychoactive effects in humans. No serious adverse effects with short-term application of oxytocin with 18~40 IU (36–80 mcg) have been recorded. Intranasal oxytocin has a central duration of at least 2.25 hours and as long as 4 hours.
Oxytocin's uterine-contracting properties were discovered by British pharmacologist Henry Hallett Dale in 1906. Oxytocin's milk ejection property was described by Ott and Scott in 1910 and by Schafer and Mackenzie in 1911.
Oxytocin was the first polypeptide hormone to be sequenced or synthesized. Du Vigneaud was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955 for his work.
Etymology
The word oxytocin was coined from the term oxytocic. Greek ὀξύς, oxys, and τόκος, tokos, meaning "quick birth".
Feminist economics is the critical study of economics and economies, with a focus on gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis. Feminist economic researchers include academics, activists, policy theorists, and practitioners. Much feminist economic research focuses on topics that have been neglected in the field, such as care work,
intimate partner violence, or on economic theories which could be
improved through better incorporation of gendered effects and
interactions, such as between paid and unpaid sectors of economies. Other feminist scholars have engaged in new forms of data collection and measurement such as the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), and more gender-aware theories such as the capabilities approach.
Feminist economics is oriented towards the goal of "enhancing the
well-being of children, women, and men in local, national, and
transnational communities."
Feminist economists call attention to the social constructions of traditional economics, questioning the extent to which it is positive and objective, and showing how its models and methods are biased by an exclusive attention to masculine-associated topics and a one-sided favoring of masculine-associated assumptions and methods.
While economics traditionally focused on markets and
masculine-associated ideas of autonomy, abstraction and logic, feminist
economists call for a fuller exploration of economic life, including
such "culturally feminine" topics such as family economics, and examining the importance of connections, concreteness, and emotion in explaining economic phenomena.
Early on, feministethicists, economists, political scientists, and systems scientists argued that women's traditional work
(e.g. child-raising, caring for sick elders) and occupations (e.g.
nursing, teaching) are systematically undervalued with respect to that
of men. For example, Jane Jacobs' thesis of the "Guardian Ethic" and its contrast to the "Trader Ethic"
sought to explain the undervaluing of guardianship activity, including
the child-protecting, nurturing, and healing tasks that were
traditionally assigned to women.
Written in 1969 and later published in the Houseworker's Handbook, Betsy Warrior's Housework: Slavery or a Labor of Love and The Source of Leisure Time
presents a cogent argument that the production and reproduction of
domestic labor performed by women constitutes the foundation of all
economic transactions and survival; although, unremunerated and not
included in the GDP.
According to Warrior: "Economics, as it's presented today, lacks any
basis in reality as it leaves out the very foundation of economic life.
That foundation is built on women's labor; first her reproductive labor
which produces every new laborer (and the first commodity, which is
mother's milk and which sustains every new consumer/laborer); secondly,
women's labor entails environmentally necessary cleaning, cooking to
make raw materials consumable, negotiating to maintain social stability
and nurturing, which prepares for market and maintains each laborer.
This constitutes women's continuing industry enabling laborers to occupy
every position in the work force. Without this fundamental labor and
commodity there would be no economic activity nor we would have survived
to continue to evolve."
Warrior also notes that the unacknowledged income of men from illegal
activities like arms, drugs and human trafficking, political graft,
religious emoluments and various other undisclosed activities provide a
rich revenue stream to men, which further invalidates GDP figures.
Even in underground economies where women predominate numerically,
like trafficking in humans, prostitution and domestic servitude, only a
tiny fraction of the pimp's revenue filters down to the women and
children he deploys. Usually the amount spent on them is merely for the
maintenance of their lives and, in the case of those prostituted, some
money may be spent on clothing and such accouterments as will make them
more salable to the pimp's clients. For instance, focusing on just the
US, according to a government sponsored report by the Urban Institute in
2014, "A street prostitute in Dallas may make as little as $5 per sex
act. But pimps can take in $33,000 a week in Atlanta, where the sex
business brings in an estimated $290 million per year."
Warrior believes that only an inclusive, facts-based economic analysis
will provide a reliable bases for future planning for environmental and
reproductive/population needs.
In 1970, Ester Boserup published Woman's Role in Economic Development and provided the first systematic examination of the gendered effects of agricultural transformation, industrialization and other structural changes.
This evidence illuminated the negative outcomes that these changes had
for women. This work, among others, laid the basis for the broad claim
that "women and men weather the storm of macroeconomic shocks,
neoliberal policies, and the forces of globalization in different ways." Moreover, measures such as employment equity were implemented in developed nations
in the 1970s to 1990s, but these were not entirely successful in
removing wage gaps even in nations with strong equity traditions.
"Marilyn Waring's work woke people up. She showed exactly how
the unpaid work traditionally done by women has been made invisible
within national accounting systems, and the damage this causes. Her book
... encouraged and influenced a wide range of work on ways, both
numerical and otherwise, of valuing, preserving, and rewarding the work
of care that sustains our lives. By pointing to a similar neglect of the
natural environment, she also issued a wake-up call to issues of
ecological sustainability that have only grown more pressing over time.
In recent decades, the field of feminist economics has broadened and
widened to encompass these topics and more."
As in other disciplines, the initial emphasis of feminist
economists was to critique the established theory, methodology, and
policy approaches. The critique began in microeconomics of the household and labor markets and spread to macroeconomics and international trade, ultimately extending to all areas of traditional economic analysis.
Feminist economists pushed for and produced gender aware theory and
analysis, broadened the focus on economics and sought pluralism of
methodology and research methods.
Although
there is no definitive list of the principles of feminist economics,
feminist economists offer a variety of critiques of standard approaches
in economics. For example, prominent feminist economist Paula England provided one of the earliest feminist critiques of traditional economics as she challenged the claims that:
That interpersonal utility comparisons are impossible;
This list is not exhaustive but does represent some of the central
feminist economic critiques of traditional economics, out of the wide
variety of such viewpoints and critiques.
Normativity
Many feminists call attention to value judgments in economic analysis. This idea is contrary to the typical conception of economics as a positive science held by many practitioners. For example, Geoff Schneider and Jean Shackelford suggest that, as in other sciences,
"the issues that economists choose to study, the kinds of questions
they ask, and the type of analysis undertaken all are a product of a
belief system which is influenced by numerous factors, some of them
ideological in character." Similarly, Diana Strassmann comments, "All economic statistics
are based on an underlying story forming the basis of the definition.
In this way, narrative constructions necessarily underlie all
definitions of variables and statistics. Therefore, economic research
cannot escape being inherently qualitative, regardless of how it is
labeled." Feminist economists call attention to the value judgements in all aspects economics and criticize its depiction of an objective science.
Free trade
A central principle of mainstream economics is that trade can make everyone better off through comparative advantage and efficiency gains from specialization and greater efficiency. Many feminist economists question this claim. Diane Elson,
Caren Grown and Nilufer Cagatay explore the role that gender
inequalities play in international trade and how such trade reshapes
gender inequality itself. They and other feminist economists explore
whose interests specific trade practices serve.
For example, they may highlight that in Africa, specialization in the cultivation of a single cash crop for export in many countries made those countries extremely vulnerable to price fluctuations, weather patterns, and pests. Feminist economists may also consider the specific gendered effects of trade-decisions. For instance, "in countries such as Kenya,
men generally controlled the earnings from cash crops while women were
still expected to provide food and clothing for the household, their
traditional role in the African family, along with labor to produce cash
crops. Thus women suffered significantly from the transition away from
subsistence food production towards specialization and trade."
Similarly, since women often lack economic power as business owners,
they are more likely to be hired as cheap labor, often involving them in
exploitative situations. These examples highlight feminist economic theory's critique of the traditional economic theory.
Exclusion of non-market activity
Feminist economics call attention to the importance of non-market activities, such as childcare and domestic work, to economic development. This stands in sharp contrast to neoclassical economics where those forms of labor are unaccounted for as "non-economic" phenomena. Including such labor in economic accounts removes substantial gender bias because women disproportionately perform those tasks. When that labor is unaccounted for in economic models, much work done by women is ignored, literally devaluing their effort.
A
Colombian domestic worker. Neighborhood friends and family sharing
household and childcare responsibilities is an example of non-market
activity performed outside of the traditional labor market.
More specifically, for example, Nancy Folbre examines the role of children as public goods and how the non-market labor of parents contributes to the development of human capital as a public service. In this sense, children are positive externality
which is under-invested according to traditional analysis. Folbre
indicates that this oversight partially results from failing to properly
examine non-market activities.
Marilyn Waring described how the exclusion of non-market activities in the national accounting systems
relied on the deliberate choice and the design of the international
standard of national accounts that explicitly excluded non-market
activities. In some countries, such as Norway,
which had included unpaid household work in the GDP in the first half
of the 20th century, it was left out in 1950 for reasons of
compatibility with the new international standard.
Ailsa McKay argues for a basic income as "a tool for promoting gender-neutral social citizenship rights" partially to address these concerns.
Omission of power relations
Feminist
economics often assert that power relations exist within the economy,
and therefore, must be assessed in economic models in ways that they
previously have been overlooked.
For example, in "neoclassical texts, the sale of labor is viewed as a
mutually beneficial exchange that benefits both parties. No mention is
made of the power inequities in the exchange which tend to give the
employer power over the employee."
These power relations often favor men and there is "never any mention
made of the particular difficulties that confront women in the workplace." Consequently, "Understanding power and patriarchy
helps us to analyze how male-dominated economic institutions actually
function and why women are often at a disadvantage in the workplace."
Feminist economists often extend these criticisms to many aspects of
the social world, arguing that power relations are an endemic and
important feature of society.
Omission of gender and race
Feminist economics argue that gender and race must be considered in economic analysis. Amartya Sen
argues that "the systematically inferior position of women inside and
outside the household in many societies points to the necessity of
treating gender as a force of its own in development analysis."
He goes on to say that experiences of men and women, even within the
same household, are often so different that examining economics without
gender can be misleading.
Economic models can often be improved by explicitly considering gender, race, class, and caste. Julie Matthaie describes their importance: "Not only did gender and racial-ethnic differences and inequality precede capitalism,
they have been built into it in key ways. In other words, every aspect
of our capitalist economy is gendered and racialized; a theory and
practice that ignores this is inherently flawed."
Feminist economist Eiman Zein-Elabdin says racial and gender
differences should be examined since both have traditionally been
ignored and thus are equally described as "feminist difference." The July 2002 issue of the Feminist Economics journal was dedicated to issues of "gender, color, caste and class."
Exaggeration of gender differences
In other cases gender differences have been exaggerated, potentially encouraging unjustified stereotyping. In recent works Julie A. Nelson
has shown how the idea that "women are more risk averse than men," a
now-popular assertion from behavioral economics, actually rests on
extremely thin empirical evidence. Conducting meta-analyses of recent
studies, she demonstrates that, while statistically significant
differences in measures of mean risk aversion are sometimes found, the
substantive size of these group-level differences tend to be small (on
the order of a fraction of a standard deviation), and many other studies
fail to find a statistically significant difference at all. Yet the
studies that fail to find "difference" are less likely to be published
or highlighted.
In addition, claims that men and women have "different"
preferences (such as for risk, competition, or altruism) often tend to
be misinterpreted as categorical, that is, as applying to all women and
all men, as individuals. In fact, small differences in average behavior,
such as are found in some studies, are generally accompanied by large
overlaps in men's and women's distributions. That is, both men and women
can generally be found in the most risk-averse (or competitive or
altruistic) groups, as well as in the least.
Homo economicus
The neoclassical economic model of a person is called Homo economicus,
describing a person who "interacts in society without being influenced
by society," because "his mode of interaction is through an ideal market," in which prices are the only necessary considerations. In this view, people are considered rational actors who engage in marginal analysis to make many or all of their decisions.
Feminist economists argue that people are more complex than such
models, and call for "a more holistic vision of an economic actor, which
includes group interactions and actions motivated by factors other than
greed."
Feminist economics holds that such a reformation provides a better
description of the actual experiences of both men and women in the
market, arguing that mainstream economics overemphasizes the role of
individualism, competition and selfishness of all actors. Instead,
feminist economists like Nancy Folbre show that cooperation also plays a role in the economy.
Feminist economists also point out that agency
is not available to everyone, such as children, the sick, and the frail
elderly. Responsibilities for their care can compromise the agency of
caregivers as well. This is a critical departure from the homo economicus model.
Moreover, feminist economists critique the focus of neoclassical economics on monetary rewards. Nancy Folbre notes, "legal rules and cultural norms can affect market outcomes in ways distinctly disadvantageous to women." This includes occupational segregation resulting in unequal pay for women. Feminist research in these areas contradicts the neoclassical description of labor markets in which occupations are chosen freely by individuals acting alone and out of their own free will. Feminist economics also includes study of norms
relevant to economics, challenging the traditional view that material
incentives will reliably provide the goods we want and need (consumer
sovereignty), which does not hold true for many people.
Institutional economics is one means by which feminist economists improve upon the homo economicus
model. This theory examines the role of institutions and evolutionary
social processes in shaping economic behavior, emphasizing "the
complexity of human motives and the importance of culture and relations
of power." This provides a more holistic view of the economic actor than
homo economicus.
The work of George Akerlof and Janet Yellen on efficiency wages
based on notions of fairness provides an example of a feminist model of
economic actors. In their work, agents are not hyperrational or
isolated, but instead act in concert and with fairness, are capable of
experiencing jealousy, and are interested in personal relationships.
This work is based on empirical sociology and psychology, and suggests that wages can be influenced by fairness considerations rather than purely market forces.
Limited methodology
Economics is often thought of as "the study of how society manages its scarce resources" and as such is limited to mathematical inquiry. Traditional economists often say such an approach assures objectivity and separates economics from "softer" fields such as sociology and political science.
Feminist economists, argue on the contrary that a mathematical
conception of economics limited to scarce resources is a holdover from
the early years of science and Cartesian philosophy, and limits economic analysis. So feminist economists often call for more diverse data collection and broader economic models.
Economic pedagogy
Feminist
economists suggest that both the content and teaching style of
economics courses would benefit from certain changes. Some recommend
including experimental learning, laboratory sessions, individual
research and more chances to "do economics."
Some want more dialogue between instructors and students. Many feminist
economists are urgently interested in how course content influences the
demographic composition of future economists, suggesting that the
"classroom climate" affects some students' perceptions of their own
ability.
The 2000s financial crisis
Margunn Bjørnholt and Ailsa McKay argue that the financial crisis of 2007–08
and the response to it revealed a crisis of ideas in mainstream
economics and within the economics profession, and call for a reshaping
of both the economy, economic theory and the economics profession. They
argue that such a reshaping should include new advances within feminist
economics that take as their starting point the socially responsible,
sensible and accountable subject in creating an economy and economic
theories that fully acknowledge care for each other as well as the
planet.
Major areas of inquiry
Economic epistemology
Feminist critiques of economics include that "economics, like any science, is socially constructed." Feminist economists say that social constructs act to privilege male-identified, western, and heterosexual interpretations of economics. They generally incorporate feminist theory
and frameworks to show how traditional economics communities signal
expectations regarding appropriate participants, to the exclusion of
outsiders. Such criticisms extend to the theories, methodologies and
research areas of economics, in order to show that accounts of economic
life are deeply influenced by biased histories, social structures,
norms, cultural practices, interpersonal interactions, and politics.
Feminist economists often make a critical distinction that masculine bias in economics is primarily a result of gender, not sex.
In other words, when feminist economists highlight the biases of
mainstream economics, they focus on its social beliefs about masculinity
like objectivity, separation, logical consistency, individual
accomplishment, mathematics, abstraction, and lack of emotion, but not
on the gender of authorities and subjects. However, the
over-representation of men among economists and their subjects of study
is also a concern.
Economic history
Women's weekly earnings as a percentage of men's in the U.S. by age, 1979-2005
Feminist economists say that mainstream economics has been disproportionately developed by European-descended, heterosexual,
middle and upper-middle-class men, and that this has led to suppression
of the life experiences of the full diversity of the world's people,
especially women, children and those in non-traditional families.
Additionally, feminist economists claim that the historical bases of economics are inherently exclusionary to women. Michèle Pujol
points to five specific historical assumptions about women that arose,
became embedded in the formulation of economics, and continue to be used
to maintain that women are different from the masculinized norms and
exclude them. These include the ideas that:
All women are married, or if not yet, they will be and all women will have children.
All women are economically dependent on a male relative.
All women are (and should be) housewives due to their reproductive capacities.
Women are unproductive in the industrial workforce.
Women are irrational, unfit economic agents, and cannot be trusted to make the right economic decisions.
Feminist economists also examine early economic thinkers' interaction
or lack of interaction with gender and women's issues, showing examples
of women's historical engagement with economic thought. For example, Edith Kuiper discusses Adam Smith's engagement with feminist discourse on the role of women in the eighteenth century France and England. She finds that through his writings, Smith typically supported the status quo
on women's issues and "lost sight of the division of labor in the
family and the contribution of women's economic work." In response, she
points to Mary Collier's works such as The Woman's Labour (1739) to help understand Smith's contemporaneous experiences of women and fill in such gaps.
Engendering macroeconomic theories
Percentage
gap between median men's and women's wages, for full-time workers by
OECD country, 2006. In the U.K., the most significant factors associated
with the remaining gender pay gap are part-time work, education, the
size of the firm a person is employed in, and occupational segregation
(women are under-represented in managerial and high-paying professional
occupations.)
Central to feminist economics is an effort to alter the theoretical modeling of the economy, to reduce gender bias and inequity. Feminist macroeconomic inquiries focus on international capital flows, fiscal austerity, deregulation and privatization, monetary policy, international trade
and more. In general, these modifications take three main forms: gender
disaggregation, the addition of gender-based macroeconomic variables,
and the creation of a two-sector system.
Gender disaggregation
This
method of economic analysis seeks to overcome gender bias by showing
how men and women differ in their consumption, investment or saving
behavior. Gender disaggregation strategies justify the separation of
macroeconomic variables by gender. Korkut Ertürk and Nilüfer Çağatay
show how the feminization of labor stimulates investment, while an
increase in female activity in housework raises savings.
This model highlights how gender effects macroeconomic variables and
shows that economies have a higher likelihood of recovering from
downturns if women participate in the labor force more, instead of
devoting their time to housework.
Gendered macroeconomic variables
U.S. women's weekly earnings, employment, and percentage of men's earnings, by industry, 2009
This approach demonstrates the effects of gender inequalities by
enhancing macroeconomic models. Bernard Walters shows that traditional
neoclassical models fail to adequately assess work related to
reproduction by assuming that the population and labor are determined
exogenously.
That fails to account for the fact that inputs are produced through
caring labor, which is disproportionately performed by women. Stephen
Knowels et al. use a neoclassical growth model to show that women's education has a positive statistically significant effect on labor productivity, more robust than that of men's education.
In both of these cases, economists highlight and address the gender
biases of macroeconomic variables to show that gender plays a
significant role in models' outcomes.
Two-sector system
The
two-sector system approach models the economy as two separate systems:
one involving the standard macroeconomic variables, while the other
includes gender-specific variables. William Darity developed a two-sector approach for low-income, farm-based economies. Darity shows that subsistence farming depended on the labor of women, while the production of income depended on the labor of both men and women in cash-crop
activities. This model shows that when men control production and
income, they seek to maximize income by persuading women to put
additional effort into cash-crop production, causing increases in cash
crops come at the expense of subsistence production.
Well-being
Many feminist economists argue economics should be focused less on mechanisms (like income) or theories (such as utilitarianism) and more on well-being, a multidimensional concept including income, health, education, empowerment and social status. They argue that economic success can not be measured only by goods or gross domestic product,
but must also be measured by human well-being. Aggregate income is not
sufficient to evaluate general well-being, because individual
entitlements and needs must also be considered, leading feminist
economists to study health, longevity, access to property, education, and related factors.
Bina Agarwal
and Pradeep Panda illustrate that a woman's property status (such as
owning a house or land) directly and significantly reduces her chances
of experiencing domestic violence, while employment makes little difference. They argue that such immovable property increases women's self-esteem,
economic security, and strengthens their fall-back positions, enhancing
their options and bargaining clout. They show that property ownership
is an important contributor to women's economic well-being because it
reduces their susceptibility to violence.
In order to measure well-being more generally, Amartya Sen, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, and other feminist economists helped develop alternatives to Gross Domestic Product, such as the Human Development Index. Other models of interest to feminist economists include the labor theory of value, which was most thoroughly developed in Das Kapital by Karl Marx.
That model considers production as a socially constructed human project
and redefines wages as means to earning a living. This refocuses
economic models on human innate desires and needs as opposed to monetary
incentives.
Economists Amartya Sen and Philosopher Martha Nussbaum created the human capabilities approach as an alternative way to assess economic success rooted in the ideas of welfare economics and focused on the individual's potential to do and be what he or she may choose to value.Unlike traditional economic measures of success, focused on GDP, utility, income, assets
or other monetary measures, the capabilities approach focuses on what
individuals are able to do. This approach emphasizes processes as well
as outcomes, and draws attention to cultural, social and material
dynamics of well-being. Martha Nussbaum,
expanded on the model with a more complete list of central capabilities
including life, health, bodily integrity, thought, and more. In recent years, the capabilities approach has influenced the creation of new models including the UN's Human Development Index (HDI).
Household bargaining
Central
to feminist economics is a different approach to the "family" and
"household." In classical economics, those units are typically described
as amicable and homogeneous. Gary Becker
and new home economists introduced the study of "the family" to
traditional economics, which usually assumes the family is a single,
altruistic unit among which money is distributed equally. Others have
concluded that an optimal distribution of commodities and provisions
takes place within the family as a result of which they view families in
the same manner as individuals.
These models, according to feminist economists, "endorsed traditional
expectations about the sexes," and applied individualistic
rational-choice models to explain home behavior. Feminist economists modify these assumptions to account for exploitative sexual and gender relations, single-parent families, same-sex relationships,
familial relations with children, and the consequences of reproduction.
Specifically, feminist economists move beyond unitary household models
and game theory to show the diversity of household experiences.
For example, Bina Agarwal and others have critiqued the mainstream model and helped provide a better understanding of intra-household bargaining power. Agarwal shows that a lack of power and outside options for women hinders their ability to negotiate within their families. Amartya Sen shows how social norms that devalue women's unpaid work in the household often disadvantage women in intra-household bargaining.
These feminist economists argue that such claims have important
economic outcomes which must be recognized within economic frameworks.
Feminist economists join the UN and others in acknowledging care work, as a kind of work which includes all tasks involving caregiving, as central to economic development and human well-being.
Feminist economists study both paid and unpaid care work. They argue
that traditional analysis of economics often ignores the value of
household unpaid work. Feminist economists have argued that unpaid domestic work
is as valuable as paid work, so measures of economic success should
include unpaid work. They have shown that women are disproportionately
responsible for performing such care work.
Sabine O'Hara argues that care is the basis for all economic activity and market economies,
concluding that "everything needs care," not only people, but animals
and things. She highlights the sustaining nature of care services
offered outwith the formal economy.
Riane Eisler
claims we need the economic system, to give visibility to the essential
work of caring for people and caring for nature. Measuring GDP
only includes productive work and leaves out the life sustaining
activities of the following three sectors: the household economy, the
natural economy and the volunteer community economy. These sectors are
where most of the care work is done. By changing existing economic indicators
in a way that they would also measure the contributions of the three
aforementioned sectors we can get a more accurate reflection of economic
reality. She proposes social wealth indicators. According to her these
indicators would show the enormous return on investment (ROI) in caring
for people and nature. Psychological studies have shown that when people
feel good, and they feel good when they feel cared for, they are more
productive and more creative (example case study). As a result, the care economy has positive externalities such as increasing the quality of human capital.
Most nations not only fail to support the care work that is still
predominantly done by women, but we live in the world with gendered
system of values. Everything that is associated with women or femininity
is devalued or even marginalised. We need to leave behind the gender
double standard that devaluates caring. Only then we can shift from
domination to partnership and create a new economic model that Eisler
proposes in her book The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring
Economics. Contributions of people and of nature present the real wealth
of the society and our economic policies and practices must support caring for both she claims.
Feminist economists have also highlighted power and inequality issues within families and households. For example, Randy Albelda shows that responsibility for care work influences the time poverty experienced by single mothers in the United States. Similarly, Sarah Gammage examines the effects of unpaid care work performed by women in Guatemala. The work of the Equality Studies Department at University College Dublin such as that of Sara Cantillon has focused on inequalities of domestic arrangements within even affluent households.
While much care work is performed in the home, it may also be
done for pay. As such, feminist economics examine its implications,
including the increasing involvement of women in paid care work, the
potential for exploitation, and effects on the lives of care workers.
Unpaid work can include domestic work, care work,
subsistence work, unpaid market labor and voluntary work. There is no
clear consensus on the definition of these categories. But broadly
speaking, these kinds of work can be seen as contributing to the
reproduction of society.
Domestic work is maintenance of the home, and is usually
universally recognizable, e.g. doing the laundry. Care work is looking
"after a relative or friend who needs support because of age, physical
or learning disability, or illness, including mental illness;" this also
includes raising children. Care work also involves "close personal or emotional interaction."
Also included in this category is "self-care," in which leisure time
and activities are included. Subsistence work is work done in order to
meet basic needs, such as collecting water, but does not have market
values assigned to it. Although some of these efforts "are categorized
as productive activities according to the latest revision of the
international System of National Accounts (SNA) ... [they] are poorly measured by most surveys."
Unpaid market work is "the direct contributions of unpaid family
members to market work that officially belongs to another member of the
household." Voluntary work is usually work done for non-household members, but in return for little to no remuneration.
System of National Accounts
Each country measures its economic output according to the System of National Accounts (SNA), sponsored mainly by the United Nations (UN), but implemented mainly by other organizations such as the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank.
The SNA recognizes that unpaid work is an area of interest, but "unpaid
household services are excluded from [its] production boundary."
Feminist economists have criticized the SNA for this exclusion, because
by leaving out unpaid work, basic and necessary labor is ignored.
Even accounting measures intended to recognize gender disparities
are criticized for ignoring unpaid work. Two such examples are the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), neither of which include much unpaid work. So feminist economics calls for a more comprehensive index which includes participation in unpaid work.
In more recent years there has been increasing attention to this
issue, such as recognition of unpaid work within SNA reports and a
commitment by the UN to the measurement and valuation of unpaid work,
emphasizing care work done by women. This goal was restated at the 1995
UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
Measurement of unpaid work
The method most widely used to measure unpaid work is gathering information on time use, which has "been implemented by at least 20 developing countries and more are underway" as of 2006.
Time use measurement involves collecting data on how much time men and
women spend on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis on certain activities
that fall under the categories of unpaid work.
Techniques to gather this data include surveys, in-depth interviews, diaries, and participant observation.
Proponents of time use diaries believe that this method "generate[s]
more detailed information and tend[s] to capture greater variation than
predetermined questions."
However, others argue that participant observation, "where the
researcher spends lengthy periods of time in households helping out and
observing the labor process," generates more accurate information
because the researcher can ascertain whether or not those studied are
accurately reporting what activities they perform.
Accuracy
The
first problem of measuring unpaid work is the issue of collecting
accurate information. This is always a concern in research studies, but
is particularly difficult when evaluating unpaid work. "Time-use surveys
may reveal relatively little time devoted to unpaid direct care
activities [because] the demands of subsistence production in those
countries are great," and may not take into account multitasking — for
example, a mother may collect wood fuel while a child is in the same
location, so the child is in her care while she is performing other
work.
Usually such indirect care should be included, as it is in many time
use studies. But it is not always, and as a result some studies may
undervalue the amount of certain types of unpaid work. Participant
observation has been criticized for being "so time-consuming that it can
only focus on small numbers of households," and thus limited in the
amount of information it can be used to gather.
All data gathering involves difficulties with the potential
inaccuracy of research subjects' reports. For instance, when "people
doing domestic labor have no reason to pay close attention to the amount
of time tasks take ... they [may] often underestimate time spent in
familiar activities."
Measuring time can also be problematic because "the slowest and most
inefficient workers [appear to carry] the greatest workload."
Time use in assessing childcare is criticized as "easily obscur[ing]
gender differences in workload. Men and women may both put in the same
amount of time being responsible for children but as participant
observation studies have shown, many men are more likely to 'babysit'
their children while doing something for themselves, such as watching
TV. Men's standards of care may be limited to ensuring the children are
not hurt. Dirty diapers may be ignored or deliberately left until the
mother returns."
A paradoxical aspect of this problem is that those most burdened may
not be able to participate in the studies: "It is usually those women
with the heaviest work loads who choose not to participate in these
studies."
In general, measurement of time causes "some of the most demanding
aspects of unpaid work [to be unexplored] and the premise that time is
an appropriate tool for measuring women's unpaid work goes
unchallenged."
Surveys have also been criticized for lacking "depth and complexity" as
questions cannot be specifically tailored to particular circumstances.
Comparability
A
second problem is the difficulty of comparisons across cultures.
"Comparisons across countries are currently hampered by differences in
activity classification and nomenclature."
In-depth surveys may be the only way to get necessary information
desired, but they make it difficult to perform cross-cultural
comparisons.
The lack of adequate universal terminology in discussing unpaid work is
an example. "Despite increasing recognition that domestic labor is
work, existing vocabularies do not easily convey the new appreciations.
People still tend to talk about work and home as if they were separate
spheres. 'Working mothers' are usually assumed to be in the paid labor
force, despite feminist assertions that 'every mother is a working
mother.' There are no readily accepted terms to express different work
activities or job titles. Housewife, home manager, homemaker are all
problematic and none of them conveys the sense of a woman who juggles
both domestic labor and paid employment."
Complexity
A
third problem is the complexity of domestic labor and the issues of
separating unpaid work categories. Time use studies now take
multitasking issues into account, separating primary and secondary
activities. However, not all studies do this, and even those that do may
not take into account "the fact that frequently several tasks are done
simultaneously, that tasks overlap, and that the boundaries between work
and relationships are often unclear. How does a woman determine her
primary activity when she is preparing dinner while putting the laundry
away, making coffee for her spouse, having coffee and chatting with him,
and attending to the children?"
Some activities may not even be considered work, such as playing with a
child (this has been categorized as developmental care work) and so may
not be included in a study's responses.
As mentioned above, child supervision (indirect care work) may not be
construed as an activity at all, which
"suggests that activity-based surveys should be supplemented by more
stylized questions regarding care responsibilities" as otherwise such
activities can be undercounted.
In the past, time use studies tended to measure only primary
activities, and "respondents doing two or more things at once were asked
to indicate which was the more important." This has been changing in
more recent years.
Valuation of time
Feminist economists point out three main ways of determining the value of unpaid work: the opportunity cost method, replacement cost
method, and input-output cost method. The opportunity cost method
"uses the wage a person would earn in the market" to see how much value
their labor-time has. This method extrapolates from the opportunity cost idea in mainstream economics.
The second method of valuation uses replacement costs. In simple
terms, this is done by measuring the amount of money a third-party
would make for doing the same work if it was part of the market. In
other words, the value of a person cleaning the house in an hour is the
same as the hourly wage for a maid. Within this method there are two
approaches: the first is a generalist replacement cost method, which
examines if "it would be possible, for example, to take the wage of a
general domestic worker who could perform a variety of tasks including
childcare".
The second approach is the specialist replacement cost method, which
aims to "distinguish between the different household tasks and choose
replacements accordingly".
The third method is the input-output cost method. This looks at
both the costs of inputs and includes any value added by the household.
"For instance, the value of time devoted to cooking a meal can be
determined by asking what it could cost to purchase a similar meal (the
output) in the market, then subtracting the cost of the capital goods,
utilities and raw materials devoted to that meal. This remainder
represents the value of the other factors of production, primarily
labor."
These types of models try to value household output by determining
monetary values for the inputs — in the dinner example, the ingredients
and production of the meal — and compares those with market equivalents.
Difficulty establishing monetary levels
One
criticism of time valuation concerns the choice of monetary levels. How
should unpaid work be valued when more than one activity is being
performed or more than one output is produced? Another issue concerns
differences in quality between market and household products. Some
feminist economists take issue with using the market system to determine
values for a variety of reasons: it may lead to the conclusion that the
market provides perfect substitutes for non-market work;
the wage produced in the market for services may not accurately reflect
the actual opportunity cost of time spent in household production;
and the wages used in valuation methods come from industries where
wages are already depressed because of gender inequalities, and so will
not accurately value unpaid work.
A related argument is that the market "accepts existing sex/gender
divisions of labor and pay inequalities as normal and unproblematic.
With this basic assumption underlying their calculations, the valuations
produced serve to reinforce gender inequalities rather than challenge
women's subordination."
Criticisms of opportunity cost
Criticisms
are leveled against each method of valuation. The opportunity cost
method "depends on the lost earnings of the worker so that a toilet
cleaned by a lawyer has much greater value than one cleaned by a
janitor", which means that the value varies too drastically.
There are also issues with the uniformity of this method not just
across multiple individuals, but also for a single person: it "may not
be uniform across the entire day or across days of the week." There is also the issue of whether any enjoyment of the activity should be deducted from the opportunity cost estimate.
Difficulties with replacement cost
The
replacement cost method also has its critics. What types of jobs should
be used as substitutes? For example, should childcare activities "be
calculated using the wages of daycare workers or child psychiatrists?"
This relates to the problem of depressed wages in female-dominated
industries, and whether using such jobs as an equivalent leads to the
undervaluing of unpaid work. Some have argued that education levels
ought to be comparable, for example, "the value of time that a
college-educated parent spends reading aloud to a child should be
ascertained by asking how much it would cost to hire a college-educated
worker to do the same, not by an average housekeeper's wage."
Difficulties with input-output methods
Critiques
against the input-output methods include the difficulty of identifying
and measuring household outputs, and the issues of variation of
households and these effects.
Findings and economic effects of unpaid work
In
2011, a wide-ranging study was conducted to determine the amount of
unpaid household work engaged in by residents of different countries.
This study, incorporating the results of time-use surveys from 26 OECD
countries, found that, in each country, the average hours spent per day
on unpaid household work was between about 2 to 4 hours per day.
As domestic work is widely seen as "women's work", the majority of it
is performed by women, even for women who also participate in the labor
force. One study found that, when adding the time spent on unpaid
household work to the time spent engaging in paid work, married mothers
accumulate 84 hours of work per week, compared to 79 hours per week for
unmarried mothers, and 72 hours per week for all fathers, whether
married or not.
Efforts to calculate the true economic value of unpaid work, which is not included in measures such as gross domestic product,
have shown that this value is enormous. In the United States, it has
been estimated to be between 20 and 50%, meaning that the true value of
unpaid work is trillions of dollars per year. For other countries, the
percentage of GDP may be even higher, such as the United Kingdom, where
is may be as high as 70%.
Because this unpaid work is largely done by women and is unreported in
economic indicators, it results in these contributions by women being
devalued in a society.
The formal economy
Research into the causes and consequences of occupational segregation, the gender pay gap, and the "glass ceiling"
have been a significant part of feminist economics. While conventional
neoclassical economic theories of the 1960s and 1970s explained these as
the result of free choices made by women and men who simply had
different abilities or preferences, feminist economists pointed out the
important roles played by stereotyping, sexism, patriarchal beliefs and institutions, sexual harassment, and discrimination. The rationales for, and the effects of, anti-discrimination laws adopted in many industrial countries beginning in the 1970s, has also been studied.
Women moved in large numbers into previous male bastions —
especially professions like medicine and law — during the last decades
of the 20th century. The gender pay gap
remains and is shrinking more slowly. Feminist economists such as
Marilyn Power, Ellen Mutari and Deborah M. Figart have examined the
gender pay gap and found that wage setting procedures are not primarily
driven by market forces, but instead by the power of actors, cultural
understandings of the value of work and what constitutes a proper
living, and social gender norms. Consequently, they assert that economic models must take these typically exogenous variables into account.
While overt employment discrimination by sex remains a concern of
feminist economists, in recent years more attention has been paid to
discrimination against caregivers—those
women, and some men, who give hands-on care to children or sick or
elderly friends or relatives. Because many business and government
policies were designed to accommodate the "ideal worker" (that is, the
traditional male worker who had no such responsibilities) rather than
caregiver-workers, inefficient and inequitable treatment has resulted.
Globalization
Feminist economists' work on globalization
is diverse and multifaceted. But much of it is tied together through
detailed and nuanced studies of the ways in which globalization affects
women in particular and how these effects relate to socially just outcomes. Often country case studies are used for these data. Some feminist economists focus on policies involving the development of globalization. For example, Lourdes Benería argues that economic development in the Global South
depends in large part on improved reproductive rights, gender equitable
laws on ownership and inheritance, and policies that are sensitive to
the proportion of women in the informal economy. Additionally, Nalia Kabeer discusses the impacts of a social clause that would enforce global labor standards through international trade agreements, drawing on fieldwork from Bangladesh.
She argues that although these jobs may appear exploitative, for many
workers in those areas they present opportunities and ways to avoid more
exploitative situations in the informal economy.
Alternatively, Suzanne Bergeron,
for example, raises examples of studies that illustrate the
multifaceted effects of globalization on women, including Kumudhini
Rosa's study of Sri Lankan, Malaysian, and Philippine, workers in free trade zones as an example of local resistance to globalization. Women there use their wages to create women's centers aimed at providing legal and medical services, libraries and cooperative housing,
to local community members. Such efforts, Bergeron highlights, allow
women the chance to take control of economic conditions, increase their
sense of individualism, and alter the pace and direction of
globalization itself.
In other cases, feminist economists work on removing gender biases from the theoretical bases of globalization itself. Suzanne Bergeron,
for example, focuses on the typical theories of globalization as the
"rapid integration of the world into one economic space" through the
flow of goods, capital, and money, in order to show how they exclude some women and the disadvantaged. She argues that traditional understandings of globalization over-emphasize the power of global capital flows,
the uniformity of globalization experiences across all populations, and
technical and abstract economic processes, and therefore depict the political economy
of globalization inappropriately. She highlights the alternative views
of globalization created by feminists. First, she describes how
feminists may de-emphasize the idea of the market as "a natural and
unstoppable force," instead depicting the process of globalization as
alterable and movable by individual economic actors including women. She
also explains that the concept of globalization itself is gender
biased, because its depiction as "dominant, unified, [and] intentional"
is inherently masculinized and misleading. She suggests that feminists
critique such narratives by showing how a "global economy" is highly
complex, de-centered and unclear.
Degrowth and Ecological economics
Feminist and ecological economics so far have not engaged with one another much. Some argue for the degrowth
approach as a useful critique of the devaluation of care and nature by
the "growth-based capitalist economic paradigm". They argue that the
growth paradigm perpetuates existing gender and environmental injustices
and seek to mitigate it with a degrowth work-sharing proposal.
Scholars in the paradigm of degrowth
point out that the contemporary economic imaginary considers time as a
scarce resource to be allocated efficiently, while in the domestic and
care sector time use depends on the rhythm of life. (D’Alisa et al.
2014: Degrowth. A Vocabulary for a New Era, New York, NY: Routledge.)
Joan Tronto (1993: Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic
of Care, New York, NY: Routledge.) divides the care process in four
phases: caring about, taking care of, care-giving and care-receiving.
These acquire different meanings when used describing the actions of
males and females.
Degrowth proposes to put care at the center of society, thus
calling for a radical rethinking of human relations. It should be
pointed out that degrowth is a concept that originated in the global
north and is mainly directed towards a reduction of the economic (and
therefore material) throughput of affluent societies.
Environmental injustices linked to gender injustices are embedded in
"Green Growth" due to its inability to dematerialize production
processes, and these injustices are perpetuated through the Green Growth
narrative and through its consequences. Ecological processes as well as
caring activities are similarly, systematically devalued by the
dominating industrial and economic paradigms. This can be explained by
the arbitrary boundary between the monetized and the maintaining that
remains largely unchallenged.
Degrowth presents itself as an alternative to this dualistic view. If
designed in a gender-sensitive way that recenters society around care
could have the potential to alleviate environmental injustices while
promoting greater gender equality.
Methodology
Interdisciplinary data collection
Many feminist economists challenge the perception that only "objective" (often presumed to be quantitative) data are valid.
Instead, they say economists should enrich their analysis by using data
sets generated from other disciplines or through increased use of
qualitative methods.
Additionally, many feminist economists propose utilizing
non-traditional data collection strategies such as "utilizing growth
accounting frameworks, conducting empirical tests of economic theories, developing country case studies, and pursuing research at the conceptual and empirical levels."
Interdisciplinary data collection looks at systems from a
specific moral position and viewpoint instead of attempting the
perspective of a neutral observer. The intention is not to create a more
"subjective" methodology, but to counter biases in existing
methodologies, by recognizing that all explanations for world phenomena
arise from socially-influenced viewpoints. Feminist economists say too
many theories claim to present universal principles but actually present
a masculine viewpoint in the guise of a "view from nowhere", so more varied sources of data collection are needed to mediate those issues.
Ethical judgment
Feminist economists depart from traditional economics in that they say "ethical judgments are a valid, inescapable, and in fact desirable part of economic analysis."
For example, Lourdes Beneria argues that judgments about policies
leading to greater well-being should be central to economic analysis. Similarly, Shahra Razavi
says better understanding of care work "would allow us to shift our
priorities from 'making money' or 'making stuff' to 'making livable
lives' and 'enriching networks of care and relationship'" which should
be central to economics.
Country case studies
Often feminist economists use country-level or smaller case studies focused on developing and often understudied countries or populations. For example, Michael Kevane and Leslie C. Gray examine how gendered social norms are central to understanding agricultural activities in Burkina Faso. Cristina Carrasco and Arantxa Rodriquez examine the care economy in Spain to suggest that women's entrance into the labor market requires more equitable caregiving responsibilities.
Such studies show the importance of local social norms, government
policies and cultural situations. Feminist economists see such variation
as a crucial factor to be included in economics.
Alternative measures of success
Feminist
economists call for a shift in how economic success is measured. These
changes include an increased focus on a policy's ability to bring
society toward social justice and improve people's lives, through
specific goals including distributive fairness, equity, the universal
provisioning of needs, elimination of poverty, freedom from discrimination and the protection of human capabilities.
Human Development Index (HDI)
World map by quartiles of Human Development Index in 2011.
Feminist economists often support use of the Human Development Index as a composite statistic in order to assess countries by their overall level of human development, as opposed to other measures. The HDI takes into account a broad array of measures beyond monetary considerations including life expectancy, literacy, education, and standards of living for all countries worldwide.
The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) was introduced in 1995 in the Human Development Report written by the United Nations Development Program
in order to add a gender-sensitive dimension to the Human Development
Index. The GDI takes into account not only the average or general level
of well-being and wealth within a given country, but also how this
wealth and well-being is distributed between different groups within
society, especially between genders. However, feminist economists do not universally agree on the use of the GDI and some offer improvements to it.
Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)
The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a recently developed measure of gender inequality
calculated by analyzing social institutions, societal practices, and
legal norms and how these factors largely frame gender norms within a
society. By combining these sources of inequality, SIGI is able to
penalize high levels of inequality in each of the applicable dimensions,
allowing for only partial compensation by the gaps between the
remaining dimensions and the highly inequitable one. Through its
analysis of the institutional sources of gender inequality in over 100
countries, SIGI has been proven to add new insights into outcomes for
women, even when other factors such as religion and region of the world
are controlled for.
SIGI rankings largely mirror those of the HDI, with countries such as
Portugal and Argentina leading the pack, while countries like
Afghanistan and Sudan are significantly behind.
Organizations
Feminist
economics continues to become more widely recognized and reputed as
evidenced by the numerous organizations dedicated to it or widely
influenced by its principles.
Formed in 1992, the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), is independent of the American Economic Association (AEA) and seeks to challenge the masculine biases in neoclassical economics.
While the majority of members are economists, it is open "not only to
female and male economists but to academics from other fields, as well
as activists who are not academics" and currently has over 600 members
in 64 countries.
Although its founding members were mostly based in the US, a majority
of IAFFE's current members are based outside of the US. In 1997, IAFFE
gained Non-Governmental Organization status in the United Nations.
Feminist Economics, edited by Diana Strassmann of Rice University and Günseli Berik of the University of Utah,
is a peer-reviewed journal established to provide an open forum for
dialogue and debate about feminist economic perspectives. The journal
endorses a normative agenda to promote policies that will better the
lives of the world's people, both women and men. In 1997, the journal
was awarded the Council of Editors and Learned Journals (CELJ) Award as Best New Journal. The 2007 ISI Social Science Citation Index ranked the journal Feminist Economics 20th out of 175 among economics journals and 2nd out of 27 among Women's Studies journals.
Relation to other disciplines
Green economics incorporates ideas from feminist economics and Greens list feminism
as an explicit goal of their political measures, seeking greater
economic and general gender equality. Feminist economics is also often
linked with welfare economics or labour economics,
since it emphasizes child welfare, and the value of labour in itself,
as opposed to the traditional focus exclusively on production for a
marketplace.
Graduate programs
A
small, but growing number of graduate programs around the world offer
courses and concentrations in feminist economics. (Unless otherwise
noted below, these offerings are in departments of economics.)
