Susan Himmelweit - Feminist economics and the true cost of gender bias

Feminist economics looks at the economy from the point of view of women's lives as much as men's lives, and it differs from mainstream economics, which tends to take men's lives as the norm.

About Susan Himmelweit 

"I'm Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Open University and the coordinator of the Policy Advisory Group of the Women's Budget Group.

I'm a feminist economist, and this means that my research is on the boundaries between the economy and the family, which is where most gender issues in economics arise."

Economics from different perspectives

Feminist economics looks at the economy from the point of view of women's lives as much as men's lives, and it differs from mainstream economics, which tends to take men's lives as the norm: if it looks at gender differences, it looks at women in the ways they are different from men. Feminist economics sort of reverses that and says both sorts of lives are equally valid ways of looking at the economy. In doing so, it’s saying that gender is a structural part of economics, that gender differences are part of the way our economy runs. Therefore, in exploring any economic issue, we have to look at where gender differences arise.

How might men and women react differently? How are they differently positioned in the economy? What, for example, does that mean for economic policy? Economic policy may arrive at the wrong results, different from what was intended, if it ignores those differences; if it just thinks about what the effect on people living a typical man's life might be; if it doesn't think about what the effect of that policy is on women or people living the sorts of lives that women lead.

Key Points

• Feminist economics asserts that both women’s and men’s viewpoints and ways of living are equally valid ways of looking at the economy and that it’s important to note where issues springing from gender differences arise.
• Everybody needs to be cared for at various points in their lives, but women tend to be more conscious of the fact, and feminist economics is more conscious of it than mainstream economics.
• The pandemic unduly affected women’s employment compared to men’s, because women were overwhelmingly the ones who, when state services were suspended, took on the role of care, especially for children.