Gender equality and the governance of long-term care policy: new comparative models and paradigms

Abstract

There is a long-established link between care policies and gender equality outcomes, and much modelling of welfare state typologies look at care provision as a distinguishing feature. However, to date, little research has been done which has systematically and critically examined those links by examining the policies and the way they operate, how and why they affect gender equality, and the governance of care policies in a comparative way. This paper draws on evidence from a recently completed comparative study looking at long-term care and gender equality. A CQA (Comparative Qualitative Analysis) approach was used to identify case studies, and further analysis carried out which focussed on: overall, how the policies and the way they operated to achieve gender equality; the governance and design of policies that led to good gender equality outcomes; the level of policy making; the role of the state, the family, the community and the nonstatutory civic sector in designing and delivering effective policies; and how context specific the ideas, actors and institutions supporting the policies were. Instead of using existing welfare typologies that were not driven by gender equality as the defining outcome variable, the author takes an inductive approach to policy analysis to compare policy outcomes according to gender equity outcomes. She devises two new models of long-term care policy: the Universal Model and the Partnership Model, both of which lead to improved gender equality in different ways. This paper concludes by noting the need to move beyond existing welfare state typologies in examining gender equality outcomes, which will result in new models as depicted here.