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Gender Inequalities and Risk During the ‘Rush Hour’ of Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2012

Dina Bowman ,
Eve Bodsworth  and
Jens O. Zinn
Dina Bowman
Affiliation:
Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence/School of Social and Political Studies, The University of Melbourne E-mail: dbowman@bsl.org.au
Eve Bodsworth
Affiliation:
Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence E-mail: ebodsworth@bsl.org.au
Jens O. Zinn
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne E-mail: jzinn@unimelb.edu.au
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Abstract

Increasingly, social policies combine to intensify old risks and create new social risks with unequal consequences for men and women. These risks include those created by changing normative expectations and the resulting tensions between social policy, paid employment and family life. Policy reliance on highly aggregated standardised outcome data and generalised models of autonomous rational action result in policies that lack an understanding of the rationales that structure everyday life. Drawing on two Australian studies, we illustrate the importance of attending to the intersections and collisions of social change and normative policy frameworks from the perspective of individual ‘lived lives’.

Keywords

Riskwork and familygender equityactivation policiesprecarious work
Type
Themed Section on Risk, Social Inclusion and the Life Course
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 277 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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