Gender Equality in Context

Brigitte Liebig Karin Gottschall Birgit Sauer (eds.)

# Gender Equality in Context

Policies and Practices in Switzerland

Barbara Budrich Publishers Opladen • Berlin • Toronto 2016 © 2018 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

It permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you share under the same license,

give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

© 2018 Dieses Werk ist beim Verlag Barbara Budrich erschienen und steht unter der Creative Commons Lizenz Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Diese Lizenz erlaubt die Verbreitung, Speicherung, Vervielfältigung und Bearbeitung bei Verwendung der gleichen CC-BY-SA 4.0-Lizenz und unter Angabe der UrheberInnen, Rechte, Änderungen und verwendeten Lizenz.

This book is available as a free download from www.barbara-budrich.net (https://doi.org/10.3224/84740727). A paperback version is available at a charge. The page numbers of the open access edition correspond with the paperback edition.

Barbara Budrich Publishers Stauffenbergstr. 7. D-51379 Leverkusen Opladen, Germany

86 Delma Drive. Toronto, ON M8W 4P6 Canada www.barbara-budrich.net

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from Die Deutsche Bibliothek (The German Library) (http://dnb.d-nb.de)

Jacket illustration by Bettina Lehfeldt, Kleinmachnow, Germany – www.lehfeldtgraphic.de Editing by Máiréad Collins, Belfast, UK Typesetting by Ulrike Weingärtner, Gründau, Germany

# **Content**

#### **1 Introduction**

#### **2 Gender equality policies and their implementation**

*Christine Zollinger & Thomas Widmer*

#### **5 Postscriptum**

# **Introduction**

## **Gender equality: Policies and practices in Switzerland**

*Brigitte Liebig, Karin Gottschall & Birgit Sauer*

In many European countries women's suffrage and processes of democratization have resulted in profound developments and transformations toward gender equality in the twentieth century. Due to second-wave feminist movements, gender inequality policies have dominated the agenda of many public debates in Europe within the last 30 years. Yet, while formal political equality, citizenship rights and quantitative representation of women in political decision making institutions and processes seem to be necessary preconditions, they do not guarantee gender equality. Political citizenship does not translate automatically into social and cultural citizenship nor into equal social, economic and cultural participation. Until today, the acquisition of equality norms and participation rights are paralleled with new forms of social inequality and gender-specific disparities. Belonging to the female or male sex is still one of the most influential and significant social distinctions today. The gender division of labor in particular still works as a powerful mechanism of gender inequality as it implies unequal distribution of unpaid care work, translates into a gender segregated labor market, and generates inequality of wages and unequal access to social security.

However, variations exist across Europe with respect to the organization of the labor market and welfare state provisions. Comparative feminist research in welfare states has shown that welfare state institutions created path dependencies in structuring gender regimes. Drawing on Esping-Andersen's (1990) typology of welfare states, feminist research classified Nordic countries such as Sweden, Finland and Norway as weak male breadwinner or "dual breadwinner models", France as "moderate breadwinner model", and Germany and Austria as "strong breadwinner model[s]". Switzerland may be assigned to the latter category (Lewis 1992; Ostner/Lewis 1995). Different degrees of familiarization and de-familiarization (Leitner 2003) impact on the opportunity of women to combine work and care obligations and to get access to higher positions in the labor market. Also, the type of welfare state regime corresponds with the integration of women in public and political life: political citizenship rights and social citizenship rights cannot be separated (Lister 1997).

#### *Policies and practices in Switzerland*

By international standards, gender equality policy in Switzerland has started rather late. A strongly limiting factor for any political measures and activities to promote gender equality has been the lack of women's right to vote, which was achieved only in 1971 (Ballmer-Cao/Michel 2009). The Swiss semi-direct democracy, which is shaped to a high degree by plebiscites and popular votes, provides a sharp contrast to most other European countries, where processes of opinion building and decision-making take place within the framework of representative democracy. The enforcement of women's right to vote was promoted by women's suffrage movements and initiatives of various groups deeply rooted in civil society.

A further important milestone was set in 1981, when the principle of gender equality was incorporated in Swiss law. Since then a constitutional article guarantees the formal equality of men and women and commits authorities and legislators to eliminate existing discrimination, especially in areas of education, work and family, and the right to equal pay for equal work. The Equality Act of 1996 provided a striking point in gender equality policy, since it allowed individual women, but also organizations, to take legal action against discrimination in the workplace. Besides national drivers such as the women's movement and organizations, the equality commitment of international organizations such as the UN, the Council of Europe, and the EU, have been important drivers for Swiss equality policies (Ballmer-Cao/Michel 2009). The ratification of conventions such as the CEDAW (Convention of the United Nations on the Elimination of all Discrimination against Women) or the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) mark important steps towards greater gender equality in Switzerland. At the same time the standards set at the 4th UN World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995 have served as a model for the federal council of Switzerland for conveying and achieving equality between women and men within different fields of society (FOGE 2014).

Within the last thirty years politics and administrations, educational institutions and companies have designed a large number of action plans, programs and measures for improving gender equality in Switzerland. On the national level as well as on cantonal and municipal levels, gender equality policies are characterized by a high level of institutionalization. Since 1988 the Federal Office for Equality between Women and Men promotes the implementation of gender equality in all spheres of life and the removal of all forms of direct or indirect discrimination. These efforts indeed have supported comprehensive improvements in gender equality in education, employment and family in a relative short period of time and helped Switzerland to catch up with other Western countries.

Nevertheless, in the European context, Switzerland conveys an ambivalent picture with respect to gender equality (FOS 2014, Liebig et al. 2015). While the gender gap regarding participation in secondary education has been considerably reduced, fewer women than men in Switzerland complete higher education, and gender stereotypes continue to affect choice of education, training, and careers to a large extent (FOS 2014). And while female labor market participation in Switzerland ranks at the top throughout Europe today, women have not been able to attain the same success as men in terms of job position and pay (FOS 2008). Hence, gender-specific segregation in education and the labor market continues in Switzerland, and is considerably more marked than in other European countries (OECD 2011, 2012). The promotion of women into technical and upper fields of the labor market is below expectations, and also the percentage of women in political and economic decision-making remains rather low. Also in the sphere of family, little has changed with respect to the sharing of responsibilities for housework and/or care: Within the liberal conception of the Swiss welfare state, family and fatherhood rank as a 'private matter' and until today a sound legal foundation for paternal leave does not exist (Liebig/Peitz 2014). Despite modern notions of division of labor between partners, even young couples continue to follow traditional family models. Switzerland ranks at the very last place of 21 high-income OECD countries with respect to the support of equal parenting (Fatherhood Institute 2010). Single parents still suffer poverty, and domestic violence is a persistent basic problem in intimate partner relations between men and women. Finally, while women have been actively struggling for gender equality and to some degree have been successful, the involvement of men in this movement on a large scale has proven difficult thus far.

Overall, it can be stated, that due to extensive political efforts Switzerland has made substantial progresses in the field of formal equality, but gender equality has not yet been reached. There is a great need for more knowledge on the persistence of gender inequalities and a deeper understanding of why efforts to promote gender equality have only limited effectiveness so far. Moreover, the question arises, by which means the often subtle processes of (re-)producing gender inequality can be influenced.

#### *Need for further research*

In response to the dissatisfaction with the status of gender equality as well as related initiatives and policies, various research groups have initiated activities that have been assessing gender equality activities and their framework conditions on an international level within the last years. Namely projects on policy framing and the institutional conditions of gender mainstreaming implementation (MAGEEQ, 1998‒2002)1 , or studies on gender equality policies across the EU Member States (QUING, 2006‒2011)2 , have been important milestones in order to assess current problems of gender equality policies and formulate recommendations and standards for policy making. The international comparisons yielded important information on effective and sustainable gender equality strategies and the relevance to gender equality of different policy regimes. At the same time, international comparative analyses of policy areas such as family or labor market policy and international and regional surveys (e. g. Eurostat, UNO, ILO, OECD) have been producing extensive statistical information.3

Cross-national approaches illustrate how important it is to reflect on the contextual variance of institutional forms and social practices of gender (in-) equality. Policy analysis has to situate the effects of gender equality policy within the context of the objectives of gender-related activities and programs, and it has also to critically reflect on political arrangements themselves. More than that, it has to consider that the implementation of legal provisions depend on the active application and active promotion by political actors and institutions in different parts of society.

That means, although the results and experiences of other countries are very important for Switzerland, they can only be conditionally transferred since gender equality policy and activities are shaped uniquely by its legal, economic, cultural, and historical conditions. This is especially true for the federalist system of Switzerland, where law can result in different forms of implementation at the level of Swiss cantons, or within different regional contexts. Up until now little has been known about the effectiveness of existing gender equality policies within the context of regional conditions and specific stakeholder environments, as well as in relation to processes involved in the elaboration and implementation of activities and programs on institutional levels. The spheres of education work, family, and social security are characterized by specific structural conditions, rationalities, and ways of functioning,

1 http://www.mageeq.net/

2 http://www.quing.eu/

3 By becoming a part of the "Gender Statistics Database" of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Switzerland has taken the first step towards situating its gender equality condition in the international context.

whose role in the persistence of gender inequality and the mechanisms and limits of gender equality activities has been insufficiently studied.

Starting from the need for more knowledge and action in gender equality, the Federal Council mandated the Swiss National Science Foundation to conduct the National Research Program "Gender Equality" (NRP 60) in 2007. The NRP 60 promoted scientific projects, which generated new knowledge about the challenges and limits of gender equality activities in Switzerland to date, and highlighted the institutional mechanisms, discourses and everyday practices, by which forms of inequality between men and women are perpetuated. The articles in this book illustrate some of the most important findings from this program. They stimulate new research questions and perspectives and establish a basis for developing innovative objectives and measures of a sustainable gender equality policy for Switzerland.

#### *About the articles*

*Gesine Fuchs, Andrea Leitner* and *Sophie Rouault* present a comparative analysis of governance regimes for equal opportunities. Their comparison of federal administrations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland situates equal opportunity measures in Swiss governments in the context of the most similar cases of late comers with respect to gender equality policies. The article shows that the gender governance regimes in the three countries do not follow common nor specific patterns. Rather, each equality regime shows a variety of strengths and gaps. In comparison with the private sector the federal administrations in these countries provide much more favorable provisions for gender equality such as policies for career promotion, quota, training, coaching and mentoring. However, heterogeneity of these equality measures is especially high in the Swiss federal administration although gender equality is an integral part of the personnel strategy. A lack of planning and controlling of these measures seems to be one of the major gaps not only in Switzerland, but also in Germany and Austria.

*Eva Nadai* investigates the promises of Swiss new so-called activation strategies in the labor market and social policy with regard to low qualified unemployed women. Drawing on feminist insights on the ambivalence of labor market integration of women as a route to gender equality, the author employs a concept of autonomy referring to capabilities for work, care and voice in order to analyze the effects of four different women-only and gender mixed Swiss activation programs. Based on an ethnographic approach the author explores how welfare workers as street-level bureaucrats in different welfare state agencies frame the notions of work, care and the clients' responsibilities, and how these cultural frames shape their 'investment' practices. Correspondingly, the clients' aspirations and their experiences too are taken into account. Findings reveal that in the light of scarce support for care obligations and further training the gender equality potential of enhancement and enforcement to labor market participation for the specific group under study remains ambivalent.

*Daniela Gloor's* and *Hanna Meier's* contribution provides an introduction into Switzerland's development of policies against violence in marriage and relationships, and critically reflects on the status quo in the fields of public discourses, policies, and research. The aim of the article is to evaluate the adequacy of current measures and services from the point of view of those women who have been affected by partner violence, and to identify persistent obstacles and difficulties of the victims in addressing institutions for support. Narrative in-depth interviews with 40 women in German speaking Switzerland serve as empirical basis. The findings basically confirm the usefulness of developing policy measures for victimized women as well as current interventions for victim protection and support. However, significant gaps and problems in implementation remain: too often violence continues, and perpetrators remain unhindered. Violent men do not receive helpful institutional support. Further, institutional contact results not only in support, but in a burden for women, when they have to keep up close contact to agencies. Starting from the experiences of women, the authors suggest a revised model for the cycle of violence and intervention.

The article by *Andreas Balthasar* and *Franziska Müller* offers new insights into the outcome of Swiss social transfer and tax policy reforms. The authors ask if and how gender equality knowledge is an integral part of these policies which are important instruments to either reproduce gender inequalities on the labor market and in families or to overcome these inequalities by policy innovation. Starting from this question, the article scrutinizes policy-making in social transfer and tax policy by focussing on how often, by whom, and why knowledge about possible effects on the compatibility of work and family was considered. The authors conclude that policy-making based on gendered evidence is characterized by extreme variety and inconsistency. Nevertheless, the analysis shows that administration plays an important role in bringing in gender-sensitive knowledge into policy-processes. Therefore, an improvement of gender mainstreaming processes needs gendered training and information for public officials. Also, the authors show that equality experts and their knowledge often are excluded from these policy processes. This, they conclude, also prohibits gendered evidence-based policy-making.

*Christine Zollinger* and *Thomas Widmer* establish the argument of "bounded possibilities" for gender equality and social cohesion in Swiss municipalities. The authors analyze childcare policies and argue that there is a broad variety in terms of organisation, provision, and quality standards. The authors distinguish four types of childcare services: traditional, market-liberal, social integrative and the universal system. While the traditional system has low potential for gender equality and for social cohesion, the market-liberal model has high potential for gender equality but low for social cohesion. Social-integrative childcare on the other hand has low potential for gender equality but scores high for social cohesion. Universal childcare, finally, has high potential for both gender equality and social cohesion. Case studies in two municipalities show that these variations are rooted in different framing strategies of political actors as well as in cantonal regulations in policy processes on childcare policies. But also the users' choice has an impact on the childcare system in the two municipalities under scrutiny.

The article by *Gisela Hauss* is dedicated to the intersectionality of gender and further dimensions of social inequality in institutions of social assistance in Switzerland. It focusses on the (re-)production of inequalities in the context of precariousness and poverty, an area which is often out of sight when gender equality issues are concerned. The text highlights the particularity of the Swiss welfare state, where the 'activation' of the unemployed is embedded into the paradigm of social investment, and critically reflects on related political measures. The case studies start from the question how, at the level of professional practices of consulting, life situations of unemployed women as welfare recipients are consolidated or changed. Based on an ethnographic approach, the author reconstructs different 'configurations of inequality', as they result from interactions between consultant and welfare recipients in three labor-market integration programs. As it is illustrated here, the category of gender becomes not an 'omni-relevant' category, but develops relevance in interdependence with further categorizations such as motherhood, age or ethnicity, type of residence, with considerably different consequences for women.

*Kathrin Bertschy* addresses wage discrimination at career entry in Switzerland, starting with the assumption that gender differences in early career wages should no longer occur, since young women today match or surpass men in educational achievements. Based on longitudinal data from the Swiss 'Transition from Education to Employment (TREE) Survey', the analysis shows that equally qualified women with identical occupational training already at the beginning of their career start with lower wages than their male counterparts. This can be partly explained with lower remuneration for female-typed occupations and the fact that even when equally qualified women often choose specific work roles that coincide with lower compensation. However, early wage discrimination is not only due to persistent gender segregation in the Swiss labor market and education system but also to an unexplained wage differential amounting to about 7%. In a discussion of reasons the author highlights the mechanisms of statistical discrimination and gender biased promotion and networking.

*Michael Nollert* and *Sebastian Schief* focus on cantonal patterns of gender-specific time-inequalities in paid and unpaid work based on data from Swiss Labour Force surveys (SAKE). The analysis reveals significant patterns of time inequality by cantonal groupings, among which Geneva and Basel City show the strongest pattern of a more equal distribution of paid and unpaid work. At the opposite end, gender specialization was highest in traditional, rural cantons. The results also show that there are different but distinct institutional configurations associated with these cantonal groupings, among others traditionalism, welfare spending, and size of public sector. With respect to political initiatives for change the authors emphasize not only the need to change to working time policies and working time organization, especially for men but also to promote innovative measures strengthening gender time equality in traditionalist cantons. Last but not least the presented results for Switzerland point to the need for further research as the role of welfare regimes in shaping gender-specific time inequalities tends to be underrated.

To the background of new initiatives to expand child care *Christina Felfe, Susanne Stern* and *Rolf Iten* address the role of childcare institutions as a policy tool to enhance gender equality. Based on cantonal data, they, for the first time, map in detail the regional provision of childcare in Switzerland including both coverage rates for early childcare and after-school care and show that both vary substantially between cantons, but also within cantons due to municipalities discretion in the provision of childcare. Furthermore, based on a newly set up data set with different cantonal and communal data, the authors can demonstrate that cantonal political enforcement of after-school care provision is able shifting the supply of respective care slots to a substantial degree. Another eminent insight refers to parental labor market participation. The findings show that each newly created after-school care slot caused one more mother to work full-time opposed to not working or working parttime and one father to reduce his work-load from full-time to part-time work.

The article by *Julia Nentwich, Franziska Vogt* and *Wiebke Tennhoff* focuses on the (re-)production of gender (in-)equality in the field of nurseries. Based on perspectives from organization studies and educational research the authors focus on the 'gendered subtext' (Acker) of everyday interactions and spatial arrangements. The empirical analysis of video data, of observations and interviews within four Swiss nurseries reveals mainly two distinct patterns of organizational practices: While in two nurseries the demands of care, meals, hygiene and order seemed to dominate organizational practice and follow the traditional femininity of the ideal housewife, in the other two nurseries care activities are basically organized as opportunities for learning and seem to overcome gendered organizational practices of childcare. Only the latter context seems to allow organizational change in the direction of a less gendered organization. The authors discuss these results in terms of their consequences for the understanding of care and education and conclude that a de-gendering of nurseries is highly relevant for educational quality.

The NFP 60 received some media attention in the Swiss press. *Andrea Maihofer* analyzes these reactions to the program in order to assess gender equality and gender studies in Swiss public sphere. Besides reflecting on the results of the program she critically assesses media coverage in the light of recent movements against gender studies and gender mainstreaming, public voices, which she labels as "anti-genderism". Some media articles explicitly criticized gender studies as "non-scientific", and at the same time display cognitive and affective resistance towards gender studies but also against gender equality policies. Obviously the deconstructive turn of gender studies, i. e. the claim that "gender" is not based in nature and biology, raises critique as well as fear. Maihofer claims that gender equality and anti-discrimination policies seem to be far from being accepted and are, to the contrary, disputed and contested. Moreover, the article argues that these struggles over the meaning of gender equality – and the NFP 60 – point to fundamental societal disputes about the Swiss gender order. The NFP 60, hence, is a player in a gendered "politics of truth" (Foucault).

### **References**

equality/files/gender\_pay\_gap/ 130424\_final\_report\_role\_of\_men\_en.pdf (retrieved 2.3.2015).

# **2 Gender equality policies and their implementation**

# **Comparing governance regimes for equal opportunities: Federal administrations as employers in Switzerland, Germany and Austria**

*Gesine Fuchs, Andrea Leitner & Sophie Rouault*

## **1 Introduction**

Paid employment is a core field of action for all gender equality policies, since individual autonomy has gained ever more importance in current welfare state reforms and in the new paradigm of the social investment state (Morel, Palier, and Palme 2012). Yet, resilient inequalities subsist despite a wide range of gender policy measures. Recent research has shown that fragmentation and conflicts between transversal equality policies and related policy fields are responsible for only limited outcomes (See Prognos 2014, Schratzenstaller 2014, BMFSFJ 2011, Appelt 2009). We follow this stream of research and comparatively analyze the interplay of institutions and measures of corporate equal opportunity policies in one type of organization – the federal administration in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Public administrations have several interesting features: they are a typical and important sector of employment. They are legally bound to promote gender equality, yet their respective policies are the subject of political interventions and conflicts. Thus public employers implicitly and explicitly act as model employers. Furthermore, their policies are a genuine organizational activity and we can thus analyze the interaction of different instruments. For a better future policy design in general it would be necessary to understand the policies' underlying dynamics. In this respect, the possibilities of effective equal opportunity policy is the focus of our analysis.

We define equal opportunity policies as all programs, measures and laws that aim at equal participation of men and women in paid work, especially in terms of access (education, working hours, childcare, parental/family leave) and quality (employment conditions, tasks assigned, remuneration, further education, career, dismissal or protection against sexual harassment, see Wahl 2005, 68; Bothfeld, Hübers, and Rouault 2010, 37).

Gender equality is a normative and multidimensional concept with legal, social, economic, cultural and symbolic components. Equal opportunity policies are transversal and affect numerous policy fields from social security to structural policies. They challenge principles and norms in the gender specific division of labor and care work, in the social recognition of occupations and in gender stereotypes. Thus we start our analysis from a regime perspective, which is better suited to look at interactions of policies than the isolated study of individual measures alone. Heather MacRae defines gender regimes as follows:

"Gender regime" refers to a set of norms, values, policies, principles, and laws that inform and influence gender relations in a given polity [...]. A gender regime is constructed and supported by a wide range of policy issues and influenced by various structures and agents, each of whom is in turn influenced by its own historical context and path. (MacRae 2006, 524–25)

In order to analyze institutions and measures of equal opportunity policies, we discern three kinds of 'embedded' regimes: the (national) *gender regime* is the most comprehensive concept that covers economic, social, symbolic and cultural norms, values and practices of gender relations. A *policy regime* is comprised of political regulations in a specific policy field relevant for gender relations like employment, social security or reproductive rights. Finally, a *governance regime* is composed of specific institutions and measures elaborated in a specific field of action. We are mainly concerned with these latter governance regimes.

In order to be effective, a governance regime must combine technically consistent and normatively coherent instruments (Howlett et al. 2009, 172; Bothfeld 2008, 13). Such policy instruments are generally based mainly on information (information and awareness raising campaigns, advice), authority (legal or self regulation), treasure (grants, taxes, financial incentives) or organization (e. g. provision of services, government reorganization; Howlett et al. 2009, 114–35). However, the design, combination and implementation of policy instruments have long been known as demanding and conflict-laden processes, where ideas, interests and institutional traditions interact (Peters 2002). Policy measures in given governance regimes are *consistent* if they do not contradict each other and aim at a similar behavior of target groups, e. g. the rise of female employment. Policy measures are *coherent*, if they are logically related and normatively appropriate with regard to current social values and realities (like different earner and care giver models). For example, recent research showed that generous parental leave arrangements and part-time work increase the employment rates of women but may deepen occupational segregation, since the share of women in top positions may decline and the gender pay gap increases (Hegewisch and Gornick 2011).

We assume three quality criteria for the *policy instruments*, namely: their scope, degree of obligation, and differentiation (Bothfeld, Hübers and Rouault 2010). Scope depicts if and how far measures are de facto accessible for all employees. The degree of obligation depends on (material and immaterial) sanctions in cases of non-compliance: rules must be clear, specific, measurable and verifiable in order to take effect. Differentiation means that measures are designed so as to prevent evasions by the target groups. Differentiated measures specify implementation procedures and entail the necessary resources to do so.

We differentiate between institutional and substantial policies. Institutional policies are rules of interaction for different groups of actors in an organization. They do not prescribe specific solutions. Substantial policies are concrete instruments like regulations, incentives, programs or information campaigns, which aim at the direct solution of a social problem and at an altered behavior of target groups. Substantial policies in our case address employees, institutional policies the management in an organization. The latter policies may be as controversial as substantial policies, since they always shift power relations of actors within the organization. We assume a considerable influence of institutional policies on the extent and implementation of substantial policies.

In analyzing equal opportunity policies, we specifically ask (1) if the institutional and substantial policy instruments meet the assumed quality criteria of scope, obligation and differentiation; (2) if the governance regimes are consistent and coherent, i. e. do not contradict each other, aim at the same target and are in line with social values and realities and (3) if any governance regime in the administrations better meet the two abovementioned kinds of criteria for effective equal opportunity policies.

In the next chapter we explain our case studies (2), and after a short description of federal administrations as employers (3), we analyze institutions (4) and measures (5) for gender equality and conclude (6) in what extent conditions for effective equal opportunity policies are met in the administrations.

## **2 Case studies of federal administrations**

Corporate equal opportunity policies of federal administrations are well suited for an analysis of a governance regime with its interactions of institutions and policy measures, since they apply a set of differentiated regulation principles namely in the fields of reconciliation and career development.1 Furthermore, public administrations serve as a normative model for all employers on how to design corporate policies for gender equality (Henninger and Ostendorf 2005, 11–17). This unique configuration has hardly attracted scholarly attention so far (cf. Strachan 2011, 347) although these policies cover a substantial group of employees, are widespread and elaborated. Existing studies mostly cover the Anglo-American traditions (cf. Conley and Wright 2011, Conley and Page 2010, Conley and Page 2014), mainly provide quantitative data (OECD 2010) or have a sociological focus (e. g. Andresen et al. 2003). However, in our analysis of institutions and measures in federal administrations we can draw on a quite elaborate body of research on gender equality in private companies and firms (Krell, Ortlieb, and Sieben 2011, Funder 2014 and Jeanes 2011). Furthermore, a substantial number of comparative studies on national gender equality policies2 allow us to consider the influence of different gender policy regimes on our policy field.

Our comparison of German-speaking countries follows a most similar cases design (Lauth et al. 2009, 68–75), where cases share key features of the political context: Switzerland, Germany and Austria are federal democracies with similar bureaucratic traditions (see also chapter 3). The three countries share conservative ideas of good motherhood and traditions of the male breadwinner model. They also have in common recent modifications from this model: according to the modernized breadwinner model, men continue to work full-time, yet more and more women are (part-time) employed and remain the principal caregivers.

However, the countries differ in their welfare regimes with consequences for the logic of equal opportunity polices in general: In the *conservative welfare regimes* of Austria and Germany, support for families within expanding equal opportunities logic is quite strong. Extensive parental leaves should support reconciliation of work and family life. In the *liberal-conservative regime* of Switzerland3 , childcare arrangements remain mostly a private matter,

1 An analysis of federal administrations as gendered organizations remains well beyond the scope of this article. However, we look at this issue elsewhere (Fuchs et al. 2015, ch. 7, forthcoming).

2 For Switzerland see Scheidegger 2008, Nentwich 2006; for Germany Lang 2007, Lang 2009, Rudolph 2009 and for Austria Appelt 2009, Lang and Sauer 2012. A rich comparative body of research stems form the Research Network on Gender and the State RNGS and from Quality in Gender+ Equality Policies QUING, see McBride and Mazur 2010 and Haussman and Sauer 2007.

3 Comparative welfare state research predominantly classifies Switzerland into the conservative regime type (Bambra 2007, 328), but a closer looks reveals a peculiar mix of liberal and conservative elements, such as low level of decommodification and comprehensive subsidiarity, see Pfau-Effinger 2005, Häusermann and Zollinger 2014, 911–19.

with a minimal paid maternal leave in force only since 2005. Liberal traditions however gave way to a comparatively strong individualist anti-discrimination law with possible class action (in force since 1996, see Fuchs 2008). Austrian and German anti-discrimination provisions are weaker, although the European Union significantly influenced their development.4

It was not possible to study the entire administrations, so we analyzed smaller units, ministries and offices. These are the ministries of labor and social affairs and finance (in Germany and Austria) as well as the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs and the Federal Finance Administration in Switzerland, which are both part of larger departments of Economy and Finance respectively. The more comprehensive Swiss project included two more units.5 Swiss offices and units have a significant amount of independence under the roof of a department (with only small central staff). Therefore we compare 'units' as the functional equivalent of the 'ministries' in the other countries. The selection was based on the assumption of the Swiss project: It was hypothesized that the proportion of women in leadership positions and the extent of gender-related political activities influence the implementation of equal opportunity policies; in the units selected, these factors occur in different combinations (Fuchs et al. 2015, ch. 2).

We collected our data in subsequent steps. First, we looked at the legal framework. We then analyzed policy documents like reports, statistics and gender equality plans for the administrations as a whole and for the units and ministries. We then conducted explorative interviews with external experts as well as 6 to 28 internal expert interviews with gender equality officers, line managers, HR experts and members of top management in the chosen ministerial units (Bogner et al. 2005) and coded them thematically. After having analyzed the individual case, we collaboratively compared the governance regime across cases.

## **3 Federal administrations as employers**

Comparative research on bureaucracy (Painter and Peters 2010, Kuhlmann and Wollmann 2013) places our cases in a "Germanic" or "Continental-European" tradition with a strong emphasis on the rule of law, legal regulations and a very high status of permanent civil servants. Cooperative federalism and

4 For the different logics of compliance, see Falkner, Treib, and Hartlapp 2007 and Kodré and Müller 2003.

5 The additional units are the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation DEZA and the Federal Office for Agriculture BLW.

the principle of subsidiarity lead to comparatively small federal bureaucracies, which focus on tasks related to sovereignty. Historically, federal administrations have been institutions with masculine traditions ("*Männerbund*", cf. Kreisky/Löffler 2009). Women have long been tolerated as salaried clerks only (Gottschall 1990, Kling 1999) mirrored in "celibacy rules" (women had to leave public service when they married until 1920 in Austria, until 1953 in Germany and in Switzerland until the 1960s). Still the women's share of lifelong civil servants in Germany and Austria is well below their share of salaried employees6 .

All federal administrations under study have been considerably feminized since the late 1970s thanks to growing female education levels and an expansion of the share of salaried employees. In 2011, about 10% of the workforce in the three countries was employed in public administration, which is well below the OECD average of 15% and has been slightly diminishing since 2001 (cf. OECD 2013, 102). Main indicators of female employment are summarized in table 1.

*Table 1: Main indicators of female employment in federal administration and overall economy*

*Sources: Management data OECD 2013, 123; other data Fuchs et al. 2015, ch. 3.*

6 The status of civil servants has been abolished in Switzerland in 2000.

In the last decade, female employment increased modestly but steadily by about 3% in all cases. Yet, the considerably different levels of female employment, ranging from 25% in Germany to 41% in Austria, are tied to the varying structures of federal administrations and are not indicators for policy success: in Germany, nearly 60% of employees work for the federal armed forces (*Bundeswehr*). In Austria, a proportion of the teachers are federal employees and constitute 30% of the public employment workforce. Employment in federal administrations remains horizontally and vertically segregated with a lower percentage of women in higher positions. Again, our three cases are well below the OECD averages. Yet, our country data show a modest rise of women managers in the last decade. As federal administrations have more elaborated and transparent pay schemes than the private sector, their gender pay gaps are much smaller than on the respective national averages, namely 12% compared to 18% in Switzerland, 15% compared to 24% in Austria and 1% compared to 22% in Germany (Fuchs et al. 2015, ch. 3). Finally, the federal administrations have a gendered structure of part-time employment, which is well below national averages for men and women. This mirrors the male tradition of these organizations. Part-time work has increased over the years for both genders, but the female dominance persists.

## **4 Comparing institutions for gender equality**

All federal administrations are legally obliged to actively promote gender equality. Institutional regulations are detailed in specific laws in Austria and Germany, while in Switzerland, the Law on Federal Employment is a framework legislation in the tradition of New Public Management, which leaves specific gender equality arrangements at the discretion of departments and administrative units. Yet, the general Gender Equality Act binds public employers also. Federal Employment laws in Germany and Austria contain differentiated rules concerning various forms of leaves, part-time or telework, whereas Swiss federal employees have less legal entitlements which are regulated in ordinances and decrees. In order to attain gender equality, the legal regulations in Germany and Austria focus on the promotion of women (eg. via quotas) and reconciliation measures, while Swiss regulations stand in the liberal tradition of anti-discrimination with a comparatively stronger Gender Equality Act (see Fuchs 2013). Such differences also exist when it comes to gender equality officers and gender equality plans, essential instruments of institutional policies.

#### *4.1 Equality officers: status, role, and coordination*

Since the early 1990s, the positions of gender equality officers have become increasingly institutionalized. German and Austrian gender equality laws for the civil service have provided them with a special status and varying participatory rights concerning the personnel policies of their respective department. The Swiss federal employment law bestows departmental and administrative entities responsibility for the draft and implementation of gender equality policies. This led to very heterogeneous and 'situational' institutionalization: they either established a centralized staff position, set up equality representatives or integrated equality issues into personnel commissions.

German equality officers are elected every four years by female employees, while Austrian and Swiss officers are nominated by their head of department or unit. This gives the German officers legitimacy as representatives of female employees, while their counterparts are rather representatives of the employer. Generally, equality officers assume a dual role: on the one hand, they offer individual guidance on anti-discrimination and reconciliation issues to employees, on the other hand they have an advisory role towards their human resource department or towards any line manager. This ranges from an occasional consultative role in the Swiss case to a mandatory participation in all gender relevant personnel decisions in the German case. Equality officers participate in recruitment or promotion procedures with an advisory role (routinely in Germany and Austria, only rarely in the Swiss Foreign Office). Officially, German and Austrian officers are 'watchdogs' in these procedures as regards quota regulations. Their participation in strategic decisions of personnel policy planning is rather consultative. Swiss gender equality officers can give advice on figures, measures and aims for the Federal Personnel Strategy. German and Austrian officers are consulted on a more regular basis. Nevertheless, the practical influence of Austrian officers strongly depends on their hierarchical position. German equality officers have to be informed extensively and at an early stage about such decisions and their opinion has to be adopted or counter-argued within a precise deadline. This broad participation in the German case has been secured by federal court judgments, which hint to the contentious character of these rights. A binding and differentiated regulation of consultation and participation rights of equality officers is more likely to result in the routinized consideration of gender equality issues of personnel policy, yet it does not guarantee it. Table 2 summarizes the differing degrees of obligation as well as scope and differentiation as our three assumed quality criteria.

Equality delegates differ in their area of responsibility. German officers are responsible for gender issues only, their Austrian counterparts should promote equal treatment case of ethnicity, religion/ideology, age and sexual orientation. Gender equality in Switzerland is part of the 'diversity management' portfolio along with multilingualism and the promotion of handicapped employees. The integration in the personnel policy gives gender issues only limited institutional visibility.

German and Austrian equality officers are free from any instructions in their position, while Swiss officers act in a hierarchical context. In German and Austrian contexts, the number of gender equality officers are pre-determined according to the number of employees of a department, but without fixed time resources for the Austrian Gender Equality Officers. Swiss equality officers are working on a strongly reduced part-time basis (with an exception at the Foreign Office) and they are from time to time supported by a group of voluntary colleagues or by the personnel commission.

The coordination and networking of equality officers is crucial for the exchange of information and strategies. It also helps to build a shared professional identity. In Austria, the Minister of Women's Affairs heads a large working group gathering equality officers from all ministerial departments and other federal organizations that meets regularly. Less institutionalized in Germany, this networking activity was merely acknowledged in 1991 by the law but the corresponding inter-ministerial body (IMA) was provided with a solid legal status only in 2015. In the Swiss federal service, this coordination used to take place in a so-called Forum before being abolished in 2012, reinstitutionalization attempts being underway. Interviews suggest that attempts for a stronger institutionalization in Germany and Switzerland failed, because such a co-ordination was perceived as a threat to the autonomy of ministerial units in dealing with gender issues.

The professionalization of gender equality policies is still fragile. Whereas German equality officers see the regular development of their career guaranteed by the law, an official acknowledgment of the specific competencies acquired in this office is not to be found in any of the civil services under study, which hints at the limited legitimacy of the function.

#### *Table 2: Gender equality officers in comparison*

*\* Federal Department of Foreign Affairs*

Undoubtedly, interventions of gender equality officers can be more efficient and targeted in the implementation of equal opportunity measures, when the law comprehensively pre-defines their status, gives them sufficient resources, competences as well as information and exactly defined participation rights and when they are networked with other colleagues and gender equality institutions. The degree of obligation of gender equality officers seems to be highest in the German case, where their legitimacy is strengthened through their election and where they have broad competencies to participate in personnel decision making. These competencies are also quite differentiated and the limitation on gender issues helps to specialize and to focus resources. The Swiss case underlines that the institutional integration of gender equality issues in personnel policymaking leads to their weak institutional visibility; moreover, it makes policies dependent exclusively on the management – or a strong personality of the officers. The actual scope of the institution gender equality officers remains limited mostly to their own organization; only the Austrian working group provides substantial time and space of exchange and discussion. In all three cases, however, the status of equality officers remains nevertheless fragile: as exchange and networking remain (legally) inadequate, the development of gender equality officers as a profession is hardly possible.

#### *4.2 Equality plans: strategic instruments with limited effectiveness*

In all our cases, the departments have a *legal obligation* to periodically establish equality plans. Such plans have a double role of planning and controlling. They can be a strategic planning tool for the entire administration and should also help the departments to plan, monitor and evaluate the implementation of gender equality measures. Ideally this would lead to mainstreaming gender into all relevant personnel decisions. In general, the human resource departments are responsible for the plans. Drafting, reporting and participation of gender equality officers differ widely across our three case studies:

The *Austrian* Women's Promotion Plans (*Frauenförderpläne*) of every department cover a period of six years. They are published in the Federal Law Gazette and respective statistical data should be updated biannually. They include mostly qualitative measures, whose focus is however strongly oriented towards the fulfilment of legally binding quotas set for the whole federal civil service. A working group of all equality officers in a given department is endowed with the drafting of the plan, while the decision on the included priorities and measures is in the hand of the head of ministry; equality officers moreover monitor the implementation and evaluation of such plans. Regularly, comparative reports for the entire administration are published.

In *Switzerland*, the Federal Office of Personnel drafts every four years the personnel strategy, which has to be adopted by the government. This program defines "target ranges" for women, linguistic groups and handicapped people, i. e. it has mostly quantitative aims. Departments and offices may define other, more qualitative goals. All departments produce annual progress reports (*Fortschrittsberichte*), which cover gender equality issues as well as multilingualism and the integration of handicapped employees. These internal, non-public reports include quantified objectives, planned measures and recommendations. Gender equality officers act mostly in a consultative role and draft the progress reports of their department. The Federal Office of Personnel (EPA) publishes an annual report.

The *German* legislation prescribes that gender equality plans (*Gleichstellungspläne*) of federal ministries entail a statistical status quo, quantified objectives and deadlines and a list of corresponding policy measures; they are due every four years, with an interim report every two years to measure the attainment of set objectives and to justify possibly their non attainment. These reports are internal working documents and not publicly accessible. Equality officers are systematically consulted on the content of the plan of their department and can comment, amend, or veto it; moreover, they are legally entitled to complain about the missing, delayed, or defective implementation of the plan. However, the plans are very heterogeneous and implementation varies: in 2009, half of the departments did not have an equality plan. Establishment and quality of these plans depend thus on the assertiveness of gender equality officers and on gender awareness of the HR units.

Equality plans in the three federal civil services appear quite *differentiated* and have a (legally) *binding* character. But no formal sanctions are foreseen in case of non-execution or non-attainment. In Austria, the publication of ministerial plans nevertheless activates a mild version of negative incentives through 'shaming and blaming'. Unfortunately, this reduces the efforts to publish very ambitious plans.

In all cases, an obligation to regular *reporting* exists and a departmental unit coordinates this process. Controlling and evaluation procedures remain relatively weak, as they are limited to a formal control of quantitative objective attainment in all three cases. Although technically possible, a systematic comparison across departments is carried out in none of our cases. One reason is that this is regarded as infringing upon the autonomy of ministerial units. The definition of women's quotas in *Austria* and target ranges in Switzerland serve as important points of reference. On the other hand, quotas in Germany are hardly relevant, as they are considered as un-implementable. Moreover, benchmarking differs: Austrian reports are published and contain only a few, but comparable indicators; *Swiss* reports focus also on quantitative indicators, and the trade union *Verband des Personals der Öffentlichen Dienste* (VPOD) publishes a 'shadow report' with figures on women's share in management, part-time in management, the gender distribution of performance evaluations as well as bonuses7 The integration of gender issues in the centralized controlling of HR management in Switzerland enables a quantitative

7 See www.vpodbern.ch/Berufe/Bundespersonal.htm (13.05.2015)

evaluation of equality plans in a regular and systematic manner, but without much qualitative content; The *German* administration lacks a targeted, standardized and analytical reporting, as plans are not published and 'progress reports' (*Erfahrungsberichte*) present only aggregated data. .

In sum, none of the administrations fully exploit the potential of gender equality plans. In order to take effect, plans should contain three elements: (1) a (statistical) status quo on gender equality in each department, (2) a list of (quantified) objectives and of measures aimed at reducing remaining inequalities with a precise timeline and (3) possibly an obligation to justify the non-attainment of objectives previously set. Finally, they should have a high degree of differentiation as regards a list of indicators to be surveyed and common guidelines. Only recently the Austrian Ministry of Women's Affairs has provided a detailed guideline on how to draft and implement such plans as strategic instruments. Additionally, gender equality officers should participate possibly in the plans' development and in the compilation of the data. Finally, a centralized controlling of their adequate implementation across the whole federal administration is necessary to prevent evasion or lip-service. Systematic reporting and comparison could make successful strategies and problems visible and thus bring about coordination and adjustment. There are points to start with, like the annual Swiss reports and 'shadow reports'; in Austria, the straightforward comparisons of several indicators could be expanded by analyses that take into account specific conditions in the different ministries.

## **5 Comparing measures for gender equality**

Non-institutional or substantial measures for equal opportunities in the three cases are concentrated on the reconciliation of work and family life for parents and on the career development of women, mainly of highly qualified employees. Other target groups are addressed only with single measures or passive equal opportunity policies like anti-discrimination rules or gender sensitive language.

### *5.1 Reconciliation of work and family: between part-time employment and parental leave*

In all three federal administrations most experts we interviewed agree that reconciliation policies are a central pillar of equality policies. This is not surprising at all, since they do not provoke distribution conflicts – as it can be the case by the promotion of female careers, and since in principle they address both women and men. However, these measures in fact mainly address women due to the still vivid traditional gender specific division of labor.

*Part-time work* and *teleworking* are rather new developments and their share is still lower than in the private economy (see table 1). The possibility of part-time work for civil servants was introduced in Germany only in 1969, in Austria in 1979 and in Switzerland in 1986. In all three cases part-time work and teleworking represent the lynchpin for enabling continuing careers by women with small children. Schemes supporting the right to part-time work and teleworking for parents of young children weaken the traditional principle of permanent availability and the culture of presenteeism of managers. This is especially visible in Switzerland and Germany where part-time work increases also in higher positions

In Switzerland, the increase of part-time work is mainly the result of changes in norms and values. Until 2013, the possibility of part-time work was mentioned in very general way only in legal documents. Nevertheless, part-time work increased and seemingly created only few conflicts between employees and management. Since then, parents after maternity leave have the right to reduce their hours to a minimum of 60%. In Austria and Germany, employees and civil servants are legally entitled to part-time work, but there are still differences for civil servants, who cannot reduce their working time to less than 50% or who cannot work in part-time longer than 15 years in both countries. The proliferation of part-time also poses challenges: it is demanding for teams (coordination, team spirit) and may lead to an overburdening of part-time workers, because often the reduction of work time is not compensated for. There are also hardly rules for employees who wish to return to full-time work. However, the available data for Switzerland indicates that part-time is mainly used with high working shares of about 70% of fulltime obligations. Finally, the promotion of part-time work perpetuates the gender-specific division of labor and thus it may negatively impact on female careers: in Germany, full-timers are promoted 2.3 times more often than part-timers (Fuchs et al. 2015 ch. 5).

Another important instrument for reconciliation in federal service are *parental leaves*, which follow the traditions of the national policy regimes. In *Austria*, parental leave regulations for the public sector exceed the provisions for the private sector and allow paid parental leaves for up to 30 months. Also, the highly differentiated models of parental leave are supplemented by a 'daddy month' for public administration.8 In Germany, the share of men among parental leavers is about 12% – slightly under the share of men in the private

8 The *"Papamonat"* is a special arrangement for public administration entitling fathers with a paid one-month leave after childbirth.

sector. In Austria the share of men is estimated to be higher than in the private sector. Mirroring liberal welfare traditions, Swiss federal administration has no paid parental leave after 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, although fathers in federal administration get two weeks paid leave.

Part-time work and long parental leaves show their effect in discontinued employment and impact negatively on career development. Austrian gender equality plans especially address this problem and provide support for reintegration after leave is taken, promoted through individual counselling and coaching, organized meetings or information during parental leave as well as training opportunities for returners. Similarly the German equality law foresees such measures. Explicit inclusion of men in parental leave schemes and the expansion of public childcare facilities should foster female employment but they do not reframe the ideology of the male breadwinner/female caregiver model. With incentives for long career breaks on the one hand and expensive supporting programs for returners on the other, this policy profile results in a stop and go-policy for women's employment (Leitner et al. 2013; Appelt 2009). However, in Switzerland continuous employment, probably in part-time, emerges as a new *Leitbild*, due to the lack of parental leave arrangements. Unfortunately, this is not a satisfactory alternative, since in both models of reconciliation – continued employment or re-insertion after parental leave – the main share of early childhood care remains women's work. Parental leaves and part-time thus remain very ambiguous instruments for gender equality. *Childcare* is a precondition for continued employment of parents. In Germany this seems not to pose a problem since the administration is mostly centred in cities and a statutory entitlement for a place in nurseries is in force since 2013. In Austria, experts appreciated high-quality childcare in employees' day care centres; yet all-day childcare is in short supply even in Vienna. The Swiss liberal-conservative regime defines childcare still as a private responsibility. Some federal departments used to offer their own childcare facilities. More importantly, high private childcare costs are subsidized for parents with monthly gross household incomes up to 20,000 Swiss francs. There are concerns that this subsidizing scheme has trap/threshold effects and thus may pose an inconsistent incentive, namely to reduce working hours. Still, this instrument goes beyond the otherwise scarce promotion of reconciliation.

Reconciliation measures are especially differentiated in Austria, to a slightly lesser degree in Germany. The promotion of reintegration and "daddy months" reduce the potential burden of mothers, however, without changing the gendered division of labor. In contrast, the few Swiss measures are hardly differentiated, which also reduces the scope of reconciliation strategies – they remain a private matter that has to be negotiated by couples. The development of part-time work shows that its proliferation can be the result of legal entitlements as well as changes in values and norms.

#### *5.2 Women's career development: between individual promotion and quotas*

Gender quotas in all occupational fields and at all hierarchical levels of federal civil services are the main instruments to stimulate the promotion of female careers. These quota regulations are explicitly anchored in gender equality law in Germany and Austria. Swiss 'target ranges' setting the proportion of women to be reached in the different salary categories are laid down in the Personnel Strategy. Female career promotion mainly addresses higher qualified women since male dominance persists especially in high positions.

In Germany and Austria gender quota regulations for recruitment and promotion take the form of so-called "performance-based quotas" (*qualifikationsabhängige Entscheidungsquote*) that allow a preferential treatment of women in hiring and promotion procedures under restrictive conditions – there must be a gender underrepresentation in the occupational sector considered and the candidates in competition for the post offer should have the "same qualification".9 Austrian quota regulations with standardized procedures have led to more transparent and professional recruitments. Yet, the concept of "same qualification" is often too vague to be efficiently applied. As observed in Germany, "sameness" in qualification, i.e., in aptitude, capability and technical achievement is evaluated along ever more refined criteria, so "same qualification" is hardly ever stated, depriving quota regulations of any effect (cf. BMFSFJ 2006: 34; Bednarz-Braun 2000: 139–142; Papier and Heidebach 2014). Furthermore, their implementation lacks resources, predefined (interim) goals and evaluation procedures. Although gender quota regulations in the Austrian and German federal civil services are developing limited effects in individual recruitment or promotion cases, yet their symbolic value ensures indirect effects in process regulations, support for equality officers and last but not least for the implementation of sustainable measures to promote women's careers. In Switzerland, the target ranges of the federal personnel strategy for the proportion of women in different hierarchical levels serve as incentive for female promotion, especially because they are accompanied by reporting obligations. In Austria regular publications on the participation of women in different departments, functions and salary categories are objective indicators for a success.

9 Preferential treatment must not be applied if it would lead to unreasonable hardship for the candidate of the over-represented sex (so-called "hardship clause").

As a consequence, training and individual support of women should increase the number of potential applicants for higher positions. In Austria this is promoted through a set of different measures like privileged invitations of women for further education, special courses for women, coaching, mentoring and supervision and also gender-sensitive teaching materials. Similarly, the Swiss administration offers coaching, mentoring and 'potential analysis'. While training is focused on higher qualified women in Austria and Switzerland, the German federal administration offers a broader access to tailor-made training schemes but specific measures for women are rare and often *ad personam*. Whether the increasing qualification levels of women and the shortage of skilled workers will automatically improve the situation of women is a topic of discussion especially in Germany. Undoubtedly, promotion structures, respectively the public employment law with lifelong careers within the organization are an obstacle to gender equality.

To sum up, the implementation of measures for career promotion of women – like gender quotas, principles for recruiting processes, performance assessments, training measures and individual support – is very heterogeneous across departments and also depends on organizational cultures. Austrian and German quota regulations have a higher degree of obligation, but they lack differentiation of goals and clear definitions of 'qualification'. Swiss target ranges are less obligatory, yet profit from differentiated planning and evaluation. Substantial policies in the field of career promotion can have an immediate effect on gender imbalances, particularly in higher positions. Thus they are more likely to produce distribution conflicts than reconciliation measures. Hence, the former are far more contentious than the latter – and have a lesser degree of obligation. However, recruitment and promotion regulations put reconciliation measures back on the agenda. Reconciliation and career promotion are two complementary sets of instruments for a comprehensive and effective gender equality strategy.

## **6 Conclusion**

Our analysis shows that none of the three governance regimes has a constant weak or strong combination of criteria for efficient gender equality policies. Rather, our cases have different strong points and gaps. In general, federal administrations design more and more favorable provisions for gender equality, well above the legal standards set for the private economy. As steady modest increases in gender equality show, they set model regulations for reconciliation, recruitment and female career development.

Yet, actual policy measures and the use of institutional means differ strongly between administrative units and ministries in a country. Heterogeneity is especially high in Switzerland and is hardly related to objective reasons like the tasks, structure and duties of the various units. To the contrary, this heterogeneity occurs even when policies are closely regulated, but insufficiently controlled like in Germany and Austria. Ministerial autonomy increases the probability that regulations are adapted according to differing organizational cultures and individual experiences of managers. Diverging implementation appears arbitrary and incidental. Gender equality policies, then, may be seen not as a routinized and legitimate state activity.

At the same time, institutional policies became increasingly differentiated and more and more coordinated with general personnel policies – this concerns the competences of Austrian and German gender equality officers as well as the gender equality plans and reports. But a systematic monitoring and a standardized benchmarking do not exist in any of our cases.

Substantial policies for career promotion exist, but are not always implemented thoroughly, or they produce conflicts with reconciliation policies. The use and non-use of quota regulations show that a re-definition of 'qualification' and 'performance' is crucial. A broad range of training, coaching and mentoring exists to strengthen the pool of qualified female employees, but units and departments have a wide discretion and these instruments also depend on the organizational culture or the persons in management positions of a given units.

All three governance regimes for corporate gender equality in federal administrations are normatively coherent with the modernized breadwinner model: part-time work and reconciliation measures allow for a continuous female employment in federal service. More precisely, they are also coherent with their different national gender regimes, and differences especially in the degree of legal obligations correspond to the more liberal or more conservative state traditions. The Swiss liberal profile is mirrored in the emerging norm of continuous employment in federal administration. In Austria and Germany the national expanding opportunity profile for women matches the extended parental leave and reinsertion schemes as well as quota provisions. On the other hand, there is no consistent and binding implementation of effective career promotion. Long-standing part-time careers of women and their slow progress in management positions correspond at least partly with the modernized breadwinner models, where women still are the flexible reserve. This will not lead to comprehensive gender equality.

Altogether, gender equality policies are well dovetailed with personnel policies of units and departments, especially in Switzerland, where gender equality is an integral part of the personnel strategy. A high degree of consistency however would also mean to critically examine (and re-design) apparently gender neutral regulations for recruiting, performance evaluation and promotion. This does not take place systematically in any administration, but awareness of this problem is on the rise.

The main reason for insufficient gender equality regulations in all three federal administrations seems to be a lack of specific monitoring and controlling instruments. The traditional implementation autonomy of ministries and administrative units outplays the weak coordination of gender equality policies on the level of the federal administration. Gender controlling, then, is limited either to quantitative features, or reports facts only on an aggregate level (like in German gender equality reports). If indicators are disaggregated, they are mostly limited to the participation of women without contextualized interpretations of the differences (like in Austria). Finally, indicators may be mainstreamed to such a degree that gender equality becomes a rather unimportant feature among others and is hardly visible (like in Switzerland).

Probably the most important result concerns the significance of institutional policies especially in planning and controlling. It is important to develop differentiated monitoring instruments that provide refined indicators, clear objectives, specific measures and procedures that are elaborated enough not to be circumvented. Equally necessary are sufficient human and financial resources. However, a further differentiation of institutions and measures alone will not bring about gender equality in administrations. A public debate about equality issues and objectives could promote gender equality as a legitimate and commonly shared value also in public administrations.

Further research on corporate gender equality policies in civil services should evaluate, firstly, how regulations impact on every-day practices, and secondly, which chances and limitations prevail in these gendered organizations. International comparative research should compare and analyze the effects of the two reconciliation profiles – continuous employment versus re-insertion – on the quality of employment and female career development. Access to more detailed data than those available to us in this study would be necessary, including data on part-time employment models, duration of leaves and individual careers.

#### **References**

Andresen, Sünne, Irene Dölling, and Christoph Kimmerle. 2003. *Verwaltungsmodernisierung als soziale Praxis: Geschlechter-Wissen und Organisationsverständnis von Reformakteuren.* Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

## **Whose welfare – whose autonomy? Welfare, work and care in social investment practice**

*Eva Nadai*

## **1 Introduction: Women's work – choices and constraints**

In much of feminist theory, labor market participation is regarded as indispensable for women's autonomy and emancipation. Employment provides (partial) economic independence from a male partner, thus allowing for a more equal power balance (Hobson 1990), as well as access to the public sphere. Wage work is associated with social contacts, social recognition and self-fulfilment – in short, "employment is not just a 'good thing', it is crucial to the welfare of the adult" (Lewis/Giullari 2005: 97). However, as critics argue, "hegemonic welfare state feminism" (Ostner 2004: 45) tends to generalize the value of labor force participation. For many women the normative model of autonomy through continuous employment is neither accessible nor desirable, and there are cultural and class differences with respect to the meaning and relative importance of work and care and to unequal access to employment that is actually rewarding in terms of pay and self-fulfilment. Moreover, as Nancy Fraser (2009: 110) notes, feminism's high esteem of wage labor devalues unpaid care work, and by supplying "a good part of the romance that invests flexible capitalism with a higher meaning and a moral point" unwittingly legitimises neoliberalism. Empirically, women have indeed entered the labor force in increasing numbers, and their employment has become more continuous (BFS 2008). However, in some countries with a high female employment rate – notably in Switzerland – this increase is mostly due to part-time work, and in many countries there are still clear gender differences regarding employment patterns (ibid.). While these facts are undisputed, the interpretation is not. The question is whether women's limited labor-force participation reflects their "true" *preferences* or is merely a consequence of *structural and cul-* *tural barriers to continuous full-time employment* according to the male model, and, to what extent it hampers women's chances for economic independence (Allmendinger/Leuze/Blanck 2008; Hakim 2000; Jones 2012).

There is another uncanny affinity between feminism and mainstream policy, namely between the feminist emphasis on women's labor market participation and the post-welfare state's focus on universal inclusion into the labor market. Within the framework of the *social investment paradigm* state expenditures are conceptualized as investments in human capital to generate productive workers for competitive labor markets. A strong labor force is, moreover, regarded as necessary to ensure the long-term financing of social security systems (Esping-Andersen 2002). The issue of individual autonomy qua wage work espoused by feminists is here framed as "personal responsibility", thus as a duty of the individual towards society. Women figure prominently in the social investment strategy: as underutilized labor force potential, as contributors to family income, and to social security systems, and, moreover, they are addressed in their reproductive capacity as mothers and carers of children as the future workforce. They are caught between the "farewell to maternalism" (Orloff 2006) and a "new maternalism" (Jenson 2015). On the one hand, social policy is pushing for the "adult worker model" that expects labor market inclusion from every adult person, irrespective of gender and care obligations (Daly 2011; Lewis 2001). This entails reconciliation policies to facilitate all women's employment (Stratigaki 2004), as well as activation policies for the special target group of social transfer recipients (Betzelt/ Bothfeld 2011; Rudolph/Niekant 2007). On the other hand, women are functionalised as mothers and secondary earners, while gender equality issues like the gender pay gap or discrimination in the labor market are relegated to the background (Jenson 2015).

In this context matters of choice and constraints are again different for *unemployed women,* as welfare beneficiaries are often *forced into the labor market*, albeit as secondary earners only (Bothfeld/Betzelt 2011a; Jaehrling 2009). Regarding the situation in the U.S., Dodson (2007: 262) observes a veritable "ban on motherhood": the radical enforcement of welfare-to-work policy actually prevents poor mothers from caring for their families (see also Solomon 2008; Weigt 2006). The situation is, of course, acerbated for single mothers, who are especially vulnerable to the gradual abolishment of maternalist exemptions from work obligations (Kull/Riedmüller 2007; Wright 2011). Yet, even under conditions of forced labor market participation, there is some empirical evidence that these women still appreciate work and activation programmes, because it helps them escape the stigma of welfare dependency, bolsters their self-esteem and, for some, offers a chance for developing new skills and capacities (Nadai et al. 2013; Solomon 2008; Weigt 2006). However, reconciling work and care is even more demanding for welfare recipients and low income mothers who very often have to cope with a variety of problems (poor health, children with special needs, making ends meet etc.); thus work requirements add significantly more stress (Dodson 2007; Solomon 2008; Weigt 2006).

This chapter examines the *contradictory consequences of social investment policy for women's autonomy* with the example of *unskilled unemployed women* receiving either unemployment or social assistance benefits in Switzerland.1 For them the promise of autonomy qua wage work seems elusive, yet they are forced to seek a job. While Switzerland has implemented activation principles in the social security system since the mid 1990s2 , the social investment paradigm has been adopted in a "light" version at best (Bonoli 2010). Investments are limited to promoting the employability of social transfer recipients whereas the more encompassing vision of preventive long-term investments in the human capital of the whole population has not really gained ground. Investments in the unemployed consist of individual and collective work and educational programmes. Participation in these programmes is mandatory, as is active job searching; non-compliance is sanctioned by curtailment or cancellation of benefits. The mandatory character of activation is obviously in stark contrast to the idea of autonomy. Yet, investments in women's employability might offer them the chance to gain autonomy by getting a job with an income. Given the limited cultural, economic and social capital of these women and institutional restrictions, the question is to what extent activation is conducive to women's welfare – does it improve their economic and social situation and enhance their autonomy?

Answering such a question requires, first, a discussion of the concept of autonomy and its operationalization (section 2). As Pfau-Effinger (2005: 8) contends, cultural conceptions of wage work and of who should work are key elements of welfare arrangements. These normative frames become manifest in concrete practices within street-level bureaucracies, which, because of the inherently discretionary nature of human services work, operate as mediators of social policy (Brodkin 2011). Thus, I will analyze next how welfare workers frame the notions of work, care and their clients' responsibilities, and how these cultural frames shape their "investment" practices (section 3). The concept of autonomy implies the possibility of choice − it is therefore important

1 Entitlement for unemployment benefits is based on insurance contributions during at least 12 months within the two-year period before unemployment. Benefits are paid for a maximum of 200 up to 520 days depending on length of prior contribution, age and child support obligations. Social assistance is means-tested and eligibility depends on the financial situation of the whole household.

2 In the unemployment insurance activation principles were introduced earlier than in social assistance.

to take into account what the clients want and whether they are supported to realize their aspirations (section 4). The paper draws on empirical data collected in an ethnographic research project on social investment and activation practices in Switzerland (Nadai/Hauss/Canonica 2013). The study explored the gender equality potential of these practices by examining to what extent and in what ways welfare state agencies "invest" in unskilled unemployed women. We analyzed the institutional regulations and cultural frames underlying the practices as well as the interlocking strategies of both welfare workers and clients. More details on methodology and data will be presented below (section 2).

## **2 Theoretical framework, methods and data**

Autonomy is a contested, yet central concept in feminist thought, and it has also been proposed as a major goal of social policy (Bothfeld/Betzelt 2011b). For the purposes of this paper, there will not be the opportunity to present this debate in detail. Mainstream philosophical concepts have been criticized by feminists for a number of reasons, most importantly for positing an atomistic, asocial, abstract self, which exists outside of social relationships and strives for an illusory absolute autonomy (Friedmann 2003: 81‒97; Mackenzie/ Stoljar 2000). In response, feminists have developed more socially bound notions, which acknowledge that autonomy is a matter of degree. Friedman (2003: 14) conceives of autonomy as "choices and actions (…) that mirror wants or values that an acting person has reflectively reaffirmed and that are important to her". Choices can be considered autonomous if they come about relatively unimpeded by coercion and manipulation. Furthermore, autonomy requires certain causal conditions, such as having significant alternative options and the personal ability of having and understanding values, making choices and pursuing one's commitments in the face of obstacles. Importantly, Friedman argues for a content-neutral notion of autonomy – in order to be autonomous, a persons' choice itself does not need to endorse the value of autonomy. For instance, if women choose to affirm traditional gender norms (such as caring for the family rather than striving for economic independence qua wage work) this is still considered autonomous behavior if the choice "accorded with and issued from their deeper wants and commitments" (ibid.: 24).

By recognising options and individual faculties as preconditions for autonomy Friedman's concept is close to the *capability approach (CA)*, which puts the real freedom to lead a life according to one's own values centre stage. Whereas Friedman defines abstract conditions for autonomy, the CA is more concerned with concrete social conditions that enable genuine choices (Sen 2000; Nussbaum 2011). "Capabilities" are conceptualized as a space of options for acting and being that is more encompassing than the "functionings", i. e., the options a person actually realizes. Thus, the freedom to choose is an inbuilt feature of the notion of capability. It is dependent on access to material resources, as well as social conversion factors (such as norms, institutions, structures) and individual characteristics (such as physical, emotional and cognitive faculties), which are necessary to make use of material resources.

Both Friedman (2003) and Nussbaum (2011) stress the importance of personal capacities that enable individuals to exercise autonomous choices. Yet, neither discusses in detail how people acquire this capacity. Needless to say, formal education is considered a paramount conversion factor in the CA-literature. However, the competency to act autonomously cannot be reduced to formal education. According to Sedmak (2011) "fundamental capabilities" such as the competence for self-reflection, for developing alternatives to the status quo, for engaging in one's live, for making judgments and decisions cannot be "distributed (…) like bread and water" (ibid.: 36). Instead they are dynamic, bound to the subject and acquired in long-term biographical processes. They have to be *actively cultivated*, lest they waste away.

As a broad normative framework the CA does not give a precise operationalization of what material level or social conversion factors would constitute sufficient conditions for capabilities (Robeyns 2005). *With respect to activation policy* three important capabilities have been suggested: the *capabilities for work, for care and for voice* (Bonvin 2009; Dean et al. 2005; Lewis/ Giullari 2005). Activation policy has been much criticized for forcing the unemployed into programmes and jobs irrespective of their own preferences or of employment quality. In contrast, CA-proponents insist on people's right to choose work that they consider intrinsically and/or extrinsically satisfying: jobs that offer some self-fulfilment and material security. The capability for care implies the right to care for others without incurring disadvantages. In the context of activation, this means that also poor and unemployed parents should be able to choose caring for their families over wage work. Finally, granting welfare beneficiaries the capability for voice means allowing and enabling participation in decisions on activation goals and measures. All three capabilities rest on acceptable "exit options", i. e. on unconditional sufficient material support.

The notions of capabilities for work, care and voice are still rather abstract. This poses the methodological challenge of how to identify empirically, first, people's "genuine" wants, second, the broad array of social and individual conversion factors that enable or obstruct these choices and, third, how these factors are related to social investment policy. Dorothy Smith's "institutional ethnography"-approach provides a promising framework to meet this challenge, because it systematically links subjective experiences with social structures and discourses. Institutional ethnography treats so-called macrosocial phenomena like social structures or discourses not as abstractions but as "doings": as constituted by the observable coordination of action in concrete relations (Smith 2005: 57‒60). Research therefore starts from "actual activities of actual people" (ibid: 54). Yet, such particular standpoints and experiences are not described as an end in itself but serve as "entry point into forms of social organization which shape local settings but originate outside of them" (Grahame 1998: 352). These "ruling relations" (Smith 2005) are textually mediated, thus objectified, systems of knowledge and social organization that transcend local contexts and "generalize and universalize across multiple local settings" (ibid: 42). Texts coordinate action within a particular setting and link it to social relations, which temporally and spatially extend the observed context (ibid: 103). Thus, analyzing texts as "documents in action" (Prior 2008) is crucial to tracking institutional relations that are not directly observable. So, our study focused the interplay of institutional regulations of the unemployment insurance and social assistance with the actual practices of welfare workers, which in turn are shaped by these textually mediated regulations, but also by their organizational and professional beliefs and their negotiations with clients. On the part of the unemployed, we analyzed how their educational, professional and familial biographies and their current situation enabled or limited the way they engaged with the "investments" they were offered or refused.

Smith (2005) herself understands institutional ethnography as a theoretical perspective, not a particular method. In our study, we actually used an ethnographic approach based on participant observation, interviews and document analysis. The observational sites comprized six welfare state agencies: a regional placement office of the unemployment insurance, a social services agency operating within the regime of means-tested public assistance – these institutions decide on investments, i. e. which clients get which measures. As sites where activation measures are applied we chose two women-only programmes and two mixed-sex work programmes. In addition to informal conversations as part of observations, a total of 46 semi-structured formal interviews were conducted: 16 with welfare workers, 22 with clients (16 women, 6 men), 6 with experts and 2 with employers who offer internships as a form of work programme (Nadai et al. 2013: 6‒10). The data were analyzed with grounded theory coding techniques (Strauss/Corbin 1990) and membership categorization analysis (Lepper 2000).

**3 Work as obligation or capability – welfare workers' perspective**

*"Do you want a job to feel good and have a hobby or to be able to pay your bills?"* This question of an unemployment counsellor to her client captures well the dominant notion of work, namely of *work as breadwinning* and as the *moral obligation* to take responsibility for one's own living. Clients who insist on finding fulfilling work or who regard unemployment as an opportunity for a major occupational reorientation are regarded as being *"choosy"* and *"unrealistic"* and as capitalizing on society for advancing their own careers. This is the shared view of work in all six fields of our study. With respect to gender the notion of work as breadwinning has indeed been generalized to women too, including mothers. For example, in social assistance the age limit of the youngest child legitimizing the mother's economic inactivity has gradually been lowered to three years.3 And, even for single mothers of small children the guidelines of the social services agency in our study postulates re-entry into the labor market "as soon as possible". On the other hand, activation practice must, to a certain extent, take into account clients' personal preferences. As research drawing on Foucault's governmentality approach has demonstrated, activation operates via people's subjectivities and aims at transforming these subjectivities, namely at forming an active entrepreneurial self (Dean 1995). Therefore, clients are also encouraged to explore their occupational aspirations and to develop strategies to realize them (Maeder/Nadai 2009). Work, then, is also cast as a *capability* or *means to self-fulfilment* having an intrinsic value − again for men and women alike. In our study we did not find the idea that employment may be less important for women due to their alternative role in the family (but see Rudolph 2007).

One of the women-only integration programmes gave this meaning of work a distinctly gendered twist. Work was explicitly regarded as a *means of women's empowerment*, namely as a precondition of economic and social independence and a way to realize hidden potentials. As the programme manager put it: *"It's incredible, how they flourish, while they're in the programme."* We did not encounter this argument with regard to women in the other fields of our study, however, where women's access to the labor market did not seem remarkable. A substantial percentage of this programme's clientele are *migrant* women who have never been employed in Switzerland. They are depicted as

3 In Switzerland social assistance is legally regulated on the cantonal level and administered on the communal level, so there is considerable local variation in practice. The Swiss Conference of Social Welfare provides guidelines to harmonise social assistance practices, which, however, are not binding. The age limit of three years is stipulated in these guidelines.

#### *Eva Nadai*

coming from oppressing "patriarchal cultures", where they were confined to the home, were not used to move freely in public or see themselves as subjects with entitlements and were denied educational and occupational opportunities (for similar stereotyping see Kirk/Suvarierol 2014). Thus, beyond empowering them as women, access to the labor market is also regarded as a *mechanism of social and cultural assimilation*. By leaving home and setting out to work these migrant women can become like liberated Western women (Hauss in this volume; Hauss/Nadai 2009). Labor market participation as a way of cultural assimilation to Swiss society was a common topic in all our research fields. Ethnicity as "otherness" is primarily seen as a major impediment to employment; assimilation, therefore, as a necessary precondition for gaining access to the labor market, and at the same time as a result of labor market participation. Especially for male immigrants, work is conceptualized as the double social duty of breadwinning and assimilation, whereas for women assimilation qua wage work is also regarded as a vehicle for emancipation beneficial for the women themselves. Discourses of social investments, integration of migrants, and gender intertwine, thus leading to *"ethnogendering" the function of work*.

Compared to wage work, *care* still is a *highly and explicitly gendered* issue, namely a female concern. It is primarily seen as a handicap by restricting women's flexibility and availability for the labor market. To put it in the blunt wording of an unemployment counsellor: *"With a child they have a millstone around their neck."* Inversely, the same counsellor said: *"Fathers are not really fathers, fathers are always the workhorses."* We also observed a certain mistrust of mothers who declare themselves ready to work 'too much, too soon', i. e. who want a full time or substantial part-time job despite having small children. The welfare workers suspect that these mothers do not really want to work, but *"hold their hands out, while the husband works."* Again, migrant women were distrusted more than Swiss women. Yet, apart from the issue of clients' real availability for the labor market, the unemployment insurance and its work programmes are institutionally indifferent to matters of care.

In contrast, for social assistance care is an ambivalent issue: on the one hand the cases of means-tested welfare comprize households, not individuals. Therefore, the combined earning-capacity of the whole family comes under scrutiny. So, mothers are regarded as potential breadwinners too, and care is a secondary concern. Consequently, welfare workers are ready, *"to shake a patriarchal family model, in which the woman stays at home and the man goes out to work"*. Yet, degendering is pursued only to a certain degree. Social workers do not urge a role reversal, not even when the wife clearly has a better chance to find a job or earn more. Rather, they aim for a "one-and-ahalf-breadwinner-model" at most, with the father working full-time and the mother part-time (see also Keller/Modak/Messant-Laurent 2013; Streuli/ Kutzner 2005: 315). On the other hand, the social investment paradigm regards the family as an important site of human capital production, hence its focus on early education and the welfare of children (Jenson 2015). The guidelines of the social services agency in our study state that children need the presence of a primary carer – *"generally the mother or the father. Parents of small children should be allowed to weigh the demands of the labour market and childcare".* Despite the gender-neutral wording, welfare workers regard the mother as primary carer. Also for single parents, social workers favor parttime employment. Yet, institutional day-care is sometimes seen as more suited to the needs of the children, especially for migrant children. "Defamilializing" these children by placing them in professional childcare serves a similar assimilating function as labor market participation is supposed to do for adults: day-care helps them learn the language and to get acquainted with the values and norms of the dominant culture.

The cultural frames of work, care and responsibility used by welfare workers are gendered and ethnicized in complex ways. Analytically, the process of social investments entails three distinct steps: selecting investment objects (clients), selecting investments (work or educational measures) and applying these measures. These selections are based on the categorization of clients, which is guided by the frames described above. With an eye on the "profitability" of investments welfare workers sort clients according to their availability for the labor market, the marketability of their work capacity and their behavior in order to allocate measures (Nadai et al. 2013). These often conflicting categorizations are contextual and situated accomplishments (Lepper 2000), which result from the intersection of personal characteristics like gender, age, ethnicity, family status, education, health as well as of the institutional regulations of social security regimes, migration regimes and societal norms (Nadai in press). Most importantly the unemployment insurance treats clients structurally as individuals, while social assistance addresses them as members of a household. In the former, women are penalized for non-standard employment patterns, which diminishes their entitlements (Stutz/Knupfer 2012), but once they are eligible for unemployment benefits they are not disadvantaged regarding the allocation of investments in their employability. Statistical data show that women do not receive less measures in general, nor less of the successful measures (Nadai et al. 2013: 14 ff.). This corresponds to the cultural degendering of work in this institution.4 In contrast, within the regime of so-

4 However, since the unemployment insurance provides a wider range of measures, especially educational measures that are lacking in social assistance, women's restricted access to unemployment benefits diminishes overall "investments" in them (Nadai et al. 2013, see also Jaehrling 2009 for a similar institutional effect in Germany).

cial assistance women – especially migrants – are clearly underrepresented in activation programmes. Here it seems that social workers invest more in men as primary breadwinners of the household and regard women as carers and secondary earners, hence as less "profitable" investment objects.5 Moreover, migrants' availability and marketability is hampered by the restrictive regulation of work permits and by the non-recognition of foreign educational credentials.

## **4 Work and care as promises and burdens – clients' perspective**

*"I like this programme very much. It makes women feel more productive, more like real women, you know, not just like mothers."* With these words a single mother on welfare commented on the work programme she had been assigned to. Her statement reflects both the feminist discourse on the emancipatory value of work and the social investment paradigms' ideal of the adult worker. "Real" women are productive outside the family; they are more than "just" mothers. Our research confirms once more the findings of other qualitative studies that the majority of unemployment insurance and welfare beneficiaries holds on to the dominant work ethic and wants to work (Bescherer/Röbenack/Schierhorn 2008; Ludwig-Mayerhofer/Behrend/Sondermann 2008; Schallberger/Wyer 2010; Solomon 2008). None of our interviewees said she or he preferred a life without employment at all, but the mothers did not want to work full-time. For all interviewees wage work serves the function of social integration – without work they feel excluded. Almost everyone mentioned the function of work as a source of income, hence economic independence. Most respondents feel ashamed and stigmatized for being dependent on any kind of welfare benefits, be it social assistance or social insurance benefits. Finally, a minority of our sample attaches importance to work as a vehicle for self-fulfilment.

Lisbeth Jausli's dream job, for example, always was nursing.6 But she never gets the opportunity for formal occupational training, marries young and is

5 The underrepresentation of women may also be due to welfare workers' informal rationing of services (Brodkin 2011) because of the scarcity of activation programmes in social assistance. According to unpublished data of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office only 2% of clients participate in work integration programmes. The lack of programme places may increase the selectivity of investments in this institution compared to the unemployment insurance.

6 The names of clients are pseudonyms.

a stay-at-home mother for roughly 15 years. After divorcing her first husband and losing custody of her children, she has a nervous breakdown and is on welfare for two years. When she is again capable to work, she is sent to the unemployment office. She mentions her professional dream, but the counsellor tells her, it is more important to quickly find a job now and eventually pursue her dream later. So Lisbeth takes a job as an unskilled warehouse clerk, which she loses after 10 years due to restructuring. She registers again at the unemployment office. At the same time she decides this is the moment to make her old dream come true and enrols for a Red Cross-class as a nursing aide. Because she has done so without consulting her counsellor the course fee is not paid for by the unemployment insurance. Rather, the counsellor tells her to feel proud for making it on her own. Moreover, Lisbeth is not allowed to look for nursing aide jobs only, but on the contrary is assigned to apply for unskilled factory jobs. However, the counsellor soon places her in a work programme, which in turn finds her an internship in a nursing home for dementia patients. During that time she also leaves her violent second husband, who tries to control her economically by blocking her bank account. Her story has a happy ending: her internship is turned into a regular 80%-job as a nursing aide, which pays enough for her to move into an own apartment and file for divorce.

For Lisbeth Jausli wage work is indeed a *gateway for emancipation*: she makes an autonomous choice and attains the capability of work in terms of becoming economically self-reliant and having a fulfilling job. Like for her, for roughly a third of the unemployed, we interviewed for our study, work means more than making a living or a nice change from domestic life; it is *essential for their identity.* They develop their own long-term plans for their occupational future and are ready to go to great lengths to realize their goals (for other cases see Nadai et al. 2013: 32 ff., Nadai/Canonica 2014: 359 ff.). However, the capability for work is not readily granted by the welfare state. Often the clients have to *persevere against welfare bureaucracies*, because institutional regulations prioritise quick labor market re-entry, prevent substantial investments in education for unskilled people and because welfare workers legalistically stick to bureaucratic rules. Clients are, thus, *refused resources and the capability of voice*. Lisbeth could not assert herself when she was unemployed for the first time, because she lacked the financial means and was only just recovering from a major personal crisis, thus probably unable to stand up to a powerful welfare bureaucracy. Her second husband accuses her of taking advantage of him, when she forgoes full unemployment benefits by registering as part-time unemployed to be able to attend her nursing aide class. Of course, she vehemently rejects this blame, but there is a kernel of truth to it: her chance to finally realize her dream partly rests on having a partner supporting her, since

#### *Eva Nadai*

her minimal unemployment benefits are most likely beneath the poverty line. Likewise, her later part-time job as a nursing aide provides a sufficient *income* for herself, but *could not provide for a family*. The capability for work and the chance to act autonomously, thus, are also dependent on the social conversion factor of specific family constellations. Unlike Lisbeth some of the other work-oriented clients we interviewed were (slightly) better equipped with cultural capital and occupational experiences as individual preconditions for autonomous choices. Yet, as single mothers and/or migrants they found they had to overcome even more obstacles such as having to provide and care for a family or fighting for work permits.

For the majority of our respondents wage work is not associated with self-fulfilment – it is, in the words of Jetmire Rexhep, *"just normal, that's part of life"*. To which she adds: *"What would I do at home?"*  After the divorce she is briefly doing shift work as a temporary worker. When her son has to repeat class at school she wants to reduce her hours, but her employer declines. She quits, is now on welfare and participates in a work programme where she has been waitressing in the canteen for a year when we meet her. She immigrated as a teenager and finished her compulsory schooling in Switzerland, but never obtained formal occupational training. She also has some work experience as a sales clerk, but doesn't want to work in this field anymore. Instead, she'd prefer a canteen job because of the regular hours. In fact, work content doesn't really matter: *"What I want is just a job."* What matters is a job that is part-time (60% at most) and doesn't interfere with her children's schedule. In particular, she wants Wednesday afternoons off, when her children are not in school and Saturdays to accompany her son to his football games. In other words, Jetmire puts her family first and restricts her availability for the labor market accordingly. Like her all the mothers in our sample try to set limits in order to be able to uphold their own standards of good care – including the work-oriented women discussed above. Their choices, thus, follow the *rationality of a moral economy oriented to the perceived welfare of their families* (Dodson 2007) rather than the labor market logic of the ideal worker existing only for the job. And, in the Swiss welfare arrangement, they are still allowed to do so. Jetmire, for example, is not required to look for a full-time job, although her teenage children go to school and after-school day-care. While welfare beneficiaries don't have the unconditional capability for care – they cannot choose to be full-time carers when their children are beyond a given age limit – they are, to a certain degree, still granted maternalist exemptions, albeit at the price of prolonged poverty.7

7 Of course, both the mothers' preferences for part-time work and the welfare workers allowances for them are also influenced by the lack of affordable childcare in Switzerland.

At some point Jetmire's social worker suggests formal training as a nursing aide. Jetmire declines, again because of the irregular hours in that line of work. However, there seem to be other reasons too, namely her lack of belief in her own abilities. For instance, in her current occupational field she prefers a canteen because "*in a normal restaurant with many different menus … I don't know if I could learn that. Here, we only have two menus per day, that's a lot easier."* Jetmire is not the only woman in our sample who is *hampered by self-doubts and low self-esteem*. We found a group of clients who have been discouraged all their lives by their families, teachers, partners, and as a result are not used to reflect on their needs and don't dare making plans (Nadai et al. 2013: 30 ff.). To put it differently, they weren't able to develop *fundamental capabilities*. Therefore, like Jetmire they sometimes act ambivalently with respect to possible investments in them. They need a lot of encouragement to be able to take up the rare opportunities they are offered, e. g. to go back to school and to get formal education. While especially the two women-only programmes of our study tried to promote autonomy competency and supported their clients' educational aspirations (Nadai et al. 2013: 20 ff.; Nadai in press), research on activation shows, that this is the exception rather than the rule (e. g. Schallberger/Wyer 2010). In our sample, roughly half of the women were actively encouraged to realize professional plans. This finding is partly due to the nature of the selected institutions, for one of the women-only programmes caters to young unskilled mothers with the explicit goal to assist them in finding an apprenticeship post. However, among the supported women were also clients of the other institutions. Unlike Jetmire, some of the women actually overcame their insecurities and started *"making small steps"*, as one of them said, to a more autonomous life by developing and pursuing their own plans.

Thus, the meaning of work influences how the unemployed integrate activation measures into their lives, i. e., to what extent they are actually capable and willing of making use of possible investments in them. This is not to say that individual "motivation" is the crucial factor, which is how welfare workers tend to see it. Rather, how the women frame and weigh work and care, and how much effort they are willing to invest in their occupational future is dependent on their educational, occupational and familial biographies and on the present social and individual conversion factors that delimit their options.

## **5 Conclusions**

Women's equal access to wage work is a preeminent concern of feminism, since an own income and participation in the public sphere are seen as cru-

#### *Eva Nadai*

cial conditions for emancipation. Feminism's valuation of paid work converges with the social investment paradigm's emphasis on universal labor force inclusion. Social investment policy promotes the adult worker-model and it promises investments in human capital acquisition to generate productive, self-reliant citizens. Those outside the labor market, namely social transfer recipients, are to be activated by means of investments in their employability, so they, too, can find their way back to work. Theoretically, the social investment paradigm has the potential to foster women's autonomy by acknowledging them as workers and by investing in their capacities. This chapter focuses the choices of unemployed women with little "human capital". Usually, the success of activation is assessed with respect to labor market entry and welfare rolls exit rates respectively. From a gender and capabilities perspective this view is too limited. Rather, the relevant question is whether unskilled unemployed women gain *autonomy:* in the narrow sense of financial independence qua employment and in the broader sense of leading their lives according to their own values. This entails the freedom to choose between wage work and care (or any combination of the two), to get a say in activation goals and measures as well as adequate support to develop autonomy competency (Friedman 2003) and the necessary skills to find rewarding work. These capabilities for work, care and voice (Bonvin 2009; Dean et al. 2005) depend on a *complex set of social and individual conditions* at the intersection of welfare state, labor market and family. Exploring social investment policy on the ground – the actual practices of different welfare state agencies – reveals inconsistencies and mixed effects regarding women's autonomy.

Since the respondents of our study were, by definition, unemployed we cannot draw any definite conclusions as to their chances of gaining *financial independence* through employment. Five women found a job or an apprenticeship position, another two worked as interns with relatively good prospects of getting an apprenticeship position later. For the other 15 clients in our sample there was no solution in sight yet.8 All of the jobs were in female dominated occupations (nursing, day-care, cleaning, hairdressing, clerical work) as were the aspirations of the other, yet "unsuccessful" women. Typically wage levels in these jobs are rather low, even more so for unskilled workers.9 Since most of the women want to work part-time, they will very likely not attain complete economic independence but will either depend on a partner or on welfare (or on both). Swiss and international research lends credibility to this argument. For instance, Aeppli (2010: 8) found that 18% of his sample of single moth-

8 We have only sketchy data on the overall success rates of the programmes in our study. They vary between 13% and roughly 30% of clients who find a job (Nadai et al. 2013).

9 Moreover, although the women also chose them for their supposed family-friendliness (i. e. part-time options), these jobs actually often involve irregular hours.

ers still needed social assistance after labor market entry, and 61% said, their standard of living was not better or even worse after leaving welfare (ibid.: 17; also Guggisberg et al. 2012: 20). Labor market re-entry after welfare tends to lead to precarious employment and continued dependence on the state or on a male partner (Corcoran et al. 2000; BFS 2009; Bothfeld/Betzelt 2011b).

Regarding the *capability of work* welfare bureaucracies indeed exert pressure to work and to accept any kind of job regardless of personal preferences and the quality of jobs. On the other hand, welfare workers play on the ideal of work as self-fulfilment to motivate clients for self-improvement. Thus, activation practice hovers between encouraging and supporting clients' professional aspirations and cooling them out (Maeder/Nadai 2009). Likewise welfare workers act ambivalently with regard to gender. Primarily, the unemployed are addressed as individuals in a (partly) degendered way, namely as adult workers who are obliged to earn their own living. And, for both genders, work holds the promise of self-fulfilment, albeit in a very limited way. But as soon as issues of *care* are at stake the individual is framed as part of a collective, namely the family. Especially social assistance as an institution addressing the household as a whole oscillates between treating the family as a financial unit, both parents therefore as earners, and as a normalizing institution and production site for human capital, which requires the presence of a primary carer. Most often it is still the mothers, who are seen as carers, so they are then regarded as a secondary investment object.

The women we interviewed basically shared the adult worker norm and wanted to work. However, the relevant institutions do not provide sufficient support to facilitate labor market entry for disadvantaged women. In particular, *institutional regulations prevent substantial educational investments* in those who have no formal training in the first place, because both the unemployment insurance and welfare adopt the less-eligibility principle. Social transfer recipients must not be "privileged" through publicly funded investments, while the working population has to pay for their further education. Therefore educational measures must not lift them above their former educational and occupational status (Nadai, in press). So, unskilled unemployed women are disadvantaged qua class (lack of education) rather than qua gender. In contrast to German research on the gendered allocation of activation measures (e. g. Bothfeld/Betzelt 2011a; Jaehrling 2009; Rudolph 2007) we did not find that women were generally disadvantaged in the individualising unemployment insurance. But they definitely were underrepresented in the programmes of social assistance. In this household-centred institution women are clearly treated as secondary earners within a modernized breadwinner model. Without formal occupational education, however, the women's chances of attaining economic independence are slim, especially in unskilled jobs in typically female occupations.

The unemployed women in our study did not have the full *capability for care*. However, the Swiss welfare arrangement is a far cry from a "ban on motherhood" (Dodson 2007). Rather, it is based on the one-and-a-half-earnermodel (Stutz/Knupfer 2012: 8) and *maternalist compromizes*: welfare workers tolerate or promote part-time work of mothers, even if this means prolonging welfare spells. For, in the social investment paradigm women's function as carers and educators is regarded as essential for the long-term production of human capital. Therefore, the needs of children come first (Jenson 2015). This is in line with some women's wants, as Jetmire Rexhep's case has illustrated. Even under the restrictions of activation, women for whom the family is just as or more important than work still have some autonomy with respect to balancing time for work and care. In fact, the pressure for full-time work some respondents felt stemmed from rigid time structures in the labor market and in apprenticeships and, in one case, from migration authorities.10 Of course, low levels of material support from the welfare state and low wages in unskilled jobs exert pressure too. However, the maternalist compromizes of welfare workers can also stifle the ambitions of more work-oriented women. We observed cases where women were held back rather than supported on account of being the mothers of small children. Moreover, the women's options regarding the capabilities for work and care were also dependent on *familial support*. Most of the interviewed lone mothers had very little or no support by the fathers of their children, hence they were limited in their flexibility in the labor market. On the other hand, some women could count on their relatives regarding care and material support.

The case of Lisbeth Jausli demonstrates the limited *capability for voice* granted to clients. She was not the only one denied the autonomy to decide which goals to pursue or which programmes to participate in. But Jetmire Rexhep's example points to another condition of the capability for voice, namely that asserting oneself requires the competency to develop personal commitments and pursuing them in the face of obstacles (Friedman 2003). Some of the women in our sample had been discouraged and deprived of "voice" early on in their lives, and it was their families and teachers that blocked their capabilities in this way (Nadai et al. 2013). For them activation programmes turned out a chance to cultivate fundamental capabilities, to find out what they might be able to do and to get some assistance to realize aspirations. Even if this kind of support is exceptional and will not immediately change the social and

10 For migrants being on welfare can lead to losing their residence permit. The woman in question therefore had to work more hours than she wanted in order to leave welfare and keep her permit (see Nadai et al. 2013: 32).

economic situation of these women, it may be a small step to more personal autonomy. More fundamental improvements would require substantial educational investments, gender equality in the labor market in terms of working conditions and pay, and reconciliation policies acting on time, money and care services on the household and the collective level (Lewis/Giullari 2005: 97). Above all, social policy must allow a pluralism of emancipation conceptions instead of enforcing a uniform adult worker model for all.

## **References**

Clarissa/Niekant, Renate (eds.): Hartz IV. Zwischenbilanz und Perspektiven. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, pp. 110‒134.

Rudolph, Clarissa/Niekant, Renate (eds.): Hartz IV. Zwischenbilanz und Perspektiven. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.

Schallberger, Peter/Wyer, Bettina (2010): Praxis der Aktivierung: eine Untersuchung von Programmen zur vorübergehenden Beschäftigung. Konstanz: UVK.

Sedmak, Clemens (2011): Fähigkeiten und Fundamentalfähigkeiten. In: Sedmak, Clemens/Babic, Bernard/Bauer, Reinhold/Posch, Christian (eds.): Der Capability-Approach in sozialwissenschaftlichen Kontexten. Überlegungen zur Anschlussfähigkeit eines entwicklungspolitischen Konzepts. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 29‒52.

Sen, Amartya K. (2000): Development as freedom. New York: Knopf.

Weigt, Jill (2006): Compromises to carework: the social organization of mother's experiences in the low-wage labor market after welfare reform. In: Social Problems, 53, 3, pp. 332‒351.

Wright, Sharon (2011): Relinquishing rights? The impact of activation on citizenship for lone parents in the UK. In: Betzelt, Sigrid/Bothfeld, Silke (eds.): Activation and labour market reforms in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 59‒78.

# **Violence against women – an indicator of gender equality?!**

*Daniela Gloor & Hanna Meier*

## **1 Introduction**

Regarding developments in the field of 'violence against women' distinct changes in social perception and responses to the problem can be identified. In Switzerland – as in other countries – women's movement raised the topic and initiated the social debate in the late seventies. The subject at that time was addressed explicitly in the light of gender inequality and discussed as a reflection of discrimination and oppression. Intimate partner violence was situated within the culturally established uneven gender relations and gendered power hierarchies, and the aim was to change the situation on an individual as well as on the societal level. Innovative answers included the setting up of women's shelters: help for self-help was a central approach and specialized services for women who suffered violence and their children were established by NGOs. The focus of the activities was on victim's empowerment and the expansion of their agency – to enlarge their options for action and their opportunities for change.

In Switzerland the introduction of the federal Victim Assistance Act (Opferhilfegesetz) in 1993 marked for the first time a broader recognition of the problem, beyond the activities of women-centred NGOs and services. From the mid-1990s initiatives of women's shelters, women's support services/victim assistance agencies and Gender Equality Offices targeted further sensitization of statutory services, promoting the need for co-operation and interdisciplinary co-ordinated actions in responding to intimate partner violence. The first intervention projects and multi-agency approaches against domestic violence were set up following these initial developments. The efforts involved primarily the police and justice system, the health sector, guardianship authorities, and men's counselling services. Changes concerning legal frameworks on federal and cantonal level were initiated from 2000 in order to address the problem of violence in relationships (heterosexual and homosexual). These comprise of making violence in marriage and relationships a public offence to be prosecuted by the state (2004), protection measures against domestic violence under civil law, Art. 28b ZGB, (2007) and, since 2003, barring orders for domestic violence on cantonal level of police laws. St. Gallen and Appenzell Ausserrhoden were the first cantons that introduced in 2003 the possibility of eviction orders against the offender.

Today violence in marriage and relationships is no longer a socially acceptable behavior and the institutional system for help and intervention has changed accordingly. Much more institutions take responsibility for the problem and intervention measures and support have increased as well as the cooperation between the agencies. However, alongside the transition it can be observed that 'old ways die hard'. In spite of significant changes two key features of the problem 'violence in marriage and relationships' have remained.