Book Review: Women's Rights to Social Security and Social Protection
| Author | Jackie Gulland |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271501700306 |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Reviews
European Jour nal of Social Sec urity, Volume 17 (2015), No. 3 399
Beth Goldblatt and Lucie L amarche (eds.) Women’s Rights to Social Security and
Social Protection (Oñati International Series in Law and Society), Oxford: Har t
Publishing, 2014, 348 pp., ISBN 978–1-84946 –692–9 (hardcover)
is collection of fourteen papers on women’s rights to social security provides a
timely reminder of the entrenched gendered inequa lities in income and access to
social security across many countries. e editors set out the scope of the book in
the introduction, expla ining that it adopts as its starting point an explicitly femini st
and human rights perspec tive, while recognising the intersections with other areas
of discriminat ion. As might be expected, they set the discussion of rights to social
protection in the context of gendered inequal ities in the labour market and family
care.
e book is based on a workshop held at the International Institute for the
Sociology of Law in Oñati, Spai n and its range re ects the international scope of
the Oñati Institute, with contributions from scholars across the g lobe. e editors
describe the contributions as re ecting three types of welfare state: ‘developing’
(Chile, China, Boliv ia), ‘d ismantling’ (USA, Canada, Austra lia) a nd ‘hit by austerity’
(Ireland, Spain). As with many such col lections, the range of countries is wide, but
not necessarily comprehensive, mis sing out in this case most of the European states
familiar to readers of this journal.On the other hand the inclusion of chapters on
China, Bolivi a and Chile should expand the k nowledge and theoretical understa nding
of readers beyond the usual bou ndaries of Europe and other Western states.
emes addressed by the book include the complex relationship between labour
market participation and social rights, the possibility of adopting a human r ights
approach as a solution to gender inequality and t he di cu lties of teasing out individua l
or collective solutions to entrenched global i nequalities. e discussion of access to
social security and social protection is situated within a feminist analysis of deeply
embedded gender inequalities in labour market participation. e book reminds us
that, across countries and across time, men’s and women’s participation in the paid
labour market is unequa l in terms of hours of work, type of work, a nd security of
work and pay. e gendered di erences in access to paid work are interwoven with
gendered di erence s in domestic and caring responsibilities . ese lead to structu ral
inequal ities in access to soc ial security systems, which have o en been based on male
breadwin ner or adult worker models of s ecure employment th at exclude people (male
or female) who do not t this model. e book provides detai led discussions how these
inequalities are related to gendered poverty in part icular countries and the ways in
which di erent welfare state s have either addressed or heightened these inequalities.
e book is structu red into fou r parts, entitled ‘Gender transformation: equalit y
and participation’, ‘Gender, Poverty and Rights in Global Perspect ive’, ‘Markets
Employment and Welfare: Poor women in rich countries’ and ‘Crisis and Austerity:
Shaping women’s rights to social securit y’. I f I was to identify a criticism of the book,
it would be that I am not entirely convinced by this thematic organisation of the
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