Challenging the balkanization of gender contracts

In this chapter we examine debates related to the sexual and gender contract, and reproductive bargains. We look at how useful these concepts are to understand the historical balkanisation of the labour market and the way families organise different work-care arrangements. We consider how the consequences of austerity will impact on attempts to implement greater gender equality. We argue that progress in gender equality has gone hand in hand with a continued balkanization of gender contracts within and between countries reflecting societal and class specific legacies of the integration of women into paid work. These balkanized trajectories, evident before the crisis, are likely to become more entrenched as job opportunities diminish, and unless a more radical policy agenda to address these is implemented. The value of a gender contract perspective in examining these developments is to directly draw attention to the gendered dimension at the base of how these rules governing the organization of production and social reproduction were both established and are still evolving.