Women's Economic Equity and Participatory Economics

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Women's Economic Equity and Participatory
Economics

• A Presentation by Mitchell Szczepanczyk
• http//www.szcz.org

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In this presentation

• What is women's economic equity, and what is the
  current status of women's economic equity?
• What are some of the obstacles toward achieving
  women's economic equity?
• What is participatory economics?
• How is participatory economics relevant towards
  women's economic equity, and toward overcoming
  the obstacles toward economic equity?
• What are some possible next steps?

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What is women's economic equity?

• Some possible definitions include
• A synonym for "fairness" in economic matters
  between men and women
• The right that women should be paid the same as
  men
• The right that women should have work equally
  empowering as men

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What is its current status?

• Bad, but it was much worse...
• "In 2005, women's median annual earnings were
  only .77 for every 1.00 earned by men.
• "Women are paid less in every occupational
  classification for which sufficient information
  is available, according to the data analysis in
  over 300 job classifications provided by the U.S.
  Department of Labor Statistics.
• "In 1963, the year of the Equal Pay Act's
  passage, full-time working women were paid 59
  cents on average to the dollar received by men,
  while in 2005 women were paid 77 cents for every
  dollar received by men. In other words, for the
  last 42 years, the wage gap has only narrowed by
  less than half of a penny per year.
• (Source http//www.now.org/issues/economic/factsh
  eet.html)

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What are some of the obstacles toward achieving
women's economic equity?

• Political realm Poor laws and ineffective
  enforcement in eliminating wage discrimination.
• Economic realm Markets themselves are also
  critical to address in the matter of women's
  economic equity.

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What are some market connections to women's
economic equity?

• Markets are (contrary to popular myth) not
  democratizing institutions. They're competitive
  by definition.
• Since they're competitive, you have an incentive
  to behave like a monster.
• Corporations are the legal equivalent of monsters
  in a market.

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What are some market connections to women's
economic equity?

• Despite gains in women in breaking corporate
  glass ceilings, corporations tend to
• Have majorities of men in executive positions
  (only 14 of 550 executives in various industries
  were women)
• Bear hierarchies in pay and job empowerment
• Concentrate women in jobs with lesser pay and
  lesser job empowerment
• Source http//www.usatoday.com/money/companies/
  management/2008-07-10-women-ceos_N.htm

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What are some market connections to women's
economic equity?

• A lot of the caregiving work which is
  overwhelmingly done by women is unrecognized by
  markets.
• Caregiving work and housework takes away from
  time for wage-earning labor.
• If it were recognized, caregiving work and
  housework would comprise the overwhelming
  majority of economic activity.

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What is participatory economics?

• An economic model which strives to achieve
  solidarity, equity, efficiency, and
  self-management without command-planning rules
  (corporations) or competitive realms (markets).
• A participatory economy ("parecon") is defined as
  having four different institutions (rules)
• (1) All jobs are balanced for desirability and
  empowerment.
• (2) Remuneration is determined by effort and
  sacrifice in socially-valued labor.
• (3) Economic decisions are made by
  decision-making bodies, where those who are
  impacted by a decision have decision-making power
  proportional to the degree they're impacted by
  that decision.
• (4) Resources are allocated by participatory
  planning, where consumption or production plans
  are submitted, with the help of a facilitation
  mechanism, to those who are impacted by those
  plans, and revised if necessary by those who made
  those plans in a series of rounds based on
  assorted qualitative and quantitative feedback.
• To learn more http//www.zmag.org/znet/topics/par
  econ

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How is participatory economics relevant towards
women's economic equity, and toward overcoming
the obstacles toward economic equity?

• Parecon addresses the matter of discrepancies in
  job hierarchies (where women tend to get stuck
  with disproportionately disempowering work) with
  balanced job complexes.
• Caregiving work, which is not or poorly
  recognized in markets, is recognized in a parecon
  since it involves effort and sacrifice in
  socially-valued labor.
• Corporations don't gain market advantages in a
  parecon, because parecon doesn't use markets.

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What are some possible next steps?

• There are at least four categories of future
  actions
• (1) Debate / Research
• (2) Media / Education / Outreach
• (3) Build new institutions based on parecon
  which markedly improve economic equity
• (4) Change present institutions to a parecon
  orientation in order to markedly improve economic
  equity
• If we feel this is worthy of our efforts, we can
  pursue one or more of these tracks for future
  action.

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Questions? Concerns?

• Hit me with your best shot.
• -- Pat Benatar