The Foundations and Impact of Feminist Economics: Valuing Care Work, Challenging Traditional Models, and Promoting Human Well-being

Feminist economics is an intersectional approach that prioritizes human well-being and the lives of all people in economic research and policymaking. It challenges traditional economics' narrow focus, particularly its neglect of unpaid care work, which is crucial for productivity in the paid economy. The speaker, Diana Strassmann, founded the Journal of Feminist Economics to provide a platform for research deemed "peripheral" by mainstream journals, thereby combating the silencing of scholars interested in these areas. A core distinction feminist economics makes is questioning the "magical" significance of pay in defining productive economic work. It argues that excluding unpaid care work (for children, the disabled, the elderly) from economic analysis distorts understanding of overall human well-being and even the paid sector's rigor. The field also critiques the heteronormative assumptions in much economic thinking, which often fails to acknowledge diverse family structures and exploitative relationships, including those in the sex trade. The discussion highlights the need to analyze labor market segregation and understand why women are disproportionately in certain jobs or face barriers. It suggests that factors beyond individual choice, such as social norms, structural biases (e.g., equipment designed for men's bodies), and lack of supportive policies like paid leave, significantly influence women's career trajectories and eligibility for jobs. Understanding these interactions is crucial for accurate economic analysis and policy formulation. Despite political challenges, the increasing education and social activism of women globally suggest a cautious optimism for future progress in dismantling structures that impede equality. Feminist economics seeks to broaden the scope of economic inquiry to include previously marginalized topics like sex work, ensuring a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of economic phenomena and their broader implications for society.

all of us if we get old enough need to be taken care of I four lucky and if what we really want to measure if optimizes economist is human well-being then we should care about care work point one but point two is the organization of care work interacts with a paid economy and therefore if we neglect it our research into even the paid sector is not going to be as rigorous

the term feminist economics encompasses not just a body of thinking but an approach to economics that is intersectional and interested in making sure that economic phenomena relating to the lives of all people is kept in the forefront of research and policymaking

leaving women out of economics if they had a different ideas about what should be included in economics ended up changing what was considered important in the field

I started the journal as as an institutional intervention into economics in order to make it possible for research in economics to take place and to claim the mantle of economics for this research which fundamentally was about human well-being and the of people's lives

the idea that work that is inherently you know seen as part of reproduction the care work thinking of that as not fundamentally productive economic work simply because a lot of it isn't done for pay is is just a blatant distortion of what we really should be measuring as economist

what is magical about pay that means that we would only want to count something as productive if it's exchanged in the marketplace

a lot of economic thinking is also highly heteronormative and does not really acknowledge that families are not all a husband and a wife and you know a couple of children

if occupations are structured so that they don't fit with social norms and with women's bodies and lives we need to think about what is the source of the problem and can we simply reduce it to women's choices or can we look more deeply and consider what are the social cultural structural factors that influence women's eligibility for certain types of jobs

women are increasingly well-educated in countries around the world and social activism is increasing and as people become socially and politically more active they're also less patient with structures that hold them back