The largely negative impacts of neo-liberalism on women are not that different from the impacts on low income men. Class and race differences matter as much or more than gender, with intersectionality the newish buzzword, though not at all a new concept. So Maori, Pacific, refugee and other largely low-income women's groups are among the most disadvantaged by capitalism and neo-liberalism, with sole parents, overwhelmingly women, and their children particularly so.

However, differences in economic and social status between men and women still exist and matter, mainly to the detriment of women. Hence this article examines how feminist economics approaches analysis of the orthodox neo-liberal agenda and the impacts of that agenda on New Zealand women. It focuses on women's position in paid and unpaid work and outlines recent developments including Treasury's Living Standards Framework and the 2019 so-called Wellbeing Budget.

Feminist Economics

Feminist economics analyses the assumptions, methodology and policy agendas of orthodox neoclassical economics. The supposedly gender-blind analyses, systems and policies of orthodox economics appear to be universal, but in fact use methodologies, assumptions and practices which are neither gender-neutral in effect nor value-free and scientific. Its underlying normative structure and values focus on individualism, self-reliance and the virtues of competition.

There is an unhealthy tendency not only to claim the high ground of correctness of theory, prescription, and philosophical basis, but also to claim that there are no alternatives worthy of consideration. This leads to analyses which are based on the lives of well-off white men as the norm and to ignore their dependence on the unpaid work in the household done mainly by women to lead such lives. Orthodoxy and the neo-liberal agenda legitimises the traditional male/female division of labour in the household which feminist economics critiques.

The theoretical structure of orthodoxy takes too much as given, and hence reinforces current power structures, giving support to status quo distributions of income and wealth. Hence, economic systems and policies based on the theory reinforce inferior average outcomes for women and others with less access to education, and associated class and ethnic related privileges. So, feminist economists should be fighting for social justice and greater equality on all fronts, even though gender is the prime focus. Such analyses and the suggested policies that come from them would benefit not only women, but also men and children.

Feminist economics analyses not only microeconomic issues in the household and labour market but also macroeconomic models, financial systems, the environment, war, security, climate change and the full range of economic, social and environmental issues. Along with other alternative (or heterodox) economic schools, it argues against the simplicity and policy agendas of orthodox neoclassical economics.

General economic policies, covering macro and micro areas, and including labour, industry, government sector and international trade policies, have more impact on the economic status of women than specific policies intended to improve that status. Feminist economists' main analyses of macroeconomics have been the gendered effects of structural adjustment and making visible women's unpaid work, for example by proposing its inclusion in national accounting systems.

Structural adjustment policies, implemented through institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have paid little attention to the needs of women and have been enforced as a condition of loans. Although there is increasing evidence that investment directed to women may have higher rates of return, strategies to tackle gender barriers and channel resources to women are still rare.

Feminists, both inside and outside economics, have accumulated considerable evidence on these gender biases and negative impacts on women, in some cases extending to debates on whether sustainable development is even possible and to eco-feminist calls for new visions and paradigms.

Of course, feminist economists are not a homogeneous group. Even some feminist economists take for granted that capitalism and the growth imperative are inevitable and desirable, while many are far more radical. This growth fetish is propelled partly by an advertising-led norm for ever more consumption despite much evidence that once basic needs are met (not the case in many parts of the world and in a proportion of deprived households in New Zealand and elsewhere in the rich world), a satisfying life is far more dependent on factors unrelated to money and consumption.

Growth is also propelled by the drive for profit and a financial system dependent on ever-expanding credit creation and speculation, with over 99% of transactions being unrelated to sales of real goods and services. Total reform of the monetary system, for example removing from private banks the ability to create money, is under discussion in mainstream circles overseas, but is scarcely above the radar in New Zealand (though organisations like the New Economics Party, Living Economies and Positive Money do their best to raise these issues).

Whether growth can or should continue in a finite world with the challenges of environmental destruction and global warming has to be discussed alongside income distribution. Optimism based on human ingenuity and technological invention can simply be myopia about what we are leaving for future generations. Sustainable development and growth may well be an oxymoron and a steady state economy the only solution.

World population levels are another important aspect, with the level around ten billion at which projections consider it may stabilise already seen as alarmingly high yet perhaps understated with medical advances promoting longevity. So, there are major challenges in securing adequate living standards for all and reduced inequality between and within countries.

Gender, race and class inequality suits the leaders of business and government, who often set one low income group against another. These leaders hold the bulk of decision-making power on economic policy. Orthodox economics largely ignores the realities of power differences in its individualistic analyses - the power to control how markets work is crucial and contradictory to the supposed impersonal objectivity of markets, including the labour market.

The changes to industrial relations law and practices and deregulation of labour markets which occurred under Rogernomics in the 1980s and was taken further with the Employment Contracts Act 1991 under National were highly negative. As a result, trade union roles and power were sharply reduced, their membership was decimated, wage inequalities widened, and wage increases generally failed to keep up with productivity growth. Lower waged groups were particularly disadvantaged, with women overrepresented in those affected.

The trend to casualisation, the need for multiple job holding, and even zero hours contracts also accelerated at the low paid end of the labour market. A low wage strategy is an essential part of the neo-liberal agenda. Internationally, the evidence shows that gender wage gaps tend to be lower the greater the extent of collective and centralised bargaining, the higher the minimum wage and the narrower are overall relativities, all of which are also associated with a smaller proportion of low paid workers. Deregulation of the labour market reducing the impact of these protections has a differentially adverse impact on lower earners, including low paid women.

Women's Disadvantage In NZ Labour Market

New Zealand is often described as an international leader in women's employment and earnings equality, with a gender gap of only about 10% in median hourly earnings and many women in top positions. But this is rarely in top positions making the key economic decisions. It is true that increasingly women are entering all occupations and moving up career ladders.

Nevertheless, women and men are still distributed very differently in the jobs they do - horizontal occupational and industrial segregation remains at high levels. For example, the manufacturing and transport sectors were just under 30% female at the 2013 Census, compared with education (74%) and health (82%). Around half of both women and men work in occupations where at least 70% of workers are of their own gender.

Another area where women continue to be underrepresented is in traditionally male trades. Of 11,926 modern apprenticeships, females accounted for 12.4% but this was almost entirely due to the inclusion of hairdressing in the scheme. Without hairdressing the women's participation rate dropped to 8.4%. The three largest industry sectors (over 1,000 apprentices) in better paid occupations have very low rates of young women. Building and construction had only 0.3% female apprentices, the engineering sector 1.2%, and motor engineering 2.5%.

Women now constitute more than half of those earning bachelors' degrees in New Zealand, including Bachelor of Science, but remain under-represented in areas like information technology and engineering. But equally qualified women graduates continue to earn less on average in every area of work than men and the gaps widen over time. The fact that the overall gender pay gap in New Zealand has narrowed despite the existence of trends in the industrial relations system and increasing inequality which would incline to widen it is largely due to human capital acquisition by men and women now being similar.

Men Predominate

At the top of hierarchies, men still predominate, women are often paid less, and unnecessary privacy over pay can obscure discrimination. Many areas of female dominated work have been regarded as unskilled, with dexterity, caring for people, and the ability to undertake repetitive accurate work seen as natural to women and not deserving high financial rewards. It is in these low-paid female-dominated occupations, often with Maori and Pacific women heavily represented, where earnings are grossly inadequate.

The orthodox argument that free labour markets objectively set wages based on supply and demand and value of the work is highly misleading. Do bankers responsible for collapse of the financial system deserve ever more bonuses? And much low pay like that of carers in the health system is determined partly by tight Government contracts - and the buck passed by all involved for the low pay.

The 10% median gender hourly earnings gap is also the narrowest of many alternative measures. Weekly and annual earnings show wider gaps, due to women's preponderance in part-time work and less access to overtime due to greater family commitments - not necessarily an unconstrained choice.

Mean earnings also show a wider gender gap than median earnings since the top tail of high earnings have a greater impact on the mean, and men are disproportionally represented in such high earnings. The gaps are far wider for Maori and Pacific women as the table below shows (produced by Linda Hill for the Campaign for Equal Value, Equal Pay).

Average Earnings By Gender And Ethnicity For June 2019
Comparisons Between Gender/Ethnicity Groups

All women	All men	Percent	All Maori	All Pakeha	Percent
$28.59	$32.4	88.13%	$26.06	$32.05	81.31%
	Women		Men		Average
Pakeha	$29.75		$34.39		$32.05
Maori	25.27		26.84		26.06
Pacific	$24.17		$25.75		$25.02
Asian	$26.75		$29.04		$27.96
	Pakeha Women	Maori Men	Pacific Men	Asian Men	Pakeha Men	All Men
Pakeha Women		110.8%	115.5%	102.4%	86.5%	91.7%
Maori Women	84.9%	94.2%	98.1%	87%	73.5%	77.9%
Pacific Women	81.2%	90.1%	93.9%	83.2%	70.3%	74.5%
Asian Women	89.9%	99.6%	103.8%	92.1%	77.8%	82.5%

For actual purchasing power and gender inequality, total incomes are the most relevant figures and here the 10% median earnings gap pales into insignificance. The gap for total incomes was as high as 36.7% between women's median income of $23,100 at the 2013 Census, against men's median income of $36,500. More than twice as many men as women had incomes over $70,000, 19.6% as against 8.3%.

One third of women work part time as against 13.1% of men, so that women constitute 75% of all part-timers. While this is largely because of their far greater time commitments to unpaid household and caring work than men, a greater proportion of women than men wished to increase their hours in paid work, reflecting the need for higher earnings.

Insecure Work

A New Zealand Council of Trade Unions' paper on insecure work found that 70% of fixed term and 60% of casual workers were women, with these predominant in female dominated low paid occupations and industries, such as care work, retail, hospitality, and other services. The hourly average rate of pay for part-timers is considerably lower than for those working fulltime, adding to women's labour market disadvantage.

How much of the gender wage gap is due to discrimination is highly arguable. The concept and measurement of discrimination is contentious, with room for considerable disagreement over the nature and magnitude of the factors responsible for the earnings gap and the proportion which can be regarded as justified by non-discriminatory factors.

A related area is the orthodox approach to earnings differentials generally. The absurdly large and increasing ratios between top management and basic level employees are often defended by arguments about justified and necessary returns to skills, education and productivity, and the competition locally and internationally for such scarce skills. But there is increasing criticism of huge salaries, bonuses, and severance payments.

Few critiques of top salaries go as far as to challenge the whole structure and systems of wage fixing set by the market and supposedly justified by contributions to productivity. Yet the role of power differentials in wage settlement is major while the measurement of the contribution of any one individual in a large corporation is highly subjective. The compensation of top managers is typically set by committees comprising other senior executives who earn comparable large salaries. Economic and political power elites are inextricably intermixed, moving seamlessly between institutions and looking after each other.

Economists from non-orthodox schools of thought have long argued that standard supply and demand analysis as the only or main determinants of earnings is totally flawed and abstracts from unequal bargaining power. The basic model in which low pay simply reflects low skill, is a totally circular argument in which the outcome, low pay, is used as the only evidence for the alleged cause of low skill. In reality, low pay comes from the social structuring of jobs and workers and the associated differences in industrial and political power.

Skill evaluation is largely socially determined. For historical and social reasons this applies to skills involved in low paid female dominated work. Hence the call for policies to implement equal pay for work of equal value, a principle adopted in theory by the International Labour Organisation, the UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and many individual countries, including New Zealand. The principle has not been fully and successfully implemented anywhere.

Kristine Bartlett Case

The recent New Zealand legal case taken by aged carer Kristine Bartlett and her union against Terranova was based on this principle, with the Courts ruling that the 1972 Equal Pay Act continues to allow comparisons between female-dominated jobs and male-dominated ones - on the basis of the skills, effort, responsibilities and working conditions involved. Such caring work (35,000 workers in residential aged care, over 90% female) was clearly shown in the Human Rights Commission's report "Caring Counts" to be undervalued.

However, the Government was nervous about such comparisons being made under the jurisdiction of the Courts, while the trade unions involved and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) too preferred collective bargaining to decide an appropriate pay rate. As a result, two working parties were established, one for the carers' negotiations and one to establish principles for pay equity claims in future.

A reasonable increase was bargained for carers, although there are recent concerns that employers in the industry, dependent on Government funding, are unable or unwilling to meet the cost of the increases and are resorting to staff cuts. The Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles recommended good faith collective bargaining procedures based on the existing Employment Relations Act. These have formed the basis of proposed legislation currently at the Select Committee stage.

Women's organisations are concerned with many aspects of this draft legislation and some consider it would actually represent a backward step compared with the 1972 Act. For example, there are convoluted processes which have the potential to cause delay and expense for all parties, while the six years of back pay normally available under the Employment Relations Act (ERA) are removed.

Women, particularly in the private sector who are often non-unionised and low paid, could be disadvantaged. In addition, while there is the current secrecy over earnings, it is almost impossible for individuals or small groups to take cases. To assist women in knowing whether they may have grounds for a claim, more information is needed on hourly wage rates by sex and detailed occupation - and at the level of the business. Much of this data could be obtained from employer returns to Inland Revenue and published in anonymised form.

Another labour market aspect of neo-liberal policies is that total earnings have lagged with a shift from labour to capital in shares of national income. Those towards the lower end of the distribution have failed to receive the gains from labour productivity increases - the result of deliberate policies.

The CTU summarised this switch in the share trenchantly: "Workers have been short changed by up to one sixth of the wages they should have earned as a result of employers not sharing the benefits of productivity growth". Further, even the average increase in the real product wage of 1.7% per year are far from evenly spread, with much larger increases at the top of the wage distribution and much lower ones at the bottom.

Hence the demand for greater increases in the minimum wage and the introduction of a voluntary but widespread living wage, the income necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic necessities of life, enabling them to live with dignity and to participate as active citizens in society.

The minimum is of major importance in protecting the low paid. It needs to be increased more than has occurred in recent years. Its relativity to average wages has fluctuated widely from an impressive 83% initially (1947) to a mere 30% in 1984. It reached 52.5% in 1987, fell again proportionately and is now at $17.70 per hour back to a little over half - two thirds is a reasonable objective which would hugely benefit low paid women.

The living wage is currently $21.15 per hour. For many women workers, particularly in the private sector, adequate minimum and preferably living wage rates are of more importance than equal pay for work of equal value/pay equity, with policies and legislation on pay equity being glacially slow to have much impact even in the public sector.

The foreshadowed introduction of fair pay agreements covering some sectors could be worthwhile for low paid groups, noting that now there are only 1,600 collective agreements covering just 10% of the private sector workforce of employees. But progress is as slow as it is in most of the current Government's supposed agenda.

Women And Unpaid Work

It's highly arbitrary what work is paid and what unpaid. They exist side-by-side everywhere - caring, home maintenance, management, governance, agriculture, Citizens' Advice Bureaus and Women's Refuges, Meals On Wheels and Kohanga Reo, schools and hospitals, as well as work at home. Unpaid work increases through changes like deinstitutionalisation in the mental health field, shortened hospital stays after operations and childbirth, and self-service, packing, and paying in supermarkets.

It is genuine productive work, and should generate entitlements to a claim on the resources for living. More of total work is unpaid than paid, and the total work amount done by men and women on average is not that different. But much more of men's working week is paid, and they therefore get a bigger share of income and resources. And, of course, mothers of young children have the longest work weeks and lose out in earnings when they return to full time work.

Bringing up the next generation generously with material and educational resources is our most important task, but we do a terrible job of supporting lower income groups to do this. There is major hypocrisy about the value of parenting, with lip service paid to it being the most important job of all. Our combination of support for parents and children, parental leave, and childcare subsidies is one of the least generous in the developed world. And paid work is heavily dependent on all the household, caring, voluntary and community unpaid work.

Sole parents - almost entirely sole mothers - continue to be badly treated and are pushed as rapidly as possible into paid work. The systemic problems of lack of suitable jobs, training, and affordable child care, and sharp abatement of earnings make it hard for many such women to find employment leaving their families financially better off than even the low standard of living possible on a benefit. Most benefit recipients are keen to be in paid work, and this is hardly surprising given the inadequacy of benefit levels.

The Child Poverty Action Group has worked indefatigably and has raised fundamental questions with respect to the status and treatment of women and children. In a report analysing the welfare system and recommendations for how to improve it, it suggested that the use of a couple as the unit for determining welfare support is confusing and outdated, and can have serious harmful effects on children.

This is an issue raised as early as the 1988 Royal Commission on Social Policy but largely ignored by Governments ever since. "Relationship status as a factor for determining individual entitlement to social security payments is not an innate determining factor, but a socially constructed one deeply embedded in New Zealand's history".

The climate created by possibility of prosecution and imprisonment for relationship fraud (failing to declare a relationship) is very negative for many women on Sole Parent Support. Beneficiary advocates and NGOs tell heartrending stories of their work trying to help desperate people. Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) reports that: "On a daily basis we work with people who are denied their entitlements, have their benefits cut off without good reason, are unable to access housing even when in desperate need, and are suffering all manner of demeaning treatment at the hands of the department".

There is a sharp contrast between the treatment of relationship and other benefit fraud and tax fraud. Tax offences are viewed as less serious than other financial offences. This despite the fact that tax evasion is at least 25 to 50 times the financial amount of welfare fraud, and at worst 100 to 150 times the amount. There is a far greater chance of conviction leading to a custodial sentence for benefit fraud. And, of course, the majority of such cases involve sole parents and are women, while the majority of tax fraud cases involve men.

Child Poverty Action Group points out that we burden some of the poorest mothers in the country with lifetime debts while writing off the tax debts of some of our richest citizens. In just one year, the Government cancelled $930 million in tax debt owed by individuals. Yet mothers who owe benefit debt are pursued for the rest of their lives, when plainly unable to repay.

Welfare System Is Broken

Benefit levels are still inadequate and until the 2019 Budget announcement, increased only by the cost of living, whereas superannuation was adjusted by the higher increase in wage levels. So, benefits have continually fallen behind. The extra $25 weekly which the last National government added to benefits and made a big noise about, did very little to bridge the gap caused by the different methods of indexation over many years.

The welfare system is broken, as the recent report of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group documented, with only a small proportion of its recommendations having been so far taken up by Government. Removing sanctions against mothers who do not name the fathers of their babies is a good step, but only a small one compared with the proposals to scrap other sanctions and stand-down periods on which Government has been silent. And the proposal for large increases in the level of benefits, shown to be necessary, has been kicked for touch.

As the report said, "the system at its heart disempowers those it is set up to serve, by not providing enough time or private space for staff to hear people's stories, by being overly complex so it is difficult to access full entitlements and processing delays are common, by having stand-downs, sanctions, and unnecessary obligations, and through the inconsistent application of policies and discretion". Major changes are needed to improve the situation of 299,345 current benefit recipients, 57% female and 36% Maori.

Another area of concern is economic impacts of the breakdown of relationships. Child support systems and matrimonial property legislation and agreements are intended to put the interests of the child first and ensure that all involved can survive financially. However, there can be simply insufficient money to stretch over blended families. An amended child support system is in the process of implementation, intended to be fairer and, like the Family Court system, be predicated on the assumption of shared parenting.

However, there has been both positive and negative reactions to the system, with winners and losers inevitable, the judgements on fairness disputable with almost every case having unique features, and income often simply inadequate for all needs. Further, shared parenting and gender neutrality in policy may be desirable in theory, but may not be realistic after separation if, in fact, one parent, usually the woman, had a far greater role earlier. Some men's groups have complained that the Family Court system has historically favoured the mother, but those realities are often ignored and some feminist lawyers are concerned that the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

Turning to the tax system, the recent review had virtually no mention of gender issues and, constrained by its terms of reference, made only modest recommendations. Even the suggested capital gains tax, which could be seen as potentially benefitting lower income groups, has been ruled out by Government.

With women's economic independence being less on average than that of men, transfer payments (such as sole parent benefits) and some elements of Government expenditure are of more importance to women on average than to men. Hence the neo-liberal inspired aims of a balanced budget, and 30% maximum proportion of Government activity to GDP disadvantages women. There is a double issue from minimizing the total tax take: if taxes are cut, women's lower average incomes mean that they receive smaller tax reductions, while they are affected more if public services deteriorate as the result of insufficient revenue and hence expenditure.

Can Wellbeing Approach & Gender Budgeting Improve Women's Situation?

Treasury is developing its Living Standards Framework, started in 2011, which attempts to measure four types of capital - natural, social, human, and financial/physical. This appears to take seriously feminist and other critiques of GDP as a measure of welfare. It would certainly be worthwhile if policies were to be based on how they affect people's standards of living, or wellbeing, rather than just gross domestic product (GDP) and its rate of growth.

And the 2019 Government Budget was billed as the first Wellbeing Budget. It all sounds wonderful, but it is not yet clear how it will work to form policy in practice. There is no specific mention of whose living standards we are talking about nor much about distribution of income and resources, gender issues or the problems with market valuation when the supposedly more market approach of the last decades has led to widening inequality and poverty crises. Statistics New Zealand is developing no less than 110 indicators. But how much disaggregation there will be by gender, ethnicity, age, and other aspects relevant to people's wellbeing is uncertain

In the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's “How's Life 2013 - Measuring Well Being” (a prototype for Treasury/Statistics), "safety" is represented by numbers of homicides and car accidents. Marilyn Waring pointed out that this ignored violence and the fear of it when walking alone at night which would be far more significant for most women. At least the Statistics NZ survey included the question: "Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live?" How the fact that many women do not feel safe, with good reason, will impact on policy I have no idea.

Gender analysis of policy proposals was taken relatively seriously in New Zealand from the 1980s with encouragement from the Ministry of Women's Affairs, but recently has had less impact. From 2002 to 08, there was a requirement for such analysis to be applied to papers submitted to Government's Social Equity Cabinet Committee. Key questions to guide methodology for gender analysis were included in the Cabinet Office Circular. However, the analysis was rarely done well and superficiality is still the order of the day.

An April 2018 paper to the Cabinet Social Wellbeing Committee "Towards Investing For Social Wellbeing" - contained a supposed piece of gender analysis. It was simply: "An investing for social wellbeing approach has the potential to contribute to better outcomes for all New Zealanders, including women", hardly a useful contribution.

The July 2018 8th periodic report from New Zealand to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women attracted the following, among other adverse comments in its response. "The Committee is concerned about the absence of a national action plan or strategy for the advancement of women, not having renewed the previous one since 2009, and the complete lack of gender budgeting in the State party".

Gender budgeting, which relates closely to gender analysis, has been undertaken in a number of countries and has very recently been put on the agenda in New Zealand. In a Treasury Working paper, "Gender Budgeting: A Useful Approach For Aotearoa New Zealand", Suzy Morrissey made a modest start towards a revival of gender analysis. So maybe there is some potential for wellbeing budgets and gender budgets to lead to improved policies benefitting women, but I am not holding my breath.

Conclusion

Neo-liberalism is a framework which benefits only rich white men and corporate business. It is time that the lip service to ending its influence became a reality.