Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T05:06:18.490Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social policies, risks and vulnerabilities: A gender perspective for Mauritius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2021

Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur Open the ORCID record for Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur [Opens in a new window] ,
Deepa Gokulsing  and
Zoe Irving
Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur*
Affiliation:
University of Mauritius Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Réduit, Moka, Mauritius
Deepa Gokulsing
Affiliation:
University of Mauritius Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Réduit, Moka, Mauritius
Zoe Irving
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy & Social Work, University of York, UK
*
Email: v.tandrayen@uom.ac.mu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article investigates into how gender-neutral social policies affect gender dynamics of labour market participation, family life and livelihood. Taylor-Gooby’s [“New risks and social change”, pp. 1–28, 2004] new social risks concept and Holmes and Jones’ [Rethinking Social Protection from a Gender Lens. ODI Briefing Paper, 2010] framework are used to probe into the deepening of existing gender inequalities in the Mauritian multicultural society. The article argues that the prevailing social interventions in Mauritius overlook new social risks that have stemmed from the island’s economic transformation from a monocrop to an innovation based economy. This structural change has caused women, in particular, to face new risks and vulnerabilities. To advance the argument, the article examines gender norms, lack of appropriate gender-sensitive labour market policies and gender-neutral social protection measures. A mixed methodology is used with both secondary and primary data collected via interviews with key stakeholders from public and non-governmental organisations. The findings reveal the need to connect gender-sensitive welfare policies to risks and vulnerabilities to promote greater gender inclusiveness.

Keywords

Gender Inequalitynew social risksvulnerabilitysocial protection and social policies

JEL classification

H53: Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs H55: Social Security and Public Pensions I3: Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty J16: Economics of Gender • Non-labor Discrimination
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 273 - 292
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Social Policy Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acker, J. (1989). The problem with patriarchy. Sociology, 23(2), 235–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (2013). List of countries which have signed, ratified/acceded to the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. Available at http://www.achpr.org/instruments/women-protocol/ratification.Google Scholar
Afrobarometer (2017). Mauritius Summary of Results. Available from https://afrobarometer.org/publications/mauritius-summary-results-2017.Google Scholar
Alstott, A. (2004). No exit: What parents owe their children and what society owes parents? Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aumeerally, N. L. (2005). The Ambivalence of Postcolonial Mauritius – Policy versus practice in education: A reading of official and popular multiculturalism. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 11(3), 307–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bambra, C. (2004). The worlds of welfare: illusory and gender blind?. Social Policy and Society, 3(3), 201–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolzendahl, C. (2009). Making the implicit explicit: gender influences on social spending in twelve industrialized democracies, 1980–99. Social Politics, 16(1), 40–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brussevich, M., Dabla-Norris, M. E., Kamunge, C., Karnane, P., Khalid, S., & Kochhar, M. K. (2018). Gender, technology, and the future of work. International Monetary Fund.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunwaree, S. (2004). Gender, employment and welfare provisioning: the mauritian experience. Law, Management and Social Sciences – Research Journal, 5, 137–161.Google Scholar
Bunwaree, S. S. (2010). Governance, Gender, and Politics in Mauritius. ELP Publications Google Scholar
Bussemaker, J., & Kersbergen, K. v. (1994). Gender and welfare states: Some Theoretical Reflections. In Sainsbury, D. (Ed.), Gendering welfare states (pp. 8–25). London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CEDAW (2011). Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Mauritius. CEDAW/C/MUS/CO/6-7, Geneva. Available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/co/CEDAWC-MUS-CO-6-7.pdf.Google Scholar
CEDAW (2018). 6th Periodic Report submitted by Seychelles. Geneva: UN. Available from https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared Documents/SYC/CEDAW_C_SYC_6_7164_E.pdf.Google Scholar
CEPAL. (2017). Report of the Thirteenth Session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.Google Scholar
Daly, M. (1994). A matter of dependency: gender in British income maintenance provision. Sociology, 28(3), 779–797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, M. (2020). Gender inequality and welfare states in Europe. Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, M., & Lewis, J. (2000). The concept of social care and the analysis of contemporary welfare states. British Journal of Sociology, 51(2), 281–298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dieterich, M. C., Huang, A., & Thomas, M. A. H. (2016). Women’s opportunities and challenges in sub-Saharan African job markets. International Monetary Fund.Google Scholar
Duncan, S., & Edwards, R. (1977). Single mothers in an international context: Mothers or workers? Bristol, PA, London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
England, P. (2005). Emerging theories of care work. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 381–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eriksen, T.H. (1998). Common denominators: Ethnicity, nation building and compromise in Mauritius. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Frericks, P. (2012). Gender equalising and gender neutral policies and their pitfalls: A typology of the gender dimensions of social policies. European Journal of Social Security, 14(1), 2–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goetz, A-M. (2007). Gender justice, citizenship and entitlements – Core concepts, central debates and new directions for research. In Mukhopadhyay, M. & Singh, N. (Eds.), Gender justice, citizenship and development (pp. 15–57). Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.Google Scholar
Gordon, L. (1990). The new feminist scholarship on the welfare state. In Madison, L. G. (Ed.), Women, the state, and welfare (pp. 9–35). WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Heerah, H. L. (2015). Gender and politicised religion. Dissertation, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius.Google Scholar
Hobson, B. (1994). Solo mothers, social policy regimes, and the logics of gender. Sainsbury, Gendering Welfare States, 170–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, R., & Jones, N. (2010). Rethinking Social Protection from a Gender Lens. ODI Briefing Paper. London.Google Scholar
ILO STATS. (2020). Available from https://www.ilo.org/sesame/IFPSES.SocialDBExp.Google Scholar
Kasseeah, H., & Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. (2011). Assessing the formal social protection system in mauritius. Research Journal of Social Science & Management, 1(6), 82–94.Google Scholar
Kasseeah, H., & Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. (2014). Women in the informal sector in Mauritius: A survival mode. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 33(8), 750–763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knijn, T., & Kremer, M. (1997). Gender and the caring dimension of welfare states: Toward inclusive citizenship. Social Politics, 4(3), 328–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koven, S., & Michel, S. (1993). Mothers of a new world: Maternalist politics and the origins of welfare states. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kremer, M. (2007). How welfare states care: Culture, gender and parenting in Europe. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, L., & Jordansson, B. (2020). How gender equal is Sweden? An analysis of the shift in focus under neoliberalism. Social Change, 50(1), 28–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, J. (1992). Gender and the development of welfare regimes. Journal of European Social Policy, 2(3), 159–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, J. (1997). Lone mothers in European welfare regimes: Shifting policy logics. London, Philadelphia, PA: J. Kingsley Publishers.Google Scholar
Lovenduski, J. (1993). Contemporary feminist politics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, J., & Ostner, I. (1995). Gender and the evolution of European social policy. In Leibfried, S. and Pierson, P. (Eds.), European social policy: Between fragmentation and integration. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (1997). Citizenship: Feminist perspectives. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michel, S., & Mahon, R. (2002). Child care policy at the crossroads: Gender and welfare state restructuring. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment (2014). The National Employment Policy. Available from https://mauritiusjobs.govmu.org/documents/downloads/NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT POLICY FOR MAURITIUS.pdf.Google Scholar
Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations, Employment and Training (2017). Youth Employment Programmes. Available from http://www.yep.mu/howitworks.php.Google Scholar
Nagar, N. (2016). Feminist theories of the welfare state. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 1–9.Google Scholar
National Gender Policy Framework. (2008). Minister of women’s rights, child development, family welfare & consumer protection. Mauritius: Government of Mauritius.Google Scholar
O’Connor, J. S. (1996). From women in the welfare state to gendering welfare state regimes. Current Sociology, 44(2), 1–124.Google Scholar
O’Regan, V. R. (2000). Gender matters: Female policymakers’ influence in industrialized nations. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
OECD. (2019). Promoting Pro-poor Growth: Social Protection, Policy Guidance Note: Social Protection, Gender and Social Protection. 167.Google Scholar
Orloff, A. S. (1993). Gender and the social rights of citizenship: The comparative analysis of state policies and gender relations. American Sociological Review, 58(3), 303–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orloff, A.S. (2009). Gendering the comparative analysis of welfare states: An unfinished agenda. Sociological theory. Wiley Online Library.Google Scholar
Orloff, A. S., O’Connor, J. S., & Shaver, S. (1999). States, markets, families: Gender, liberalism, and social policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Otobe, N. (2017). Gender and the informal economy key challenges and policy response. ILO Working Papers (994974592902676).Google Scholar
Patel, L. (2016). Lessons from South Africa on why gender matters in social welfare policies. Available from https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-south-africa-on-why-gender-matters-in-social-welfare-policies-59119.Google Scholar
Peterman, A., Kumar, N., Pereira, A., & Gilligan, D. O. (2020). Towards gender equality: A review of evidence on social safety nets in Africa.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfau-Effinger, B. (2004). Development of culture, welfare states and women’s employment in Europe. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Plomien, A. (2019). Gender inequality by design: does successful implementation of childcare policy deliver gender-just outcomes? Policy and Society, 38(4), 643–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajah-Carrim, A. (2004). The role of Mauritian Creole in the religious practices of Mauritian Muslims. Journal of Pidgin and Creole languages, 19(2), 363–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajah-Carrim, A. (2005). Language use and attitudes in Mauritius on the basis of the 2000 population census. Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 26(4), 317–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rambaree, K., & Knez, I. (2016) Effects of ethnicity and gender on youth health. Cogent Social Sciences, 2(1), 1186136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramtohul, R. (2019) Why very few women go into politics in Mauritius? Available from https://theconversation.com/why-very-few-women-go-into-politics-in-mauritius-128579.Google Scholar
Razavi, S., & Hassim, S. (2006). Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context: Uncovering the Gendered Structure of “the Social”. Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Razavi, S., & Staab, S. (Eds.). (2012). Global variations in the political and social economy of care: Worlds apart (Vol. 8). Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reese, E. (2005). Backlash against welfare mothers: Past and present. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, D. E. (1995). Race, gender, and the value of mothers work. Social Politics, 2(2), 195–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, S. J., & Hartmann, H. (2004). Still a man’s labour market: The long-term earnings gap. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 355.Google Scholar
Rummery, K. (2021). Gender equality and the governance of long-term care policy: new comparative models and paradigms. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 37(1), 16–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samman, E., Presler-Marshall, E., Jones, N., Stavropoulou, M., & Wallace, J. (2016). Women’s work. Mothers, children and the global childcare crisis. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Available from http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/10333.pdf.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, D. (1994). Gendering welfare states. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, D. (1996). Gender, equality, and welfare states. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, D. (1999). Gender and welfare state regimes. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segalo, P. (2015). Gender, social cohesion and everyday struggles in South Africa. Psychology in Society, 49, 70–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaver, S. (2018). Introduction to the Handbook on Gender and Social Policy. In Handbook on Gender and Social Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaver, S. & Bradshaw, J. (1995). The Recognition of Wifely Labour by Welfare States—Social Policy & Administration. Wiley Online Library.Google Scholar
Siim, B. (2000). Gender and citizenship: Politics and agency in France, Great Britain and Denmark. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sow, N. (2012). Women’s political participation and economic empowerment in post-conflict countries: Lessons from the Great Lakes region in Africa. EASSI.Google Scholar
Statistics Mauritius (2018a). Poverty Analysis. Household Budget Surveys. Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development. Port-Louis, Mauritius.Google Scholar
Statistics Mauritius (2018b). Digest of Gender Statistics. Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development. Port-Louis. MauritiusGoogle Scholar
Statistics Mauritius (2019a). National Account Estimates. Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development. Port-Louis, Mauritius.Google Scholar
Statistics Mauritius (2019b). Digest of Labour Statistics. Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development. Port-Louis. MauritiusGoogle Scholar
Statistics Mauritius. (2021). 2018–19 living conditions survey. Available from https://statsmauritius.govmu.org/Documents/Census_and_Surveys/LCS/TUS_report_Year_2018-19_050321.pdf.Google Scholar
Sweetman, J., Leach, C. W., Spears, R., Pratto, F., & Saab, R. (2013). “I have a dream”: A typology of social change goals. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 1(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. & Kasseeah, H. (2013). Poverty has a woman’s face in Mauritius. OSSREA Journal of Social Policy and Development, 78–90.Google Scholar
Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V., & Kasseeah, H. (2015). Youth unemployment in Mauritius: The ticking bomb. Urban youth unemployment in Eastern and Southern Africa, 177.Google Scholar
Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. & Pydayya, R. (2015). Glass ceiling and sticky floors: Hurdles for Mauritian working women. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 34(5), 452–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V., & Pydayya, R. (2016). Gender wage differential in private and public sector employment. Gender in Management: An International Journal 31(3), 222–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V., Ummersingh, S., & Bundhoo, Y. (2011). The power to choose: women and labour market decisions in Mauritius. Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences, 2(3), 193–205.Google Scholar
Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. and Gokulsing, D. (2021). Gender gap in STEM education and career choices: what matters? Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P. (1991). Welfare state regimes and welfare citizenship. Journal of European Social Policy, 1(2), 93–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P. (2004). New risks and social change. In New risks, new welfare: The transformation of the European welfare state (pp. 1–28.Google Scholar
Tebaldi, R. (2016). Gender and social protection in sub-Saharan Africa: a general assessment of programme design (58). International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.Google Scholar
United Nations Treaty Collection (UNTC). (2013). United Nations treaty conventions: Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, countries ratified. Available from http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspxGoogle Scholar
World Bank (2011). The World Bank and Gender Equality: At a Glance. Available from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2011/04/11/the-world-bank-and-gender-equality-at-a-glance.Google Scholar
World Bank. (2020). Mauritius—Overview. Available from https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mauritius/overview.Google Scholar
World Bank Group. (2019). Mauritius: Earnings mobility and inequality of opportunity in the labor market. World Bank.Google Scholar
World Economic Forum. (2019). World economic forum 2017 reports. Available from https://www.weforum.org/reports.Google Scholar