Margarita Estévez-Abe
Biographic Data
| ID | 4381007 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Margarita Estévez-Abe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Margarita |
| FAMILY NAME | Estévez-Abe |
| SIGNATURE | ESTÉVEZ-ABE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Syracuse University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7353-0289 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 274 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Do Men Care about Childcare? Women’s Relative Resources and Men’s Preferences for Work–Family Reconciliation Policies
Existing literature on the politics of work–family reconciliation policies focuses primarily on women and their policy preferences as the main driver of recent policy expansions. But what do we know about male preferences? This article explores this question in an innovative way by integrating insights from economic and sociological studies of division of labor and bargaining within the household. It investigates the link between women’s relative…
Covid-19 hits care homes
The COVID-19 outbreak, which most severely impacted older citizens, served as a stress test for residential eldercare facilities. The mortality rates of care home residents varied widely across countries in 2020 before vaccinations became available. Why have some countries been better (or less) able to protect their older citizens in care homes? This article examines the role of specific characteristics of national systems of residential care in …
Changing faces of political women in Tokyo
This article has two objectives. One is to explain the rise of female political representation in local assemblies in Tokyo's 23 Special Wards. The other is to examine how political women in Japan have or have not changed since the publication of Susan Pharr's Political Women in Japan in 1981. When Tokyo first saw the emergence of a new type of local assembly women in the 1990s, they consisted of well-educated suburban housewives who led the Seik…
Badante or Bride? Patterns of Female Migration in Italy, Japan, Korea, and Spain
This article investigates the intersection of care and migration regimes by comparing four carefully matched familialist countries—Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain. These four countries, while sharing a similar familialist culture and welfare regime, responded to the problem of eldercare deficits differently in the 1990s and the 2000s. Italy and Spain developed a ‘migrant-in-the-family model,’ relying heavily on informal eldercare provided by…
Politics of defamilialization
This article investigates the politics of ‘defamilialization of care’ in four familialist countries – Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain – during the past 15 years. By ‘defamilialization of care’, we refer to those public policies, which aim at reducing the care responsibility of the family – both for the young and the old. We build upon the existing literature on new social risks by highlighting the role of those macro-political institutions such as …
Beyond familialism
This Special Issue takes on a new cross-regional comparison between Southern Europe and East Asia in an attempt to identify ‘new politics’ of welfare state adjustments. Departing from the previous literature that overemphasized regional peculiarities of East Asian and Southern European welfare states, our Special Issue highlights family resemblances – among Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain. We argue that these four welfare states – often labelled as…
Outsourcing Domestic (Care) Work
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society - Volume 22, Number 2, Summer 2015
The Outsourcing of House Cleaning and Low Skill Immigrant Workers
This paper explains why the outsourcing of domestic household tasks is more prevalent in some OECD countries than in others by examining the effects of country-level labor market characteristics. This paper uses micro-level data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), “Family and Gender Roles III” (2002 module) to carry out a two-level analysis on a sample of 22 countries. The paper examines the effects of both individual- and nation…
Presidents, Prime Ministers and Politics of Care – Why K orea Expanded Childcare Much More than J apan
J apan and S outh K orea have been known as ‘familialistic’ welfare states, where the family was the main caregiver. Both countries are in the process of transformation. Today, their welfare states provide more care services than never before. K orea has expanded care services much more rapidly than J apan. K orea today outperforms J apan and many other countries of the Organisation for Economic C o‐operation and Development in enrolment rates of…
Seikan Sukuramu-gata Riidaashippu no Hokai (The Breakdown of Government Leadership based on the Politico-Bureaucratic Scrum)
Whether bureaucrats rule and politicians merely reign has been one of the most important questions in the field of Japanese politics. It is no exaggeration to say that Michio Muramatsu revolutionarized the field with his 1981 book, Sengo Nihon no Kanryōsei (Postwar Japanese Bureaucracy). This book pioneered a survey-based study of political elites in Japan. Muramatsu’s survey asked different political groups to identify the most influential actor…
Gender, Inequality, and Capitalism
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society - Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2009
Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan
This book explains how postwar Japan managed to achieve a highly egalitarian form of capitalism despite meager social spending. Estevez-Abe develops an institutional, rational-choice model to solve this puzzle. She shows how Japan's electoral system generated incentives that led political actors to protect various groups that lost out in market competition. She explains how Japan's postwar welfare state relied upon various alternatives to orthodo…
Japan's Shift Toward a Westminster System
This article argues that the political drama surrounding Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro is a direct result of the political reforms implemented in Japan during the last decade. The new rules of the game have produced a structural force pushing Japan to resemble a Westminster system
Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism. A Study of Occupational Segregation by Sex in Advanced Industrial Societies
This article explores the unintended gendered consequences of employment protection and vocational training systems. It develops a micrologic of skill investment by workers and employers to identify the mechanism by which specific skills become disadvantageous for women. The central claim of the article is that institutions that encourage male investment in specific skills exacerbate occupational sex segregation. The article finds that coordinate…
Question 1
Advanced industrial societies organize their national economies and their welfare states in fundamentally different ways. In recognition of this fact, social scientists have identified a variety of different types (or models) of capitalism. Anglo-US countries are generally taken to constitute one distinctive “liberal model” of capitalism that differs from the European and Japanese alternative models. The liberal model of capitalism is often criti…
Gender Bias in Skills and Social Policies
This article develops a novel skilled-based theory to explain patterns of occupational segregation by gender in advanced industrial societies. This new approach brings together insights from two critical literatures: the varieties of capitalism literature and feminist studies of welfare states. The central claim is that firm-specific skills discriminate against women, whereas general skills are more gender-neutral. This article thus attributes cr…
The State of Civil Society in Japan
For all the obstacles that remain, civil society is burgeoning in Japan, and the idea of civil society is at the core of the current debate about how to reinvigorate the country. This book gathers the insights of American and Japanese scholars from the fields of political science, sociology, social psychology, and history to investigate the nature of associational life and the public sphere in Japan. It goes beyond assessing the condition of civi…
Social Protection and the Formation of Skills
Outlines a new approach to the study of the welfare state. Contrary to the emphasis on ‘decommodification’ in the current literature, it is argued that important dimensions of the welfare state—employment protection, unemployment protection, and wage protection—are designed to make workers more willing to invest in firm‐ and industry‐specific skills that increase their dependence on particular employers and their vulnerability to market fluctuati…
Gender Bias in Skills and Social Policies
This article develops a novel skilled-based theory to explain patterns of occupational segregation by gender in advanced industrial societies. This new approach brings together insights from two critical literatures: the varieties of capitalism literature and feminist studies of welfare states. The central claim is that firm-specific skills discriminate against women, whereas general skills are more gender-neutral. This article thus attributes cr…
Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism. A Study of Occupational Segregation by Sex in Advanced Industrial Societies
This article explores the unintended gendered consequences of employment protection and vocational training systems. It develops a micrologic of skill investment by workers and employers to identify the mechanism by which specific skills become disadvantageous for women. The central claim of the article is that institutions that encourage male investment in specific skills exacerbate occupational sex segregation. The article finds that coordinate…
Politics of defamilialization
This article investigates the politics of ‘defamilialization of care’ in four familialist countries – Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain – during the past 15 years. By ‘defamilialization of care’, we refer to those public policies, which aim at reducing the care responsibility of the family – both for the young and the old. We build upon the existing literature on new social risks by highlighting the role of those macro-political institutions such as …
Outsourcing Domestic (Care) Work
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society - Volume 22, Number 2, Summer 2015
Japan's Shift Toward a Westminster System
This article argues that the political drama surrounding Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro is a direct result of the political reforms implemented in Japan during the last decade. The new rules of the game have produced a structural force pushing Japan to resemble a Westminster system
Gender, Inequality, and Capitalism
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society - Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2009
Beyond familialism
This Special Issue takes on a new cross-regional comparison between Southern Europe and East Asia in an attempt to identify ‘new politics’ of welfare state adjustments. Departing from the previous literature that overemphasized regional peculiarities of East Asian and Southern European welfare states, our Special Issue highlights family resemblances – among Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain. We argue that these four welfare states – often labelled as…
The Outsourcing of House Cleaning and Low Skill Immigrant Workers
This paper explains why the outsourcing of domestic household tasks is more prevalent in some OECD countries than in others by examining the effects of country-level labor market characteristics. This paper uses micro-level data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), “Family and Gender Roles III” (2002 module) to carry out a two-level analysis on a sample of 22 countries. The paper examines the effects of both individual- and nation…
Presidents, Prime Ministers and Politics of Care – Why K orea Expanded Childcare Much More than J apan
J apan and S outh K orea have been known as ‘familialistic’ welfare states, where the family was the main caregiver. Both countries are in the process of transformation. Today, their welfare states provide more care services than never before. K orea has expanded care services much more rapidly than J apan. K orea today outperforms J apan and many other countries of the Organisation for Economic C o‐operation and Development in enrolment rates of…
Badante or Bride? Patterns of Female Migration in Italy, Japan, Korea, and Spain
This article investigates the intersection of care and migration regimes by comparing four carefully matched familialist countries—Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain. These four countries, while sharing a similar familialist culture and welfare regime, responded to the problem of eldercare deficits differently in the 1990s and the 2000s. Italy and Spain developed a ‘migrant-in-the-family model,’ relying heavily on informal eldercare provided by…
Social Protection and the Formation of Skills
Outlines a new approach to the study of the welfare state. Contrary to the emphasis on ‘decommodification’ in the current literature, it is argued that important dimensions of the welfare state—employment protection, unemployment protection, and wage protection—are designed to make workers more willing to invest in firm‐ and industry‐specific skills that increase their dependence on particular employers and their vulnerability to market fluctuati…
The State of Civil Society in Japan
For all the obstacles that remain, civil society is burgeoning in Japan, and the idea of civil society is at the core of the current debate about how to reinvigorate the country. This book gathers the insights of American and Japanese scholars from the fields of political science, sociology, social psychology, and history to investigate the nature of associational life and the public sphere in Japan. It goes beyond assessing the condition of civi…
Question 1
Advanced industrial societies organize their national economies and their welfare states in fundamentally different ways. In recognition of this fact, social scientists have identified a variety of different types (or models) of capitalism. Anglo-US countries are generally taken to constitute one distinctive “liberal model” of capitalism that differs from the European and Japanese alternative models. The liberal model of capitalism is often criti…
Gender Bias in Skills and Social Policies
This article develops a novel skilled-based theory to explain patterns of occupational segregation by gender in advanced industrial societies. This new approach brings together insights from two critical literatures: the varieties of capitalism literature and feminist studies of welfare states. The central claim is that firm-specific skills discriminate against women, whereas general skills are more gender-neutral. This article thus attributes cr…
Japan's Shift Toward a Westminster System
This article argues that the political drama surrounding Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro is a direct result of the political reforms implemented in Japan during the last decade. The new rules of the game have produced a structural force pushing Japan to resemble a Westminster system
Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism. A Study of Occupational Segregation by Sex in Advanced Industrial Societies
This article explores the unintended gendered consequences of employment protection and vocational training systems. It develops a micrologic of skill investment by workers and employers to identify the mechanism by which specific skills become disadvantageous for women. The central claim of the article is that institutions that encourage male investment in specific skills exacerbate occupational sex segregation. The article finds that coordinate…
Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan
This book explains how postwar Japan managed to achieve a highly egalitarian form of capitalism despite meager social spending. Estevez-Abe develops an institutional, rational-choice model to solve this puzzle. She shows how Japan's electoral system generated incentives that led political actors to protect various groups that lost out in market competition. She explains how Japan's postwar welfare state relied upon various alternatives to orthodo…
Gender, Inequality, and Capitalism
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society - Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2009
Seikan Sukuramu-gata Riidaashippu no Hokai (The Breakdown of Government Leadership based on the Politico-Bureaucratic Scrum)
Whether bureaucrats rule and politicians merely reign has been one of the most important questions in the field of Japanese politics. It is no exaggeration to say that Michio Muramatsu revolutionarized the field with his 1981 book, Sengo Nihon no Kanryōsei (Postwar Japanese Bureaucracy). This book pioneered a survey-based study of political elites in Japan. Muramatsu’s survey asked different political groups to identify the most influential actor…
Presidents, Prime Ministers and Politics of Care – Why K orea Expanded Childcare Much More than J apan
J apan and S outh K orea have been known as ‘familialistic’ welfare states, where the family was the main caregiver. Both countries are in the process of transformation. Today, their welfare states provide more care services than never before. K orea has expanded care services much more rapidly than J apan. K orea today outperforms J apan and many other countries of the Organisation for Economic C o‐operation and Development in enrolment rates of…
Outsourcing Domestic (Care) Work
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society - Volume 22, Number 2, Summer 2015
The Outsourcing of House Cleaning and Low Skill Immigrant Workers
This paper explains why the outsourcing of domestic household tasks is more prevalent in some OECD countries than in others by examining the effects of country-level labor market characteristics. This paper uses micro-level data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), “Family and Gender Roles III” (2002 module) to carry out a two-level analysis on a sample of 22 countries. The paper examines the effects of both individual- and nation…
Politics of defamilialization
This article investigates the politics of ‘defamilialization of care’ in four familialist countries – Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain – during the past 15 years. By ‘defamilialization of care’, we refer to those public policies, which aim at reducing the care responsibility of the family – both for the young and the old. We build upon the existing literature on new social risks by highlighting the role of those macro-political institutions such as …
Beyond familialism
This Special Issue takes on a new cross-regional comparison between Southern Europe and East Asia in an attempt to identify ‘new politics’ of welfare state adjustments. Departing from the previous literature that overemphasized regional peculiarities of East Asian and Southern European welfare states, our Special Issue highlights family resemblances – among Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain. We argue that these four welfare states – often labelled as…
Badante or Bride? Patterns of Female Migration in Italy, Japan, Korea, and Spain
This article investigates the intersection of care and migration regimes by comparing four carefully matched familialist countries—Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain. These four countries, while sharing a similar familialist culture and welfare regime, responded to the problem of eldercare deficits differently in the 1990s and the 2000s. Italy and Spain developed a ‘migrant-in-the-family model,’ relying heavily on informal eldercare provided by…
Changing faces of political women in Tokyo
This article has two objectives. One is to explain the rise of female political representation in local assemblies in Tokyo's 23 Special Wards. The other is to examine how political women in Japan have or have not changed since the publication of Susan Pharr's Political Women in Japan in 1981. When Tokyo first saw the emergence of a new type of local assembly women in the 1990s, they consisted of well-educated suburban housewives who led the Seik…
Do Men Care about Childcare? Women’s Relative Resources and Men’s Preferences for Work–Family Reconciliation Policies
Existing literature on the politics of work–family reconciliation policies focuses primarily on women and their policy preferences as the main driver of recent policy expansions. But what do we know about male preferences? This article explores this question in an innovative way by integrating insights from economic and sociological studies of division of labor and bargaining within the household. It investigates the link between women’s relative…
Covid-19 hits care homes
The COVID-19 outbreak, which most severely impacted older citizens, served as a stress test for residential eldercare facilities. The mortality rates of care home residents varied widely across countries in 2020 before vaccinations became available. Why have some countries been better (or less) able to protect their older citizens in care homes? This article examines the role of specific characteristics of national systems of residential care in …
Political science (16 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (13 works) · Economics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (7 works) · Business (5 works) · Capitalism (5 works) · Demographic economics (5 works)