Karen Shire

Gender matters at a global level. This set of papers addresses new thinking about gender relations at the macro level needed to analyze the global. They debate the best way to theorize varieties of gender regime. They add an intersectional lens to the analysis of class that has, so far, been the main focus of macro-level analysis of the global in sociology. They add a macro level to the analysis of gender that has, so far, been predominantly analyzed at...

Gender regime theory envisions two ideal-type trajectories for the development of public gender regimes. The first is a neoliberal trajectory, where opportunities for women to gain an equal position with men are opened by their equal access to competitive markets. This trajectory largely ignores the ways in which the gendered division of unpaid labor and the gendered segregation of labor disadvantages women. Social-democratic trajectories establish gender...

In the wake of Germany and Japan’s high growth miracles and economic expansion women advanced in higher education, yet changes in their employment patterns remained limited, punctuated by high levels of part-time work among mothers, persistently large gender pay gaps, and continued burdens of unpaid care; a pattern that was exacerbated during the pandemic. Recent policy initiatives aimed at the organization of care are resulting in “converging...