About the Imbalance of Power between Men and Women – A Case Study from Austria

Irene M. Tazi-Preve, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Basically, it is necessary to understand the question of “gender inequality” as an important category within population science. The cultural and economic concepts of demography have to be critically scrutinized by the category which is underlying the research (Neyer 2001). This is true for the labour area as well as for the family sphere. Among demographers, there is a growing awareness that the traditional family model with its life-long marriage, definite segregation of gender roles, etc. forms rather an obstacle than a supportive environment for higher parity births. Thus we have to understand that „the family is not a static, unchanging institution, a decision-making black box“ (Folbre 1983). On the contrary, it is a group of individuals who make collective, but not necessarily consensual decisions. Now there are new challenges to acknowledge the urgency of making a connection between changes in women`s “consciousness”, or subjectivity, and demographic changes. The data derive from the Austrian project “Population Policy Acceptance Survey” (PPA2, 2001) which deals with the knowledge and opinions on population, population policy as well as family and gender. The sample size contains 1995 persons at the age between 20 and 64 years. Within the gender module – included in the questionnaire – the authors made a distinction between inequality at the micro level of individual couples and that at the macro level of society. In this contribution, several aspects of the division of power between men and women are considered: Within the reproductive area, attitudes and facts towards the division of household tasks and childcare duties between the members of the couple as well as opinions on equality within the partner relationship will be investigated. These questions will be examined looking at couples without children and those who live together with children up to the age of fifteen. With regard to the public area, the study will be devoted to the perception of the inequality of women and men in society. Its objective is to determine the level of consciousness regarding the question of gender, i.e. both for men and women: their opinions regarding an existing discrimination of women. We try to measure, whether the individual respondent perceives an imbalance between the sexes in general and, whether “gender troubles” at the labour market, in particular, are noted. The data is analysed by means of the statistic programme SPSS. We will mainly apply those statistical methods which correspond to the qualitative level of measure. We will check variables such as age, education, region, number of children, integration in the labour market of both partners (status; half, part time) and the kind of partnership (married, unmarried). It is supposed that the perception of inequality in the public field might have an effect on certain decisions (e.g. related to the wish to have children) in the private area. A woman may, for example, decide not to have a second child because she feels that mothers face discrimination at the labour market, in the welfare system (lack of childcare institutions) and so on. Furthermore at the micro level, we want to test the thesis that an imbalance in sharing family duties might have an effect on fertility decisions.