Assist.-Prof. Dr. Pilar Gonalons-Pons (University of Pennsylvania): “Exit, voice and loyalty in the family: findings from a basic income experiment” (Public Lecture Series)

On Wednesday, 3rd May, Assist.-Prof. Dr. Pilar Gonalons-Pons (University of Pennsylvania) will present an evening lecture on “Exit, voice and loyalty in the family: findings from a basic income experiment”.

Time: 06:00 – 07:00 p.m. (CEST)

Place: Online (Zoom)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMHDoGm6JU

Zoom link: https://uni-freiburg.zoom.us/j/69439303555?pwd=OHptNmYxNXVBd3hvUVludGVJaUswUT09

The public lecture series is the perfect opportunity to delve into some of the cutting-edge work in the field of basic income policy research. Featuring six expert authors, each discussing a key article in their research, this series promises to offer unique insights into the challenges and opportunities surrounding basic income policy. Join us online for this enriching event series and explore the latest research and findings on basic income policy.

Abstract: This article investigates how a basic income could transform families and gender power relations within them. We draw on Hirschman’s exit, voice and loyalty framework to argue that a basic income can offer a structural foundation for a radical shift towards more equitable family relations. This is because a basic income can support couples through economic uncertainty and reduce women’s structural vulnerability to economic dependency within marriages that strips them of exit and voice. We build our case on novel data from an understudied social experiment from the late 1970s called the Manitoba Basic Income Experiment, or Mincome. Using difference-in-difference regression with individual fixed effects, we analyze three types of family outcomes: separation, bargaining power and marital conflict. We find that during Mincome unhappy couples became more likely to consider separation, but that separation overall did not increase. We also find that Mincome reduced marital conflict associated with financial stressors and that some measures of wives’ bargaining power increased. Taken together, our results speak in favor of the view that a basic income has the potential to foster more equitable family lives.

Article link: https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwaa050

Bio: Pilar Gonalons-Pons’s research examines how work, families, and public policies structure economic inequalities. Much of her work, published in leading international journals in sociology and social policy, is guided by the overall goal to develop a comprehensive understanding about the political economy and gendering of care and reproductive paid and unpaid work and its contribution to economic inequalities.