Gender equality is a luxury

Before we create too, too, much apoplexy out there we should point out that we do not mean that gender equality is a luxury in the colloquial sense, something the rich can have and the poor just have to lump being without it. Rather, gender equality is a luxury good, that description being a technical one with a specific meaning. It means something we devote more of our income to as our income rises, less as it falls.

At which point:

Women's careers are regressing and taking Britain back to a 1950s style of living, a study has found, as experts say the pandemic has shifted traditional childcare duties back onto mothers.

We are currently some 20 to 30% poorer than we were 3 months ago - we’re not quite sure and won’t be until we see next month’s GDP release. The complaint here is that we’re going less of that gender equality stuff as we become poorer - gender equality is a luxury good.

We’re rather in favour of luxury goods ourselves and we’re also firmly in favour of gender equality - even as we might mutter a bit about how some people define that.

What interests us here though is that this is a good argument in favour of economic growth, isn’t it? Gender equality increases as society becomes richer, becoming richer is economic growth, gender equality is generally seen as one of those things we’re all in favour of - we should pursue economic growth as it increases gender equality.

Oh, yes, that also means that capitalist free marketry is pro-gender equality as it’s the only socioeconomic system that has produced consistent economic growth over time.

Good, we’re glad that’s solved then. Gender equality is just another in that long list of reasons to support capitalist free markets.