One way to pursue this latter goal would be for the state to mandate that
employers introduce rules that allow employees genuinely to combine work and family,
since much gender inequality is associated with women’s assuming the greater portion of
childrearing responsibilities (See Bartlett 1998). To accomplish this goal, the state could
adopt models of public support for caretaking that encourage men to take an equal role.
For example, requiring that employers adopt family leave policies that can be taken by
parents sharing childcare between them, rather than policies that are limited to full-time
caregivers, would encourage shared caretaking, as would flex-time, and allowing both
parents of very young children to work somewhat fewer hours without sacrificing their
jobs. Schools, too, should play a role in this endeavor, teaching children that both fathers
and mothers can have equal roles in nurturing their children, and helping them to
understand the importance of these caretaking tasks. In Anita Shreve’s words, “the old
home-economics courses that used to teach girls how to cook and sew might give way to
the new home economics: teaching girls and boys how to combine work and parenting”
(Shreve 1987: 237, quoted in Okin 1989a: 177).
b. Economic Inequality
Second, with respect to economic equality, the state’s encouraging tighter family
ties runs an increased risk that wealth will be more tightly held within particular families’
hands, and, relatedly, that there will be more disparities of opportunity across families.
What this calls for, however, is not the state’s attempt to loosen family ties, but rather its
attempt to lessen the disparities of wealth and opportunity that result. This means that
the state should seek to ensure that all citizens have the financial means and education to
ensure some basic threshold of opportunity, even when their families cannot provide this
without aid. It also means, at the other end of the income spectrum, that the state should
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Convention