Abstract:

It is well known that prominent features of the New Public Management movement include market-like mechanisms, such as privatization and outsourcing in the public sector. It is also known that in the quest for efficiency and effectiveness, public sector values may slip through the cracks, including the protection of women's interests. As governments have not yet been able to eliminate the need to protect women's interests amidst an ever changing and expanding global economy, it is likely that once responsibilities associated with protecting women's interests are privatized, government has even less control over outcomes and fewer incentives to regain control, which can further disenfranchise women. This study reviews several studies that have examined the association between government privatization and outsourcing and women, an area of inquiry that remains vastly understudied. The reviewed studies shed light on the examined association in Italy, India and the United States. As DeLysa Burnier (2003) stated, American public administration has a "gender room" that has not been fully established; this paper suggests gender work related to privatization is in need of further empirical attention that will have academic and practical implications.

The use of market-like mechanisms in the management and administration of the public sector, including the practices of privatization and outsourcing, is an intricate and cornerstone element of the New Public Management (henceforth NPM) movement. The use of these mechanisms has been increasingly on the rise in recent decades throughout the world and across most (if not all) types of government structures, levels, and political ideologies (Savas, 2000, p. 1731). As a result, the literature that empirically examines the spread and effects of NPM is abundant. However, very little of this research is focused on the impact of government privatization and outsourcing on social groups such as women, groups that are marginalized and/or vulnerable in today's globalized labor market. This specific area of research is strikingly deficient given the abundance of work on privatization and outsourcing. When examining five main comprehensive databases that include international research in the public sector, a vast discrepancy emerges between the numbers of publications available on privatization and outsourcing in general, and those that take into account women or gender or both. With a few exceptions, Table 1 below demonstrates that publications that discuss privatization or outsourcing through various formats and media do so without considering and/or discussing the effects on women.

Examining the effects of privatization or government outsourcing on women is interesting for the following reasons. In terms of the global economy, "one of the most dramatic economic transformations of the past century has been the entry of women into the labor force" (Fogli & Veldkamp, 2011, p. 103). Women's entry, however, was primarily supported by public sector jobs where women could better attain work-life balance and benefit, of often unionized, relatively stable jobs. NPM and government outsourcing have exposed women to shifts in how women find employment, the nature of such employment and the mobility across sectors, job types. Further international boundaries are significant when...