Narrowing women’s time and income gaps: an assessment of the synergies between working time reduction and universal income schemes

The COVID-19 crisis re-opened a discussion on the gendered nature of time-poverty and income inequality. We compare two policy combinations that assess the synergies between working time reduction and two universal income schemes: basic income and care income programmes. While the former provides every individual with an equal monetary benefit, the latter ties monetary benefits to the amount of unpaid and care work performed by individuals. We assess the impact of these policy combinations applying Eurogreen, a macrosimulation model tailored to Italy. Results suggest that while working time reduction directly improves the distribution of unpaid work and alleviates time-poverty, its impact on income inequality is limited. By contrast, the universal income schemes promote a similar and significant reduction of income inequality but differ in terms of gender equality outcomes. When it comes to improvements in women’s employment, labour force participation and real wages, working time reduction in combination with basic income outperforms care income. Meanwhile, care income outperforms basic income in terms of women’s income gap. Finally, regarding time-use, the adverse labour market effects of a care income on women’s participation rates compromises the redistribution of unpaid work from women to men.