This article contributes to the study of the demand side of welfare politics by investigating gender differences in social investment preferences systematically. Building on the different functions of social investment policies in creating, preserving, or mobilizing skills, we argue that women do not support social investment policies generally more strongly than men. Rather, women demand, in particular, policies to preserve their skills during career interruptions and help to mobilize their skills on the labour market. In a second analytical step, we examine women’s policy priorities if skill preservation and mobilization come at the expense of social compensation. We test our arguments for eight Western European countries with data from the INVEDUC survey. The confirmation of our arguments challenges a core assumption of the literatures on the social investment turn and women’s political realignment. We discuss the implication of our findings in the conclusion.

本文通过系统地调查社会投资偏好中的性别差异，为研究福利政治的需求方面做出了贡献。基于社会投资政策在创造，保留或动员技能方面的不同功能，我们认为女性通常不比男性更支持社会投资政策。相反，妇女尤其需要制定政策，以在职业中断期间保护她们的技能并帮助动员他们在劳动力市场上的技能。在第二个分析步骤中，我们研究了如果保留技能和动员以牺牲社会补偿为代价的话，妇女的政策重点。我们使用INVEDUC调查的数据检验了针对八个西欧国家的论点。我们论点的证实挑战了关于社会投资转向和妇女政治调整的文献的核心假设。我们在结论中讨论了我们的发现的含义。