The social content of macroeconomic policies

There is now widespread recognition of the need to integrate macroeconomic policy and social policy, but the mainstream approach is one of adding on social policy. We argue for transformatory approach which would mainstream gender-equitable social policy within macroeconomic policy. We identify three interlinked biases which prevent this from happening: deflationary bias, "male breadwinner bias" and commodification bias. We illustrate a transformatory approach with the example of the Canadian Alternative Federal Budget. We argue that a social dialogue is necessary for the formulation of such alternatives. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.