Family Policy Outcomes: Combining Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women's Employment and Earnings Inequality in OECD Countries, 1975-2005

Abstract

Women's employment and earnings, as well as earnings inequality, have been rising in OECD countries in recent decades. This dissertation answers questions pertaining to how family policies have facilitated women in combining motherhood and employment, and how women's earnings have affected the inequality between households. Based on well over a million person-level observations, this study covers 18 OECD countries and a period from 1975 to 2005. Reconciliation policies were shown to reduce the employment gap between mothers and women without children, while policies financially supporting families with children enlarge this motherhood-employment gap. Very long periods of leave, however, negatively affect the employment of mothers. More educated women benefit more from reconciliation policies than less educated. Women's rising earnings were found to have attenuated inequality between households. Family policy rrangements that facilitate women's employment not only contribute to smaller inequalities within households, but also between households.