Abstract

In order to investigate and compare welfare states or specific welfare programmes, scientists, opinion‐makers and politicians rely on indicators. As many of the concepts or objects studied are somewhat abstract, these indicators can often only be approximations. In comparative welfare‐state research, scholars have suggested several approximating indicators to quantitatively measure and compare the generosity of public welfare provision, with a special focus on cash benefits. These indicators include social spending, social rights and benefit receipt. We present these indicators systematically, and critically discuss how suitable they are for comparing the generosity of parenting leave policies in developed welfare states. Subsequently, we illustrate how the operationalisation of leave generosity by means of different indicators can lead to different rankings, interpretations and qualifications of countries. Hence, indicator choices have to be considered carefully and suitably justified, depending on the actual research interest.

Highlights

  • Leave policies for parents have emerged as an important subject in scientific research, and increas‐ ingly feature in public debates

  • We have reviewed various approaches to the comparative study of the generosity of leave bene‐ fits based on social expenditure, social rights and benefit recipiency data

  • We systematically separated the various indicators into two categories, depending on whether they were constructed on the macro or micro level, and we high‐ lighted the many difficulties and pitfalls involved in mea‐ suring and operationalising the generosity of leave poli‐ cies

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Summary

Introduction

Leave policies for parents have emerged as an important subject in scientific research, and increas‐ ingly feature in public debates. This aspect has been largely overlooked in leave research literature which mostly compares the gen‐ erosity of leave policies on the basis of leave duration, replacement rates (i.e., the proportion of labour income that is compensated for by a benefit) or a combina‐ tion of these two aspects (Ray et al, 2010; Thévenon, 2011) In their novel approach to approximating leave accessibility, Dobrotić and Blum (2020) assess policies based on entitlement principles (citizenship‐based ver‐ sus employment‐based benefits) and eligibility criteria, which they frame under the concept ‘inclusiveness’ of leave rights. We will follow the mainstream literature and use the term ‘generosity’ in its broad sense, includ‐ ing benefit accessibility, benefit duration and the level of benefit payments

Studying Parenting Leave Policies
Macro‐Level Indicators
Social Expenditure
Social Rights
Micro‐Level Indicators
Benefit Receipt
Findings
Conclusion
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