The childcare triad? indicators assessing three fields of child policies for working mothers in the EU-15

Abstract

This paper compares EU-15 members' public policies to help women have children while pursuing a career: public childcare, maternity/paternity leave, childcare benefits. Parental leave is assessed from a very critical stance. Based on existing theoretical and empirical findings on the effects of child policies on female employment and on previously built indicators summarizing quantitative and qualitative early childhood data (2003), the paper (1) assesses countries' relative positions in each of the policy fields; (2) draws up a new country typology by showing which type of policy is most promoted and whether countries choose either one policy or sequentially/simultaneously implement a bundle of policies. Results suggest three groups of countries.