Work-family Reconciliation Policies Research Articles

Do Men Care about Childcare? Women’s Relative Resources and Men’s Preferences for Work–Family Reconciliation Policies

Abstract Existing literature on the politics of work–family reconciliation policies focuses primarily on women and their policy preferences as the main driver of recent policy expansions. But what do we know about male preferences? This article explores this question in an innovative way by integrating insights from economic and sociological studies of division of labor and bargaining within the household. It investigates the link between women’s relative resources within the household and their male partners’ preferences for different types of reconciliation policies. Drawing on regression analysis of nineteen OECD countries using the International Social Survey Program data (Family and Changing Gender Roles IV), we find that: (1) men in dual-earner households, men in college-educated educational homogamy, and men in educational hypogamy (the woman is better educated) are more likely to support reconciliation policies; and (2) women’s earnings and education have different effects on men’s preferences.

Child Allowances and Work-Family Reconciliation Policies: What Best Reduces Child Poverty and Gender Inequality While Enabling Desired Fertility?

Child Allowances and Work-Family Reconciliation Policies: What Best Reduces Child Poverty and Gender Inequality While Enabling Desired Fertility?

When mothers do it all: gender-role norms, women’s employment, and fertility intentions in post-industrial societies

Abstract Post-industrial countries with high rates of female labour force participation have generally had low fertility rates, but recent studies demonstrate that this is no longer the case. This has generated increased attention to how greater gender equality in the private sphere of the household may contribute to a positive relationship between women’s employment rates and fertility. Building on recent scholarship demonstrating the multidimensionality of gender-role attitudes, we argue that conversely, the prevalence of a gender-role ideology that supports women’s employment but places greater priority on their role as caregivers may depress the higher-order fertility intentions of working mothers. Using data from 25 European countries, we find that this type of gender-role ideology (egalitarian familism) moderates the relationship between mothers’ full-time employment and their intention to have a second child. This holds even after accounting for key features of the policy environment that are likely to mitigate work–family conflict. The analysis suggests that conflicting normative expectations for women’s work and family roles tend to dampen working mothers’ second-order fertility intentions, independent of work–family reconciliation policies.

Gender Gaps in Wages and Managerial Positions: Do Family-Oriented Policies Contribute to Achieving Gender Equality among European University Graduates?

This article analyzes the gender gap in wages and access to managerial positions among university graduates in 12 European countries and explores the capability of work-family balance policies to close these gaps. Using the REFLEX database, we apply the coarsened exact matching algorithm to construct a balanced sample of women and men with the same academic characteristics (field of study, internships, and academic achievement, among others). The analysis reveals that the academic program characteristics play a relevant role in labor market outcomes as the gender gaps diminish when controlling for academic features. We find that gender differences in hourly wages and access to top wages are smaller in countries with longer paid paternity leaves and larger enrollment rates of children aged 0-3 years in preschools. In contrast, work-family reconciliation policies have little effect on the constraints women face in accessing high-level positions that require strong commitment and availability.

Effective Policies for Single-Parent Families and Prospects for Policy Reforms in the United States: Concluding Reflections

This conclusion engages two questions catalyzed by the articles in this volume. First, which policies are effective in reducing economic hardship among single-parent families overall and minimizing disparities across subgroups? Second, what are the prospects for related reforms in the United States? We draw four lessons from the articles in this volume and from prior research about effective policy design: (1) work-family reconciliation policies are crucial; (2) strengthening and stabilizing employment is necessary, but not sufficient; (3) it is important to support the accumulation of wealth in addition to shoring up income; and (4) policies can be designed to include and protect those single parents and their children who are especially at risk. Turning to the feasibility of policy change in the United States, we conclude that some factors—especially policy elements that encourage self-reliance, shifting public opinion, the COVID-19 crisis, and federalism itself—may enhance opportunities for policy development in support of single parents.

Work-Family Guilt in Spanish Parents: Analysis of the Measurement, Antecedents and Outcomes from a Gender Perspective.

This research work had three objectives: (1) to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Work–Family Guilt Scale, (2) to examine its invariance according to gender, and (3) to study the relationship between work–family guilt (WFG) and the different proposed antecedent (e.g., hours spent working, social support, rumination, and personality) or consequential factors (e.g., life satisfaction), noting any gender differences. The incidental sample comprised 225 parents who were in paid work and had at least one child attending nursery school (49.1% women; age of total sample = 36.88 on average). Multiple-group and confirmatory factor analyses, correlations, multiple regression, and moderation analyses were carried out. The WFGS reflected the same factorial structure in men and women, with two main factors: work interfering with family guilt (WIFG) and family interfering with work guilt (FIWG). No gender differences were found. The discrepancy associated with perfectionism was the only variable that was found to be a predictor of FIWG. The major predictors of WIFG were brooding from rumination and the number of hours spent working. WIFG was also associated with lower life satisfaction in women. The implications of these results are discussed, stressing the need to promote work–family reconciliation policies.

The gender wage gap in Mongolia: Sectoral segregation as a driving factor

AbstractThis paper examines the gender labor market inequality by focusing on changes in the male and female earnings gap in Mongolia, a resource‐rich transition country. Economic growth has accelerated based on a boom in the mining sector since the mid‐2000s. However, the gender wage gap has widened substantially over the past decade. We use published data from the labor force surveys in 2008 and 2018 to investigate gender wage gaps among full‐time workers at the mean and across the entire distribution. We find strong evidence of the glass ceiling, but without a sticky floor. Sectoral gender segregation and work–family reconciliation policies may be the leading causes of the glass ceiling.

Long-Term Care and Gender Equality: Fuzzy-Set Ideal Types of Care Regimes in Europe

Recent changes in the organization of long-term care have had controversial effects on gender inequality in Europe. In response to the challenges of ageing populations, almost all countries have adopted reform measures to secure the increasing resource needs for care, to ensure care services by different providers, to regulate the quality of services, and overall to recalibrate the work-life balance for men and women. These reforms are embedded in different family ideals of intergenerational ties and dependencies, divisions of responsibilities between state, market, family, and community actors, and backed by wider societal support to families to care for their elderly and disabled members. This article disentangles the different components of the notion of ‘(de)familialization’ which has become a crucial concept of care scholarship. We use a fuzzy-set ideal type analysis to investigate care policies and work-family reconciliation policies shaping long-term care regimes. We are making steps to reveal aggregate gender equality impacts of intermingling policy dynamics and also to relate the analysis to migrant care work effects. The results are explained in a four-pronged ideal type scheme to which European countries belong. While only Nordic and some West European continental countries are close to the double earner, supported carer ideal type, positive outliers prove that transformative gender relations in care can be construed not only in the richest and most generous welfare countries in Europe.

Absence from Work after the Birth of the First Child and Mothers’ Retirement Incomes: A Comparative Analysis of 10 European Countries

This article investigates whether a prolonged absence from the workforce after the birth of the first child is associated with mothers having a lower retirement income and whether cross-national variations in family policy and pension systems moderate the relationship between work interruptions and retirement incomes in 10 European countries. The analysis, based on five waves of SHARE data, indicates that the longer a mother abstains from work after the birth of her first child, the lower her retirement income is. However, the association is negligible in countries where mothers are historically supported by a comprehensive welfare system, namely Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. The findings indicate that generous work–family reconciliation policies and a universally oriented pensions system are most effective in minimising long-term motherhood income penalties when they are jointly present, pointing to the importance of policy packages that combine active and passive measures to achieve dual decommodification.

Shifting links in the relationship between education and fertility

AbstractFor a long time, high‐income countries tended to report a negative association between female educational attainment and childbearing. Belgium was among the first countries that seemed to witness the emergence of a positive educational gradient in female fertility. It has been argued that—alongside other contextual correlates—this trend reflects the increasing availability of work–family reconciliation policies from which especially highly educated people benefit. In contrast to the sizable body of literature assessing varying educational gradients in female fertility across countries, subnational regional variation has hitherto received little attention. As a result, we study the Belgian case using unique microdata covering all residents in 2002–2005. The main focus is on the relevance of between‐municipality variation in economic conditions and childcare services for understanding variation in second birth hazards by educational attainment. We show that a considerable part of the municipal variation in the educational gradient in second birth hazards reflects a positive link between fertility and childcare provisions as well as wealth for highly educated women, contrasting with lower educated groups. Our findings suggest that institutional support for families is relevant but also incurs the risk of increased social polarisation.

What, where, and how: drivers of welfare attitudes toward work-family reconciliation policies in South European societies

ABSTRACT With increasing female labour market participation, welfare states in Europe have aimed to reorient their policies in order to face a newly emerging social risk – difficulties to combine work and family roles. Yet, they differ in the extent of this adaptation, which has been associated with multiple factors including the influence of cultural values or ideas towards care. In this article, we employ the European Social Survey (Round 8) to examine whether and how not only self-interests but also values influence public willingness to pay for extending state’s work-family reconciliation policies in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, where care provision traditionally was in the family. Although South European welfare states are often considered to be similarly influenced by traditional gender and family values, the findings of this study contribute to the evidence that there are important differences between them.

Populations and Policies in a Younger but Faster-Aging East Central Europe: The Political Demography of Missed Opportunity

The new democracies in East Central Europe started the post-communist era with comparatively young populations. After 1989-1990, they have largely spurned a quarter-century long demographic window of opportunity for reform, by insufficiently adapting their policy models to prepare for fast population aging ahead. Especially in Romania, Bulgaria and the Visegrad Four, this is reflected in low active aging and child wellbeing index rankings, relatively small social investment in early human capital, weak improvements in prospective old age dependency ratios, and large-scale emigration. Slovenia and the Visegrad Four, but not the Baltics, also became „pensioners‘ welfare states“ with prematurely strong pro-elderly policy bias. In some cases, massive early exit worsened pension system sustainability while boosting pensioners‘ electoral power (political push before demographic pull). However, around the time when the demographic window started closing (2010-2015), the political salience of family policies, work-family reconciliation policies, and active aging policy increased, often spurred by the same Christian-conservative and/or nationalist-populist parties that caused illiberal democratic backsliding. But by then, the relative political power of elderly voters during elections in East Central Europe was among the highest in the world.

일·가정생활 우선도와 일·가정 양립제도에 대한 인식차이가 근무 만족도에 미치는 영향력 분석 - 성별 차이를 보이는 산업군을 중심으로 -

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of perceptions of work and family life on employee job satisfaction and to form a policy approach that contributes to the enhancement of worker satisfaction. In particular, we wanted to analyze how the characteristics of each variable appeared in industry groups with different gender ratios of workers. A notable point of the study was that the respondents who answered that work and family had similar importance were satisfied with their working conditions. In addition, it was found that the higher an employee’s evaluation of the work-family reconciliation policy, the higher the employee’s satisfaction with their working conditions. As a result of a path analysis, it was found that the most male-dominant industry was manufacturing, and the most female-dominant industry was health and social welfare. In the case of respondents who were employed in the most-male dominant industry, the degree of an employee’s understanding of the work-family reconciliation policy recognition, rather than the relative priorities of work and family life, had a greater effect on job satisfaction. On the other hand, respondents who were employed in the most-female dominant industry confirmed that their level of education was highly related to the degree of institutional recognition.

Current Use of Childcare Service and Reform Tasks for More Effective Service System

Early Childhood Education and Care(ECEC) remains high on the policy agenda in many OECD countries. They all have recently tried to have high quality services for children under 6, and effectively support the families in need of service as one of the work-family reconciliation policy programmes. Since both Lee MyungBak government enacted a cash system for family care at home, and Park GeunHye government introduced no-fee policy system into childcare policy, Korea s childcare service has completely lost it s focus. This paper attempts to review current pattern of use of childcare service based on several policy principles, and highlights the differences between Korean policy frame and OECD countries overall which reveals a quite stark contrast. Since Korean childcare policy has been inconsistent, it is urgent to build up clarity of this policy s purpose as well as main target population, and to stop no-fee policy in order to better invest in staff side before it is too late which is surely expected to boost up the service quality.

Work-family conflict, self-reported general health and work-family reconciliation policies in Europe: Results from the European Working Conditions Survey 2015.

The increasing labor market participation of women in Europe leads to many women and men having to reconcile paid work with family work and thus reporting work-family conflict (WFC). WFC is related to different dimensions of health. In the present article, we analyzed the role different reconciliation policies among European countries may play regarding WFC and its association with self-reported health.The analyses are based on data from Eurofound's European Working Conditions Survey 2015. The working populations from 23 European countries aged between 18 and 59 with at least one child up to 18 years of age are included (n = 10,273). Weighted logistic regression was applied to estimate the association between WFC and self-reported general health (SRH). Using multilevel models, country-level variations in the association of individual-level WFC and health were calculated. In a second step, the effect of country-level reconciliation policies on WFC was examined (adjusted for age, sociodemographic and occupational characteristics).The odds ratio for moderate to very poor SRH is 2.5 (95% CI: 1.92–3.34) for mothers with high WFC compared to mothers with low WFC. For fathers with high WFC, the adjusted odds ratio is also 2.5 (95% CI: 1.80–3.37). Between countries, the association between WFC and health is similar. Country-level parental leave policies, the use of formal childcare and mothers’ labor market participation are associated with reduced WFC in Europe.In conclusion, the results reveal a strong association between WFC and SRH in Europe. The multilevel analyses show that certain reconciliation policies have an impact on the prevalence of WFC, with different results for mothers and fathers. Mothers in particular can be supported by sufficient maternal leave and formal care for children. These are tangible policy approaches for reducing WFC and may thus improve health in Europe.

Determinants on the Number of Children among Married Women in Korea

This study aims to examine what factors affect married women’s childbirth behavior and what causes the gap between their planned and actual number of children by adopting the ‘extended theory of planned behavior’ model. To this end, the main factors used in the model were attitude to childbirth, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceptions on fairness in housework, and sociodemographic characteristics of the subjects. A secondary data analysis was conducted using data extracted from the ‘2015 National Survey on Fertility and Family Health and Welfare’, which was limited to 8,535 married Korean women who responded to items related to their planned number of children. SPSS 24.0 was used to process the data for a multivariate logistic regression analysis as well as a descriptive analysis. Findings showed that married women are likely to give birth to less than their planned number of children when they are young, lack home ownership, have a low monthly average household income, have a progressive attitude to childbirth during cohabitation, and intend to use the work-family reconciliation policy as it applies to them and their spouse. Results also show that married women are likely to give birth to more than their planned number of children when they have a low education level, a low traditional sense of obligation for children, perceive workplace support for childbirth and child care as unnecessary, perceive tax-funded state support for families with multiple children as necessary, and don’t intend to use the work-family reconciliation policy as it applies to their spouse.

Work–family reconciliation policies and women’s and mothers’ labor market outcomes in rich democracies

AbstractProminent research has claimed that work–family reconciliation policies trigger ‘tradeoffs’ and ‘paradoxes’ in terms of gender equality with adverse labor market consequences for women. These claims have greatly influenced debates regarding social policy, work, family and gender inequality. Motivated by limitations of prior research, we analyze the relationship between the two most prominent work–family reconciliation policies (paid parental leave and public childcare coverage) and seven labor market outcomes (employment, full-time employment, earnings, full-time earnings, being a manager, being a lucrative manager and occupation percent female). We estimate multilevel models of individuals nested in a cross-section of 21 rich democracies near 2005, and two-way fixed effects models of individuals nested in a panel of 12 rich democracies over time. The vast majority of coefficients for work–family policies fail to reject the null hypothesis of no effects. The pattern of insignificance occurs regardless of which set of models or coefficients one compares. Moreover, there is as much evidence that significantly contradicts the ‘tradeoff hypothesis’ as is consistent with the hypothesis. Altogether, the analyses undermine claims that work–family reconciliation policies trigger trade-offs and paradoxes in terms of gender equality with adverse labor market consequences for women.

Is the Rule of Law Significant for Explanation of Differences in the Gender Pay Gap?

Using data from European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, the study examines the causes of variation in the unexplained gender pay gap among 25 European countries and considers the effect of the legal environment on these. We employ the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to estimate the unexplained part of the gender pay gap. To assess the impact of the rule of law on unexplained gender wage differences, we apply a linear regression model, where the estimated unexplained gender pay gap is used as a dependent variable and selected rule of law indicators (specifically the Worldwide Governance Indicators Rule of Law and the Legal System & Property Rights Index) as explanatory variables. Controlling for other institutions affecting gender wage differences (specifically labour market regulation, work-family reconciliation policy and male wage dispersion), we suggest that differences in the quality of legislation and law enforcement across European countries may partly account for the variation in the unexplained gender pay gap. A very progressive improvement in rule of law indices (from the worst to the best among the 25 European countries examined) leads to a decrease in the unexplained gender pay gap by 4.5-5 percentage points.

Intersectionality and emergence in time use analysis: possible pathways for gender research and work–family reconciliation policy in Italy

ABSTRACTTracking how time is shared between work and family has the potential to unearth implicit gender biases and empowerment processes as women mobilize hidden resources and become aware of their own agency and differences vis-à-vis social groups they belong to or are excluded from. Building upon a time use study of a sample of 100 women working within administrative agencies, firms and social coops within the Italian Mezzogiorno, I examine work–family reconciliation interfaces through the epistemological dimensions of intersectionality and reflexive emergence. I interpret time use findings intersectionally to identify those workers who are vulnerable to time poverty associated with different degrees of freedom and power. Through the lens of reflexive emergence, I seek to grasp the unpredictable, unique and oftentimes invisible empowerment situations women experience in balancing work responsibilities with family care. Intersectionality and reflexive emergence in time use analysis help design work–family reconciliation policies by targeting occupational measures and welfare provisions according to different beneficiaries’ needs in public agencies, private firms and non-profit work organizations.

The implications of changing living arrangements for intergenerational relations in Chile

ABSTRACTThe past three decades have seen important transformations in family life in Chile: falling marriage and fertility rates and increasing cohabitation and extramarital births. Increasing female employment has weakened the traditional male-breadwinner family. This article provides evidence of the effects of these changes in family living arrangements in Chile and their implications for intergenerational relations. We use 1990, 2000 and 2011 data from the National Socio-economic Characterisation Survey to explore why extended family living is increasingly important for young women in the early stages of family formation. We hypothesise two different processes to explain this increase. Firstly, due to the rise in women’s employment, young women need greater assistance from their extended family to reconcile the demands of work and family responsibilities. Secondly, declining marriage rates and rising rates of cohabitation and lone parenthood increase the need for extended family support. Our findings show that family change is the main driver of the rise in extended family living, indicating that intergenerational dependence is often driven by the economic and social support needed by young families. Despite improvements in social welfare and female employment, better-designed housing and work–family reconciliation policies are needed to offer young families an alternative to intergenerational family support.