Gender Inequalities in Early Career Trajectories and Parental Leaves: Evidence from a Nordic Welfare State

Abstract

Parental leaves are, besides unemployment, the main reason for career breaks in early career. Despite the progress in recent decades towards more equal sharing of childcare between mothers and fathers, the labour market risk due to parenting remains mainly with women. In this article, we analyse how parental leaves relate to early career trajectories of young Finnish men and women. Using longitudinal register data for 2005-2016 from the Finnish Centre for Pensions, we perform a multi-trajectory analysis of the labour market attachment of a cohort born in 1980. Based on working days and earnings, we find five distinct career trajectories for both men and women, with the majority being well attached to the labour market by their mid-30s. While men and women on average have similar employment lengths, the gender gap in earnings is already 30 per cent in this early career phase. One of the causes may be found in the highly unequal division of family-related career breaks; the duration of mothers' family-related leaves in this cohort was 13 times longer than fathers' leave spells. Long home care leaves were particularly common among mothers with low education levels and weak attachment to the labour market. Efforts towards a more equal division of parental leaves are needed in order to combat gender inequalities that already emerge in early career and potentially cause life-long disadvantages for women's careers, earnings and pensions.

Career Stability in 14 Finnish Industrial Employee Cohorts in 1988–2015

“…For one thing, careers continue to remain gendered. In many industrial economies women's labor market participation is increasingly equal to men's, but even highly educated young women tend to have more fragmented careers, earn less than young men and take longer parental leaves (Aisenbrey & Fasang 2017;Kuitto et al 2019;Möhring 2016;Stawarz 2018). Along with unemployment, parental leaves are the main reason for early and mid-career breaks (Aisenbrey & Fasang 2017;Brückner & Mayer 2005;Kuitto et al 2019).…”

“…In many industrial economies women's labor market participation is increasingly equal to men's, but even highly educated young women tend to have more fragmented careers, earn less than young men and take longer parental leaves (Aisenbrey & Fasang 2017;Kuitto et al 2019;Möhring 2016;Stawarz 2018). Along with unemployment, parental leaves are the main reason for early and mid-career breaks (Aisenbrey & Fasang 2017;Brückner & Mayer 2005;Kuitto et al 2019). After family formation, women often enter part-time jobs, switch industries, and are exposed to downward mobility and lower wages (Brückner & Mayer 2005;Buchmann et al 2010;Cech & Blair-Loy 2019;Stawarz 2018).…”

“…In principle, women have equal opportunities with men to carve out careers for themselves as parental leaves are compensated and all families are entitled to public day care services. However, most family leaves are in fact used by women, and their careers often decline at fertility age when compared to men (Kuitto et al 2019). This also affects industrial careers.…”

Career stability in turbulent times: A cross-cohort study of mid-careers in Finland

“…Whereas female labour market participation has been almost on a par with men's participation rates since the 1980s, occupational segregation is higher than in many European countries and continues to lead to different labour market outcomes for men and women (European Commission, 2009;Gro ¨nlund et al, 2017;Lahtinen et al, 2020). Moreover, when compared to the situation for men, younger Finnish women's careers are more often interrupted for longer periods of time due to childbearing and care leaves, leading to considerably different outcomes in further careers (Kuitto et al, 2019). A low-rate cash-for-childcare system until the child is three years old serves as an incentive for mothers to interrupt their careers for longer time, especially among those in a weaker labour market position before motherhood.…”

The sidelining of gender equality in a corporatist and knowledge-oriented regime: The case of failed family leave reform in Finland

“…In 2016, less than half of mothers whose youngest child was under three were in employment (Statistics Finland, 2017). Especially home care allowance has been linked to adverse labour market outcomes for women, including smaller earnings, stalled career development and lower accumulated pensions (Kuitto et al, 2019; Misra et al, 2011). Long leave for mothers contributes to the unequal division of labour as it strengthens traditional gendered division of domestic responsibilities (Hook, 2010) whereas research has shown that fathers taking longer leave are likelier to reduce their working hours and increase childcare and household work (Bünning, 2015).…”