How can we become more equal? Public policies and parents’ work–family preferences in Germany

Abstract

This study examines how public policies affect parents’ preferences for a more egalitarian division of paid and unpaid work. Based on the assumption that individuals develop their preferences within a specific policy context, we examine how changes in three policies affect mothers’ and fathers’ work–family preferences: the availability of high-quality, affordable childcare; the right to return to a full-time job after having reduced hours to part-time and an increase in the number of ‘partner months’ in parental leave schemes. Analysing a unique probability sample of parents with young children in Germany from 2015 ( N = 1756), we find that fathers would want to work slightly fewer hours if they had the right to return to a full-time position after working part-time, and mothers would want to work slightly more hours if childcare opportunities were improved. Full-time working parents, moreover, are found to prefer fewer hours independent of the policy setting, while non-employed parents would like to work at least some hours. Last but not least, our analyses show that increasing the number of partner months in the parental leave scheme considerably increases fathers’ preferences for longer and mothers’ preferences for shorter leave. Increasing the number of partner months in parental schemes hence has the greatest potential to increase gender equality.

Parental Leave Policies, Usage Consequences, and Changing Normative Beliefs: Evidence From a Survey Experiment

“…The rather modest strength of the priming effects on normative judgments regarding parental leave usage of mothers and fathers is in line with previous priming survey experiments regarding family policies more generally (Bünning and Hipp 2022; Pedulla and Thébaud 2015) and is probably attributable partly to the fact that our priming information was very short. Providing more detailed and more interactive information might encourage more reflection and yield stronger effects.…”

“…When receiving the priming, women more often preferred egalitarian work–care arrangements, whereas men’s preferences were affected only if they believed that their male peers also preferred gender-egalitarian arrangements (Pedulla and Thébaud 2015; Thébaud and Pedulla 2016). Recently, Bünning and Hipp (2022) showed that in the context of a hypothetical increase in the individual and nontransferrable paid parental leave entitlement from 2 to 4 months in Germany, fathers increased their preferred leave length, whereas mothers preferred shorter leaves. By examining specific, existing family policies and related scientific evidence on consequences of leave taking instead of hypothetical family policy contexts, our study offers a novel, yet policy- and practice-relevant extension to our understanding of norm-setting effects of policies.…”

Day care availability and awareness of gendered economic risks: How they shape work and care norms

“…This mechanism can be called priming. Survey experiments from the United States and Germany have investigated how priming with hypothetical family policy improvements may change work–care preferences of the potential target population (Thébaud and Pedulla, 2016; Pedulla and Thébaud, 2015; Bünning and Hipp, 2022). Thébaud and Pedulla (2016) analysed the effect of priming with hypothetical policies supporting the reconciliation of employment and family care on the preferred future work–family arrangements of young childless adults in the United States.…”

“…For men, supportive work–family policies only had an impact when they believed that other men also preferred gender-egalitarian relationships (Thébaud and Pedulla, 2016). For Germany, Bünning and Hipp (2022) tested, as one of three hypothetical policy scenarios, how priming with greater availability of high-quality affordable day care affected working hours preferences among parents with young children. The authors found that mothers would want to work slightly longer hours in the presence of greater day care availability.…”

“…A small body of cross-national studies analysed the link between work–family policy setups and gender ideologies in the population (for example, Lomazzi et al, 2019; Sjöberg, 2004; Grunow et al, 2018). More specifically with regard to day care policies, few existing observational or survey experimental studies suggest that day care policies shape individuals’ gender ideologies or preferences for different work–care arrangements among the target groups of such policies as well as the wider public (for example, Bünning and Hipp, 2022; Galasso et al, 2017; Zoch and Schober, 2018). However, in these previous studies the specific mechanisms of how day care policies may change the public’s gender attitudes or ideologies often remained unclear.…”