Labor Market Regimes, Family Policies, and Women's Behavior in the EU

Abstract

Using the EU-SILC database (2005-06) for twenty-four European countries, this article develops a comparative perspective on labor market situations of women and mothers with very young children in relation to labor market institutions and policies (especially childcare and leave schemes). Using multilevel multinomial logit models, our results show firstly the heterogeneity of national arrangements of women's labor market integration in Europe (including among new member states). Secondly, our results show the links between some national policy variables and women's behavior, despite the fact that individual factors explain labor market situations the most. Women's employment is positively related to formal childcare and to characteristics of national labor market regimes. The use of informal childcare is associated with lower women's employment rates, which might be explained by a substitution effect. The employment rate of mothers with very young children is positively related to public childcare and negatively to parental leave.

Gender and labour in times of austerity: Ireland, Italy and Portugal in comparative perspective

“…Portugal is closer to the "Nordic universal breadwinner model", with women and men working on a full-time and continuous basis throughout their life-cycle; Ireland displays the features of the "maternal part-time work model", as mothers tend to work part time even when their children are older; and Italy is included in the "Mediterranean exit or full-time work model", as female employment rates tend to be low but, once in the labour market, women work on a full-time basis (Karamessini and Rubery, 2014). Our analysis confirms that there are indeed different employment trends across the three countries -between women and men, and between those without and with children -that reflect their gender regimes and economic conditions (Anxo et al, 2007;Erhel and Guergoat-Larivière, 2013;Karamessini and Rubery, 2014).…”

“…Based on the rich body of literature that suggests structural and economic reforms often have gendered effects (see Rubery, 1988;Elson, 1995;Daly, 2011), the main purpose of this article is to conduct a comparative gender-sensitive analysis of the impact of austerity packages on recent labour market dynamics in Ireland, Italy and Portugal. These three countries were indeed characterized by different "gender regimes" before the crisis, making the analysis of its consequences particularly interesting from a gender perspective (Anxo et al, 2007;Erhel and Guergoat-Larivière, 2013;Karamessini and Rubery, 2014). In Ireland, the dominant structure of growth was heavily biased towards construction, international financial services, and exports.…”

Designing gender-equalizing parental leave schemes - What can we learn from recent empirical evidence from Europe?

“…As Hook (2006;2010) does not fulfil this requirement, the interpretation of these results should be done with caution, as country-level fixed parameters are likely to be estimated imprecisely. The same critique applies to the approach of Erhel and Guergoat-Larivière (2013) for their study about mothers' employment participation, discussed above.…”

“…Furthermore, they find evidence of an inverted U-shaped relation between the duration of total parental leave and the child penalty, with the child penalty on working hours and wages being minimized at around 80 to 100 weeks of leave. Erhel and Guergoat-Larivière (2013) exploit the technique of multi-level modelling and find a lower probability of being in employment for mothers of children below the age of three in countries with longer durations of leave compared to countries with shorter leave.…”

Gendered economic policy making: the case of public expenditures on family allowances

“…I believe that such a variable does not exist as it is not used in similar studies that cover gender, public spending and human development issues due to the nature of these variables. (Potrafke and Ursprung, 2012;Fortin, 2005;Erhel and Guergoat-Larivière, 2013;Ruhm, 2000;Tanaka, 2005;Kittilson, 2008). The fixed effects estimation results are shown in columns (1), (4), (5).…”