Isabella Crespi

The cost of a child, mother's employment behavior and economic insecurity in Europe

The past two decades in Western European societies have been marked by a decline in fertility rates together with an increase in womens work-force participation. This has given rise to a massive transformation in traditional patterns of relationships, especially in gender roles and family size. This paper will examine the outcome of the birth of a child and link this outcome to specific family policies in Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The outcome of the birth of a child will be measured in the data by comparing the pre-child-birth income and its sources to the post-child-birth income and its sources. How does the financial impact of having a child differ in different countries? What is the impact of the compensation provided by the state in terms of transfer benefits for families? What is the impact on womens labor force activity? What are the changes in the wage income of the family members? This research uses the Consortium of Household panels for European socio-economic Research (CHER) longitudinal panel from 1990 to 2001 in the 10 European countries. Data provide for a detailed cross-national comparison before and after the birth of a child for market work, wage income, and public transfer income, including family benefits. The results indicate that there are important differences among the European countries studied.

Gender differences and equality issues in Europe: critical aspects of gender mainstreaming policies

Gender mainstreaming is the major global strategy for the promotion of gender equality. Clear intergovernmental mandates for gender mainstreaming have been developed for all the major areas of work of the United Nations and the European Commission, including disarmament, poverty reduction, macro-economics, health, education and trade. The evaluation of equal opportunities mainly focuses on qualification measures for unemployed women and improvements in childcare facilities, and on consideration of gender mainstreaming in other policy areas as well as macro-economic effects on employment and unemployment of women. It is evident that the promotion of qualification measures and childcare facilities increases the activity rate of women, although there remain doubts about the quality and sustainability of many measures and the impact on families. In particular this article focuses on the relation between gender mainstreaming and equality issues to examine whether and how the debate on the topic is a real way to improve equality without missing gender differences and womens rights.

Transition to fatherhood: New perspectives in the global context of changing men's identities

The proposed thematic session aims to highlight the main challenges that the cultural and structural changes within the families and in gender relations and the changing social expectations about mens involvement in the care of children and about fatherhood pose to mens and fathers’ identity. Fathering in contemporary society requires men to be simultaneously provider, guide, household help and nurturer. The difficulties of these roles, and the tensions they sometimes produce, challenge mens relationships with their female partners, the meaning and place of work in their lives and their sense of self as competent adults. We will also explore the relationship between transitions to fatherhoods and the challenges of balancing work and family obligations. How to balance paid work, other interests and relationships with responsibilities, anxieties and pleasures of childrearing are today concerns for both men and women.

Sustainable hospitality and tourism at different ages: Women’s and men’s attitudes in Italy

Future tourism experiences will be more oriented towards eco-friendly destinations and dictated by responsible lifestyles, as shown by the Travel Trends Report and UNWTO report. Many studies confirm that the number of travellers looking for accommodation that ensures greater respect for the environment is constantly growing. The implications in terms of sustainable tourism are remarkable since they suppose a growing awareness of the impact of individual choices on global effects. The preferences for sustainable tourism are only partially explained by pro-environmental attitudes and values. To more fully explain sustainable tourism choices a reference is needed for additional motivational factors (Maeran 2009). Some studies show that women harbour higher environmental attitudes than men, in general and in relation to hospitality in particular. Other studies are more cautious. Gender, though, is a significant variable in this field, even if there are few studies on this aspect. This research focuses on Italy and investigates the gender orientation regarding sustainability and its influence on choices for eco-friendly hospitality, attitudes towards the environment (Bjerke and Kaltenborn 1999), the social dominance orientation (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999) and the propensity to act responsibly (Berkowitz and Daniels 1964). The results show that males are less apathetic towards the environment than females and that in Italy the link between being a citizen and environmental awareness has yet to be built.

Balancing Work and Family in a Changing Society. The Fathers’ Perspective

Kimmel, M; Crespi, I; Ruspini, E; Rush, M; Seward, R; Doucet, A; Teisseyre, P; Flaquer, L., Moreno Minguez, A; Cano, T; Fagan, C; Norman, H; Matsuda, T; Takahashi, M; Onode, S; Yoshizumi, K; Bergmann, N; Schiffbanker, H; Bosoni, Ml; Lengersdorf, D; Meuser, M; Sikorska, M; Almqvist, A-L; Kaufman, G; Suwada, K

Transition to parenthood and fertility intentions in Europe. Family choices and child-birth challenges

This special issue of the International Review of Sociology deals with a crucial problem in developed countries: the decrease of fertility rates below a threshold that can no longer ensure the substitution of generations and the stability of the population (Eurostat 2010). The contributions of this special issue give valuable information about reasons that may explain the phenomenon of birth-rate decreases and analyse some of its consequences. Obviously broad changes in society are involved. The massive entry of women in the work-place (INSEE 2008, INE 2009, Eurostat 2010), a tendency that does not seem to be in reversal, even in periods of crises, is associated with several societal changes. The labour-market can no longer include all the potential candidates, and both men and women are in competition to keep a job. In order to become more competitive, young people spend more years in academic training. Their investment in education and the difficulty to find a stable job afterwards are associated with the delay of economic independence from their family that prevents them from living on their own, creating their families, and becoming parents. At the same time, couples based on mutual affection rather than material interest are less stable. How can couples manage the desire to have a child with the responsibility to care for this child with an unstable job and unstable relationships? In such a context of uncertainty, a child-bearing delay may be seen as a rational choice. The decision to become a parent and its consequences are very complex and cannot be analysed from a single framework or a single perspective. This special issue brings together contributions of sociological and psychological perspectives, based on macro-analyses of demographic data at a cross-cultural level, and micro-analyses of women’s narratives. They cover different periods of family life, the access to parenthood, or the decision to have a second child. As fertility choices are crucial factors for the future of the societies, in an economic and social perspective, some papers focus on identification of social factors that impact on the intention to have a child, while others are more focused on the identification of psychological factors or on the factors explaining the disagreement between partners about this decision, and other on the consequences of parenthood at family and personal levels (decision to return to work, development of emotional competences).

Condizione femminile, percorsi di vita e politiche sociali: nuove diseguaglianze nell’età anziana

In western countries women’s social and economic status is clearly different from the past decades even if some evidences show that part of the transformation is not yet complete. There are positive aspects: such as increasing labour market participation and life expectancy, but still some are negative, as the difficult balance between work and family time, paid and unpaid work, motherhood protection, care time pressure for relatives, together with the effects of these unsolved issues on the future of women in the retirement age, that is one new emerging aspect of gender inequalities. Pension levels in the EU are significantly gendered. Various reforms of the pension systems explicitly aim at improving women’s opportunities to build up pension entitlements. At the same time, however, other seemingly gender-neutral reforms generally tend to have the opposite effect. These measures include changes in pension calculation norms and pension composition, increasing the importance of non-public pensions. This article analyses the multiplicity of reasons for gender differentiated pension levels and how patterns of employment and pension disadvantage according to marital and maternal status differ between earlier and later generations of women.

Families, welfare state and social changes in the European context: new perspectives

This special issue covers the topics of families, welfare state, and social change in Europe, with a focus on the role of families in different welfare regimes and different ways of negotiating this role in a changing society. Research so far has stressed the importance of structural and economic aspects in the interrelationship of family, gender, and work (Crompton 2006, Rossi 2006, Crespi and Strohmeier 2008, Bianchi and Milkie 2010). Cultural and symbolic attitudes in different national settings must also be given attention to understand better the impact of European economic and demographic changes on individuals as well as family life. Recent developments in European countries show an increasing female presence in the labour force, declining birth rates, and social policies mainly oriented towards gender equality. Whilst the countries with the highest period fertility rates used to be those with strongest family orientation and the lowest women’s labour market participation, these relationships are now wholly reversed. The rates of women’s activity and occupation in the last two decades have increased across Europe, drastically in most countries, more moderately in the South (Eurostat 2012, OECD 2013). The welfare states in which this change has taken place have been marked by transformations in public and market policies, gender relationships, family structures, and relationships – what Beck has called the ‘process of individualization’. The debate on welfare regimes has attracted the attention of academics and researchers. A number of comparative studies (Lewis 2009, Daly 2011) highlight the interdependence between the family and work strategies adopted by citizens and the institutional strategies developed by states and markets. In fact, these studies have proved that the variability observed in the labour market – and, more precisely, the different integration of women in it – is explained not only by the economic and demographic situation but also by cross-national differences in the institutions concerned with family and employment policies. Cross-cultural research has found that countries differ, for example, in their beliefs about appropriate gender roles and behaviours; in some countries, highly differentiated roles are based on biological sex (e.g. male breadwinners and female caregivers/homemakers), whereas in others men and women play similar or overlapping social roles. Reconciliation between work and family time, in particular, has become a crucial issue – and a strategic asset – for the quality of life and well-being of European citizens. The common goal of reconciliation measures is not only to support the work–family balance (thus meeting the targets of the March 2000 Lisbon agreements) but also to respond to lower birth rates, the postponement of child-bearing, and the ensuing ageing of the population. These challenges are part of a European culture of equal opportunities (such as gender mainstreaming), one of the main goals towards a fairer society. They, International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, 2013 Vol. 23, No. 3, 499–503, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2013.856157

Christine Eifler and Ruth Seifert (eds), Gender Dynamics and Post Conflict Reconstruction, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009; 298 pp.: ISBN 9783631560587, 43.70/£39.30/US

Xanthi Petrinioti is Professor of Labour Economics at Panteion University, Athens and served recently as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Department of Sociology and the Atlantic Metropolis Centre, Saint Mary’s University, Canada. She is the co-director of the Mediterranean Migration Observatory in Athens. She has written extensively on issues of women’s labour force participation in Greece and her research interests include migration in Southern Europe and EU migration policies. Address: Department of International and European Studies, Panteion University Athens, 136 Syggrou Ave., Athens Greece 17176. Email: petrxan@panteion.gr

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The chapter frames the key issues that emerge in studies on transnational and mixed families, two family types characterized by the need to thematize differences in terms of culture, gender, and generation both within their ‘borders’, and vis-a-vis the outside world. Through a literature review, the two authors highlight the characteristics of these families, as well as the challenges and the transformations that transnational and mixed families face in the contemporary world.