Janet C. Gornick

Who cares? assessing generosity and gender equality in parental leave policy designs in 21 countries

Parental leave laws can support new parents in two complementary ways: by offering job-protected leave and by offering financial support during that leave. This study assesses the design of parental leave policies operating in 21 high-income countries. Specifically, the study analyzes how these countries vary with respect to the generosity of their parental leave policies; the extent to which their policy designs are gender egalitarian; and the ways in which these two crucial dimensions are inter-related. The study finds that public policies in all 21 study countries protect at least one parent’s job for a period of weeks, months, or years following the birth or adoption of a child. The availability and generosity of wage replacement varies widely, as does the gendered nature of policy designs. Four countries stand out as having policies that are both generous and gender egalitarian: Finland, Norway, Sweden and — unexpectedly — Greece.

Gender, the Welfare State, and Public Employment: A Comparative Study of Seven Industrialized Countries

This paper explores the influence of government employment on the gender gap in earnings in seven countries, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). The size of the public sector and womens concentration in government employment varies widely across industrialized countries. We develop and test predictions about how the public/private earnings differential varies across countries. The results indicate marked variation across liberal, conservative, and social democratic welfare states, but reveal a number of uniformities as well. We find that public-sector workers earn more, on average, than those working in the private sector in most countries in our sample. The smallest public-sector earnings premia are found in the social democratic countries and the largest are evident in the liberal welfare states. Thus, public employment provides relatively few but comparatively high-paying jobs for women in liberal welfare state, while the social democracies government positions are more numerous but comparatively low-paying. We discuss the implications of these results for theory and research on gender and the welfare state.

The impact of work-family policies on women's employment: a review of research from OECD countries

All industrialized countries, as well as many developing and transition countries, have policies in place to support work-family reconciliation such as care-related leaves, policies that increase the quality or availability of flexible and alternative work arrangements, and childcare supports. While work-family policies share common elements across borders, the extent and nature of supports vary widely across countries. This cross-national diversity in policies has supported a substantial body of research on the effect of different policy designs on womens labor market outcomes and, increasingly, on mens take-up of work-family provisions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of this research and to draw out implications in terms of policy designs that seem to maximize womens labor force participation, narrow the gender gap in earnings, and increase mens participation in caregiving at home. The paper reviews the research literature on leave policies, flexible and/or alternative work arrangements and childcare supports, and highlights the implications of policy designs for male take-up. The paper then discusses the growing literature on adverse and unintended consequences of work-family policies for gender equality and concludes by highlighting gaps in current knowledge.

Creating Gender Egalitarian Societies: An Agenda for Reform

In this article, we describe the social and economic changes that have contributed to contemporary problems of work—family conflict, gender inequality, and risks to childrens healthy development. We draw on feminist welfare state scholarship to outline an institutional arrangement that would support an earner—carer society—a social arrangement in which women and men engage symmetrically in paid work and unpaid caregiving and where young children have ample time with their parents. We present a blueprint for work—family reconciliation policies in three areas—paid family-leave provisions, working-time regulations, and early childhood education and care—and we identify key policy design principles. We describe and assess these work—family reconciliation policies as they operate in six European countries widely considered to be policy exemplars: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and France. We close with an analysis of potential objections to these policies.

It’s all about control: Worker control over schedule and hours in cross-national context.

Workers’ ability to control their work schedules and hours varies significantly among industrialized countries. We integrate and extend prior research from a variety of literatures to examine antecedents of control and worker outcomes. Using hierarchical linear modeling and data for 21 countries from the 1997 ISSP Work Orientations Survey supplemented with national indicators developed from a variety of sources, we find that control is associated with country characteristics (affluence, welfare state generosity, union coverage, and working-time regulations), worker attributes (being male, being older, and being better educated), and job characteristics (working part-time, being self-employed, having higher earnings, and having more advancement opportunities). We also examine the relationship of control to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and strain-based work-family conflict. Generally, low levels of control are linked to negative outcomes for workers, especially for women, an effect sometimes modulated by country-level policy measures.

A Cross-National Analysis of the Wages of Part-Time Workers: Evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia

We analyse wage differentials between part-time and full-time workers in four English-speaking countries, using cross-nationally comparable data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). An analysis of gross wage gaps (that is, unadjusted for human capital- and job-related differences) reveals that women part-time workers earn significantly less per hour than do their full-time counter-parts in all of these countries. In an analysis of net wage gaps (wage gaps adjusted for a range of explanatory variables) we assess the extent to which wage differentials can be explained by measurable differences in human capital-related attributes, and in occupational and industrial variables. Findings indicate that part-time workers are positioned differently within the labour markets of these countries, and that cross-national differences in part-time versus fill-time wages cannot be explained fully by inter-country differences in the degree of wage dispersion. Finally, we discuss policies and institutions that contribute to different outcomes across countries.

The regulation of working time as work-family reconciliation policy: Comparing Europe, Japan, and the United States

Abstract This article compares working time policies in eight European countries, Japan, and the US, specifically policies that embody three goals: (1) reducing the full-time working week to less than the traditional standard of 40 hours; (2) guaranteeing workers an adequate number of paid days, annually, away from the workplace; and (3) raising the quality and availability of voluntary part-time work. While working time policies can help to free up parental caregiving time, they also have some potentially problematic consequences – including an associated rise in nonstandard-hour scheduling and the possibility of negative effects on gender equality.

Structure and Activities of Rape Crisis Centers in the Early 1980s

Using data from a nationally representative sample of 50 rape crisis centers, this article investigates the range of center types, services offered, staffing, involvement in community networks, funding and affiliation with criminal justice, counseling, and human services agencies. The evolution of the rape crisis center from the few prototype centers opened in 1972 to the many different models existing today is traced. The most important finding is that rape crisis centers today do not fall neatly into types. Rather, they have developed to fit their communities, making choices about whom to serve, where to locate a service, how to work with other agencies in the community, how, when, and where to do community education, and how to establish financial security. A decision about one such dimension does not necessarily predict what the decision will be about the other dimensions.

3. WELFARE REGIMES IN RELATION TO PAID WORK AND CARE

Abstract Ideologies about work, caregiving, family, and gender relations vary across countries and over time. Contemporary perspectives typically stress child well-being, women’s caregiving burden, or gender equality. The tensions among these can be resolved in societies that combine intensive parental time for children with a gender-egalitarian division of labor. Social and labor market policies that would support such a society are the most developed in the Social Democratic countries, with the Conservative countries of continental Europe and the Liberal English-speaking countries lagging substantially (most markedly, the United states). That policy variation appears to shape cross-country variation in crucial parent and child outcomes.

The Income and Wealth Packages of Older Women in Cross-National Perspective

OBJECTIVES We assess the income and wealth packages of older womens (age 65+ years) households and the extent to which low income is paired with low wealth, across a group of six high-income countries. METHODS We use data on income and net worth from the Luxembourg Wealth Study, a new cross-national microdatabase. We define income poverty as having household income less than 50% of the national median and asset poverty as holding financial assets equivalent to less than 6 months of income at the poverty threshold. RESULTS Older women typically have less income than do members of younger households at the national median, but their wealth holdings are generally much higher than their countrys median wealth holdings. Older womens households in the United States report the highest net worth across these countries, in part because older American women have comparatively high rates of homeownership. However, American older women are also substantially more likely to be income poor. They also report high levels of asset poverty, as do women across all our comparison countries, with Sweden as a partial exception. DISCUSSION Further research is needed to identify the most vulnerable subgroups, to integrate analyses of necessary expenditures, and to assess policy implications.