Letizia Mencarini

Gender Differences in Time Use over the Life Course in France, Italy, Sweden, and the US

Abstract This contribution analyzes how men and women in France, Italy, Sweden, and the United States use their time over the life cycle and the extent to which societal and institutional contexts influence the gender division of labor. In order to test the hypothesis that contextual factors play a crucial role in shaping time allocation, this study considers countries that diverge considerably in terms of welfare state regime, employment and paid working time systems, family policies, and social norms. Using national time-use surveys for the late 1990s and early 2000s and regression techniques, the study not only finds large gender discrepancies in time use in each country at all stages of life but also determines that institutional contexts, in particular the design of family policies and employment regimes, do shape gender roles in different ways, and that Sweden displays the lowest gender gap in time allocation across the life course.

Childbearing and well-being: a comparative analysis of European welfare regimes

Fertility rates in contemporary Europe have reached dramatically low levels. In light of this we are interested in the extent to which childbearing events may worsen individuals’ material well-being. Using a sample of women drawn from the European Community Household Panel Survey, we make a comparison of the impact of childbearing on well-being using a welfare-regime classification. Recognizing that poverty status is a poor proxy for well-being, we also derive several measures of well-being that are multidimensional in nature. These measures are referred to as deprivation indices and avoid the poor/non-poor dichotomy. We provide descriptive statistics of poverty status and deprivations indices, as well as an analysis of a more causal nature, the latter consisting of a Difference-in-Differences estimator combined with Propensity Score Matching techniques (DD-PSM). We find that independently of how well-being is defined, childbearing events never have a positive impact on individuals’ material well-being. But our estimates are largely consistent with welfare-regime theory: women in the social-democratic welfare states suffer the least as a result of childbearing, whereas women in conservative and Mediterranean states suffer significantly more. For the liberal welfare regime the results are more mixed, and depend on the definition of well-being.

Desperate Housework Relative Resources, Time Availability, Economic Dependency, and Gender Ideology Across Europe

This article investigates cross-national patterns in the gender division of housework in coresident couples. By using Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) data, we assess four key hypotheses proposed in the literature: namely, the relative resources approach (the partner who earns less does more housework), the time availability perspective (the partner who spends less time doing paid work does more housework), the economic dependency model (the partner who contributes proportionally less to the household income does more housework), and the gender ideology perspective (the beliefs on gender roles influence housework sharing in a couple), thereby verifying the presence of gender display. Our results reaffirm the significance of gender ideology, though with important differences across countries. Time availability and relative resources matter in the most egalitarian countries, whereas economic dependency matters in countries where partners contribute more unevenly to the household income.

Childlessness and Support Networks in Later Life New Pressures on Familistic Welfare States

Childlessness is an increasingly common condition in many European societies. The consequences that this demographic phenomenon might have on welfare systems—and long-term care policies in particular—are widespread. This is particularly the case for the familistic welfare states of Southern Europe. Using data from the 2003 Italian GGS, the article explores the relation between the absence of children and support received in later life. Overall, the results support the idea that in Italy elderly nonparents, compared with those who have children, do not face significantly large support deficits in terms of the likelihood of receiving support. However, it is shown that they are likely to miss those forms of support that are most needed in the case of bad health. Next, the childless are more likely to be helped by nonrelatives and not-for-profit organizations and to a lesser extent by the welfare system.

The highest fertility in Europe: for how long? The analysis of fertility change in Albania based on individual data

Albanias demographic changes have sparked considerable interest in recent years. Much of this attention has arisen due to a general lack of knowledge and unexpected demographic behaviour of the Albanian populations. The country has experienced a high level of life expectancy and relatively high levels of fertility in the recent years. While previous research gives some answers to developing trends and patterns of mortality and fertility change not much is known about the demographic behaviour of Albanians. Though Falkingham and Gjonca (2001) using census data provide useful insights into the fertility transition in Albania from 1950 to 1990 very little is known about fertility behaviour neither during the communist period nor during the nineties. From being one of the most isolated countries of the world Albania has embarked on a remarkable transition which involves dramatic political and economic change. The new and emerging situation is bound to have profound impact on society and the behaviour of individuals within it. Using the Albanian Living Standard and Measurement Survey (ALSMS) surveyed in 2002 we analyse fertility behaviour in terms of the quantum and tempo effects during the period following the collapse of the communist era. We use appropriate survival analysis techniques such as non-parametric Kaplan-Meier (KM) estimation and semiparametric Cox regression. The results on one side support the evidence we know so far on Albania that the reduction of fertility was mainly due to the improvements in the social agenda with particular emphasis on female education as well as the improvement in child mortality. The results also reveal that 1990s saw some strong period effects which mainly affected the higher parities. The persistence of traditional norms and values continue to affect the family formation in Albania while the changes in the social and economic circumstances determine the outcome of childbearing. This paper shows again that similar to its mortality pattern the fertility behaviour of Albanians are affected by both the south European patterns of family formation and the socio-economic changes that occurred in Eastern European countries. (authors)This paper demonstrates the importance of improving access to and equity in the provision of essential services such as education and health for enhancing human development. A major constraint to accelerating and sustaining economic growth in South Africa is the shortage of skilled human resources. Human capital formation (through appropriate education, training and health) is vital for growth. However, for sustained growth to reduce poverty and unemployment, human capital of a ‘higher order’ than the system is currently producing, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, must be generated. The paper reviews progress in the education and health sectors and identifies the challenges. It stresses the need for policy makers to recognise the link between education and health outcomes and the provision of clean water, adequate sanitation, cheap and accessible transport and effective nutrition programmes. Addressing only the education and health services is unlikely to lead to optimal outcomes in these sectors.

An empirical investigation into the effect of childbearing on economic wellbeing in Europe

This paper investigates the extent childbearing among couples in Europe affects their level of economic well being. We do so by implementing a propensity score matching procedure in combination with a difference-in-difference estimator. Using data from European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP), we compare how the impact of childbearing on wellbeing varies among countries. We use several measures for wellbeing, including poverty status and various deprivation indices that take into account the multidimensionality of individuals‘ assessment of wellbeing. Not unexpected we find childbearing tend to worsen the economic wellbeing of households, but with important differences in magnitude across countries. In Scandinavian countries the effect is small and rarely significant, it is strong in the UK and also significant in Mediterranean countries. Depending on the measure of wellbeing, we find important differences among countries that are similar in terms of welfare provision.

INTERGENERATIONAL PROXIMITY AND THE FERTILITY INTENTIONS OF MARRIED WOMEN

Explanations for very low fertility in ‘strong family’ countries emphasise the relatively high costs of childrearing but pay little attention to the potentially offsetting influences of distinctive living arrangements. In this paper, we use data from nationally representative surveys of married women of reproductive age in Japan and Italy to demonstrate that intergenerational co-residence and residential proximity to parents(-in-law) are positively associated with fertility intentions. We also examine ways in which relationships between living arrangements and fertility intentions may depend on family circumstances associated with the opportunity costs, psychological costs and economic costs of childrearing. Contrary to expectations, we find no evidence that intergenerational residential proximity is associated with higher fertility intentions among women for whom the opportunity costs of childrearing are thought to be the greatest. However, there is some relatively limited support for hypothesised moderating influences of the psychological and economic costs of childrearing.

Mediterranean fertility: towards a South-North convergence?

Mediterranean fertility: towards a South-North convergence? The fertility patterns of the lowest-low fertility countries of the northern Mediterranean are very different from those of the South-East, but recently fertility decline has been spreading rapidly in the region, especially in Maghreb countries. In certain countries the period total fertility rate among women with secondary education is less than two children per woman. These recent developments question the reputation of the South-East Mediterranean (apart from Turkey) as a bastion of family conservatism and as having a high fertility rate. But are these groups of educated women forerunners of a broader and more generalized spread of fertility decline or only a sign of a plurality of behaviours in the increasing heterogeneity of such societies, which are still very traditional but at the same time are undergoing modernization? Furthermore, are the characteristics of these women similar to those that were notably the determinants of the onset of fertility decline in northern Mediterranean countries? The aim of our study is to investigate the extent and the value of these recent demographic changes. The issue is whether they can be described in terms of a peculiar Mediterranean fertility pattern and whether South-East women are therefore moving along the same path taken by women in Mediterranean Europe towards exceptionally low fertility (a sort of “convergence assumption”), or whether this “developmental” theory is too simplistic and Eurocentric. We will seek to sketch an outline of fertility against the broad background of family formation patterns in the Mediterranean countries, using a macro-level description to build a grid of reference comparing the experience of northern and southern shore countries. We will also present some results of analysis of individual data with a view to outlining the determinants of fertility timing according to parity. Fecondita mediterranea: verso una convergenza nord-sud? I modelli di fecondita dei paesi della riva Sud-Est del Mediterraneo sono ancora molto diversi da quelli dei paesi della riva Nord, caratterizzati da livelli di fecondita estremamente bassa. Tuttavia, il declino della fecondita si sta diffondendo in tutta la regione, in particolare nel Maghreb. Infatti, in alcuni di questi paesi il tasso di fecondita totale di periodo, tra le donne con un’istruzione secondaria, e ormai inferiore ai due figli per donna. Questi recenti sviluppi mettono in discussione alcuni stereotipi relativi all’area sud-orientale del Mediterraneo, ad eccezione della Turchia, e che la descrivono come il “bastione” del conservatorismo familiare e dell’alta fecondita. Ma questi gruppi di donne istruite sono i precursori di una piu vasta e generale diffusione del calo della fecondita o solo il segnale di una pluralita di comportamenti in societa dalla crescente eterogeneita, ancora molto tradizionali ma, allo stesso tempo, sottoposte ad un processo di modernizzazione? Inoltre, le caratteristiche di queste donne sono simili a quelle che sono state le determinanti dell’inizio del calo della fecondita nei paesi del Nord del Mediterraneo? Il nostro studio vuole investigare la portata e il valore di questi recenti cambiamenti demografici. La questione e se si puo rintracciare uno specifico modello Mediterraneo di fecondita, e se, quindi, le donne del Sud-Est stanno percorrendo la stessa strada delle donne Mediterranee Europee verso una eccezionale bassa fecondita (in una sorta di “assunzione di convergenza”), o se, invece, questa teoria “evolutiva” sia troppo semplicistica ed eurocentrica. Con dati di tipo macro compariamo il quadro della fecondita e dei modelli di formazione familiare dei paesi delle due rive del Mediterraneo; con dati individuali indaghiamo invece le determinanti della intensita e cadenza della fecondita per parita.

What is Your Couple Type? Gender Ideology, Housework Sharing and Babies

BACKGROUND It is increasingly acknowledged that not only gender equality, but also gender ideology plays a role in explaining fertility in advanced societies. In a micro perspective, the potential mismatch between gender equality (i.e. the actual sharing taking place in a couple) and gender ideology (i.e. gender equality in attitudes, as proxy for gender equity), may drive childbearing decisions. OBJECTIVE This paper assesses the impact of consistency between gender equality in attitudes and equality in the division of household labour on the likelihood of having another child, for different parities. METHODS Relying on two-wave panel data of the Bulgarian, French, Czech, Hungarian and Lithuanian Generations and Gender Surveys, we build a couple typology defined over gender attitudes and housework sharing.The typology identifies four types of couples: 1) gender unequal attitudes and gender unequal housework sharing; 2) gender equal attitudes and gender unequal housework sharing; 3) gender unequal attitudes and gender equal housework sharing; 4) gender equal attitudes and gender equal housework sharing. The couple types enter into a logistic regression model on childbirth. RESULTS The impact of the typology varies with parity and gender: taking as reference category the case of gender equal attitudes and gender equal division of housework, the effect of all the other couple types on a new childbirth is strong and negative for the second child and female respondents. CONCLUSIONS The consistency between gender equality in attitudes and the actual equality in housework sharing is only favourable for childbearing as long as there is gender equality in both the dimensions.

Work–Family Conflict Moderates the Relationship Between Childbearing and Subjective Well-Being

Many empirical studies find that parents are not as happy as non-parents or that parenthood exerts a negative effect on subjective well-being (SWB). We add to these findings by arguing that there is a key moderating factor that has been overlooked in previous research, i.e. the level of work–family conflict. We hypothesize that the birth of a child means an increase in the level of work–family tension, which may be substantial for some parents and relatively weak for others. To outline such an approach, we estimate fixed-effects models using panel data from the Household, Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia survey. We find that childbearing negatively affects SWB only when parents, mothers in particular, face a substantial work–family conflict, providing thus support for our hypothesis.