Lynn Prince Cooke

Gender equity and fertility in Italy and Spain

Gender equity and its effects on fertility vary across socio-political contexts, particularly when comparing less with more developed economies. But do subtle differences in equity within more similar contexts matter as well? Here we compare Italy and Spain, two countries with low fertility levels and institutional reliance on kinship and family, but with employment equity among women during the 1990s slightly greater in Italy than Spain. The European Community Household Panel is used to explore the effect of this difference in gender equity on the likelihood of married couples having a second birth during this time period. Women’s hours of employment reduce the birth likelihood in both countries, but non-maternal sources of care offset this effect to different degrees. In Spain, private childcare significantly increases birth likelihood, whereas in Italy, father’s greater childcare share increases the likelihood, particularly among employed women. These results suggest that increases in women’s employment equity increase not only the degree of equity within the home, but also the beneficial effects of equity on fertility. These equity effects help to offset the negative relationship historically found between female employment and fertility.

Wives’ part-time employment and marital stability in Great Britain, West Germany and the United States

Many hail wives’ part-time employment as a work—family balance strategy, but theories offer competing predictions as to the effects of wives’ employment on relationship stability. We use panel data to test these competing hypotheses among recent cohorts of first-married couples in Great Britain, West Germany 1 and the United States. We find effects of wives’ employment on marital stability var y across the countries. In West Germany with its high-quality part-time employment, couples where the wife works part time are significantly more stable. In the more liberal British and US labour markets, neither wives’ part- nor full-time employment significantly alters divorce risk. In the United States, however, mothers working part time have significantly lower divorce risk. West German and British husbands’ unemployment proves more detrimental to marital stability than wives’ employment. These results highlight the impor tance of the socioeconomic context in structuring the optimal employment participation of both partners.

Policy pathways to gender power: State-level effects on the US division of housework

Across industrialised countries, men contribute one-third of the household time in domestic tasks despite women’s rising labour force participation. Like a Russian doll, however, the private sphere of the household nests within broader socio-political institutions. Proposed here is a relative gender power model incorporating both individual and policy-derived resources to explain differences in the division of household tasks. The sensitivity of the model to state-level policy differences is tested using data from the second wave of the US National Survey of Families and Households. After controlling for women’s individual resources, laws and policies enhancing women’s economic circumstances in the event of a divorce such as receipt of transfers, child support and property settlement predict that men in couples perform a greater share of domestic tasks. This evidence confirms that the state can ameliorate gender hierarchies and inequality. Across industrialised countries, men contribute one-third of the household time in domestic tasks despite women’s rising labour force participation (Gershuny, 2000). One explanation offered for this ‘stalled revolution’ (Hochschild, 1989 )i s that housework represents a symbolic as well as material product of marriage that produces and reproduces dominant and subordinate gender statuses (Fenstermaker Berk, 1985; West and Zimmerman, 1987). The resilience of the gender hierarchy suggests that women’s choice shall forever be constrained between economic vulnerability within a male breadwinner family, and carrying

A comparison of initial and early life course earnings of the German secondary education and training system

Abstract The German apprenticeship system is considered an exemplary school-to-work program for youth not intending to complete a baccalaureate degree. Yet the traditionally highly stratified system has been changing, with more students pursuing both general education and obtaining vocational certification. Using the German SocioEconomic Panel, this paper analyzes initial wage levels based on school quality and training track for two cohorts of non-university young adults, 1984 versus 1994. For the older cohort from the more stratified system, graduation from the lowest school track predicted lower initial wages which vocational certification did not ameliorate. Vocational certification did predict higher wages for youth from higher quality school tracks. In contrast, for the 1994 cohort among whom general education is becoming more prevalent, formal vocational certification is an important predictor of higher initial wages for both high and low quality school tracks. The earnings of the 1984 cohort are also compared five, ten and 13 years after labor market entry. Apprenticeship predicts higher changes in wages by the final period. Returns to specific vocational training manifest in higher initial wages, but the effect obsolesces quickly over time. This pattern of initial returns and obsolescence holds for subsequent vocational certification, suggesting support for lifelong learning.

Workplace Variation in Fatherhood Wage Premiums: Do Formalization and Performance Pay Matter?:

Parenthood contributes substantially to broader gender wage inequality. The intensification of gendered divisions of paid and unpaid work after the birth of a child create unequal constraints and expectations such that, all else equal, mothers earn less than childless women, but fathers earn a wage premium. The fatherhood wage premium, however, varies substantially among men. Analyses of linked workplace-employee data from Canada reveal how organizational context conditions educational, occupational and family-status variation in fatherhood premiums. More formal employment relations (collective bargaining and human resource departments) reduce both overall fatherhood premiums and group differences in them, while performance pay systems (merit and incentive pay) have mixed effects. Shifting entrenched gendered divisions of household labour is thus not the only pathway to minimizing fathers’ wage advantage.