Marianne Kempeneers

Women's Work in the EC: Five Career Profiles*

ConclusionOther comparative studies had offered classifications and grouping of countries in the field of fertility and employment activity, and of family and labour market structures, but none was based upon individual retrospective comparative data. We have here described a comprehensive picture of the situation of European women when they at a point in their life course had to deal with the problematic task of combining employment and motherhood. To do so we based our analysis on a new set of data. In October 1990, a specifically designed section of the Eurobarometer survey collected information on the relationship between activity and fertility in all the member States of the European Community which allowed us to obtain longitudinal strictly comparable data for the 12 EC countries.From this description arise obvious associations of countries which contribute a geographical divide of Europe along a North/South split. The factor analysis conducted here is based on career description indicators, measuring a more complete aspect of female work, from initial entry into the labour force to the type of disruption family constitution imposed on employment.Analysis of the different factors and of their consequences in terms of continuity or discontinuity of employment does not support previous assumptions about “traditional” and “modern” societies. On the contrary Northern Europe, as identified in this study does not appear to offer the most favorable environment for women to combine motherhood and career. Intermediate countries Denmark, Belgium and France appear to offer different solutions (either long paid parental leave or widespread subsidized or free child-care facilities) pertaining to both cultural areas and therefore of great interest for future European issues and policies regarding fertility and female activity.

Biographies and family solidarity in Québec

In Québec, the 2004 survey Biographies et solidarités familiales (‘biographies and family solidarity in Québec’) was the first quantitative survey to deal with the question of the diverse forms of family solidarity as they have changed over time and in line with modifications in family, work, and public policies. Our purpose here is to present the survey itself along with a certain number of its results. The latter bear, on the one hand, on what we have termed Québec ‘family solidarity spaces’, referring by that to the structural data previous to forms of solidarity as we know them now and, on the other hand, on the changes in the provision of early childhood care over three generations.