Pablo Gracia

Fathers’ child care time and mothers’ paid work: A cross-national study of Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom

In this study we use time-diary data from Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom to analyze how fathers’ child care differs across countries with distinct gender norms, family policies, and maternal employment rates. We pay particular attention to the role of mothers’ paid work time in influencing paternal child care. Results show that Danish fathers display the most involved child care behavior. Spanish fathers spend more time in child care than UK fathers, but Spanish fathers are less egalitarian than UK fathers regarding the relative contribution to the couple’s child care time. Women’s paid work is significantly associated with men’s routine child care, the most time-demanding and female-typed forms of parenting, but not with men’s interactive child care. The study suggests that maternal employment partly drives cross-national differences in fathers’ child care time, implying that women’s employment policies can influence active paternal involvement.

Ethnic penalties? The role of human capital and social origins in labour market outcomes of second-generation Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT In Western Europe, the children of Moroccan and Turkish migrants were found to be significantly disadvantaged in the labour market. This ethnic gap was found to persist after considering differences in schooling, which was argued to reflect ‘ethnic penalties’ driven by cultural, religious, or racial factors. This study uses data from the 1st Wave of the ‘Netherlands Longitudinal Life-Course Study’ (2009–2010) to revisit the analysis of ‘ethnic penalties’ for second-generation Moroccans and Turks. Unlike in previous research, empirical analyses not only consider differences in schooling, but also skills and social origins. Results show substantial ethnic inequalities in the labour market, with the exception of women from Moroccan origins. For men, these ethnic inequalities do not disappear when human capital factors are considered, but they do when accounting for the unprivileged social origins of ethnic minorities. For women, the disadvantage of second-generation Turks in achieving privileged occupations clearly disappears when human capital and social origins are considered. Yet, the chances of being unemployed among women of Turkish origins persist after controlling for education, skills, and social origins. Overall, this study has global academic and public policy implications to understand the socioeconomic integration of the Moroccan and Turkish second generation in Western Europe.

Educational Differences in Parental Care Time: A Study on Belgium, Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom

This study uses time-diary data for dual-earner couples from Belgium, Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom to analyze educational inequalities in parental care time in different national contexts. For mothers, education is significantly associated with parenting involvement only in Spain and the United Kingdom. In Spain these differences are largely explained by inequalities in mothers’ time and monetary resources, but not in the United Kingdom, where less-educated mothers disproportionately work in short part-time jobs. For fathers, education is associated with parenting time in Denmark, and particularly in Spain, while the wife’s resources substantially drive these associations. On weekends, the educational gradient in parental care time applies only to Spain and the United Kingdom, two countries with particularly large inequalities in parents’ opportunities to engage in parenting. The study shows country variations in educational inequalities in parenting, suggesting that socioeconomic resources, especially from mothers, shape important educational differences in parenting involvement.