Abstract

Objective: This article introduces the reader to the Special Issue "Labour markets, families and public policies shaping gender relations and parenting" and gives a theoretical and empirical overview of gender roles and gender equality in Europe.

Background: This Special Issue analyses the connection between labour markets, families, social policy, and gender relations in several European countries.

Method: The six included articles are based on qualitative and quantitative approaches and data that have been gathered in Finland, Norway, Poland, Spain, and across the entire EU.

Results: Key findings are: (1) In less egalitarian countries, children of single parents suffer more nutritional, educational and social life deprivation. (2) The institutional design of parental leave can contribute to reproducing gender inequality in the use of leave. (3) The institutional design interacts with cultural norms in shaping fatherhood practices of migrant fathers. (4) Individualised, performance-based wage and career schemes can counteract the effects of gender-equalising family policies. (5) Fathers taking leave independently from the mother and for an extended period are more involved in childcare beyond the leave period, and (6) the use of longer unpaid parental leave by mothers leads to a more unequal distribution of childcare between the parents.

Conclusion: This Special Issue highlights that even in the most egalitarian countries, there remain persistent challenges to achieving gender equality regarding labour market, institutions and family life.

Abstract

Objective: The question addressed in this study is the possible effect of mothers' use of parental leave on the share of childcare and housework assumed by each parent.

Background: Whilst the length of parental leave is greater in Spain than in other European countries, as it is unpaid, take-up rates are low. Such leaves are taken more frequently and for longer periods by women than men.

Method: To determine the answer, two multivariate regression models were applied to National Statistics Institute 2018 Fertility Survey data. The main independent variables were fathers' and mothers' use of parental leave. The models also controlled for the effects of family and socio-economic variables on the share of childcare and housework assumed by each parent.

Results: The findings showed that mothers' use of unpaid full-time parental leave traditionalises the distribution of domestic chores only when the leave extends beyond one year, whereas part-time leave-taking has no effect whatsoever. That such reversion to tradition can be neutralised when fathers take leaves attests to the advisability of encouraging paternal use. The effects apply to childcare only, however, for other household chores are still distributed along very traditional lines.

Conclusion: Unpaid parental leave use by mothers "traditionalizes" the allocation of childcare within the couple, but only when it takes longer than a year.

This study analyses the effect of working conditions, educational background, job mobility, grandparental availability and co-worker attitudes on the duration of unpaid parental leave in Spain. The length of parental leave is a key factor in both the work–family life balance and the furtherance of gender equality in childcare. The data for the analysis were drawn from a 2012 survey on the use of parental leave involving a nationwide sample of 4000 parents with at least one child under the age of 13. Multivariate models were built using logistic regression to analyse parental leave take-up and Cox proportional hazard regression to analyse leave duration (or survival) from a sub-sample of mothers. The results attest to the heavy impact of working conditions on the length of unpaid full- and part-time parental leave. The latter was observed to be taken also to adjust working hours to childcare demands when workplace flexibility or employer support for work–family balance was perceived to be lacking. Job security was found to be a primary determinant in the length of unpaid leave in Spain. The results suggest that longer full- but not part-time leave entails a substantial opportunity cost for the most highly qualified mothers.

Las paternidades van cambiando a lo largo del tiempo junto con, entre otros factores, innovaciones en políticas familiares. Este artículo testa la influencia en la implicación paterna en el cuidado de niños a través del incremento de la duración del permiso de paternidad de dos a cinco semanas llevado a cabo desde 2007 a 2018. Se utilizan los datos de la encuesta de fecundidad de 2018. El tamaño muestral es de 3.388 entrevistas. Se realizan modelos de regresión logística para diez tareas de cuidado de niños. Los resultados apuntan a que el permiso de paternidad de dos semanas conlleva una mayor implicación paterna en actividades de cuidado que incluyen la interacción y juego. Mientras que la utilización del permiso de paternidad de cuatro y cinco semanas favorece la implicación en tareas de cuidado físico. No obstante, no se observan cambios en las tareas de cuidado más feminizadas.

Abstract

Caring fatherhood in very traditional and masculinized environments has been under-researched. This study analyzed the experience of Spanish policemen who used parental leave to care for their babies alone while their partners returned to paid work. The aim was to ascertain whether use of parental leaves under those circumstances favors the development of caring masculinity. The qualitative methodology deployed consisted in semi-structured interviews conducted in 2014 with a sample of 15 policemen who took parental leave alone for at least 4 weeks while their partners returned to paid work. More specifically, the analysis addressed the respondents’ discourse on the justification of their decision to engage in this type of childcare, the workplace reaction to the decision, and their experience when fathering alone. The findings suggest that, even though hegemonic masculinity persisted in part of these fathers’ discourse and experience, engagement in such innovative practice tended to narrow the divide between traditional and caring masculinity. The conclusion drawn is that encouraging fathers to take leave to care for their children alone is a useful tool for furthering caring masculinity in highly masculinized environments.

This article analyzes the relationship between family policies focused on childcare for children under the age of three and fertility levels. In the current context of very low European fertility, it is important to understand whether public support for families can help increase fertility or if, on the contrary, existing fertility levels are the exact reflection of the reproductive desires of families, regardless of the family-support of the policies that may exist in each country. This analysis was carried out through a stochastic dynamic mathematical model that incorporates both demographic variables and family policy variables. A sensitivity analysis was carried out on Spain and Norway, two countries that have very different models of family policies. This sensitivity analysis allows establishing a relationship between the existing family policies and the total fertility rate and also the expected evolution of fertility rates in the future, if the current family policies remain constant. The results showed that the models which lead to an increase in fertility are those which are most generous and which also incorporate a gender perspective, so they allow the identification of good practices and maximum levels of policy efficiency in regards to different objectives such as increase fertility and advances towards gender equality. By contrast, models with erratic and insufficient support clearly contribute to maintaining fertility at very low levels and perpetuate unequal gender relationships. There is, therefore, space for state agency to develop more effective public policies in both dimensions.

Families rely on both parental and non-parental involvement when confronting the challenge of caring for children till the age of three. Drawing from the 2016 edition of the EU’s Survey on Income and Living Conditions, this study analyses non-parental childcare options in France, Norway, and Spain, taken as examples of different welfare state models. It addresses the degree to which parents of children under 3 years old in each country resort to non-parental agents (grandparents and other relatives, professional care providers, and pre-school services). The results reveal the existence of significant differences in non-parental care strategies in the three countries analysed, though some convergence towards defamilialisation and the important impact of household income on the types of non-parental care prevalent in France and Spain.

La suspensión de las clases provocada por el COVID-19 y la decisión de continuar con el curso a distancia han implicado que el sistema educativo haya pasado a funcionar sin la presencia de alumnado y profesorado en la escuela. Este artículo sostiene que, en esas circunstancias, el sistema no puede garantizar el derecho a la educación de todo el alumnado. Su objetivo es analizar qué ideas fundamentan la ficción de que sí puede hacerlo, por qué motivos se ha construido y aceptado esta ficción, y qué efectos negativos puede tener. Por último, se ofrecen propuestas de política pública para mitigar estos efectos.