National Family Policies and Mothers’ Employment How Earnings Inequality Shapes Policy Effects across and within Countries

Although researchers generally agree that national family policies play a role in shaping mothers’ employment, there is considerable debate about whether, how, and why policy effects vary across country contexts and within countries by mothers’ educational attainment. We hypothesize that family poli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American sociological review Vol. 85; no. 3; pp. 381 - 416
Main Authors: Hook, Jennifer L., Paek, Eunjeong
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA Sage Publications, Inc 01.06.2020
SAGE Publications
American Sociological Association
Subjects:
Adolescent mothers
Childhood
Children
Conditioning
Early childhood education
Earnings
Education policy
Educational attainment
Employment
Expenditures
Families & family life
Family (Sociological Unit)
Family leave
Family policy
Family roles
Hypotheses
Income inequality
Inequality
Labor force
Mothers
Parents & parenting
Polls & surveys
Working mothers
Young Children
Young mothers
earnings inequality
family policies
women’s employment
income inequality
educational attainment
work-family
ISSN:0003-1224, 1939-8271
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Although researchers generally agree that national family policies play a role in shaping mothers’ employment, there is considerable debate about whether, how, and why policy effects vary across country contexts and within countries by mothers’ educational attainment. We hypothesize that family policies interact with national levels of earnings inequality to differentially affect mothers’ employment outcomes by educational attainment. We develop hypotheses about the two most commonly studied family policies—early childhood education and care (ECEC) and paid parental leave. We test these hypotheses by establishing a novel linkage between the EU-Labour Force Survey and the Current Population Survey 1999 to 2016 (n = 23 countries, 299 country-years, 1.2 million mothers of young children), combined with an original collection of country-year indicators. Using multilevel models, we find that ECEC spending is associated with a greater likelihood of maternal employment, but the association is strongest for non-college-educated mothers in high-inequality settings. The length of paid parental leave over six months is generally associated with a lower likelihood of maternal employment, but the association is most pronounced for mothers in high-inequality settings. We call for greater attention to the role of earnings inequality in shaping mothers’ employment and conditioning policy effects.
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ISSN:0003-1224
1939-8271
DOI:10.1177/0003122420922505