FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Welfare State Regimes and Female Labour Supply Research Objectives: Are differences in patterns of female labour market behaviour identifiable within Europe? Can these differences be related to ”societal” context, i.e. the broad interconnection between labour market organisation, form of public policy and family obligation? How do these differences evolve during the 90’s?

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Grounding knowledge Esping-Andersen’s typology: identifies qualitative differences in the interplay between labour market, family organisation and public policy which are referred as different Welfare State Regimes. Question: How far does it fit the differences in female labour market behaviour? 2 reservations: important intra-class does exist in the support of female employment (see Gornick et al., 1997; Stier et al., 2001, Koopmans, 2002) evolution of countries towards more hybrid forms

Hypotheses Liberal regime ( United-Kingdom, Netherlands?) : Labour market flexibility is supposed to match as closely as possible household preferences and labour demand, by providing part-time work and promoting flows within the different situation relating to work Expected result: High development of part-time work. Both participation and working time are anticipated to strongly react to changes in family constraints (births of children, age of the youngest) Positive influence of the postponement of first birth on female participation (due to its increased opportunity cost)

Conservative Regime (Germany, Italy and Spain) Important “insider-outsider” divide (derived from internal labour market), “Familialism” governs the production of welfare; institutionalisation of the sexual division of labour Expected result: specific influence of the presence of a partner towards a division of labour specific “interrupted” profiles of female participation with the birth of first child Entrance in internal labour market may require a postponement of family formation

Social-democratic regime (France?): State is committed to support (equal) access to employment of all citizens. “De-familialisation” of care work is supported by extensive development of public services of care Conciliation between family and (standard) employment lives is an explicit issue Expected results: part-time work maintained to rather low level of development A greater opportunity to combine full-time work with the arrival of the first child (i.e. less reactive to the presence of a partner, of one child, to the age of the youngest and timing of birth).

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Empirical design Data: Eurostat Labour Force Surveys (1992 to 1999) France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, United-Kingdom Log-linear model of female situation to work (Inactive, unemployed, working in low part-time, in high part-time, in full-time) according to individual and family characteristics (birth cohort, education, number of children and age of the youngest, partnership status, age at first birth), and time variable (each year of the survey). Advantage: (i) pseudo cohort identification through repeated cross-sectional survey: “true” children and age effects (ii) comparable to multinomial setting Limit: ignores endogenous changes in fertility decisions Output: Estimation of distribution related to marginal influence of each variable or relevant couple of variables

Findings Increase of female employment in all countries, whatever individual and family characteristics. Dominant increase in part-time in Germany Relative delay of entry into the labour market in France, Italy and Spain and important ”youth unemployment” (pressure from internal labour market?) Specific age trend in the Netherlands, ceteris paribus: switch from full-time into part-time Negative influence of the number of children in France, Italy and Spain on the Full-time/inactivity alternative. Weak effect of the first child in France. WG, UK, NL: (i) greater influence of the first child on inactivity and full-time rates; (ii) close relation between part-time work and family size But different trends in the influence of children

Effect of the presence and economic situation of the partner on female situation relating to work Histograms represent predicted distribution of female situation relating to work considering the only effect of partner-related variable.

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Evolution of the effect of the presence of children on female situation relating to work (1)

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Evolution of the effect of the presence of children on female situation relating to work (2)

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Differences in the influence of age of the youngest: non sensitive in Italy and Spain (long-term decision to withdraw?) most important changes following the second year of the child in France (and East part of Germany) (child care facilities?) more progressive impact of AYC in G, NL and UK; rather long “interrupted” profiles; more rapid entry in part-time employment in the Netherlands

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Effect of the age of the youngest child on female situation relating to work

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Differences in the influence of age at first birth Strong positive (resp. negative) influence of the postponement of first birth on (full-time) employment (resp. inactivity) in the NL, Italy, and Spain. Opposite relation in Germany: postponement related to a decline in part-time work on behalf of inactivity (postponement of employment interruption required by family formation)

FENICs Female Employment and Family Formation in National Institutional Contexts Effect of the Age of Mother at the First Birth on Her Situation Relating to Work

Conclusion Many of the broad differences in female labour supply are in accordance to welfare regimes typology: differences in the interplay between labour market organisation, family obligations and institutions shape specific answer of female labour market behaviour. However, important intra-group differences have been identified: limit of such categorisation to understand country-specific development no universal process of labour market “flexibilisation” can be referred to explain the overall increase in female employment during the nineties specific problems can be identified and should induce differences in the priorities of public policies