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Paid parental leave policies in both Australia and Japan fit within Dobrotić and Blum's (2020) classification of a selective employment-based entitlement model, thus offering an extension of that category beyond Europe and illustrating the wide variation possible within it. In this article we develop indices for comparing employment-based parental leave policies on three dimensions of social equality: inclusion, gender equality and redistribution. This combination offers an extension of classificatory schemes for parental leave policies and a broader basis for comparative analysis. We compare Australia and Japan on these indices and present a qualitative exploration of the origins and implications of their similarities and differences. The analysis draws attention to tensions between the three indices, illustrating intersecting and conflicting influences on the potential for paid parental leave entitlements to contribute to the amelioration of social inequalities. Overall, the comparison highlights drivers of difference within employment-based entitlement systems and underlines the need for complementary measures to advance egalitarian outcomes.

Previous studies suggest the relative importance of the impact of childcare policies on mental health in parents. There have also been studies showing that welfare states have differing policy packages, consisting of a mixture of familizing and individualizing policy measures. This study builds on and extends this knowledge by carrying out a European comparison of the association between mental well health and family policies. We use Lohmann and Zagel's familizing and individualizing policy indices to describe family policies. Our main interest is differences in mental health depending on the country, household, and individual-level characteristics. Therefore, we apply a multilevel model to 26 countries included in the 2013 wave of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey (N = 141,648). The analysis found that, in general, parents of children under 13 have better mental health than other adults. We found individualizing policy measures to be positively related to mental health in parents, while familizing policies had a negative relationship. No evidence was found for the combined presence of individualizing and familizing policies making a difference to mental health in parents. These results suggest that welfare states could help parents by promoting individualizing policies to make parenthood a less stressful experience.

Objective: This study investigates whether sorting into occupations and work organizations contributes to gender differences in parents' likelihood to reduce their working hours. Background: While mothers reduce their work hours to reconcile their work and personal lives, fathers increasingly wish to reduce their hours but face obstacles to doing so. Mismatches between parents' desired and actual work hours prompt the question of whether fathers' realization of working-time reductions is constrained due to their sorting into more time-intensive occupations and/or work organizations. Method: Cross-classified multilevel models were applied to German linked employer-employee data analyzing gender differences in parents' likelihood of reducing work hours. Including sorting indicators, the question of whether differences in full-time employed mothers' and fathers' working-time reductions were driven by sorting into different work contexts (occupations/work organizations) was explored. Results: The results confirmed that full-time employed mothers are more likely to reduce their work hours than full-time employed fathers. While occupations play almost no role in determining working-time adjustments, work context does at least partly contribute to parents' variation in working-time reductions. However, neither gendered sorting into occupations nor gendered sorting into work organizations explained gender differences in parents' likelihood of scaling back their work hours. Conclusion: It is concluded that gender differences in German parents' reduction of working hours rather respond to traditional gender norms than being influenced by the different occupations or work organizations mothers and fathers sort themselves into.

This study presents evidence on the effect of parenthood on labor market outcomes in Finland. We use population-based data drawn from administrative registers and an event study design centered around the birth of the first child using the specification proposed in Kleven et al. (2019b). The study confirms that women encounter large short- and long-term child penalties in gross labor earnings and that penalties are associated with employment participation. Taxes and social security transfers considerably reduce the child penalty, which also varies by the number of children.

Vor dem Hintergrund der steigenden Erwerbstätigkeit von Müttern geht dieser Beitrag der Frage nach, wie Eltern in Paarbeziehungen die Haushaltsbereiche Betreuung, Beköstigung sowie Wohnungs- und Wäschereinigung untereinander aufteilen. Dazu werden drei Paartypen mit unterschiedlichem Erwerbsumfang gebildet: Zweiverdiener-Paare, Paare mit weiblichem Zuverdienst sowie Paare mit männlichem Familienernährer. Deren Zeitverwendung für die genannten Tätigkeiten wird mithilfe der repräsentativen Zeitverwendungserhebung 2012/2013 und 2001/2002 sekundäranalytisch untersucht. Die Analyse zeigt, dass vollzeiterwerbstätige Mütter täglich am wenigsten Zeit für die drei genannten Arbeitsbereiche im Haushalt aufwenden, nicht erwerbstätige Mütter hingegen am meisten. Innerhalb einer Dekade - von 2001/2002 bis 2012/2013 - haben alle untersuchten Mütter ihre Zeitverwendung für hauswirtschaftliche Tätigkeitsfelder reduziert, zeitgleich nehmen sich Eltern 2012/2013 deutlich mehr Zeit für Betreuungsaufgaben. Unabhängig des Erwerbsumfangs der Mutter ist die Arbeit des Alltags nach wie vor, besonders werktags, weiblich konnotiert und somit geschlechtsdifferenzierend aufgeteilt. Nur am Wochenende zeigt sich in Paaren mit erwerbstätiger Mutter bei der Betreuung eine annährend egalitäre Arbeitsteilung.

Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die Übernahme der Elternrolle - insbesondere für Frauen - schwer mit langen Pendelwegen vereinbar ist. Allerdings sind die Wirkrichtungen nach wie vor unklar. Verringert die Gründung einer Familie die Bereitschaft für größere Pendeldistanzen und werden dafür berufliche Nachteile in Kauf genommen? Oder führt Pendeln zu einem Aufschub der Familiengründung oder verhindert diese gar? Mit diesen Forschungsfragen beleuchtet das Buch einen neuen Erklärungsansatz für geringere Erwerbschancen von Müttern und leistet einen Beitrag zur Identifikation von Bestimmungsgründen der Fertilität.

"When becoming parents for the first time, German
couples often adapt their division of paid and
unpaid work, creating a more gender-specific allocation. Using longitudinal data from the qualitative event-centered project 'Household division of domestic labor as a process', we compare theoretically-postulated mechanisms of change in the division of work within couples with explanations given by the couples interviewed themselves. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates that economic and gender norm theories are quite successful at predicting changes towards a more traditional specialization when couples become parents for the first time, while they are less helpful in explaining the persistence of equal arrangements in the domestic division of work, or the change towards more equal arrangements. The interviews also show that the explanations which differentiate - within unpaid work - between childcare and housework are a better predictor of the realities of the arrangements. Furthermore, the causal order of the decisions suggested by the theories differs from the couples' actual decision making processes: when facing the transition to parenthood, they decide first upon the division of childcare, and then of labor market activity and housework." (author's abstract)

"Im Beitrag wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie sich die selbsteingeschätzte persönliche finanzielle Situation auf die tatsächliche Geburt weiterer Kinder, unter Berücksichtigung generationaler Unterstützungspotenziale und dem Migrationshintergrund, auswirkt. Die zu überprüfenden Hypothesen basieren auf der ökonomischen Theorie und dem Forschungsstand zur Bedeutung ökonomischer Unsicherheiten für Fertilität. Mittels multivariater Analysen der zwei Wellen des deutschen Generations and Gender Survey, können weder Effekte der individuellen finanziellen Lage, noch der Generationenbeziehungen auf die Familienerweiterung nachgewiesen werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen hingegen, dass sich türkische Staatsbürger mit eigener Migrationserfahrung von denen, die im Kindesalter immigriert sind bzw. in Deutschland geboren wurden, bezüglich der Erklärungsfaktoren unterscheiden. In allen drei Gruppen sind Faktoren wie das Alter der Frau, die Kinderzahl und das Alter der Kinder für die Familienerweiterung zentral." (Autorenreferat)

Obwohl die meisten jungen Menschen sich eine Familie wünschen, steigt die Zahl der Frauen, die zeitlebens kinderlos bleiben. Mit dafür verantwortlich ist, dass die Entscheidung für oder gegen Kinder vor dem Hintergrund zunehmender Wahlmöglichkeiten getroffen wird. Kinderwunsch tritt heute in Konkurrenz zu anderen Lebensentwürfen bzw. Prioritätensetzungen. Vor diesem Hintergrund befasst sich das Bamberger Ehepaar-Panel seit 14 Jahren mit der Familien- und Partnerschaftsentwicklung bei verheirateten Paaren. Die Umfrageergebnisse der nunmehr fünften Datenerhebungswelle mit 550 Paaren umfassen neben den zentralen Dimensionen wie Einstellungen, sozioökonomische Situation und Beziehungsentwicklung insbesondere die Berufsverläufe von Frauen und Männern sowie die Problematik des Wiedereinstiegs in den Beruf. Zudem werden zwei weitere inhaltliche Schwerpunkte gesetzt: die Entwicklung von Familien mit drei und mehr Kindern und ihre soziale Situation, sowie die Entstehung und Beurteilung von Kinderlosigkeit. Beide Bereiche werden ausführlich behandelt, um die Ursachen und Rahmenbedingungen bzw. Entscheidungen für diese Entwicklungsverläufe nachvollziehen zu können. Ferner werden die aktuellen Lebensumstände aller Paare eingehend untersucht. Somit liegen Verlaufsdaten über die gesamte fertile Phase einer Eheschließungskohorte für den Zeitraum von 1988 bis 2002 vor. Im Anhang finden sich einige Hinweise zum methodischen Aufbau der Untersuchung. (ICG2)

Objective: This study examines collective orientations and individual meanings regarding a fulfilled life with the aim of answering the questions of which social norms around childbearing become relevant in the biographical fertility decisions of women and men, and how they do so. Background: While the normative expectations of social networks have been found to be highly relevant for individuals who are in the process of deciding for or against childbearing, the findings are inconsistent and fragmented. This study contributes to the knowledge on this topic by examining social norms as normative and empirical expectations. Method: In a qualitative approach, data from five focus groups (n=22) were triangulated with biographical interviews (n=9) with women and men of different ages and different family statuses across Austria. The in-depth analysis facilitated the reconstruction of collective orientations around childbearing desires and individual meanings. Results: The desire for childbearing was identified as a gendered social norm, both in collective orientations and individuals' meanings, long before and after fertility decisions were made. Strong relationalities to social norms around gendered responsibilities for (expectant) parents also shaped individual desires, particularly women's. Conclusion: The relationalities of childbearing desires and persistent gendered parenting norms entail gendered challenges. They are related to individual self-optimization and self-responsibility, and have the potential to hamper childbearing decisions.

Family policies not only provide money, time and infrastructure to families, but also convey normative assumptions about what is considered desirable or acceptable in paid work and family care. This study conceptualises and empirically investigates how priming respondents with brief media report-like information on existing day care policy entitlements and the economic consequences of maternal employment interruptions may change personal normative beliefs about parental work-care arrangements. Furthermore, we analyse whether these effects differ between groups of respondents assumed to vary in their degree of affectedness by the information as well as previous knowledge. The theoretical framework builds on the concept of normative policy feedback effects (Soroka and Wlezien, 2010; Gangl and Ziefle, 2015) combined with social norm theory (Bicchieri, 2017) and human cognition theories (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986; Evans and Stanovich, 2013). The study is based on a fully randomized survey experiment in Wave 12 of the German Family Panel (pairfam) and applies linear and ordinal logistic regressions with cluster-robust standard errors to a sample of 5,783 respondents. Our results suggest that priming respondents with information on day care policy and long-term economic risks of maternal employment interruptions increases acceptance of intensive day care use across the full sample and especially for mothers with children below school entry age. It further increases support for longer hours spent in paid work among childless women and mothers with school-aged children. Norms regarding paternal working hours are largely unaffected by the information given in this survey experiment.

How can parental leave design be more socially inclusive? Should all parents be entitled to parental benefits or only those parents who are eligible based on a particular level of labour market participation? To think through questions of social inclusion in parental leave policy design, particularly issues related to entitlements to benefits, I make three arguments. First, aiming to extend Dobrotić and Blum's work on entitlements to parental benefits, I argue that 'mixed systems' that include both citizenship‐based and employment‐based benefits are just and socially inclusive approaches to parental leaves and citizenship. Second, to build a robust conceptual scaffolding for a 'mixed' benefits approach, I argue that that we need to attend to the histories and relationalities of the concepts and conceptual narratives that implicitly or explicitly inform parental leave policies and scholarship. Third, and more broadly, I argue that a metanarrative of care and work binaries underpins most scholarship and public and policy discourses on care work and paid work and on social policies, including parental leave policies. In this article, I outline revisioned conceptual narratives of care and work relationalities, arguing that they can begin to chip away at this metanarrative and that this kind of un‐thinking and rethinking can help us to envision parental leave beyond employment policy - as care and work policy. Specifically, I focus on conceptual narratives that combine (1) care and work intra‐connections, (2) ethics of care and justice, and (3) 'social care', 'caring with', transformative social protection, and social citizenship. Methodologically and epistemologically, this article is guided by my reading of Margaret Somers' genealogical and relational approach to concepts, conceptual narratives, and metanarratives, and it is written in a Global North socio‐economic context marked by the COVID‐19 pandemic and 21st century neoliberalism.

Objective: The study investigates how partner support affects different types of work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts in dual-earner couples divided by gender and parenthood. Background: In Germany, as in other Western Countries, interrole conflicts between work and family increase, especially within dual-earner couples. Only few studies focused on the effects of partner support on different types of these conflicts. Method: We use longitudinal data deriving from waves 6 to 10 of the German Family Panel (pairfam) to uncover the extent to which the perception of having a supportive partner reduces time- and strain-based work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts. We conduct longitudinal structural equation models based on information of 1,252 persons, which are full-time employed and live in a dual-earner relationship. Results: Whereas for men partner support helps reduce stress-based work-to-family conflicts, for women perceived partner support is not beneficial. Within a subsample of parents, the experience of work-to-family conflicts is likely irrespective of partner support. Overall, women's family-to-work conflicts appear to be reduced by their partners' support whereas for men this detrimental effect only applies in the case of stress-based family-to-work conflicts. Conclusion: To sum up the findings, the differences for men and women in the effect of partner support on different types of interrole conflicts indicate a still existing impact of traditional gender norms that connect femininity to house work and masculinity to employed work.