Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the social divisions in maternal employment patterns post‐childbirth, recorded by earlier studies have persisted for a later cohort of mothers that had a pregnancy in the early 2000s, in the context of an expansion of childcare and other improvements in reconciliation measures.

Longitudinal data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study are analysed using logistic regression.

It was found that mothers are more likely to be employed, and employed full‐time, when their child is aged three if they were employed during the pregnancy and resumed employment within nine months of the birth. The mothers' occupational class, ethnicity, household composition and the working hours of a partner also have independent associations with the probability of maternal employment once the child is aged three.

The authors would expect these results to be modified – but not overturned – in a different national setting, for example where childcare services are more extensive or part‐time employment is less common.

These new longitudinal survey results for a recent cohort of mothers in the UK demonstrate that resumption of employment following maternity leave is pivotal for women's subsequent employment integration. Yet maternal employment trajectories remain shaped by social inequalities. Both results are important for informing debates about reconciliation policy for the pre‐school years, including monitoring the impact of the recession on the employment integration of women following childbirth.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate alternative measures to better understand and measure success for self-employed mothers in addition to the usual financial indicators.

The present study is a comparative analysis of time spent at work and undertaking childcare by female workers with children in Spain between 2009 and 2010, using a combination of descriptive statistics and linear regression analysis based on the Time-Use Survey 2009-2010.

The results of the paper indicate that self-employed working mothers tend to spend more time with their children when these are under the age of ten, and that they work longer hours than salaried mothers.

This paper has some limitations due to the quantitative approach to secondary data. Further qualitative research could clarify some of the findings; moreover the study is based on Spain, so extending to other countries would help validate the results.

Policy makers, in general – but more specifically in high unemployment scenarios – can facilitate self-employment for both men and women to reduce unemployment and to offer workers the prospect of a more balanced life.

This research contributes to the existing literature, which fosters a more holistic approach to the analysis of female-run ventures by measuring performance using not only economic indicators, but also personal achievements.

The purpose of this paper is to explore associations between children's and mothers” work.

Brazilian household survey data are used to examine characteristics of children's and mothers' work in tandem.

Children are more likely to be in the labor force if their mothers are working, especially girls, younger children and rural children. There are strong connections between mothers' and children's employment characteristics, including industry and sector, location, commute times and whether paid. Employed children are more likely to work long hours if their mothers do, or if their mothers are not employed.

Connections between women's and children's work imply that changes in women's employment can change the work activities of their children. Policies and programs designed to influence women's labor force participation, such as micro‐credit programs, should consider their effects on children's time. Moreover, programs, laws, and international conventions that address only child labor ignore the family context of child work, limiting their potential impact.

The paper uses quantitative techniques and survey data to examine a topic usually investigated through small qualitative studies.

This study aims to examine the two (and perhaps the most) important outcome variables of the interface between work and family, namely, overall job performance and parental functioning, in the context of performance appraisal.

Each of 844 respondents (managers or self-employed who supervise workers, half of them men) evaluated a briefly portrayed employed married parent on his/her job performance and parental functioning. Male and female respondents were randomly and equally allocated to one of 16 research conditions. They evaluated an employed married parent portrayed as a mother or a father, who increased or decreased his/her weekly workhours following the mother's return from maternity leave, invested relatively high or low effort in his/her work and exhibited relatively high or low work achievements.

Parents who invest a relatively high effort in their work were evaluated as having a higher level of job performance than those who invest a relatively low effort. Parents who exhibit relatively high work achievements were evaluated as having higher levels of job performance and parental functioning than those who exhibit relatively low work achievements. Parents who increased their weekly workhours following the mother's return from maternity leave were evaluated as having a lower level of parental functioning than those who decreased their weekly workhours.

This is a rare study implementing a factorial design with five independent variables (parent's time investment in work following the mother's return from maternity leave, his/her relative work effort, his/her relative work achievements, parent's gender and the evaluator’s gender) never manipulated simultaneously before.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of self-employment, using data from the British Household Panel Survey.

Using the maximum likelihood estimation, the authors estimate the Probit models via disaggregation of the sample by male and female, and inclusion of regional and industrial controls.

This paper finds that the intergenerational links in self-employment run significantly through father-son, and mother-daughter. In addition, the authors find that lump-sum endowment, aspiration, marriage and education attainment are all significant and positive determinants for female self-employed while insignificant for male self-employed. Variables including number of children, health of the individual, and age effect are more important determinants for male than for female self-employed.

The findings show that there are significant differences between male and female self-employed. Future studies on self-employment should therefore distinguish the two genders in their econometric models.

The authors reinforce and add to the exiting literature on gender differences in the determinants of self-employment. The authors disaggregate the data by gender, and introduce some important variables for empirical studies, such as father self-employed, mother self-employed, aspiration, health of the individual, and age effect.

Expands on research which has demonstrated that employment has positive or neutral effects on women’s health. This pilot study examines whether these positive effects could also be found in employed mothers by comparing working mothers with non‐working mothers on measures of mental health, self‐esteem, and mother role satisfaction. Also this study assesses the stress experienced by these mothers and examines the coping strategies used by them. Of the 200 questionnaires distributed, 101 were returned giving a 50.5 per cent return rate of which 78 per cent were working mothers and 22 per cent non‐working mothers. The working mothers had better mental health and reported less depression than the non‐working mothers. The most frequently reported source of stress for working mothers was not having enough time to do everything, whereas for non‐working mothers lack of social life was a major stressor. The findings of this study support the expansion hypothesis, which emphasizes the benefits rather than the costs of multiple role involvement.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of different family policy systems in Europe and evaluate their impact on the employment strategy of mothers with care responsibilities for dependent children.

The paper outlines a typology of family policy regimes in Europe – covering the 26 countries. A typology based on a cluster analysis of macro indicators of family policy – coverage of childcare, effective parental leave and spending on family policies. The cluster analysis is based on data from OECD family data base. Then follows an analysis of the impact of the different family policy regimes on mothers' employment strategies when they return into gainful employment, based on data from the European Social Survey, 2008.

The authors have identified four different family policy models: extensive family policy, long parental leave, family care, and cash for care. For each of the models, different strategies are found for take up of employment for mothers with dependent children.

The paper includes 26 European countries, thereby covering the East and Central Europe, which is not the case in most welfare typologies. Furthermore, the authors distinguish clearly in the analyses between the institutional dimension and the outcome – mothers' employment strategies.

This paper aims to study the relation between the employment of mothers and the activities of children with the aim of contributing to the understanding of child work in India.

Multinomial logit specifications of children's activities and mothers' employment are estimated on survey data drawn from the National Family Health Survey 1998‐1999 for all India. The joint specification combines four states of children aged 6‐14 (studying, working in the market, working for the family or being inactive) with the employed/not employed status of mothers.

The results show that the mother's preferred choice is not working and sending children to school. This is especially true for more educated mothers. Also the father's education is positively (negatively) related to child schooling (work), but the effect is smaller as compared to that of mothers. All specifications yield the result that the probability of children working increases if their mothers work. Higher levels of household wealth play a fundamental role in lowering the risk of child work.

This empirical model does not take into account the unobserved heterogeneity of two types – namely, the residual correlation among the outcomes of mothers and children, and the residual correlation among children of the same mother.

The evidence that children of employed mothers have a higher risk of working suggests that the problem may be related to the low quality and pay of jobs accessible to women in India, especially in rural areas. The policy indication would then be to improve the condition of women in the labour market and also to improve the welfare of their children.

While women's and children's time allocation has been studied in separate settings, in this paper these two aspects are analysed together for the first time.

The purpose of the paper is to advocates the use of gendered economic policies to stimulate a post-COVID-19 recovery. It alerts on the risk of ignoring the female dimension of the current crisis and of resorting again to austerity programs that, like the ones enacted after the 2008 crisis, would hit women and mothers disproportionally harder than other groups.

The authors use data from the British Household Panel Survey on female participation and account for gendered constraints and enablers missed by mainstream economics. Using a sequential empirical approach, the authors simulate various welfare policy scenarios that address factors, such as childcare costs, personal and social nudges, that could help women back into the labor market in the aftermath of a crisis.

The authors found that incentive-type interventions, such as subsidies, promote female labor market participation more effectively than punishment-austerity type interventions, such as benefits' cuts. Policies oriented to alleviate childcare constraints can be sustainable and effective in encouraging women back to work. Considering factors wider than the standard economic variables when designing labor market policies may provide fruitful returns.

The sequential methodology enables to estimate current and counterfactual incomes for each female in the sample and to calculate their prospective financial gains and losses in changing their labor market status quo, from not employed into employed or vice-versa. Welfare policies affect these prospective gains and losses and, by interacting with other factors, such as education, number and age of children and social capital, prompt changes in women's labor market choices and decision.

The proportion of traditional family households with two parents has been steadily declining, in large part due to an increase in the female‐headed single parent family – the largest growing family type. Reports on a study to test hypotheses that differences exist between female‐headed single parent families′ and two parent families′ food purchasing patterns. Examines the frequency of use of convenience foods and restaurants and restaurant spending levels, to determine if there are differences between the two family types. Reveals that similar purchasing patterns exist between the household structures and suggests potential marketing implications of this finding.