The Impact of Taking Parental Leave on Fathers’ Participation In Childcare And Relationships With Children: Lessons from Sweden

In Sweden, government-mandated paid parental leave has been available to both mothers and fathers since 1974. By 2006, each parent had two non-transferable leave months and nine additional months to share. From the beginning, parental leave was presented as a policy designed to promote gender equality, with women and men having equal opportunities and responsibilities to contribute economically to the family and care for children. Sweden thus provides a unique setting to explore whether social policy can be an important instrument for changing the gender contract. Analysing survey data from 356 fathers working in large private companies, we found that the amount of parental leave days taken had positive effects on several aspects of fathers’ participation in childcare and on their satisfaction with contact with children, controlling for other factors contributing to fathers’ participation in childcare. Our findings suggest that the full potential of Sweden's parental leave policy for degendering the division of labour for childcare will not likely be met until fathers are strongly encouraged by social policy to take a more equal portion of parental leave.     

“双碳”视角下我国居民碳普惠:内涵、框架体系与政策建议

“双碳”目标是我国基于实现绿色低碳高质量发展内在要求而作出的重大战略决策,对于加快形成以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局,推动我国社会生产方式、生活方式和消费模式的全面绿色转型,具有重要促进作用。文章围绕居民碳普惠这一当前“双碳”背景下的热点研究问题,从居民碳普惠的概念、内涵、作用与意义三个视角分别展开分析,提出了对绿色支付、居民碳普惠的定义,在此基础上对居民碳普惠的框架体系进行了深入研究,设计了居民碳普惠“一体两翼”的框架体系,并对我国居民碳普惠发展的五个方面提出了进一步政策建议。     

数字普惠金融与农户相对贫困脆弱性*

测度不同贫困线标准下数字普惠金融对农户相对贫困脆弱性的作用效果及其最优指数区间,揭示数字普惠金融对不同农户相对贫困脆弱性影响的结构性差异和作用机制。研究发现:数字普惠金融对农户相对贫困脆弱性的影响既存在"数字红利"效应也存在"数字鸿沟"效应,二者呈现出倒"U"型关系,降低农户相对贫困脆弱性的最优数字普惠金融指数区间位于108~160之间。分结构看,较低贫困线标准下数字金融覆盖广度对农户相对贫困脆弱性的减缓程度更加明显,但较高贫困线标准下数字金融使用深度对农户相对贫困脆弱性的减缓程度更大,且呈小幅递增趋势。在作用机制层面,数字普惠金融主要通过提高农户数字技能和风险管理能力,降低居民收入差距来发挥中介作用,减缓农户相对贫困脆弱性。     

共生理论视域下我国融合教育发展的困境与反思

作为一种全新的教育理念,融合教育自提出以后很快成为国际特殊教育的发展趋势。当前,我国融合教育在取得巨大进步的同时,在融合主体的接纳态度与行动支持、教师专业能力与合作意识、融合课程与教学、融合资源投入与共享等方面仍然面临困境。基于共生理论视角对融合教育困境进行理论反思,提出构建融合共生的社会文化环境、建立教师专业学习社群、调整课程与教学、完善资源配置等建议,以期为推进融合教育、提升融合教育质量提供借鉴。     

普惠性民办幼儿园的困境与出路——基于经济学的视角

普及推广普惠性幼儿园对于深化我国学前教育改革具有重大意义,而普惠性民办幼儿园的涌现则需要政策的有效激励与有力支持。民办幼儿园是具有自主决策权的市场参与者,只有准确把握其办学现状、质量短板及紧缺资源、服务群体,才能制定合理的普惠性民办幼儿园申请与认定标准、补贴与限价标准,从而引导民办幼儿园合理获取回报,提升教育质量。科学的财政投入体制和广泛深入的家长宣传则是构建普惠性民办幼儿园发展生态的必要措施。     

包容性领导的探索性研究

包容性领导的概念正在成为研究的热点，目前对包容性领导的定义，学术界没有统一的认识，基于中国文化对包容性概念的理解，梳理包容性相关学术研究、文献，通过探索性访谈研究，对包容性领导的概念进行了定义，并提出包容性领导的价值。     

Beyond the Preschool Years: Children’s Perceptions About Starting Kindergarten

This article describes a research study that investigated three‐ and four‐year‐old Canadian preschool children’s perceptions about starting kindergarten. Findings from 33 focus‐group discussions suggest that children begin to formulate ideas about starting kindergarten prior to school entry. Children’s responses were grouped according to three themes, play versus academic activities and homework; getting bigger but still needing help; and rules. Overall, the responses highlighted their expectations regarding continuity and discontinuity between the two environments. These findings support the position that children should be given the opportunity to contribute to the planning of transition practices.     

Grandparental childcare in Australia: gender differences in the correlates of providing regular grandparental care while parents work

Grandparents’ regular care for children while parents work has been mostly studied from the parental perspective. This paper focuses on the grandparents. Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 2006 (N = 7672) we investigate regular-caring grandparents’ demographic characteristics, which childcare activities they undertake, and how regular childcare provision relates to their time in other activities, subjective time pressure and satisfaction. Results indicate the correlates and nature of regular care differ by gender. Regular and non-regular-caring grandmothers’ relative time allocation to different childcare tasks barely differs, while regular-caring grandfathers’ care includes a much higher proportion of active care and travel than non-regular-caring grandfathers’. Regular care provision is associated with less leisure than non-regular-caring counterparts for both genders, but with only grandmothers’ housework, personal care and sleep time. Providing regular care doubles the likelihood of grandmothers reporting high subjective time pressure compared to non-regular-caring grandmothers; there is no association between regular care and time pressure for grandfathers. We conclude that in taking on regular care, grandparents echo the gender patterns found among parents, namely that it is women who are disproportionately impacted by meeting family care needs.     

Child poverty and family policies across eighteen wealthy Western democracies

While a good deal has been written about the potential value of family policies in reducing child poverty in Western countries, few cross-national quantitative studies have been carried out on this topic. This article uses ordinary least squares regression analysis on panel data from 18 Western democracies from 1987 to 2007 to test the significance of family policies and other welfare policies on child poverty rates. It extends existing research on the relationship between family policies and child poverty by utilizing a broader data-set in terms of time, countries, and child poverty measures. The main finding is that all three of the main family policies studied – child cash and tax benefits, paid parenting leaves, and public support for childcare – correlate significantly with lower child poverty rates. Somewhat surprisingly, disability and sickness insurance also correlates significantly with lower child poverty in nearly every model and test. These findings provide valuable insight for future research and policy-making in the area of child poverty.