Labor Market Penalties for Mothers in Italy

We use a large Italian employer-employee matched dataset to study how motherhood affects women’s working career in terms of labor force participation and wages. We confirm that the probability of exiting employment significantly increases for mothers of pre-school children; however, this is mitigated by higher job quality, human capital endowment and childcare accessibility. Most importantly, the availability of part-time jobs reduces their probability of moving out of the labor force. Women not leaving employment after becoming mothers experience lower wages than women with no pre-school child, and there are no signs of this gap closing 5 years after childbirth. Contrary to previous literature, the wage gap penalty emerges only among women working full-time, thanks to the high protection accorded to part-time jobs in Italy.     

Fitting it all in: how mothers' employment shapes their school engagement

Although incompatibilities between work and home life are well studied, less is known about the implications of employment for another key life role, particularly for working mothers: being a ‘school-engaged parent’. Using data from in-depth interviews with 17 employed mothers in a mid-size Midwestern city, recruited from a diverse sample of 95 survey-taking parents, we examined the mechanics of how mothers' employment conditions shaped their involvement in their children's schools. We observed patterns between occupational status – professional and low-wage jobs, particularly – and when and how mothers engaged. Some with job schedule flexibility and paid time off were more often and easily able to participate in school activities, while others faced barriers to or negative consequences from using such supports. Several mothers lacked any time-related accommodations from their jobs. Yet all mothers pushed themselves to be involved, even as they had to make hard calculations about their work lives to do so. The findings extend research on the ‘life’ side of work–life research and point to the limits of U.S. education reform's emphasis on family engagement, suggesting that varied bundles of employment conditions stratify parents' school participation in ways that may be difficult for schools to accommodate.     

Social and family responsibility or self-interest?

Mothers’ increasing labour market participation is posed as a key aspect of a growing trend towards individualization — both for ill and for good. In ‘for ill’ versions, mothers’ employment is regarded as undermining commitment to family relationships and leading to a loss of community. In ‘for good’ versions, family and community relationships become contingent upon values of equality and respect. ‘Preference theory’ modifies the individualization thesis, with a posited distinction between mothers in full-time employment with ‘work-centred’ identities and those with part-time work who want ‘adaptive’ or ‘home-centred’ identities. This paper examines such issues, drawing on qualitative case study research on mothers employed full and part time in a hospital and an accountancy firm in the UK. It considers how the variable work ethos of organizations, and the ways mothers engage with these, can interact with their engagement in family and community relationships. In particular, it suggests that employment can be as much about social obligation in a local community, and commitment and obligations to family, as about individualized self-provision and options.     

Which fathers are the most involved in taking care of their toddlers in the UK? An investigation of the predictors of paternal involvement

Economic provisioning continues to be the essence of ‘good’ fathering, and the work schedules associated with fathers' employment remain a key factor which shapes their involvement in childcare and domestic work at home. However, the relative impact of fathers' and mothers' employment hours on paternal involvement in childcare is unclear, and little is known about the longer-term impact, that is, whether a work arrangement organised when the child is under a year old has an impact on paternal involvement when the child is aged three. Here we focus on employed couples and explore the association that mothers' and fathers' employment hours have with paternal involvement when their child is three years old. Multivariate analysis using the UK's Millennium Cohort Study reveals that it is the mothers' employment hours when the child is aged three that has the largest association with paternal involvement in childcare at this stage in the child's life, independent of what hours the father works. Furthermore, both fathers' and mothers' employment hours when the child was nine months old have a longitudinal influence on paternal involvement when the child reaches three years old, but it is the hours worked by the mother when the child was aged nine months that has the stronger association with paternal involvement at age three. This suggests that mothers' work schedules are more important than fathers' for fostering greater paternal involvement in both the immediate and longer term.     

Family-friendly benefits and full-time working mothers’ labor force persistence

Family-friendly benefits are intended to help mothers balance rather than juggle work and family. Prior research assumes that family-friendly benefits have a similar effect on mothers’ persistence in full-time work across parity. However, there is evidence that the transitions to first-time and second-time motherhood are qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, different experiences. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we investigate women’s labor force status (full-time, part-time, and not working) after both parity transitions among women who were working in the labor force full-time prior to the birth of their first child. We find that mothers often persist in the same labor force status after the birth of their second child that they held after the birth of their first child, but there is wide variability in labor force and parity pathways. In addition, a wider array of family-friendly benefits is associated with second-time mothers’ full-time work than first-time mothers.     

FAMILY POLICIES IN FRANCE AND GERMANY

Welfare state literature almost always positions France and Germany in the same category, that of conservative–corporative regimes. Family policies, in particular, have much in common: both are explicit and generous in terms of taxation system and family allowance schemes. However, France strongly differs from Germany with regard to childcare policy and public support to mothers’ employment. France, along with the Scandinavian countries, leads the European Union in public childcare provision. In Germany, despite recent changes, there are still considerable gaps, at least where children under three years of age are concerned and the ‘male breadwinner/female part-time carer’ model is being actively promoted. However, there is a growing discordance between the aspirations of young German women with regard to paid work and the norms and values that still govern childcare and caring time policies. Therefore, a host of institutional and cultural factors shape the level and terms of mothers’ labour force participation in both countries. The impact of motherhood has a stronger effect on employment patterns in Germany than in France. French mothers are more frequently employed on a full-time basis and at the same time have more children than their German counterparts.     

Working‐class mothers’ school involvement: a class‐specific maternal ideal?

Recent ideological shifts, along with budgeting constraints, have made parental involvement in the schooling process necessary. Such expectations have increased the toll on working‐class mothers, who now have to assume responsibility in three time‐consuming areas: child care at home, school involvement and labour market participation. In analysing how mothers deal with this threefold expectation, research has focused on class‐specific maternal ideals and practices, but rarely directed systematic attention to how these concurrent expectations shape the maternal ideals they embrace. Moreover, few studies have examined how mothers’ maternal ideals shape their employment interruptions. The current paper considers how working‐class mothers rationalize the maternal ideals they embrace with regard to school involvement and examines how they negotiate them vis‐à‐vis other possible maternal ideals. Interviews of 48 Israeli low‐income mothers reveal that educational success is consensually perceived as critical for maximizing life chances and that this understanding evolved from the gradual realization that school involvement through extensive mothering – where women rely on others to meet their children's schooling needs – must be replaced by school involvement through intensive mothering – namely, personal presence‐based nurturing. We draw some implications relevant to the debate over class‐based maternal ideals.     

Opting Out,Scaling Back,or Business‐as‐Usual? An Occupational Assessment of Women's Employment

After decades of growth, women's labor force participation stagnated in the 2000s, prompting widespread interest in work–family balance and opting out. However, much of the research and media attention is limited to small samples of women in managerial and professional occupations. Using data from the 2009 American Community Survey, this article examines mothers' labor force participation and work hours across 92 occupations to assess whether mothers in nonmanagerial and nonprofessional occupations exhibit similar work patterns. I find that mothers in managerial and professional occupations are the least likely to remain out of the labor force but most likely to work reduced hours. The results indicate that there is significant occupational variation in women's work–family strategies, and these comparisons provide insight into the differential structures of disadvantage that encourage different work–family outcomes.     

The Effect of Migrant Children on Migrant Mothers' Employment

More and more migrant parents choose to bring their children with them to their migration destination in China. Here, the data reported by China's Health and Family Planning Commission in 2017 are used to examine the influence of migrant children on migrant mothers’ employment. The results showed that migrant children have a negative effect on mothers’ employment and reduce wages of mothers who are work. In addition, considering migrant children’s age, we find that as it increases the burden of childcare is lighter; the probability of mothers’ participation in the labour market and receiving a high wage is higher. Furthermore, in terms of mothers’ characteristics, older age and better education, having a spouse or parents who migrated, longer migration history and an across-provincial move have positive effects on migrant mothers’ employment.     

Welfare and Work: Complementary Strategies forLow‐Income Women?

We examine the effects of mothers' strategies of combining employment and welfare receipt during the first 3 years of their child's life on the child's cognitive development, behavior problems, and home learning environment at ages 5 to 6. We compare the child outcomes of those mothers who were continuously employed and received no welfare with (a) those who worked some or all of the 3 years and also received public assistance and (b) those who were totally dependent on public assistance. We studied children in single‐parent families (N= 1271 ) living below 200% of the poverty threshold using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—Child Supplement. No negative association was found on most child outcomes with a mother's employment whether or not it was combined with public assistance. However, mothers' not working at all and receiving financial support solely from AFDC was associated with negative child outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the possible effects of the new welfare laws on families and young children.     

ECONOMIC ROULETTE

Complementing previous literature on welfare reform and the character of jobs in the low-wage labour market, we illustrate the lack of regularity and security that mark the jobs held by many low-income mothers. To do so, we present a typology of mothers’ work patterns and illustrate their experiences through case examples. Our qualitative analysis of longitudinal pathways-to-work in three cities involved an examination of the experiences of 99 diverse, low-income working mothers with a young child. The work patterns that emerged from this analysis include: continuous duration of a single job; multiple job spells; underemployment; and churning in and out of employment. Findings indicate that a complicated ‘coming together’ of well-paying stable jobs, consistent aid from public systems and stable family networks are necessary for mothers to take even the first steps into stable employment.     

‘Off school sick’: mothers' accounts of school sickness absence

Interview material, collected as part of a wider ethnographic study of sickness absence in an English primary school, is used to examine how mothers accounted for their decisions to keep children ‘off school sick’. Mothers' accounts suggested a process by which they tested their children's claims on sickness against suspicions of feigning illness. The paper describes, from the mothers' point of view, the process of negotiating sickness with children and how children are categorised as ‘pretending’, ‘upset’ or ‘really ill’. These decisions are set within a wider context comprising: a normative discourse of maternal child health care; contradictory demands placed on mothers by the image of children as simultaneously robust and vulnerable; the surveillance and contradictory demands of schooling; and the use by children of sickness as a means of exercising influence on their social situation. It is suggested that locating child health care in relation to childrens' point in their childhood career (for these children the transition to secondary school) and acknowledging the active role that children play in the construction of illness will facilitate a fuller picture of mothers' unpaid health work within the family.     

Child care burden and the risk of child maltreatment among low-income working families

Studies suggest that a substantial proportion of low-income working mothers experience work disruptions and parental stress related to child care, which may lead to increases in the risk of physical and psychological abuse and neglect of children. However, little research has examined the relationship between child care burden and the risk of child maltreatment among low-income working families. Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study 3-year data, this study explores how child care burden is associated with the risk of child maltreatment (physical aggression, psychological aggression, and neglectful behavior) among low-income working mothers. We find that instability in child care arrangements is likely to increase mothers' physical and psychological aggression, while not having someone reliable for emergency child care is likely to increase mothers' neglectful behaviors. Findings also show that the risk of child maltreatment related to child care burden measures is more significant for single mothers than married mothers. Potential policy implications are discussed.     

THE EFFECTS OF SINGLE MOTHERS' WELFARE USE AND EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS ON CHILDREN'S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

We examine the effects of single mothers' welfare use and employment decisions on children's short‐run cognitive development, as measured by their preschool standardized math test scores. We control for three mechanisms through which these decisions might affect children's outcomes: direct monetary benefits, parental time invested in the child, and nonpecuniary benefits from in‐kind transfer programs such as Medicaid. We employ a correction function approach and control for state‐fixed effects to address the endogenous nature of welfare participation and employment decisions. Our estimates suggest that although each additional quarter of either mother's employment or welfare use results in only a small increase in a child's standardized math test score, the total effects after several quarters are sizable. We allow mothers' decisions to have varying effects on attainment by children's observed innate ability and by the intensity of welfare use and employment. A child who has the mean level of observed innate ability with a mother who simultaneously worked and used welfare in all 20 quarters after childbirth experiences an 8.25 standardized‐point increase in standardized scores. The positive impact is more pronounced for the more disadvantaged children, who tend to be born to mothers with low Armed Forces Qualification Test scores, or have lower birth weights. We also examine the effects using timing of employment and welfare use, as well as children's maturity and gender. (JEL I3, J13, J22)     

The effect of child support on the labor supply of custodial mothers participating in TANF

Child support is a critical source of income, especially for the growing proportion of children born to unmarried mothers. Current social policy supports custodial parent employment (e.g., the Earned Income Tax Credit [EITC] and other work supports have largely taken the place of an entitlement to cash assistance for single mothers of young children). Given many single mothers' limited earnings potential, child support from noncustodial fathers is also important. This raises questions about the effects of child support on custodial mothers' labor supply, and whether policies that increase child support receipt will thereby discourage mothers' employment. This paper addresses these questions, taking advantage of data from a statewide randomized experiment conducted in Wisconsin. Unlike previous nonexperimental research, we do not find any negative effect of child support on the likelihood to work for pay or the number of hours worked in a given week. Recent U.S. social welfare policies have focused on increasing both custodial mothers' child support collections and their labor supply. The results suggest that these may be compatible policies; the absence of a negative labor supply effect strengthens the potential antipoverty effectiveness of child support.     

Ungrateful slaves? An examination of job quality and job satisfaction for male part-time workers in the UK

Research on part-time work has concentrated over many decades on the experiences of women but male part-time employment is growing in the UK. This article addresses two sizable gaps in knowledge concerning male part-timers: are men's part-time jobs of lower quality than men's full-time jobs? Are male part-timers more or less job-satisfied compared to their full-time peers? A fundamental part of both interrogations is whether men's part-time employment varies by occupational class. The article is motivated by the large body of work on female part-timers. Its theoretical framework is rooted in one of the most controversial discussions in the sociology of women workers: the “grateful slave” debate that emerged in the 1990s when researchers sought to explain why so many women expressed job satisfaction with low-quality part-time jobs. Innovatively, this article draws upon those contentious ideas to provide new insights into male, rather than female, part-time employment. Based upon analysis of a large quantitative data set, the results provide clear evidence of low-quality male part-time employment in the UK, when compared with men's full-time jobs. Men working part-time also express deteriorating satisfaction with jobs overall and in several specific dimensions of their jobs. Male part-timers in lower occupational class positions retain a clear “lead” both in bad job quality and low satisfaction. The article asks whether decreasingly satisfied male part-time workers should be termed “ungrateful slaves?” It unpacks the “grateful slave” metaphor and, after doing so, rejects its value for the ongoing analysis of part-time jobs in the formal labor market.     

'It's like saying "coloured" ': understanding and analysing the urban working classes

This paper draws on data from a qualitative project exploring the engagement of working class families in London with childcare. It is a first attempt to throw some light on our usage of the term ‘working class’, and consider what forms ‘working class‐ness’ takes in relation to our respondent families. We discuss some recent sociological literature on the working class(es) in order to understand the emphasises and focuses of other research. We emphasise the heterogeneity of the working class(es), the differences in attitude and experiences based on place, gender, occupational status, education, age and family membership. Then we consider our respondents in relation to their strategies and exercise of agency, their engagement with the labour market, and their embedded‐ness in social networks. We conclude that one way of understanding the lives of urban working class families is to consider the extent to which they ‘manage or struggle to cope’, a focus which emphasises process, activity and the differential degrees of agency which the respondents are able to exercise.     

Maternal labor market return and domestic work after childbirth in Britain and Germany

This study investigates how the duration of maternal labor market interruptions and mothers' employment status after return relate to the division of domestic work in couples after childbirth in West Germany, East Germany, and Britain. It extends the literature by considering how these two aspects of postnatal labor market return decisions of mothers may give rise to or counteract growing gender inequality in domestic work afterbirth events. Using data on 826 British and 1614 German new parent couples based on the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) (1991–2008) and on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) (1990–2010), I apply fixed-effects panel models. Mothers perform more housework with increasing length of their employment interruptions across the three contexts. For childcare, longer time-outs increase mothers' childcare share in West Germany but not in East Germany. This result is in line with institutional variations in day-care provision. Across contexts, mothers' full-time returns are associated with a larger reduction in their domestic work share than short time-out. After mothers returned to part-time employment, couples show no or much weaker compensating behaviors for longer previous maternal time-outs than after a full-time return.     

Local Day Care Quality and Maternal Employment: Evidence From East and West Germany

By investigating how locally available early childhood education and care quality relates to maternal employment choices, this study extends the literature, which mostly has focused on the importance of day care availability or costs. The authors provide differentiated analyses by the youngest child's age and for West and East Germany to examine moderating influences, such as work‐care cultures, in a market with strongly state‐subsidized provision and near‐universal participation of preschool children. The empirical analysis linked the Socio‐Economic Panel and the Families in Germany Study for 2010 and 2011 (N = 3,301 mothers) with regional structural quality data and applied multivariate regression models. In East Germany, mothers with a child under age 3 years who lived in districts with smaller day care groups were more likely to be employed and to extend their work hours. For mothers in West Germany and those with older children, day care quality was not significantly related to employment.     

Isolated housewives and complex maternal worlds – The significance of social contacts between women with young children in industrial societies*

This article reconsiders the picture of the mother of young children in industrialised societies as the ‘isolated housewife’, suggesting this notion is by no means straightforward. We suggest there is considerable evidence for the existence of mothers' social contacts and their significance both as ‘work’ and ‘friendship’ in industrial societies. A pre-occupation with the notion of the ‘isolation’ of ‘housewives’ has led social researchers to neglect sustained examination of the social relationships within which many/most mothers are involved on a day-to-day basis. Complexities of interpretation, for example what ‘isolation’ can actually mean, need to be drawn out from the existing literature. Evidence presented from two recent ethnographic studies shows patterned opportunities/constraints occurring in relation to mothers' social contacts within localised settings, whether through organised groups or other personal ties. The complex nature of individual women's social contacts is thus brought out. Some key questions are raised for the importance to sociology, anthropology and social policy of these apparently insignificant or invisible women's networks.