IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/505.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Policies Affect Women's Economic Position within the Family: Labor Market Institutions and Wives' Contribution to Household Income

Author

Listed:
  • Tanja Hethey
  • Margarita Estévez-Abe

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of public policies in shaping wives' economic standing within the family in advanced industrial societies. It conducts two types of statistical analysis. One is a multi-level regression analysis to examine the effects of employment protection regulation, the size of the public sector, tax policy, and mother-friendly social policy while controlling for individual attributes of wives (age and education) as well as household characteristics (husband's income, presence of children, and the relative educational background between the spouses). The other consists of a two-step regression analysis, whereby coefficients on personal attributes are first measured country by country, then compared across countries. Both analyses use the micro-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study for 16 advanced industrial societies. It finds that strong employment protection negatively affects women's capacity to attain economic parity vis-à-vis their husbands by reducing women's employment levels, while the size of the public sector positively affects wives' contribution to household income by improving women's wages. The positive effect of the public sector is independent of mother-friendly social policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Tanja Hethey & Margarita Estévez-Abe, 2008. "How Policies Affect Women's Economic Position within the Family: Labor Market Institutions and Wives' Contribution to Household Income," LIS Working papers 505, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/505.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    2. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    4. Kea Tijdens, 2002. "Gender Roles and Labor Use Strategies: Women's Part-Time Work in the European Union," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 71-99.
    5. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1992. "The Gender Earnings Gap: Learning from International Comparisons," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 533-538, May.
    6. Marianne Nordli Hansen, 1997. "The Scandinavian Welfare State Model: The Impact of the Public Sector on Segregation and Gender Equality," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 11(1), pages 83-99, March.
    7. Florence Jaumotte, 2004. "Labour Force Participation of Women: Empirical Evidence on The Role of Policy and Other Determinants in OECD Countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2003(2), pages 51-108.
    8. Miriam A. Golden & John B. Londregan, 2006. "Centralization of Bargaining and Wage Inequality: A Correction of Wallerstein," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(1), pages 208-213, January.
    9. Pontusson, Jonas & Rueda, David & Way, Christopher R., 2002. "Comparative Political Economy of Wage Distribution: The Role of Partisanship and Labour Market Institutions," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 281-308, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francois Nielsen & David Bradley & John D. Stephens & Evelyne Huber & Stephanie Moller, 2001. "The Welfare State and Gender Equality," LIS Working papers 279, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Solomon W. Polachek & Jun Xiang, 2009. "The Gender Pay Gap across Countries: A Human Capital Approach," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 227, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Kaitlin Alper, 2019. "Income, Familialism and Women’s Economic Independence," LIS Working papers 766, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Bonke, Jens, 2008. "Income distribution and financial satisfaction between spouses in Europe," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2291-2303, December.
    5. Michael E. Martell & Peyton Nash, 2020. "For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 260-294, September.
    6. Kasey Buckles & Melanie Guldi & Joseph Price, 2011. "Changing the Price of Marriage: Evidence from Blood Test Requirements," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 539-567.
    7. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    8. LaFave, Daniel & Thomas, Duncan, 2017. "Extended families and child well-being," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 52-65.
    9. Joanne S. Muller & Nicole Hiekel & Aart C. Liefbroer, 2020. "The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1007-1034, June.
    10. Heggeness, Misty L., 2020. "Improving child welfare in middle income countries: The unintended consequence of a pro-homemaker divorce law and wait time to divorce," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    11. Bergolo, Marcelo & Galván, Estefanía, 2018. "Intra-household Behavioral Responses to Cash Transfer Programs. Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 100-118.
    12. Janet Gornick, 1999. "Gender Equality in the Labor Market: Women's Employment and Earnings," LIS Working papers 206, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Gundula Zoch, 2023. "Participation in Job-Related Training: Is There a Parenthood Training Penalty?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(1), pages 274-292, February.
    14. Man Si, 2015. "Intrafamily bargaining and love," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 771-789, December.
    15. Mariano Rojas, 2010. "Intra-Household Arrangements and Economic Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 225-241, April.
    16. Robert A. Pollak, 2012. "Allocating Time: Individuals' Technologies, Household Technology, Perfect Substitutes, and Specialization," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 105-106, pages 75-97.
    17. Adam, Christopher & Hoddinott, John & Ligon, Ethan A., 2011. "Dynamic intrahousehold bargaining, matrimonial property law and suicide in Canada," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt4dm5w8v1, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    18. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp43 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Marianna Schaubert, 2023. "Do Alimony Regulations Matter Inside Marriage? Evidence from the 2008 Reform of the German Maintenance Law," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 145-178, June.
    20. Alicia Adsera, 2011. "Where Are the Babies? Labor Market Conditions and Fertility in Europe [Où sont les bébés ? Conditions du marché du travail et fécondité en Europe]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 1-32, February.
    21. J. Gimenez-Nadal & Jose Molina, 2013. "Parents’ education as a determinant of educational childcare time," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 719-749, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:505. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.