Although researchers generally agree that national family policies play a role in shaping mothers’ employment, there is considerable debate about whether, how, and why policy effects vary across country contexts and within countries by mothers’ educational attainment. We hypothesize that family policies interact with national levels of earnings inequality to differentially affect mothers’ employment outcomes by educational attainment. We develop hypotheses about the two most commonly studied family policies—early childhood education and care (ECEC) and paid parental leave. We test these hypotheses by establishing a novel linkage between the EU-Labour Force Survey and the Current Population Survey 1999 to 2016 ( n = 23 countries, 299 country-years, 1.2 million mothers of young children), combined with an original collection of country-year indicators. Using multilevel models, we find that ECEC spending is associated with a greater likelihood of maternal employment, but the association is strongest for non-college-educated mothers in high-inequality settings. The length of paid parental leave over six months is generally associated with a lower likelihood of maternal employment, but the association is most pronounced for mothers in high-inequality settings. We call for greater attention to the role of earnings inequality in shaping mothers’ employment and conditioning policy effects.

While women's labor force participation rates (LFPRs) in the United States stalled over the last quarter-century, European countries exhibited a variety of trajectories. We draw on demographic and gender theories of women's life course to understand changes in women's LFPR during their prime child-rearing years. We build expectations about how aggregate trends may be driven by shifts in the prevalence of key demographic events such as child-rearing (i.e., compositional) versus shifts in the association of these events with women's LFP (i.e., behavioral). We use data from the European Union Labour Force Surveys and the US Current Population Survey in Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition models to decompose trends in women's LFPR from 1996 to 2016 across 18 countries by educational attainment, partnership status, and parental status for women aged 20-44. Compositional and behavioral shifts positively contribute to higher LFPR in most countries, but lower rates in several others. Behavioral change is not widely shared across groups of women. Partnered mothers without college degrees are the main contributors to behavioral change and show the greatest variability across countries. We suggest greater research attention to this "missing middle," as their LFP is key to understanding change during this period.

Some scholars hypothesize that although work–family policies help incorporate women into the labour market, they do so by integrating women, and mothers specifically, into female-dominated occupations. Some suggest that although these policies are ‘good’ for lower educated women, they harm higher educated women by concentrating them in female-dominated professions. We revisit this debate using the highest quality data brought to bear on this question to date. We use the EU Labour Force Survey 1999–2016 (n = 21 countries, 235 country-years, 2.5 million men and women aged 20–44), combined with an original collection of country-year indicators. Specifically, we examine how the two most widely studied work–family policies—paid parental leave and early childhood education and care (ECEC)—and public sector size affect occupational segregation for men and women by educational attainment and parental status. We find no evidence that ‘generous’ welfare states promote segregation. Rather, a specific policy—parental leave in excess of 9 months—promotes segregation between men and women broadly, but most acutely for non-tertiary-educated mothers. Findings are generally null for paid leave of up to 9 months. ECEC is associated with greater integration, particularly for tertiary-educated women. Large public sectors are associated with segregation, with both tertiary-educated men and women more likely to work in feminized occupations. Public sector size, however, is not as tightly bundled with work–family policies as previous work suggests.

Objectives: Despite the considerable interest in the increase in obesity particularly of socially disadvantaged group in Korea, how obesity varies according to various socio-demographic characteristics still remains largely unanswered. To further develop the understanding of obesity in Korea, the present study focuses on the possibility that the relationship between educational attainment and obesity varies across age. Methods: Using 2010 Korea National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), this study divides the adults into male and female groups and examines the interaction effect of age and educational attainment on obesity through binominal logit models for each group. Results: The most educated male group is more likely to be obese than those who did not complete high school. And the relationship between male's educational attainment and obesity does not significantly change across age. In contrast to male's obesity pattern, female educational attainment has a significant negative association with obesity. The gap in obesity across educational groups converges after middle ages in female. Conclusions: Health policies should pay more attention to those who are more vulnerable to obesity risk in order to effectively reduce obesity.