Gender, work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

Abstract

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.Este estudio se centra en los ajustes laborales experimentados por las parejas suecas tras su transición a la maternidad o paternidad. En concreto, nos preguntamos si las actitudes hacia los roles de género de estas parejas influyen en la modificación de sus situaciones laborales una vez que finaliza el periodo del permiso parental. Utilizando datos de pareja del Young Adult Panel Study, observamos que la probabilidad de que ambos miembros de la pareja ajusten sus condiciones laborales es mayor cuando tienen actitudes igualitarias. Es también más probable que sea el hombre el que haga más cambios cuando ambos miembros son igualitarios. Cuando uno de los dos presenta actitudes más igualitarias que el otro, suele tener un mayor impacto sobre los ajustes laborales del miembro más igualitario. Por ejemplo, en parejas donde el hombre es más igualitario, es tres veces más probable que sea él quien modifique sus condiciones laborales que en las parejas en que ninguno de los dos es igualitario. Aunque con menor fuerza, los resultados sugieren también que las mujeres con actitudes igualitarias incrementan la probabilidad de realizar modificaciones en su trabajo.Palabras claves: trabajo y familia; transición a la paternidad/maternidad; condiciones laborales; actitudes ante los roles de género; datos de pareja; Suecia

What Makes a “Good Job”? Gender Role Attitudes and Job Preferences in Sweden

“…In particular, partnered men, fathers, and egalitarian men all place greater importance on family-friendly job attributes than their single, childless, less egalitarian counterparts. Along with other research that shows that work-family balance is important for fathers and that both American and Swedish fathers with more egalitarian ideals are likely to make work adjustments to accommodate their families [31,32], we encourage employers to develop more family-friendly practices and to include male as well as female employees in their planning. While Sweden already has many policies that promote better work-family balance [17,40], the United States has more limited policies and thus American employers may find less incentive for implementing these policies.…”

Intentions to Have a Child: A Couple‐Based Process

“…To our knowledge, no study has yet taken a dyadic approach to examine crossover processes in couples' motivations and intentions to have children. When a dyadic point of view has been adopted, it mostly focused on (dis)agreement between partners (Bauer & Kneip, 2013;Cavalli & Rosina, 2011) or on the effects of a partner's work-related obligations on the decision, as reported by individual respondents (Kaufman & Bernhardt, 2012). A recent exception (Hutteman et al, 2013) analyzed dyadic associations between partners' personality and couples' decision making to have children and found that personality traits of both partners were directly associated with the fertility outcome, further validating the importance of psychological factors and dyadic processes in fertility outcomes.…”

“…Although some have argued that low fertility is likely a result of an increased female labor-force participation, the two are not synonymous; some countries (e.g., Finland, Norway, and Sweden) have a high rate of employed women while simultaneously having high fertility rates (Jokinen & Kuronen, 2011). Thus, it is not employment itself but the way reconciliation between work and family is facilitated that might play a role in childbearing considerations (Kaufman & Bernhardt, 2012). Therefore, the meanings attached to having children and childbearing intentions may be particularly important within dual-earner couples when (a) women's labor-force participation is high, (b) childcare services are scarce, (c) fathers are disengaged from childcare, and (d) policy measures designed to ease the burdens of balancing work and family are scarce or ineffective.…”

The influence of motherhood on income: do partner characteristics and parity matter?

“…Hiller, 1984;Thompson & Walker, 1989) may also play an important role in mitigating the negative consequences that motherhood has for women's earnings. A partner with less traditional gender role attitudes is more likely to contribute to domestic labor enabling her to work more (Kaufman & Bernhardt, 2014). As the woman's own gender role attitudes will probably also affect the relation between motherhood and earnings, these must be accounted for.…”