Social Policy in Changing European Societies

I examine the relative poverty risk among single-parent households in countries that have a large share of households with dual earners. Data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database are used to analyze eighteen OECD countries in the period 1984 to 2010. I find that single parents face higher relative income poverty risks in countries with a large share of dual-earner households and that this higher risk of poverty is related to higher standards of living in those countries: higher standards of living have raised poverty thresholds, and single-parent incomes are less likely to reach those higher poverty thresholds. I also find that this overall pattern varied across institutional contexts: a rise of dual-earner households puts single parents at a disadvantage only in countries that have relatively low public expenditures on childcare and relatively low income transfer policies.

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The positive relationship between female employment and fertility rates: The role of family benefits expenditure and gender-role ideologies

Dinale

2024

Journal of European Social Policy

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This article interrogates the impacts of different types of family benefits expenditures on the positive relationship between female employment and fertility rates in developed welfare states. It does this by theorizing how these family benefits align with welfare state regimes’ preferences for different normative gender-role ideologies. Rather than treating family benefits as a monolith, this article investigates the impact of disaggregated expenditures in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) family policy database (1. services and in-kind benefits, 2. child-related cash benefits and 3. tax-based financial support for children) on both female employment and fertility rates. This is done using pooled time-series analysis covering the period 2000–9. The analysis yields evidence that expenditure most reflecting a ‘full egalitarian’ gender ideology including service and in-kind benefit provision has the most positive association with female employment and fertility due to an emphasis on defamiliarization. The picture for child-related cash benefits is mixed due to the presence of cash transfer provisions not employment-contingent captured in the indicator. In contrast, tax-based financial support for children harms female employment, reflecting a maternalistic ‘traditional’ ideological orientation, but is positive for fertility rates indicating a moderate pro-natal effect of tax-based financial support for children.

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Social Policy in Changing European Societies

Abstract: He has been involved in several national and international research projects on social policies. His work has focused on pension reform, labour market, and family policies. He has published some 50 articles in journals such as

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Single Parents Competing in a Dual-Earner Society: Social Policy to Level the Playing Field

The positive relationship between female employment and fertility rates: The role of family benefits expenditure and gender-role ideologies

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