“The participation of women in the labour market and childcare investment: views from
Europe”
Dr. Margarita León (ESPAnet European Social Policy network) Universitat Autònoma
Barcelona
Prepared for the SSP 126th Biannual Conference 25-26 May 2013. Aoyama Gakuin University,
Aoyama Campus, Tokyo

Dr. Margarita León is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Government and Public Policies(IGOP) of the Universitat Autònoma Barcelona. From 2003 until 2010 she was a lecturer in Europeansocial policy in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent. From2001 and 2003 she was a Marie CuriePost-doctoral fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced
Studies, European University Institute in Florence, Italy. In 2000 she completed her PhD at the London
School of Economics with a Training and Mobility Research Grant from the European Commission. She
holds an MA in Sociological Research from the University of Essex funded by the British Council (1995)
and a BA in Sociology from University of Alicante. She has published in international peer-reviewed
journals such as The Sociological Review, Social Policy and Society, European Societies, The
Sociological Review, South European Society and Politics, Journal of European Social Policy and
Journal of European Public Policy. She has co-edited with Ana M. Guillén The Spanish
Welfare State in European Context (2011 Ashgate) and is now preparing the manuscript
The Transformation of Care in European Societies which will be published in September 2013by Palgrave Macmillan. Since September 2012 she is member of the European Social Policy
Network (ESPAnet) and the Spanish Social Policy Research Network (REPS).

1

Sumary of presentation:
One of the most important changes that have taken place in European societies since the 1960s
and 1970s has been the incorporation of women to paid employment. The industrial economy
pretty much built around male workers has given way to a service economy changing jobs andalso workers. These changes in employment together with changes in the role of women has
brought about a wide number of tensions and conflicts in modern European societies. This
presentation will firstly analyse changing dynamics and existing tensions between theparticipation of women in paid employment and fertility. Secondly, the presentation will
analyze developments in childcare provision (Early Childhood Education and Care – ECEC)
within the framework of a proposed paradigmatic change of welfare states through ‘social
investment’. The presentation will give an overview of the current academic and political debate
around the pros and cons of expanding service provision for small children (that is, children
under compulsory school age). Developments in ECEC at least at the European level havecertainly been backed up by a vast amount of research that prove, albeit with different emphasis,
positive links between investment in ECEC and (1) female labour force participation, (3)fertility dynamics (3) children’s opportunities in life and (4) productivity imperatives in theknowledge-based economy. Despite the fact that causal connections are very difficult to identify(Gerda & Andersson 2008), it truly exists strong empirical evidence on the connections between
the labour market participation of women –specially mothers with under school age childrenand availability of childcare provision and/or other family-oriented policies (Kamerman & Moss
2009; Boje & Ejnraes 2011). Family policies oriented towards female employment –such asavailability of public childcare- have a positive impact on levels of female employment(Gauthier, 2007) and vice-versa. However, there are significant differences between European
countries not just in levels of ECEC coverage but on aspects related to the quality of theprovision. Furthermore, it is important to look at ECEC development within broader policies forthe reconciliation of work and family life, mainly forms of flexible but secured employment andparental leave schemes. The presentation will finally give an overview of the present challenges
and dilemmas that European countries face nowadays with expanding ECEC services in thecontext of strong austerity social and economic programmes that the EU is imposing on member
states as a response to the economic crisis.

Departures from the male breadwinner modelOver a decade ago, feminist scholars vividly criticised mainstream comparative welfare
research for remaining oblivious to the way in which women’s unpaid care work influenced2

men’s capacity to be in paid employment which in turn affected women’s ability to be protectedby the welfare state on an autonomous basis. Esping-Andersen’s (1990) renowned indicator ofde-commodification was pretty much at the heart of these debates, remaining centre stage eversince. What gender scholars were pointing at and what Esping-Andersen so willingly took on
board a few years later was that, bluntly put, women’s historical absence from the formal
economy left them on a pre-commodified status. Several authors (Lewis 1992; Orloff 1993;
Bussemaker 1994; O’Connor 1993) attempted to find indicators that would look at women’s
independence from family obligations. They were also looking at ways in which the worlds ofproduction and reproduction would not be separated from each other but seen as mutuallyinterdependent. Agreeing with Orloff that commodification is potentially emancipatory for
women, what was then needed was a “new analytic dimension that taps into the extent to whichstates promote or discourage women’s paid employment and the right to be commodified”(Orloff 1993: 318). Thus, welfare states had to be measured against their capacity to ‘free’
women from their family dependency by facilitating their entrance into the world of paid
employment. Esping Andersen (1999: 45) operationalised the term by looking at policies that
reduce individuals’ dependence on the family and maximise individuals’ command of economic
resources independently of familial relations. From the perspective of welfare regime
typologies, the less familistic welfare states are the Nordic ones since social policy is explicitly
designed to facilitate women’s economic independence by lessening their family burdens. At
the other end, the more familistic ones are those of Southern Europe where social policy not
only does not help women to be economically independent but it actually relies on them to solve
caring obligations and needs.
The literature on comparative ‘care regimes’1 has pretty much arrived at similar
conclusions. According to this literature, the intersections between paid and unpaid, andbetween formal and informal care work materialise in a number of ways in different national
contexts depending on the interplay between different institutions (welfare state, labour market,
the third sector and the family). The ‘acceptability’ of various forms of care work given culturaland social values and norms (Pfau-Effinger 2005; Crompton et al. 2007; Lister et al. 2007) also
plays a major role in shaping these different care models. Furthermore, the literature on social
care has rightly pointed out that each arrangement for social care leads to a distinct outcome forgender equality.
1‘Care regimes’ are patterns of care organisation in different societies (Pfau-Effinger & Geissler 2005). Morespecifically, and based on developments in the comparative welfare-state and industrial-relations literature(Esping-Andersen 1990; Crouch 1993; O’Reilly 2006), a care regime is defined as the specific set of institutions andof policies affecting these institutions that shape how care is delivered, influencing both the working conditions ofcarers and the quality of the care provided.

3

The departure of the male breadwinner model might have been under-specified in theacademic literature in a number of ways. Daly (2011:17) argues that:“(…)The adult worker model has started to be quite widely used as a fully-fledged model orcharacterization of real life. This is unwise. To the extent that it depicts an empirical trend towards
individualization, the adult worker model is but a partial characterization of what is happening (…)” .

As Daly points out, one cannot question the fact that everywhere in Europe the entrance of
women into the labour market is being promoted by work/family balance mechanisms,
including employment flexibility and greater availability of childcare services. As Orloff (2005)
has also argued, governments in developed democracies cannot any longer afford to be theadvocates of women’s role as housekeeper but need to be actively engaged in promoting
employment for all, women included. One of the pillars of post-war welfare states, the strict
gender division of labour between the public sphere of work and the private sphere of the family
has cracked into little pieces. The ‘job for life’ has been replaced by a more fragmented anddiverse pattern of employment and, equally relevant, the traditional image of the protective
family has blurred both as a symbol of identity and as an effective institution of welfare
provision. In today’s welfare states, policies for the reconciliation of work and family life andflexibility in employment are instrumentally driven towards female employment growth.
Nevertheless, and as Daly notes, these measures do not mark an unequivocal trend
towards individualization but rather a recast of the concept of the family in terms of roles,
functions, and relations vis-à-vis other institutions (Daly & Scheiwe 2010 in Daly 2011: 18).

Promoting female employment as a precondition for childbearing: Is it good to invest in
the employability of women?
In OECD countries the macro cross-country correlation between total fertility rate
(TFR) and the female labour force participation (FLP) turned from a negative value before the80s to a positive value afterwards. Generally speaking, the countries that now show the lowest
levels of fertility are those with relatively low levels of female participation in the labour market
and vice-versa (Engelhardt and Prskawetz 2004, Ahn and Mira 2002). Thus, the increase in
women’s labour force participation has been accompanied by a steady decline in fertility
although there are significant reversals at both the macro and micro levels. Understandably, thetrend is the opposite if we look at female unemployment: the cross-country correlation shifts
from positive to negative. If we look at European countries higher fertility is associated withhigher female participation in the labour market in Northern European countries while lower
4fertility is in southern Europe associated with low female participation. Besides female
employment and unemployment the form of employment also matters greatly. Part-time jobs are
generally expected to have a positive effect on fertility by allowing an easier conciliation ofwork and family responsibilities.

In Europe, countries differ greatly regarding part time

employment. An important difference is the ‘quality’ of part time employment. Research showsthat part-time jobs have a positive effet on fertility only in those countries where they arevoluntarily chosen and socially accepted (Ariza, De la Rica and Ugidos, 2005). Public sector
jobs also seem to be more ‘family friendly’ that jobs in the private sector mainly because
flexible and secure options are available mainly right after maternity leave. Moreover, fertility
is usually higher in countries with larger public sectors (Bernhardt, 1993), and women
employed in the public sector tend to have higher fertility rates than their counterparts in theprivate sector (Adsera, 2011). Better working conditions in the public sector compared to theprivate sector also facilitate fathers’ take-up of parental leave (Geisler and Kreyenfeld, 2011).
In short, empirical research shows that women’s labour force participation does not necessarily
lead to low fertility but it can actually be the opposite. The relationship between employment
and fertility is shaped by institutional arrangements, employment and social policies, gender
relations and the domestic division of work between men and women. The way in whichcountries promote the employability of women in a way that it might not clash with their role asmothers is a good telling indicator of the adaptability of these countries to the changing
opportunity costs of having children.
On the other hand, changes in the family structure, female labour participation and thetransformation in the demographic structure affect the relationship between family andemployment. Female employment varies with childbirth as a function of the number of children(Ranci and Pavolini 2010, Ranci and Migliavacca 2011, Naldini 2006, Del Boca 2002). The
employment rate for women aged 25 to 49 decreases as the number of children increases, while
for men in this age group the pattern is almost the opposite (Saraceno & Naldini 2011). As
Table 1 shows the difference Zero-Three+ (last column Table 1) is large for Germany and theUnited Kingdom. The only remarkable difference, as shown in Fig. 6, is when we compare
female participation (25-49) of single women without children and women in couples withchildren. While Italy and Spain have similar levels of participation in the case of single women
without children as Germany, France and the UK, the distance between these countries and Italy
and Spain increases for the case of women in couples with children.

5

Table 1 Female employment and maternity in the European Union* by the number ofchildren aged under 12 (2008): women aged 25–49

Female
rate
2008

Zero
childr
en

One
child

Two
children

Three+childr
en

Dif.
Zero–
One

Dif.
Zero–
Two

Dif.
Zero–
Three+

European
Union
Germany
Ireland
Greece

73.1
76.4
78.4
76.8

78.6
83.7
81.5
70.0

72.0
77.2
68.2
62.5

69.1
72.4
61.5
59.7

54.5
53.0
49.1
54.4

–6.6
–6.5
–13.3
–7.5

–9.5
–11.3
–20.0
–10.3

–24.1
–30.7
–32.4
–15.6

Spain
France

70.1
64.0

73.2
80.4

64.2
78.6

60.2
77.8

48.9
59.0

–9.0
–1.8

–13.0
–2.6

–24.3
–21.4

Italy
67.8
67.3
59.5
53.4
40.3
Luxembou
rg
77.6
83.7
74.4
70.8
52.6
Netherlan
ds
61.1
86.6
79.8
81.4
71.3
Austria
71.4
85.2
82.1
77.3
60.0
Portugal
81.8
78.2
77.5
75.5
66.6
Finland
79.5
84.0
77.0
83.0
67.4
The UK
77.5
84.0
75.1
71.8
48.6
*
Note: No data available for Sweden and Denmark.

–7.8

–13.9

–27.0

–9.3

–12.9

–31.1

–6.8
–3.1
–0.7
–7.0
–8.9

–5.2
–7.9
–2.7
–1.0
–12.2

–15.3
–25.2
–11.6
–16.6
–35.4

Source: Salido 2011: 197.

6

Fig 6: Female Employment rate aged 25-49 by children and household type 2010

100,0
90,0
80,0
70,0
60,0
50,0
40,0
30,0
20,0
10,0
0,0

Source: Eurostat LFS 2010

Developing care policies and the ‘social investment’ paradigm: Is it good to invest inchildcare?
Developments in ECEC at least at the European level have certainly been backed up by a vast
amount of research that prove, albeit with different emphasis, positive links between investment
in ECEC and (1) female labour force participation, (3) fertility dynamics (3) children’s
opportunities in life and (4) productivity imperatives in the knowledge-based economy. Despite
the fact that causal connections are very difficult to identify (Gerda & Andersson 2008), it truly
exists strong empirical evidence on the connections between the labour market participation of
women –specially mothers with under school age children- and availability of childcare
provision and/or other family-oriented policies (Kamerman & Moss 2009; Boje & Ejnraes2011). Family policies oriented towards female employment –such as availability of publicchildcare- have a positive impact on levels of female employment (Gauthier, 2007) and vice-7

versa. In a recent research (Drobnic & León 2013) on worklife balance dilemmas in Germany
and Spain we found that for both countries having children are still an important obstacle infemale employment. Women who anticipate high work-life conflict are less likely to be
employed in the first place or the ‘resolve’ the conflict by not having children. Our study also
showed that constraints and opportunities in the labour market as well as policy measures exert
an impact on selection into employment. Availability of childcare provision, or work-familybalance policies more generally, also affects fertility dynamics. In this respect, research showsthat different childcare arrangements affect couple’s decisions to have children (Schober 2012;
Budig et al 2012). In most countries the lack of sufficient institutional support for working
mothers explained to a large extent the low fertility levels seen in many European countries
during the previous decade (Brewster and Rindfuss 2000). In their cross-national study using
household level data Hobson and Ólah (2006) found that fertility decisions (i.e. the likelihood of
having first child) were affected by configurations in welfare states for reconciling employment
and caring for children. ‘Birthstriking’ effects were identified in countries with weakreconciliation policies for working mothers. In sum, the fact that governments need to support,
through specific policy packages the participation of women in the labour market, is, as Daly
(2011) points out, hard to question. Everywhere in Europe the participation of women in thelabour market is being promoted by work/family balance mechanisms, including employment
flexibility and greater availability of childcare services. As Orloff (2005) has also argued,
governments in developed democracies cannot any longer afford to be the advocates ofwomen’s role as housekeeper but need to be actively engaged in promoting employment for all,women included.
Research has also shown positive links between investment in ECEC and equal opportunities
among children of different socio-economic backgrounds. Sara McLanahan (2004) for instanceclaims that to the extent that the second demographic transition is widening social classdisparities in children’s resources, investing in ECEC can compensate from the loss of parental
resources of the more disadvantaged children. In a similar line, Esping-Andersen has done
extensive research on the effects of ECEC on child outcomes. In a period where inequalities are
widening, he argues, investing in early years education appears as the best way for “minimizing,
across the board, the impact of (non-biological) inequalities on children´s opportunities”(Esping-Andersen 2009: 144). Thus, research based on longitudinal analysis shows thatavailability of childcare provision can potentially minimize the effects of family backgroundvariables, such as low income, lone motherhood or poor parental learning culture on children´scognitive development and educational achievement.

8

Furthermore, the links between productivity and childcare provision have been clearly
expressed by the European Strategy for Cooperation in Education and Training –ET 2011
(CORE 2011). It is revelatory here how PISA reports on school children performance havebecome a main tool to assess both ECEC and compulsory education arrangements of different
countries and the prospects of their economies. In this way, the interactions between care,education and productivity shape the debate on care for the young ones. This goes also in linewith the capabilities approach. Taking Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s conceptual
framework, several scholars have reflected on the way in which the welfare state might or might
not enhance human capacities. Access to good quality education and availability of policies toease the work-family conflict, for instance can be seen as capabilities to achieve agency (Hobson 2011ref.)Supported by proof of these four elements both international and national agents have framed
the need to invest in ECEC services within the ‘social investment paradigm’ (Morel, Palier, andPalme 2012). ‘Social investment’ could become a new paradigm for social policy and welfare
research in the coming future, much as Keynesianism was for the postwar years andneoliberalism over the past three decades. The social investment viewpoint presents social
policies’ enrichment of human capital as a cornerstone for a tentative new paradigm. Investment
in issues such as education suited to the different life stages, improved combinations ofactive/protective labour market policies and social cohesion become key productive forces inpresent societies. The greates challenge for social investment is that most examples of policy
innovation driven by the social investment logic are concentrated on the Nordic countries andthe Netherlands, under conditions that are difficult to transfer to other political, social andeconomic contexts in Europe.
In any case, discourse of social investment is being used to good effect to promote a children’s
agenda that goes beyond mothers’ employability to emphasize children’s wellbeing and equal
opportunities. OECD’s Starting Strong reports have, for over a decade now, focused on theimportance of ECEC based on the above mentioned empirical evidence. ECEC considered aspart of the social investment paradigm to the extent that it contributes towards the cognitive
development of children and enables the participation of women in the labour market byproviding services that help reconcile family responsibilities with paid work. ECEC is also asource of employment. Moreover, both the European Commission and the Council have clearlyshifted from emphasizing the need to invest in childcare only as a measure towards facilitating
the employability of women ( clearly visible in the 2000 Lisbon Strategy and the 2020 Strategy)
to a more recent concern (especially since 2011) for the wellbeing of children. In this more
recent perspective, investment in childcare is put forward as the best way to guarantee equal

9opportunities in children, especially for the most disadvantaged ones. Quality childcare isconsidered to be a preventive strategy for the acquisition of goals later in life.
But despite common set of benchmarks at EU and OECD levels, convergence proves to bedifficult. Different countries have followed different agendas and the policy direction of thesechanges is far than easy to ascertain. In previous periods of welfare change the idea of ‘path
dependency’ seemed to have great explanatory capacity in the sense of orienting welfare
systems towards pre-existing models. Over the last years welfare state’s capacity to break frompre-conceived moulds has increased. As Morgan (2012) argues, the so-called ‘social investment
triad’, that is, activation of women’s employment; promotion of gender equality; and fosteringchild development through good quality care, is rarely seen in policy practice. As the author
argues, most countries focus on only one of the three dimensions, while very few countries,
what she calls ‘the social investment pioneers’ namely France, Norway and Sweden’ emphasize
all three.
Another element shaping institutional change in European countries which might be seen as
conflicting with the universalisation trend is that of externalization. In the case of infants,
externalisation has pretty much been framed within the concept of ‘defamilialisation’ ofchildcare in the sense that states are assuming more responsibility

towards the care andeducational needs of younger children and the elder albeit with very different forms of
public/private provision. However, and as argued somewhere else (León and Migliavacca 2012)
the understanding of the defamilialisation trend can be quite contentious. As Daly notes, thecurrent events do not mark an unequivocal trend towards individualization but rather a recast of
the concept of family in terms of roles, functions, and relations vis-à-vis other institutions (Daly& Scheiwe 2010 in Daly 2011: 18). In this respect, the assumption that familistic policies hinder
progress towards the adult worker model and greater gender equality can be called into
question. The concept of de-familization’ has to be deconstructed analytically in order toaccount for its highly ambivalent effects on the choices and economic self-reliance of women(Leitner & Lessenich 2007: 245). In fact, the concept of familism and the degree to which itleads to gender inequality can indeed be interpreted in conflicting ways. Leitner (2003) for
instance, uses parental leave as an indicator of ‘familism’ since this is a policy which supports
the caring function of the family with respect to childcare. Paid parental leave allows parents tobe absent from the labour market for a period of time in order to take care of young children. As
the author puts it: “the existence (respectively: the absence) of regulations for paid parental
leave will be taken as an indicator for the dimension of strong (respectively: weak)familialisation” (2003: 360). There is no simple answer to the question of whether parental
leave is an indicator of familism and whether this does or does not promote gender equality.
Some ‘familistic’ instruments, such as some formulations of parental leave might be promoting
10

gender equality, some others might not. As Pfau-Effinger (2005) argues, the argument that thedegree of formalisation of informal care is determined by the degree to which welfare states
support gender equality and the integration of women in the labour market does not take into
account the fact that informal care has itself been modernised and that the promotion of
informal family care (parental leave would be promoting this) does not necessarily contradict
ideas about gender equality. The concept of familism goes beyond an ‘underground’ strategy ofsome ‘weak’ welfare states which delegate all responsibility for and care of the family to
become a wider and more complex element of interaction between the family, the state and themarket. The definition of ‘familism’ gets further complicated by the ongoing process ofcommodification of previously unpaid private care work.
The impact of the economic crisis 2008+
Expansion of these policy factors has, as explained above, coincided in most countries with arestrictive financial environment. In some countries, most notably Southern Europe, the growthof the childcare sector has taken the route of non-family paid carers which alerts against sourcesof informality and precariousness, a threat that is very explicit in the conditions of care migrant
workers. In other countries, such as Germany and the UK, childcare provision has expanded
even in a finally restrictive scenario as a form of welfare recalibration (cuts in ‘old’ policy
domains are compensated by the development of ‘new’ policy domains) fuelled by the social
investment logic as mentioned above. In the case of LTC, the compromise between
universalism and free choice principles has shown to be inadequate to deal with the newfinancial and demographic pressures emerging in the ‘austerity age’. The effects of theeconomic crisis on ECEC developments can be summarised in the following points below:a) There is an emerging trade off between quantity and quality. There is a visible tension
between extension of public intervention versus the commodification of care. In many
countries, the extension of public care programmes based on universalistic principles
has come with the introduction of market competition in the care delivery system, on
the basis of the idea that pluralism of supply increases efficiency and effectiveness.
b) Professionalization/formalisation vs. informalization or ‘refamilization’ of care. The
expansion of ECEC has come together with an emphasis on professional standards andextension of professional care. Developments in ECEC programmes have been subject
to the establishment of professional standards of the workforce specially for the 0 to 3
group. At the same time, in many countries cash-for-care programs and parental leave
packages have been introduced to sustain informal care, either explicitly (in Austria) or
implicitly (Italy, Germany), contributing to the extension of semi-formal care supply.
The main direction was towards professionalization, or public recognition of informal
11care. The most recent years have been characterised by a turn towards more
informalization and re-familization of care. The introduction of cash programs based onfree choice principles has actually shifted part of the care responsibility to informal
caregiving.
c) Flexibility vs. standardization of care services. Two processes have taken place in theorganisation of care work. Despite common set of benchmarks at EU level regarding
coverage rates of schooling of infants, standardisation is difficult precisely because ofdifferent values and ideas regarding what is best for children. Thus, flexibility (i.e.
combining expansion of childcare services with alternative arrangements where parents
can chose from).

The main consequence of such trends has been a quite general situation of worsening theworking conditions of care workers, and the deterioration of the quality of care services withsome exeptions. If on the one hand the reforms introduced in many countries have increased thevolume of care services and the amount of care workers, on the other it is true that legitimacy,autonomy and salary of care workers have been drastically reduced.

12

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