A comparison of the conditions for reconciling professional and family life in Europe . with special consideration of regulations governing parental leave
Authors: Schiersmann Christiane 
Published: January 2010

The lives of women in (Western) European countries today display - in principle, albeit to varying degrees - a twofold orientation. Indeed, women identify strongly with both their professional and their family life. Given the growing importance of professional considerations in the way women plan their lives, the reconciliation of working life with family commitments has now become a key challenge for the establishment of equal opportunities between the sexes.

The importance attached to this issue in contemporary politics - at least in terms of the lip service paid to it - can be seen, among other things, within the framework of the Third Action Programme for Equal Opportunities (1991-1995) in which the European Union (EU) called on its Member States to develop measures enabling both parents better to reconcile their professional and their family commitments. The United Nations also highlighted this issue as one of the main aspects of the International Year of the Family (1994).

The key factors influencing the reconciliation of professional and family life include different traditional attitudes to women's work outside the home, the family-friendly organisation of gainful employment and the extent to which public childcare facilities and other support structures are available. These are the aspects with which I shall deal first of all. However, my main interest lies in the special regulations governing childcare leave - at statutory or collectively agreed level - adopted and implemented in many European countries over the past few years. I have chosen to use the internationally more frequently used term "parental leave" (Eltemurlaub) in this report, although the common terms used in Germany are "childcare leave" (Erziehungsurlaub) and "childcare allowance" (Erziehungsgeld).

With the growing impact of international organisations and international integration on our everyday lives, transnational comparison becomes increasingly important. Moreover, an international comparison serves to illustrate how greatly the role played by mothers and the status of women at work actually differ, or are differently perceived, in different countries and how greatly career patterns and the basic social conditions surrounding gainful employment vary, thus revealing the room for manoeuvre in terms of political organisation and action.

My analysis covers the Member States of the European Union. As this report was prepared at a time when there were twelve Member States and four applicant Member States, Norway has also been included in some points1. It makes sense to include Norway since interesting experience relevant to the issues discussed in this paper has been gained there - as also in the other Scandinavian countries. Some of the statements relating to the Federal Republic of Germany are restricted to the Länder of the old West Germany because the comparative statistics available were compiled on this basis.

Statutory regulations governing parental leave are currently in force in twelve EU Member States, although in Belgium and Denmark the regulations in question include child care as only one among a number of reasons for taking a career break. It is not the main aim of my report to describe the various regulations in as much detail as possible - indeed, this would be a virtually impossible task since the details of the provision are altered so frequently. I am more concerned with analysing the initial experience gained in connection with these regulations, despite the fact that some of them have been in force only for a relatively short period of time. The focal point of my interest will be an analysis of the extent to which the new opportunities are actually being taken up, of how many people return to work, of the arrangements in force to this end, and of the impact of these political measures on the individual careers of parents, on companies' staffing plans and on the labour market. Against this background I shall evaluate how these political instruments contribute to establishing equal opportunities for the sexes. As an initial example, I shall consider the experience gained in Germany and then compare this in some detail with experiences in Sweden and France.