This open access handbook provides a multilevel view on family policies, combining insights on family policy outcomes at different levels of policymaking: supra-national organizations, national states, sub-national or regional levels, and finally smaller organizations and employers. At each of these levels, a multidisciplinary group of expert scholars assess policies and their implementation, such as child income support, childcare services, parental leave, and leave to provide care to frail and elderly family members. The chapters evaluate their impact in improving children’s development and equal opportunities, promoting gender equality, regulating fertility, productivity and economic inequality, and take an intersectional perspective related to gender, class, and family diversity. The editors conclude by presenting a new research agenda based on five major challenges pertaining to the levels of policy implementation (in particular globalization and decentralization), austerity and marketization, inequality, changing family relations, and welfare states adapting to women’s empowered roles.

Colleagues had some very nice things to say about the book:

“This engaging collection gathers theoretical and empirical insights from leading family policy experts. The authors – representing diverse countries, disciplines, and methods – bring to life the volume’s innovative conceptual framework, which is organized around policy institutions, both public and private.  The volume closes with a call for new lines of research that should inform family policy scholars for years to come.” — Janet Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology, and Director of the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA

“Featuring exciting contributors from a range of often-siloed scholarly disciplines, countries and cultures, this Handbook offers nuanced insights into how interacting societal inequality factors influence family policy enactment to reinforce or improve inequality outcomes across gender, class, and nations. It is ambitious, broad-reaching, and succeeds in providing a strategic view within and across nations to inspire thoughtful evidence-based policy implications to improve societies in the future.” — Ellen Ernst Kossek, Basil S. Turner Professor of Management, Purdue University, USA?

“This multilevel and cross-nationally comparative perspective puts family policy at the organizational, community, national, and supranational levels into provocative context. With contributions from leading lights such as Mary Daly, Pearl Dykstra, Jennifer Hook, and Jane Jenson, this collection provides a landmark for the future of the field.” (Jason Beckfield, Harvard University, USA)

This week, Laurie Maldonado and myself are very proud to be guests on the podcast, to talk about our book The Triple Bind of Single-Parent Families. I don’t often find myself in a radio studio in Washington DC, and it was a great experience. The host Rebecca Vallas was smart, witty and so well prepared. She was very supportive, and I love what she wrote on the Triple Bind:

The U.S. has long demonized single parents – and especially single moms – like nowhere else in the western world. A new global anthology of research on treatment of families and single parents called The Triple Bind of Single-Parent Families offers a damning critique not of single moms, but of how the U.S. is hanging them, and their families, out to dry.

You can listen to our interview on Off Kilter (and subscribe to the always excellent podcast!) everywhere good podcasts are served, including:

• Itunes
• Soundcloud

Or simply listen to it here:

Single parents face a triple bind of inadequate resources, employment, and policies, which in combination further complicate their lives.

This book – multi-disciplinary and comparative in design – shows evidence from over 40 countries, along with detailed case studies of Sweden, Iceland, Scotland, and the UK. It covers aspects of well-being that include poverty, good quality jobs, the middle class, wealth, health, children’s development and performance in school, and reflects on social justice.

Leading international scholars challenge our current understanding of what works and draw policy lessons on how to improve the well-being of single parents and their children.

Don’t buy our book!

Well, you can. There is a beautiful hardback version available. But you don’t have to. The open access .PDF of the book is free to download, thanks to generous support of Knowledge Unlatched.

Free download: http://oapen.org/search?identifier=643492
Policy Press website: http://policypress.co.uk/the-triple-bind-of-single-parent-families

Peer Reviews in social protection and social inclusion foster open discussion and mutual learning. Each Peer Review meeting is hosted by one country, in this case Belgium, which presents a selected good practice (e.g. a programme, policy reform, institutional arrangement). The practice in focus here was the < href="https://www.mi-is.be/nl/miriam">MIRIAM project (website in Dutch). Peer reviews are attended by experts from the European Commission, peer countries and relevant stakeholders who provide feedback.

The impact of the Triple Bind on the outcomes of this peer review is clearly visible in the key learnings messages, as formulated on the EU Commission’s website:

• Single parents disproportionally face a ‘triple bind’, including the combination of inadequate resources, inadequate employment and inadequate policies to secure well-being. However, although there are clearly challenges that are unique to single-parent families, much of their needs are common to other types of families as well. Thus, policies and institutions that support families with children and those in the labour force were also found to be of particular importance to prevent poverty faced by single parents.
• Measures targeting (poor) single parents result in the most effective poverty reduction as long as adequate levels of redistribution are ensured. Targeted (means-tested) benefits need to address the issue of inadequate take-up, and avoid stigma/shame around accessing benefits/support.
• Social inclusion of mothers beyond monetary support is essential, including employment and social connections. However, employment does not protect single mothers from poverty, as there are a number of risk factors related to precarious employment, low wages and less favourable employment conditions that may affect them. Thus, employment policies and policies that ensure work-life balance, are an inherent part of a desirable policy mix.

The book will be available early March this year, from Policy Press. Stay tuned for more exciting news soon!

It was a great pleasure to discuss Work-life balance in times of recession, austerity and beyond with the book’s editors Suzan Lewis, Deirdre Anderson, Clare Lyonette, Nicola Payne, and Stephen Wood. The book seeks to broaden the dual agenda of promoting WLB to improve both gender equity and workplace productivity, to develop a triple agenda that also promotes social justice toward greater equality, social mobility, and workforce inclusion. The diversity of approaches in the different chapters of this book contributes important insights to the literature, for instance combining insights from action research (that can be criticized for its lack of generalizability) with cross-national compari- sons (that can be criticized for their lack of specificity). As such, the book does what an edited book does at its best: relating diverse perspectives on an important topic to a sum that is greater than its parts.

Ellen Kossek reworked our comments to the form of a book review, which now has been published in the recent issue of Community, Work & Family journal.

Nieuwenhuis, R., & Kossek, E. E. (2018). Work-life balance in times of recession, austerity and beyond (Book Review). Community, Work & Family, 21(1), 106–109. http://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2017.1388002

Much of this has been detailed by scholars such as Philip Cohen, who wrote “I have come to see Rosin’s tendency toward exaggeration and misrepresentation as fundamental to its narrative and crippling to its credibility.” (Cohen, 2013, p. 1160). Cohen concludes that “Rosin’s conception of gender inequality is wrong: women are not in, nor are they rapidly approaching, a dominant position in the gender order. Instead, incremental progress in most areas has brought them closer to equality, but that destination remains far out of reach, and progress has slowed or stalled.” (ibid, p. 1177).

In the conclusion of the ‘End of Men’, the Dutch seem to be incorporated in the ‘Homogenous, social welfare-minder Nordic countries‘ (p. 268). First, Rosin described Swedish fathers, 80% of whom now take some form of parental leave. After that, she quotes research on Dutch boys, who ‘maybe […] will lead the way and transport us all into a new era of sweeter teenage romance‘ (p. 268). Combined, the argument seems to imply, the Swedish and Dutch examples showcase how the ‘Nordic countries’ are ahead in gender equality and gender role attitudes.

Well, let’s take a closer look at that argument. First of all, the Netherlands simply are not part of the Nordic countries. Secondly, equating the uptake of parental leave by Swedish men to ideas about teenage romance among Dutch boys, is a good illustration of the haphazard comparisons that are made throughout the book. Thirdly, the Netherlands and Sweden are not ‘homogeneous’ (nor are the Nordic countries of Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark). This was obscured by the haphazard presentation of ‘evidence': if we only look at systematic comparisons between (in this case) Sweden and the Netherlands, it becomes apparent that the uptake of parental leave by Dutch fathers is nowhere near the reported 80% of Swedish fathers.

To illustrate this latter argument, let’s have a look at men’s and women’s labour force participation in the Netherlands, before and after becoming a first-time parent. This table was obtained from the Dutch Statistical Office (source, in Dutch). Before parenthood, labour force participation seems quite gender egalitarian in the Netherlands (not taking into account part-time employment): 4% of to-be fathers were not employed, compared to 13% of to-be mothers. However, when the first child was born, 7% of the young fathers stopped employment of reduced his hours, compared to 37% of the young mothers. That is more than 5 times as much. In sum, this means that almost 9 out of 10 young fathers stayed in the labour force or even increased his working hours, compared to only half of the young mothers. So, the ‘end of men’ does not seem near (nigh?) in the Netherlands, which is further illustrated by the Dutch minister of social affairs who suggested to increase paternity leave from 2 days (!!) to 5 days: these plans were severely criticised in the public debate.

With respect to Sweden: fathers’ uptake is relatively high there (80%, according to Rosin), but that is to a large extent due to how parental leave is regulated in Sweden. Each parent receives 240 days of paid leave. Parents need to use these days before their child reaches the age of 8, but can transfer these days to each other. This means that one parent can use much more leave than the other parent. Only 60 days are non-transferable, meaning that if either parent does not personally use them they are lost. This parental leave arrangement boosts fathers’ take-up of leave, but guess which parent takes up most leave? A study using Swedish register data showed that 77% of total parental leave days were used by, indeed, the mothers.

So, irrespective of the misrepresentation (or my misreading) of the Netherlands as being a Nordic country, or homogeneous, neither the Dutch nor the Swedes provide convincing evidence of the end of men.

References

Philip Cohen (2013). The “End of Men” Is Not True: What Is Not and What Might Be on the Road Toward Gender Equality BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, 1159-1184

Rosin, H. (2013). The End of Men. And the Rise of Women (Paperback Edition). Penguin Books.

[The book] presents the personal narratives of 22 professionally successful women in India. This resulted in a collection of diverse chapters, ranging from biographies to analyses of the position of women in Indian society. Authors describe the opportunities they created or were given, or the activities they undertook themselves to improve gender equality for others. Some authors seek the solution in changing policies, with others providing inspirational guidance to younger generations

The collection of personal narratives formed an interesting read. In the end, however, the book seems to promise more than it actually offers. Based on the introduction, the reader may be led to expect an analysis of what factors lead to succes. Since only succesful women were part of this volume, such a causal (or even correlational) analyses could not be provided. Hence, my conclusion:

To conclude, this volume brings together 22 personal essays on the position of women in Indian society. These essays are interesting by themselves, but to the extent that the goal of this volume was to identify a ‘recipe for success’, claims on this account remain uncorroborated.

The full review is available online as:

Nieuwenhuis, R. (2013). Women and Society: The road to change (Book Review). Sociological Research Online, 18(3).

From the press release:

Good qualifications, a career with good prospects, a full-time job in a mainly male environment and irregular hours are all factors that cause women to postpone having their first child. These are some of the findings from research carried out by Katia Begall in four separate studies into the relationship between working conditions and fertility. She discovered that highly qualified women working in sectors that employ relatively few women are much more likely to postpone having their first child. Women working in sectors with a relatively large female workforce, such as healthcare and education, are less likely to postpone the birth of their first child. Begall has come up with two explanations: ‘Having children appears to be “catching” in sectors employing mainly women. What’s more, it is easier to have children in these sectors as employees often qualify for paid parental leave.’ The partner’s qualifications and type of work appear to have little impact on the timing of the first child. ‘The woman’s job is the deciding factor, although we did note a delay among highly qualified men, which we put down to the fact that many of them are in relationships with highly qualified women.’

The press release is to be found here, and the complete dissertation can be found online as well.

Unfortunately, I.B. Cohen’s Triumph of Numbers ended quite abruptly with a description of Florence Nightingale. It felt unfinished. But the use of numbers has evolved since, and quite substantially so.

How much our use of numerical data has evolved, and to what extent is has invaded our daily lives (without many of us knowing it!), is convincingly described by Ian Ayers, in his magnificent book ‘Super Crunchers’ (2007).

Companies know more and more (and more!) about you: you buy products online, you speak with the customer relations department (with a person behind a computer), you gain discounts with customer cards, and of course you are careful to make sure you receive you frequent flyer miles. Right? If not, you may have bought it all using a credit card, the transactions of which are stored anyway.

So, the companies from whom you buy, know all this, because they have learned to store all this precious information. And using this information – and believe me, we’re dealing with massive amounts of data – each of these companies crunches the data and is able to very exactly predict what each of its’ customers will do next. Groceries successfully predict what to buy the next summer, based on what they sold months or weeks ago. Casino’s know how to predict how much money each individual customer is willing to lose before leaving (it’s actually called the ‘pain point’). You can be sure that if a gambler reaches this pain point, an employee of the casino steps forward to offer him/her an incentive to stay (i.e. a free drink or meal). Airlines predict when you will be unsatisfied by their service (i.e. they lost your baggage too often), and will upgrade your seat (for free) just before you’ll start flying with another company.

The list of excellent examples goes on and on. But, the general – and possibly frightening – conclusion drawn by Ian Ayres is, that if a company starts giving you gifts, you probably have paid too much.

Less than a year ago, I wrote these exact words. I then discussed the publication of a Dutch book on statistics, to which I provided minor assistance. Now, I repeat these words to introduce the Enligsh translation of this conceptual introduction to statistics, called Statistical Tools. Again, I contributed to this publication, this time by providing a first, rough, translation from Dutch to English. Let me repeat below what I wrote before on this blog, for of course this still holds relevance for the translation to English:

With the focus on practical application rather than statistical theory, the first chapter starts explaining the goal of inferential statistics, meanwhile introducing the concepts of measurement and variables. Considerable attention is paid to the importance of high quality data to perform your analyses on. The second chapter deals with descriptive statistics, both in a numerical and a graphical way. Here, also the concepts of a distribution and of correlation are introduced. The third and final chapter discusses the testing of hypotheses, using techniques as the cross-table, tests for means and proportions, various forms of correlation, and finally multiple regression.

Clearly, the setup of this book is what one might expect from an introduction to statistics. However, I think this book has a unique approach by its strong focus on the conceptual level, rather than the (mathematical) statistical theory. Nevertheless, it does not shy away from relatively complex subjects such as the multiple regression. Even on the conceptual level, it pays a lot of attention to the assumptions required for the various analyses discussed. The practical approach of this book is enhanced even further, because all examples come from ‘real life’ research. On the accompanying website SPSS data files and syntax files are made available, so that every example from the book can be repeated by the reader.

Aimed at the novice statistics student, this book offers a comprehensible and conceptual approach at statistics. It will surely help students of statistics to grasp what they’re actually doing when pushing SPSS’s buttons or trying to interpret published figures. In that sense, I think that for many statistics student, this book successfully reaches is goal of transforming statistics form an abstract undertaking to an actually useful and applicable tool.

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This post is part of my ‘Reading List’. In this series I jot down some thoughts about the books I read and enjoyed. Some posts my give a somewhat balanced overview of a book, others will just focus on some aspects that, for whatever reason, caught my attention. Never are these posts meant as an evaluation or even review of the book. I just like to share some impressions.

An overview of my Reading List is available, which contains both a list of the books that I wrote about, and another list of books I’m planning to read.