I’m not convinced by the predictive power of dreams, but I did rise to the occasion during the public defense of my PhD dissertation on Friday January 10. I was feeling confident, and powerful in answering the opponents’ questions. Based on my dissertation and the defense, the committee awarded me with ‘cum laude’, a rare honor.

I am grateful for the support I received during my PhD. My supervisors Ariana Need and Henk van der Kolk gave my academic career the best possible start. My colleagues, both in my department and internationally, all learned me something valuable. My paranymphs Wouter Jans and Laurie Maldonado gave me moral support during my defense. To each and everyone: thank you!

The dissertation was approved by a committee of 6 renowned scholars, and I will defend it during a public defense on January 10th, 2014. 

The dissertation addresses how family policies have been effective in shaping inequalities in women’s employment and earnings inequality within and between households. Reconciliation policies resulted in a smaller gap in employment between mothers and women without children, particularly so among higher educated women. Overly long childcare leave, however, reduced mothers’ employment. Financial support policies to families with children were shown to result in mothers being less likely to be employed. In addition, we found that women’s earnings reduced inequality between households. In countries that facilitate women’s employment, with extensive reconciliation policies and limited financial support policies, women’s earnings contributed more strongly to reducing earnings inequality between households.

I would welcome any discussion about my work, and possible research interests we may share. I can be contacted at rense.nieuwenhuis@sofi.su.se

Download Family Policy Outcomes (.PDF, 7 Mb).

My dissertation will be available very soon, and I am currently in the process of updating this website to provide some additional information. You can expect a good number of dissertation-related posts building up until my defense on January 10th 2014.

Key findings of my dissertation include:

This dissertation showed how family policies have been effective in shaping inequalities in women’s employment and earnings inequality within and between households. Reconciliation policies were found to result in a smaller gap in employment between mothers and women without children. Overly long childcare leave negatively affects the employment of mothers and higher educated mothers benefit more from paid leave than the lower educated. Financial support policies to families were shown to result in mothers being less likely to be employed. In countries that facilitate women’s employment, with extensive reconciliation policies and limited financial support policies, women’s earnings contributed more strongly to reducing earnings inequality between households.

More information will follow soon on this blog and on this dedicated page of my website. Should you be interested in receiving this dissertation on Family Policy Outcomes, or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at rense.nieuwenhuis@sofi.su.se. Any conversation about my work will be greatly appreciated.