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!

Country-comparative questions are sometimes best answered by using person-level data.

The goal of my dissertation was to answer country-comparative questions and yet I have consistently used person-level (and household-level) data to answer these questions. As this inevitably results in all kinds of complexities, one can wonder why I took this road.

Clearly, some of the answers I arrived at were suggested by previous studies as well. Indeed, based on analyses of country-level data we had quite a firm understanding that reconciliation policies improve women’s employment. But there are several disadvantages in using country-level data, that were summarized by Kittel using the term ‘Crazy Methodology’ (see Chapter 1 of my dissertation for more a more detailed discussion on this topic).

However, the most important reason for me to use person-level data to answer country-comparative research is to provide stronger tests of hypotheses on family policy outcomes and to answer new country-comparative questions. This led to various new insights. To name three:

• Whereas family policies typically affect only mothers, a labor market characterized by a large service sector stimulates the employment of all women: both mothers and women without children. With only country-level data, we could not have made this distinction.
• Reconciliation policies were found to be more effective among higher educated women (see also proposition 3)
• Reconciliation policies were found to reduce earnings inequality both within and between households, and financial support policies were found to increase these inequalities. This is in line with proposition 5: Family policy arrangements that facilitate smaller earnings inequality within households also reduce inequality between households.

Thus, country-comparative questions are sometimes best answered by using person-level data, particularly when dealing with differences within countries.

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This is a series on the 10 propositions that are part of my PhD dissertation. These propositions are a Dutch tradition to highlight key findings of a dissertation and some additional insights by the author. My dissertation is titled “Family Policy Outcomes: Combining Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women’s Employment and Earnings Inequality in OECD countries, 1975-2005″ and I will defend my dissertation on January 10 2014. So, this series is also a count down. Find out more about my dissertation.

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).