Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women’s Employment
Family policies have stimulated women’s employment in OECD countries in recent decades. Women also gained a stronger position on the labour market with higher status positions and higher wages. As a result of this stronger position of women on the labour market, earnings inequality between men and women, and within households, decreased. Of course, the strong increase of women’s employment was not only explained by the implementation of family policies, but for instance also by women’s rising educational levels and decreasing fertility. In my dissertation (to be completed this year) I address the interplay between these institutional and demographic explanations of women’s employment.

First, I will outline the background of my dissertation. I argue that studies solely using macro-level data to study the outcomes of family policies on women’s employment are limited in two ways. First, they run the risk of committing an ecological fallacy, which is best illustrated by the observation that after 1985, the cross-country correlation between fertility and women’s employment turned positive. Second, I argue that studies using only macro-level data – despite the advantages of such data – are limited in the type of questions they can answer and cannot properly account for demographic changes. In other words: using solely macro-level data, studies cannot account for the combination of institutional and demographic explanations of women’s employment. I will illustrate my argument based on two chapters in my dissertation.

Secondly, I will detail a third chapter, which addresses the question whether the increased availability of family policies have the unexpected result of increased the earnings inequalities between households. I present a (very) preliminary analysis of a decomposition of earnings inequalities between households, in 17 OECD countries from 1975 to 2005. The results suggest that in societies with extensive reconciliation policies, women’s earnings have a stronger attenuating effect on the inequality between households. In contrast, in societies with extensive financial support policies, the attenuating effects of women’s earnings on household inequalities is weaker. It is well known that earnings inequalities between households have been increasing in recent decades. This analysis suggests that there is no ground to the concern that family policies have contributed to this trend. On the contrary: societies that provide an institutional context facilitating small inequalities within households, also tend to attenuate the inequalities between households.

I decided to show them that sociology ‘lies out on the street’. I picked the newspaper of the previous evening and demonstrated that of all three main questions of sociology (rationalization, inequality, and cohesion) multiple articles were to be found in that edition of the newspaper. Together, we discussed the relevance for sociology of the discussion regarding embryo-selection, the increased educational gap in health, and the processes of inclusion and exclusion of a unified Europe.

The majority of the time I spend on a discussion how to investigate when people object against minorities. I showed two fragments of a news show, illustrating two perspectives on when indigenous people object against minorities. I let the students brainstorm on how this background could lead to a specific research question, what kind of theoretical background would be appropriate, and how to investigate such a problem. I contrasted the survey approach with what they were familiar with from their secondary school (literature review). I also wanted to show them some results from ‘real’ research, so I interwove the brainstorming with the problem, theoretical background, and some of the outcomes of some project I worked on earlier.

I found it to be an inspirational process to prepare myself for giving this lecture. Especially because it was an interactive one, which you can’t (or rather: shouldn’t) write out literally. Some of the students came up with interesting discussion points and I think they had a good time. I know I did, and I hope to lecture a group of students again soon.