The paper is found, of course, online. If you have difficulties accessing it, please do not hesitate to contact me directly for a copy.

From the abstract:

This study examined towhat extent family policies differently affect poverty among single-parent households and two-parent households. We distinguished between reconciliation policies (tested with parental leave and the proportion of unpaid leave) and financial support policies (tested with family allowances). We used data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database, covering 519,825 households in 18 OECD countries from 1978 to 2008, combined with data from the Comparative Family Policy Database. Single parents face higher poverty risks than coupled parents, and single mothers more so than single fathers. We found that employment reduces poverty, particularly for parents in professional occupations and for coupled parents who are dual earners. Longer parental leave, a smaller proportion of unpaid leave, and higher amounts of family allowances were associated with lower poverty among all households with children. Parental leave more effectively facilitated the employment of single mothers, thereby reducing their poverty more than among couples and single fathers. We found some evidence that family allowances reduced poverty most strongly among single fathers. An income decomposition showed that family allowances reduce poverty among two-parent households with up to 3 percentage points, and among single-parent households (mothers and fathers) up to 13 percentage points

Maldonado, L., & Nieuwenhuis, R. (2015). Family policies and single parent poverty in 18 OECD countries, 1978–2008 Community, Work & Family, 18 (4), 395-415 DOI: 10.1080/13668803.2015.1080661

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.

In the end, I won the best poster prize. An updated of that poster (with a slightly modified title) is available here.

In the meantime, the research this poster was based on was published in the Journal of Marriage of Family, as:

Rense Nieuwenhuis, Ariana Need, & Henk van der Kolk (2012). Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women’s Employment in 18 OECD Countries, 1975-1999 Journal of Marriage and Family, 74 (June), 614-630

Today, with this study, I was honored to receive the best research of 2012 award, given by the School of Management and Governance of the University of Twente. I’m very excited about the recognition our study receives, and the amount of attention it attracts.

So, please bear with me as I run you through some of our findings.

In our study we set out to describe the degree to which mothers in industrialized societies between 1975 to 1999 were less likely to be employed than women without children. We found that in no country mothers were more likely to be employed than women without children. Over time, women were increasingly likely to combine motherhood and employment in many, but not all, countries. Both mothers and women without children were more likely to be employed in societies with a large service sector and low unemployment. As you might expect, but has not been tested often, the employment of women without children was generally unaffected by family policies. Mothers were more likely to be employed in societies with extensive reconciliation policies and limited family allowances.

Interesting, right? If you want to know more (or don’t have access to the publication linked above), please don’t hesitate to contact me.

PS: this is the award!