A-typical work patterns of women in Europe:

A-typical work patterns of women in Europe: what can we learn from SHARELIFE? AntigoneLyberaki, PlatonTinios, GeorgePapadoudis

The sharelife period: a time of rapid change • Women’s position radically altered • What is the contribution of policy? • Change unevenly distributed over time and space. • Lived experiences of women in SHARELIFE correspond to the formative years of European social policy • From the Distinct “worlds of Welfare Capitalism” towards a common “European Welfare model” • DESCRIPTION • Women who find themselves in Minority in their country as expository device • Define groups wrt relation to work and family • Minority in own country, yet exhibit characteristics of majority in others. • Hope to be able to place complex questions with clarity. • E.g. Given that obstacles to employment not present in Scandinavia, what motivated some Scandinavian women to behave like Mediterraneans? (and v.v.) • ANALYSIS • Examination of Simultaneious participation/length of career • Do policy variables affect uniformly (quantitative variation) OR • Do their effects differ according to policy regime (World of welfare capitalism)?

Dominant and a-typical work-care arrangements • Evolving models of family (Lewis 2001) from ‘breadwinner’ to ‘dual earner’ and ‘in-between’ (‘one and a half earner’) families • Preference theory (Hakim 2000). Home-centred, work-centred,adaptives. • Two employment-fertility equilibria. High-high (+ social infrastructure); Low-Low (little insfrastructure). (Bettio & Villa 1998, Boeri 2005) • Do above fit in with ‘Welfare State’ typology? (Daly 2002 - evidence inconclusive re direct link between policy and female labour profiles)

Distribution of women by years worked Variable used: Years worked to age 50 – to avoid spurious correlations and abstract from pension system effects

Types for empirical investigation Katherine Hakim (2000, 2004): 3 categories of work-life choices. • 1. The ‘Full career woman’ (FCW) or work-centred woman (>30, if tertiary >26) • 2. The ‘full-time carer’ or ‘family-centred’ woman – Full family woman (FFW) (with no links to the labour market) (=0) • 3. The ‘adaptive’ woman, in-between (supplemental earner, main carer, in and out of work). – most numerous group • Here: further divided by work-intensity • ‘Adaptive Career Woman (ACW) and (20-29 years) • Adaptive Family Woman (AFW). (1-19)

Participation, employment and continuity Countries fall into 4 patterns. Nordic and eastern similar. Large gap to Southern.

By cohort: Decrease in never worked (FFW) Reduction of very long carreers (>35) 1. Crucial decision to enter or not 2. Once enter continue to a long career 3. Intermediate group (though growing) is small

Career interruptions, working women with children The birth of the (last) child is definitive • The rule is to stop work temporarily (>50% of working women) • Lowest BE 34%, Highest SE 86% • 1 in 4 has no interruption • More in PL, DE (E), ES, EL, IT (due to rigidities, or already drop out at marriage?) • Large minorities in North and Central drop out altogether after last child • NL 31%, DE (W) 30%, • Also DK 14,5% • Complex picture

Duration of interruption for temporary exits In South,working women return sooner. Evidence that inability to take time off obliges many to drop out altogether??? Iin the Continent, drop for 3 years and come back. By cohort: Converging trends discernible towards the middle

Why focus on comparisons of exceptions & rules elsewhere? • Each country and cohort (50-64, 65-79, and 80+) is likely to have a dominant type. • The paper focuses on women who are in the minority in their own country/cohort • The isolation for analysis of this group may be understood in several different ways: • As an expository device, laying bare influences which in the more general case might be difficult to unravel or isolate; • allowing for non-linearities in relationships and for self-reinforcing cycles common to sociological analyses; possibly an easier understanding of interdisciplinary links. • The question to be put is what are the differences and similarities with women of the same type in other places where they are a majority.

Comparing minorities: two exercises…. • Compare • With same group elsewhere -- shaded • with home country (in frame - complement) • Exercise 1 - Focus on Family women • FFW as rule: GR,IT,ES • FFW as exception: SE,DE,NL,DK,CH,CZ • Exercise 2 - Focus on Career women • FCW as rule: SE,DK,CZ • FCW as exception: ES,IT,GR

Exercise 1: Family women FFW have more children than all other women, but the difference is larger when Full Family pattern is an exception. Where FFW is the minority, the number of marriages is slightly higher, but when it is the rule it doesn’t have any influence on the number of marriages. self-perceived health FFW are more similar and tend to report poorer health compared to all other , women, and lower incidence of various health tests. When FFW is the rule working women tend to have lower satisfaction, higher disappointment and more sacrifices for their job.

Exercise 2: Career women Women who have less than a full career (including those with no work experience) are the same everywhere (regardless of context) in the sense that they have more children. Full career women tend to follow the general rule in their country, but have fewer numbers of marriages compared to the rest. Full career women tend to be richer, and this effect is stronger where they make up the majority trend (rule). Where full career women are the rule, they have better self-perceived health scores, higher job and career satisfaction, fewer disappointments and fewer sacrifices for their job.

A simultaneous labour participation- duration model • Decision could be recursive (decide in one’s ‘20s, having decided to work, THEN choose dominant career) • Interruption≠ ab initio participation • Identification not a problem because decisions • Heckman not due to simultaneity, but due to sample selection • Participation decision (ever worked) • Demographics, initial conditions, contexty • Initial conditions (values when individual in her 20s) • Context variables appropriate at 20s • Years of work to age 50 given decision to work • Individual characteristics (number of children etc) • Conditions appropriate to individual when 40 • Simultaneity not rejected by evidence • Behaviour of context variables once country and group fixed effects allowed for

Heckman-type equationsSelected effects –no groups No country effects allowed Presumes social protection differs parametrically and in consistent manner

Context variables- important once allow for groups • Crucial effect of children and marriage • Mother at 22 +ve effect on participation • But married and mother when 1st job –ve on years • Being in the labour force whn 1st child cements labour attachment (C. Goldin for the US). • EFFECT of Groups on context variables • Context variables ‘come to life’. • Different role in each ‘World of Welfare’ • Explain differences within groups, not between • Mostly in years worked • EPI large and -ve family function in social protection large and positive, maternity leave and RR, Unemployment • In participation equation: • Growth rate –ve, EPI drops out • Chiefly due to Mediterranean • Soc. Protection on family etc important only after 1980s

Light on formation of european social model? • The working lives initially followed a polarized pattern which is becoming less so with time. • more women with adaptive careers, leaving and reentering • This process is visible everywhere, but is still very uneven still in its geographical and social spread. • The econometric evidence finds some evidence for convergence. • Social policy matters more for the length of career, rather than for participation – which was taken earlier. • There appear two large fissures in Europe. (effect of social policy changes once we allow for them): • transition countries, and • the Mediterranean. • Policies matter but – not in a one-size-fits all way

A-typical work patterns of women in Europe: