Gender equality trade-offs re-examined: evidence from Swiss cantons

Abstract

Decades of comparative research on gender inequality reported a counter-intuitive finding: state support for working mothers may paradoxically decrease gender equality within the labour market. Though this form of an inclusion-equality trade-off is specific to paid work, similar trade-offs may occur with respect to unpaid work. The present study discusses four such trade-offs and provides fresh empirical evidence from a within-country comparison of the 26 Swiss cantons. The analyses explore whether (on a macro level) welfare state support for maternal employment is negatively associated with vertical segregation, horizontal segregation, female workload or paternal involvement. Cantons with higher maternal employment show more vertical segregation and less paternal involvement, but these two inverse correlations are related to the cultural rather than the political context. The paper concludes with a discussion as to whether these cultural effects complement previous findings of politically induced trade-offs or indirectly support them.

Des décennies de recherches comparatives sur les inégalités de genre rapportent des résultats pour le moins contre intuitif: le soutien étatique pour les mères pratiquant une activité lucrative peut, paradoxalement, diminuer l’égalité de genre sur le marché du travail. Ces résultats indiquent un compromis entre inclusion et égalité. Bien que ce type de compromis soit généralement spécifique au travail rémunéré, il peut également concerner le travail domestique. La présente étude explore quatre types de compromis «inclusion-égalité» (trade-off) et fournit des résultats empiriques basés sur une comparaison entre les cantons suisses. Nous analysons les associations (au niveau macro) entre l’aide d’État en faveur de l’emploi maternel et, d’autre part, la ségrégation verticale, la ségrégation horizontale, le temps de travail total (rémunéré et domestique) effectué par les mères et finalement le temps consacré au travail domestique par les pères. Finalement, les cantons avec une présence plus marquée d’emploi maternel présentent aussi des niveaux plus élevés de ségrégation verticale et moins d’engagement des pères. Toutefois les deux corrélations ne paraissent pas liées au soutien de l’Etat, mais aux valeurs et aux modèles relatifs à une répartition des rôles «correcte» entre femmes et hommes (gender culture). Nous concluons avec une discussion sur la relation entre les résultats basés sur les cantons suisses et les résultats issus de comparaisons internationales.

Keywords:

• gender inequality
• welfare state
• trade-offs
• gender-class intersection
• unpaid work
• Swiss cantons

Mots-clés:

• inégalité entre les sexes
• État-providence
• trade-offs
• intersection entre genre et classes sociales
• travail domestique
• cantons suisses

Notes on contributors

Martin Gasser is a Ph.D. student at the Division of Sociology, Social Policy, and Social Work at the University of Fribourg. His research focuses on cross-cantonal variation in gender inequality in Switzerland, on using Qualitative Comparative Analysis and on the determinants of father involvement in childcare.

Lena Liechti is a Ph.D. student at the Division of Sociology, Social Policy, and Social Work at the University of Fribourg. Her research focuses on gender inequality across different social classes and the development of gender arrangements within families.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. The pattern is a trade-off only if occupational sex segregation is a form of inequality in its own right (Evertsson et al., 2009) and not merely a difference (Blackburn et al., 2002).

2. This is our reconstruction of the otherwise informal usage of ‘trade-off’ in comparative research: (a) reflects the intuition that it is difficult to have x without losing y and (b) reflects the intuition that a trade-off requires an actor (welfare state) pursuing both goals x and y.

3. Though rather independent of the political context, we expect tertiary-educated mothers to have a higher total workload, because they work longer hours, are reluctant to externalise childcare and are prone to be involved in parenting (Craig, 2006; Monna & Gauthier, 2008; Sayer et al., 2004).

4. This strategy of combining employment scope and intensity into one indicator makes sense for Swiss cantons where scope and intensity are positively correlated. In international comparisons, however, the two aspects of employment frequently diverge.

5. This is only one dimension of horizontal segregation and we cross-checked with more common indices such as the index of dissimilarity (e.g., Charles & Grusky, 2004; Korpi et al., 2013).

6. Given that our data on unpaid work consistently underestimates unpaid work (Büro für arbeits- und sozialpolitische Studien, 2004), these coefficients should not be over-interpreted. Note that, at the individual level, an hour more paid work is associated only with 20 minutes less unpaid work (Baumgartner, 2006, p. 17).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [grant number 100017_153587].