Child-related leave and women’s labour market outcomes: towards a new paradigm in the European Union?

ABSTRACT

The current European Union (EU) legislative framework on child-related leave is facilitating an imbalance in the take-up of leave by women over men. There is a consolidated EU right to maternity leave for mothers but there is no parallel EU right to paternity leave for fathers. The EU right to parental leave is for both working mothers and fathers, but its design does not encourage an equal take-up by women and men. The aim of this article is to gain insight into the effects of child-related leave on women’s labour market outcomes. On the one hand, it reviews and analyses economic literature which points to the adverse consequences of leave on women’s earnings, and even on women’s labour market participation when the absences from work are very prolonged. On the other hand, it underlines the new direction followed by the European Commission towards greater equality between men and women at home and at work.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union law on child-related leave
• maternity
• paternity
• adoption and parental leave
• unequal distribution of caring responsibilities
• women’s labour market outcomes
• inequality at work
• Directive on work–life balance

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Erratum

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my PhD supervisors, professors Paul Schoukens and Borja Suárez Corujo, to professor Ángel Rodríguez García-Brazales, to my colleagues Jerome Saulnier, Vitalijus Novikovas and Halliki Voolma, to the Editors of the European Section, Dr Samantha Currie and Dr Claire Fenton-Glynn, and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal for their valuable input and advice. I also want to thank my friend Ricardo López Heredero for his continuous support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Economic and cultural reasons explain why women keep on being the main takers of leave entitlements. Thévenon and Solaz (2013, p. 16) explain the key economic rationale: ‘as leave payments do not fully replace the leave-taker’s wage, and since women often earn less than their partners, they are still more likely than men to take up all, or most, of the leave entitlement’. Cultural patterns also explain the current situation, as in many countries women continue to be expected to fulfil the traditional role of child carers.

2. The legal situation described in this article refers to Great Britain. Northern Ireland has its own legislation, which will not be addressed here.

3. ES official statistics show that fathers benefited from the maternity allowance in 2017 in less than 2% of cases: http://www.seg-social.es/Internet_1/Estadistica/Est/Otras_Prestaciones_de_la_Seguridad_Social/Maternidad/229796.

4. Several studies show the low take-up of the shared parental leave scheme in the United Kingdom: (https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/articles/united-kingdom-low-take-up-of-shared-parental-leave-scheme).

5. The assumptions are many firms, perfect information about wages and job conditions, firms are offering identical jobs, many workers with the same skills (https://www.economicshelp.org/labour-markets/wage-determination/).

6. Ruhm (1998, p. 289), report from the Commission on the implementation of Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992, on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding [Brussels, 15.03.1999, COM (1999) 100 final, p. 21] and Palma Ramalho, Foubert and Burri (2015, p. 18).

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Notes on contributors

Miguel de la Corte Rodríguez

Miguel de la Corte Rodríguez, Spanish Social Security Auditor working as a national expert for the Gender Equality Unit of the European Commission. He is also doing a joint PhD at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.