Title: Balancing family and work in everyday life: a European comparison
1Balancing family and work in everyday lifea
European comparison
- Dr. Katja Branger
- Social Analysis Section
- Presentation at the
- UNECE Work Session on Gender Statistics
- Geneva, 6-8 October 2008
2Family and work balance as a gender topic
- Women, particularly mothers, are now more often
economically active than in the past - In families it is increasingly the case that both
parents work - The challenge of combining family and
professional life concerns every economically
active member of the family as well as the family
as a whole - gt What do the indicators of the UNECE Gender
Database show us concerning family and work
balance from a gender perspective and in
international comparison?
3Indicators analysed in this paper
- Working patterns in couple households
- Time spent in paid and unpaid work
- Part-time employment of men and women
Other indicators to include in future work
- Employment rate by age of youngest child
- Employment rate by number of children under 16
- Employment rate by age and marital status
- One-parent families and children by sex of parent
- Unemployment by age
- Gender pay gap
4Countries included in the analysis are those with
2005-2006 data in UNECE Database for the three
indicators considered
- Belgium
- Germany
- Hungary
- Italy
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
5Working patterns in couple households
- Solutions for balancing professional and family
life are usually found in the division of labour
between the two partners. - Couples working patterns illustrate the division
of labour.
Data show that traditional patterns with the man
working full-time are the most common in all
countries, occurring in at least 8 in 10 couple
households.
6(No Transcript)
7(No Transcript)
8Part-time work
- Part-time work offers the possibility to solve or
mitigate the problem of balancing work and
family. - But it can also be a reflection of limited
mothers participation in the labour force due to
insufficient childcare services, as it is the
case in Switzerland mothers who wish to be
economically active often cannot find an adequate
(and affordable) childcare solution. - Part-time work not only has the positive aspect
of enabling people to reconcile professional and
private life. It can also mean job insecurity,
poor social welfare provision (e.g. in old age)
and sometimes fewer opportunities to pursue
vocational training or build a career.
9Part-time employed persons in general and those
aged 25 to 49 living in couple households,
2005-2006 in Source UNECE Gender Statistics
Database
10Paid and unpaid work
- In all countries there is a clearly gendered role
division looking after the home and the family
is still the womans or mothers job, even in
countries where women, especially mothers often
have paid employment due to their increased
participation in the labour force. - In most countries studied, women shoulder a
greater total workload of both paid and unpaid
work, apart from Switzerland and Sweden, where
the burden is shared equally between the sexes.
11Time spent in paid and unpaid work,
2000-2004 Hours per week, persons aged
15 Source UNECE Gender Statistics Database
12Summary
- In most countries a rather traditional division
of labour is still very widespread men working
full-time and women working part-time or
economically inactive. - Compared to fathers, mothers are faced with much
higher demands when combining family and
professional life since in most cases they are
responsible for looking after the household. - Part-time work represents a solution to the
problem of balancing work and family, but it can
also have negative consequences and be a
reflection of insufficient childcare services. - The working patterns of couple households change
fundamentally as soon as children are present,
depending of their age.
13Further work
- Completing analysis with indicators mentioned
previously - Including the evolution over time