Does social investment make the labour market ‘flow’? Family policies and institutional complementarities in Italy, Spain, Japan and South Korea

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-166
Author(s):  
Ijin Hong ◽  
Jieun Lee
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
Work Family

This chapter investigates whether social investments improve labour market flow by focusing on work–family reconciliation policy and women's labour market participation. It provides an overview on which institutional configurations one should consider to understand how the labour market flows during women's life cycles. The chapter then analyses Italy, Spain, Japan and South Korea and their institutional configurations. By investigating social investment latecomers in East Asia (Japan and Korea) and Southern Europe (Spain and Italy), the chapter reveals that social investment reform itself does not automatically lead to higher female employment rates, because the effectiveness of work–family reconciliation policy hugely depends on the institutional context. Ultimately, the chapter asserts that social investment strategies should be context-sensitive and tailored to different structural and institutional configurations if they are to be suitable and effective. It claims that, in order for social investment reform to be successful, complementary institutional reform is required.

Social Investment and the Matthew Effect

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Bonoli ◽  
Bea Cantillon ◽  
Wim Van Lancker
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Matthew Effect ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Active Labour Market Policies ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
The Matthew Effect ◽  
Matthew Effects

There are reasons to assume that spending on social investment is more susceptible to Matthew Effects than spending on social protection. Due to the gravity of social and cultural stratification, more vulnerable segments of societies tend to find it hard to navigate their way to the educational system, the labour market, and public services. Therefore, although social investment strategies have the potential to mitigate social and cultural inequalities, spending on capacitating services will tend to be more beneficial to the middle and upper classes, thereby creating an adverse redistribution of resources. This unintended and reinforcing effect has been shown by empirical research on the benefits of childcare, parental leave, some active labour-market policies, and higher education. Appropriate policy designs may reduce such adverse effects, but are unlikely to eliminate them completely. This requires that redistributive and protective issues should be firmly addressed in policy and discourse.

Work–family policy expansion and the idea of social investment: the cases of Germany, England, South Korea and Japan

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-60
Author(s):  
Samuel Mohun Himmelweit ◽  
Sung-Hee Lee
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Policy Problems

This chapter examines variation in the trend of work–family policy expansion, by exploring the reforms in four latecomer countries: Germany, England, South Korea and Japan. It argues that the different extents of expansion observed in the four countries can be explained by how much each country realised the potential of social investment as a polysemic international idea. The chapter then reviews the literature on discourse and ideas, with a particular focus on the concept of social investment. It concentrates on the main theoretical concepts of polysemy and ideas as coalition magnets. Ultimately, the chapter analyzes the use of social investment discourse in each of the cases and relates it back to the discussion of polysemy and coalition magnets; it focuses on the ways in which policy-makers defined the relevant policy problems and policy goals of work–family policy expansion.

Employment outcomes of social investment in latecomer countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-212
Author(s):  
Jaehyoung Park
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Job Quality ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
The Matthew Effect ◽  
Work Family

This chapter tests the Matthew effect argument with regard to social inequality in employment. It analyses whether social investment policies favour low-quality jobs. For the testing of the two dimensions, employment and job quality, the chapter focuses on two particular policy areas: active labour market policies (ALMPs) and work–family policies (WFPs). The first section briefly introduces the conflicting evidence for the relationship between social investment and employment outcomes in the literature, and suggests reasons why we need to pay more attention to class differentials in employment and job quality, as well as why we need to differentiate between ALMPs and WFPs at the programme level. The second section describes the data and estimation strategy. The chapter then elaborates the results and how they meet the argument. It also suggests some political implications, then calls for a more careful policy design that allows low-income groups to benefit from social investment policy.

Why No Social Investment in Italy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Kazepov ◽  
Costanzo Ranci
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
School Work ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Work Transition ◽  
The Impact

In this chapter, the case of Italy is considered as an extreme adverse case for social investment policies. Not only is the country’s social expenditure strongly targeted to compensatory policies, but the contextual conditions within which these policies are implemented are also likely to produce ambiguous consequences. Three recent social investment policies will be reviewed: (a) childcare policies; (b) school–work transition policies aiming at increasing the human capital available in a given territory; (c) apprenticeship policy. We show that these policies produce negative effects, not only, nor necessarily, because of their poor quantity and/or quality, but also, and basically, due to the lack of specific structural and institutional preconditions. Our main general conclusion is that these arrangements are crucial to understand the impact of social investment: strategies should be context-sensitive and tailored to the different structural and institutional configurations in order to be suitable and effective.

scholarly journals BIAS Word inventory for work and employment diversity, (in)equality and inclusivity (Version 1.0)

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Konnikov ◽  
Nicole Denier ◽  
Yang Hu ◽  
Karen D. Hughes ◽  
Jabir Alshehabi Al-Ani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Job Advertisements ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Job Postings ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Work And Employment

The language used in job advertisements contains explicit and implicit cues, which signal employers’ preferences for candidates of certain ascribed characteristics, such as gender and ethnicity/race. To capture such biases in language use, existing word inventories have focused predominantly on gender and are based on general perceptions of the ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ orientations of specific words and socio-psychological understandings of ‘agentic’ and ‘communal’ traits. Nevertheless, these approaches are limited to gender and they do not consider the specific contexts in which the language is used. To address these limitations, we have developed the first comprehensive word inventory for work and employment diversity, (in)equality, and inclusivity that builds on a number of conceptual and methodological innovations. The BIAS Word Inventory was developed as part of our work in an international, interdisciplinary project – BIAS: Responsible AI for Labour Market Equality – in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK). Conceptually, we rely on a sociological approach that is attuned to various documented causes and correlates of inequalities related to gender, sexuality, ethnicity/race, immigration and family statuses in the labour market context. Methodologically, we rely on ‘expert’ coding of actual job advertisements in Canada and the UK, as well as iterative cycles of inter-rater verification. Our inventory is particularly suited for studying labour market inequalities, as it reflects the language used to describe job postings, and the inventory takes account of cues at various dimensions, including explicit and implicit cues associated with gender, ethnicity, citizenship and immigration statuses, role specifications, equality, equity and inclusivity policies and pledges, work-family policies, and workplace context.

scholarly journals Women’s Career Strategy Choices and Fertility in Finland

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Elina Schleutker
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Household Resources ◽  
Large Families ◽  
Education And Employment ◽  
Age Of Entry

To better understand the correlation between fertility, female employment, and family policy, this paper employs Finnish register data on women born in 1969 to study the association between women’s labour market careers and fertility. The investigation is based on a theoretical argument which holds that women make different kinds of strategic choices about their careers as influenced by their own preferences, family policies, and household resources. Women are divided into three different groups based on their activity in the labour market from the month they reach age 18 until the month before they turn 35. The level and timing of fertility, the central characteristics of the women belonging to the different groups, and the entry into motherhood are examined with descriptive statistics and event history techniques. Results show that Finnish women’s choices concerning employment and fertility are relatively heterogeneous: At one end of the scale a considerable number of women stay outside the labour market for longer periods of time, enter motherhood at a relatively early age, and have large families, whereas at the other end we find women with long periods of continuous education and employment, high age of entry into motherhood, and small family sizes.

scholarly journals Female employment and migration in European countries: Introduction to the Special Issue

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Kreyenfeld ◽  
Claudia Diehl ◽  
Martin Kroh ◽  
Johannes Giesecke
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Gender Role Attitudes ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Native Women ◽  
Female Migrants ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
And Migration

Objective: This chapter introduces the reader to the Special Issue "Female Employment and Migration in European Countries". Background: While there is a large body of research on the labour market performance of male migrants, women’s employment behaviour after migration has only recently moved into the focus of attention. Method: This Special Issue draws on various research methods and data sources, including register, census, and survey data. Some of the studies focus on specific national contexts, such as the German, Spanish, Dutch, and Belgian situations. Other studies compare female migrants across European countries and between origin and destination countries. Results: The contributions in this Special Issue help to disentangle the complex interplay of socio-economic factors, family and fertility behaviour, gender role attitudes, and institutional constraints and policies that shape the employment behaviour of migrant women after they migrate. Conclusion: In many European countries, the employment rates of first-generation female migrants, and particularly those of women from non-EU countries of origin, lag behind the employment rates of native women. While prior research has often reported that socio-economic and cultural factors play a role in shaping the employment behaviour of female migrants, the contributions in this volume also emphasise the strong relevance of institutional factors in the receiving country, including migration, family, and labour market policies.

scholarly journals Recent reforms in French and German family policies: similar challenges, different responses

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Fagnani ◽  
Antoine Math
Keyword(s):  
Parental Leave ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Male Breadwinner ◽  
The Family ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
Paradigmatic Change ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Gradual Approach

This article investigates whether the recent reforms introduced in the family policies of both France and Germany are leading the two countries towards some measure of convergence. Germany has favoured dramatic changes, especially a new parental leave allowance, while France, for its part, has chosen a more gradual approach that has translated into an enhancement of its promotion of work-family reconciliation policies along with steady increases in spending related to childcare provision over the last decade. Despite a rise in its overall supply of childcare Germany still lags far behind France in this domain, a phenomenon that can be partially explained by a combination of institutional obstacles, the persistence of social norms governing childcare for under-3s, and excessive demand. We argue that the main drivers for paradigmatic change in Germany have been concerns over the consequences of declining fertility; a shortfall of qualified workers; and, the shattering of certitudes following an OECD study on childhood education. In France reforms in parental leave policies have been more incremental with, for example, mothers being encouraged to retain their links to the workforce even while on leave. But while the reforms adopted by Germany represent a radical departure from the former ‘male-breadwinner model’, mothers’ employment rates remain lower than in France and German mothers work part-time with much greater frequency than their French counterparts.

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