Couple's labour force participation around parenthood: can differential labour market trajectories and resources account for doing gender?

In recent decades, European societies witnessed an unprecedented increase in women's labour force participation. The rise of gender equity in education and labour markets has not been mirrored, however, by a similar shift of gender equity in families and households. The division of household work continues to be strongly gendered and labour force participation around parenthood shows more variation among women than men. Micro-economic theories account for gender specialization in (un)paid work by bargaining based on relative socio-economic positions of partners. However, as women increasingly outperform men in terms of earning potential, the persistence of traditional gender specialization in households is paradoxical. In contrast, gender identity theories suggest that couples conform to and reproduce gender roles, and that decisions regarding family formation and the parental division of (un)paid labour strongly depend on cultural norms. Using detailed register-based panel data for Belgium and comparative panel data for Europe, this project studies couples' labour force participation around parenthood. We assess whether economic preconditions for parenthood (financial resources, time availability, job security) are gendered and subsequently analyse whether the relative socio-economic position of partners can account for the reinforcement of gender roles following parenthood, or whether gender roles persist despite the changing relative labour market position of women.

Keywords:PARENTHOOD, GENDER

Disciplines:Applied sociology, Demography