Mental health in parents

Subtitle:a comparative analysis of European childcare systems

Against the backdrop of explicit intentions in the European Union to increase the number of childcare places and the participation rate, the topic of how childcare policies relate to parents’ mental health has been less extensively studied in the literature to date. This dissertation intends to fill this gap and to further our scientific knowledge on how family policies influence the relationship between childcare and the mental health of parents. After an introductory chapter, four empirical studies analyse this relationship. The first three studies compare parents across European countries. First, this dissertation examines how different types of childcare are related to the mental health of employed parents, paying special attention to gender differences. Results could not prove significant difference in the mental health of parents using either formal or informal care, nevertheless, gender effects could be observed when the normative context was taken into account. The second dissertation topic examines how the intensity of childcare and childcare norms are related to mental health in parents from a cross-national perspective. This study finds that full-time childcare was associated with lower levels of mental health in parents, while evidence was also found for national-level spending on formal childcare and a more widespread use of formal childcare to be associated with better mental health in working parents. The third study attempted to capture the complexity of family policy within the context of different normative settings, and to examine how this relates to mental health in parents with young children. This study concludes that welfare states could, by promoting individualizing policies, help parents in making parenthood a less stressful experience. The last study turns the global pandemic into a case study opportunity by investigating mothers’ positive outlook on a stressful situation in which childcare was not possible to be outsourced in a specific normative environment. Results suggest that working from home enabled mothers to better enact intensive mothering, in accordance with social expectations, than before the pandemic, and it helped them to evaluate the lockdown period positively. The studies in this dissertation offer some of the first cross-European analyses on the topic. The results of the studies contribute to the literature in not confirming an advantage of either formal or informal care. Furthermore, the dissertation has shown that the social context can affect the link between women’s and men’s mental health and the different types of care.

ISBN:978-90-5728-769-5

Publication year:2022

Keywords:Doctoral thesis

Accessibility:Open