IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v9y2020i12p222-d454674.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Motherhood in Europe: An Examination of Parental Leave Regulations and Breastfeeding Policy Influences on Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration

Author

Listed:
  • Karen Vanderlinden

    (Department of Sociology, Health and Demographic Research, Ghent University, 9000 Gent, Belgium)

  • Veerle Buffel

    (Department of Sociology, Centre for Population, Family and Health, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium)

  • Bart Van de Putte

    (Department of Sociology, Health and Demographic Research, Ghent University, 9000 Gent, Belgium)

  • Sarah Van de Velde

    (Department of Sociology, Centre for Population, Family and Health, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium)

Abstract

This study examines how European variation in breastfeeding initiation and duration rates is related to the presence of baby-friendly hospitals, the international code of marketing of breast-milk substitutes, and different constellations of maternal, paternal, and parental leave. We use Eurobarometer data (2005) to compare initiation and duration levels across 21 European countries within a multilevel regression framework. We find that countries play a significant role in determining breastfeeding through their different social policies. Breastfeeding practices across different leave regulation models differ substantially. We conclude that ongoing changes in paid maternity and parental leave length combined with uptake flexibility and paternal involvement help determine breastfeeding rates and should put infant feeding issues on governmental policy agendas across European countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen Vanderlinden & Veerle Buffel & Bart Van de Putte & Sarah Van de Velde, 2020. "Motherhood in Europe: An Examination of Parental Leave Regulations and Breastfeeding Policy Influences on Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-22, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:12:p:222-:d:454674
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/12/222/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/12/222/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anita Kottwitz & Anja Oppermann & C. Katharina Spiess, 2016. "Parental leave benefits and breastfeeding in Germany: effects of the 2007 reform," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 859-890, December.
    2. Baker, Michael & Milligan, Kevin, 2008. "Maternal employment, breastfeeding, and health: Evidence from maternity leave mandates," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 871-887, July.
    3. Perez-Escamilla, R. & Pollitt, E. & Lonnerdal, B. & Dewey, K.G., 1994. "Infant feeding policies in maternity wards and their effect on breast- feeding success: An analytical overview," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(1), pages 89-97.
    4. Buckles, Kasey & Kolka, Shawna, 2014. "Prenatal investments, breastfeeding, and birth order," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 66-70.
    5. Braun, M.L.G. & Giugliani, E.R.J. & Soares, M.E.M. & Giugliani, C. & De Oliveira, A.P. & Danelon, C.M.M., 2003. "Evaluation of the Impact of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative on Rates of Breastfeeding," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(8), pages 1277-1279.
    6. L. Bryan, Mark & P. Jenkins, Stephen, 2013. "Regression analysis of country effects using multilevel data: a cautionary tale," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-14, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Galtry, Judith, 2003. "The impact on breastfeeding of labour market policy and practice in Ireland, Sweden, and the USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 167-177, July.
    8. Daniel Stegmueller, 2013. "How Many Countries for Multilevel Modeling? A Comparison of Frequentist and Bayesian Approaches," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 748-761, July.
    9. Mandal, Bidisha & Roe, Brian Eric & Fein, Sara Beck, 2010. "The differential effects of full-time and part-time work status on breastfeeding," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 79-86, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Danuta DUDA & Kamila TUREÄŒKOVÃ & Ivona BURYOVÃ & Radka KUBALOVÃ, 2022. "Maternity benefit: comparison of systems and financing in V4 countries," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 13, pages 141-163, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miki Kobayashi & Emiko Usui, 2017. "Breastfeeding practices and parental employment in Japan," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 579-596, June.
    2. Bidisha Mandal & Brian Roe & Sara Fein, 2014. "Work and breastfeeding decisions are jointly determined for higher socioeconomic status US mothers," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 237-257, June.
    3. Huebener, Mathias & Kuehnle, Daniel & Spiess, C. Katharina, 2019. "Parental leave policies and socio-economic gaps in child development: Evidence from a substantial benefit reform using administrative data," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 61.
    4. Marisa Bucheli & Máximo Rossi, 2016. "Attitudes towards Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Latin America," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0116, Department of Economics - dECON.
    5. Navarro, María & D'Agostino, Antonella & Neri, Laura, 2020. "The effect of urbanization on subjective well-being: Explaining cross-regional differences," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    6. Hill, Paula & Bissoondoyal-Bheenick, Emawtee & Faff, Robert, 2018. "New evidence on sovereign to corporate credit rating spill-overs," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 209-225.
    7. Tudor, Simona, 2020. "Financial incentives, fertility and early life child outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    8. Trude Lappegård & Sebastian Klüsener & Daniele Vignoli, 2014. "Social norms, economic conditions and spatial variation of childbearing within cohabitation across Europe," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2014-002, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    9. Philipp Poppitz, 2016. "Does self-perceptions and income inequality match?," IMK Working Paper 173-2016, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    10. Marisa Bucheli & Maximo Rossi, 2019. "Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Latin America and the Caribbean," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, August.
    11. Mathias Huebener & Daniel Kuehnle & C. Katharina Spiess, 2017. "Paid Parental Leave and Child Development: Evidence from the 2007 German Parental Benefit Reform and Administrative Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1651, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Enrique López-Bazo & Elisabet Motellón, 2016. "“Innovation, heterogeneous firms, and the region”," AQR Working Papers 201607, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Apr 2016.
    13. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J. & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2016. "Healthy(?), wealthy, and wise: Birth order and adult health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 27-45.
    14. Concetta Russo & Marco Terraneo, 2020. "Mental Well-being Among Workers: A Cross-national Analysis of Job Insecurity Impact on the Workforce," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 421-442, November.
    15. Fabrizio Pompei & Ekaterina Selezneva, 2015. "Education Mismatch, Human Capital and Labour Status of Young People across European Union Countries," Working Papers 347, Leibniz Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies).
    16. Héctor Alberto Botello-Penaloza & Isaac Guerrero-Rincón, 2019. "Las leyes de licencia de maternidad y el mercado laboral en Colombia," Revista Economía y Región, Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, vol. 13(1), pages 67-86, June.
    17. E. Keith Smith & Adam Mayer, 2019. "Anomalous Anglophones? Contours of free market ideology, political polarization, and climate change attitudes in English-speaking countries, Western European and post-Communist states," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 17-34, January.
    18. Dykes, Fiona, 2005. "'Supply' and 'demand': breastfeeding as labour," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 2283-2293, May.
    19. Natalia Danzer & Victor Lavy, 2018. "Paid Parental Leave and Children's Schooling Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 81-117, February.
    20. Sara Oloomi, 2016. "Impact of Paid Family Leave of California on Delayed Childbearing and on Infant Health Outcomes," Departmental Working Papers 2016-08, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:12:p:222-:d:454674. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.