IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/decono/v153y2005i4p399-423.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Balancing Work and Family Life during the Life Course

Author

Listed:
  • A. Bovenberg

Abstract

This paper discusses how work and family obligations can be better reconciled in EU countries by adopting a life-course perspective. It stresses that longer and deeper involvement in paid employment allows people to exploit their longer life to reconcile the two ambitions of, first, investing in the next generation as a parent and, second, pursuing a fulfilling career in paid work. Greater flexibility of working time over the life course requires more individual responsibility for financing leave. Moreover, rather than shielding older insiders through employment protection, labor-market institutions should enable parents of young children to easily enter and remain in the labor market. Finally, more activating social assistance and in-work benefits should replace passive income support for breadwinners. Copyright Springer 2005

Suggested Citation

  • A. Bovenberg, 2005. "Balancing Work and Family Life during the Life Course," De Economist, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 399-423, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:decono:v:153:y:2005:i:4:p:399-423
    DOI: 10.1007/s10645-005-2659-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10645-005-2659-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10645-005-2659-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stiglitz, Joseph E. & Yun, Jungyoll, 2005. "Integration of unemployment insurance with retirement insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2037-2067, December.
    2. Adriana D. Kugler & Giovanni Pica, 2006. "The Effects of Employment Protection and Product Market Regulations on the Italian Labour Market," Chapters, in: Julián Messina & Claudio Michelacci & Jarkko Turunen & Gylfi Zoega (ed.), Labour Market Adjustments in Europe, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Florence Jaumotte, 2003. "Female Labour Force Participation: Past Trends and Main Determinants in OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 376, OECD Publishing.
    4. Lans Bovenberg, A. & Jacobs, Bas, 2005. "Redistribution and education subsidies are Siamese twins," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2005-2035, December.
    5. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2004. "Parental Employment and Child Cognitive Development," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    6. Jean-Marc Burniaux & Romain Duval & Florence Jaumotte, 2004. "Coping with Ageing: A Dynamic Approach to Quantify the Impact of Alternative Policy Options on Future Labour Supply in OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 371, OECD Publishing.
    7. Orszag, Mike & Snower, Dennis J., 1997. "Expanding the Welfare System: A Proposal for Reform," CEPR Discussion Papers 1674, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Alicia Adsera, 2011. "Where Are the Babies? Labor Market Conditions and Fertility in Europe [Où sont les bébés ? Conditions du marché du travail et fécondité en Europe]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 1-32, February.
    9. Snower, Dennis & Orszag, Mike & Fölster, Stefan & Gidehag, Robert, 2002. "Assessing Welfare Accounts," CEPR Discussion Papers 3479, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Adriana D. Kugler & Giovanni Pica, 2006. "The Effects of Employment Protection and Product Market Regulations on the Italian Labour Market," Chapters,in: Labour Market Adjustments in Europe, chapter 4 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Kugler, Adriana & Pica, Giovanni, 2003. "The effects of employment protection and product market regulations on the Italian labor market," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0310, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    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. Peter Kooreman & Henriëtte Prast, 2010. "What Does Behavioral Economics Mean for Policy? Challenges to Savings and Health Policies in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 101-122, June.
    2. Versantvoort, Maroesjka, 2008. "Studying time use variations in 18 countries applying a life course perspective," MPRA Paper 21141, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Lei Delsen & Jeroen Smits, 2010. "Does the Life Course Savings Scheme Have the Potential to Improve Work–Life Balance?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(3), pages 583-604, September.
    4. Mark van Duijn & Maarten Lindeboom & Mauro Mastrogiacomo & M. Lundborg, 2009. "Pension plans and the retirement replacement rates in the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 118, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Zhelyazkova N., 2013. "Parental leave within the broader work‐family trajectory : What can we learn from sequence analysis?," MERIT Working Papers 2013-049, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Peter Birch Sørensen & Martin Ino Hansen & A. Lans Bovenberg, 2006. "Savings Accounts and the Life-Cycle Approach to Social Insurance," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-03, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    7. Giovanni Russo & Wolter Hassink, 2008. "The Part-Time Wage Gap: a Career Perspective," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 145-174, June.
    8. Bovenberg, A.L. & Hansen, M. & Sorensen, P.B., 2008. "Individual savings accounts for social insurance : Rationale and alternative designs," Other publications TiSEM 72e236b0-ad63-4bea-a314-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    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. A. Lans Bovenberg, 2004. "Resolving conflicts between profession and family: Lifetime solutions," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 57(21), pages 17-29, November.
    2. A. Lans Bovenberg & Peter Birch Sørensen, 2004. "Improving the Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off: Mandatory Savings Accounts for Social Insurance," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 11(4), pages 507-529, August.
    3. Ruud de Mooij, 2004. "Towards efficient unemployment insurance in the Netherlands," CPB Memorandum 100, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    4. Pierre, Gaëlle & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2004. "Employment Regulations through the Eyes of Employers: Do They Matter and How Do Firms Respond to Them?," IZA Discussion Papers 1424, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Pierre, Gaelle & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2007. "How labor market policies can combine workers'protection with job creation : a partial review of some key issues and policy options," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 41439, The World Bank.
    6. Marek Gora & Piotr Lewandowski & Maciej Lis, 2017. "Temporary employment boom in Poland – a job quality vs. quantity trade-off?," IBS Working Papers 04/2017, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    7. Bovenberg, A.L. & Sorensen, P.B., 2007. "Optimal Taxation and Social Insurance in a Lifetime Perspective," Other publications TiSEM 9315c167-87c2-474d-988a-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Schivardi, Fabiano & Torrini, Roberto, 2008. "Identifying the effects of firing restrictions through size-contingent differences in regulation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 482-511, June.
    9. Boeri, Tito & Jimeno, Juan F., 2005. "The effects of employment protection: Learning from variable enforcement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2057-2077, November.
    10. A. Lans Bovenberg & Peter Birch Sørensen, "undated". "Optimal Taxation and Social Insurance in a Lifetime Perspective," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-01, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    11. Tinh Doan & Tran Quang Tuyen & Hien Nguyen, 2018. "Local Competitiveness and Labour Market Returns in a Transition Economy: Evidence from Vietnam," Working Papers in Economics 18/06, University of Waikato.
    12. Cervini-Plá, María & Ramos, Xavier & Ignacio Silva, José, 2014. "Wage effects of non-wage labour costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 113-137.
    13. Susanne Fahlén & Livia Sz. Oláh, 2018. "Economic uncertainty and first-birth intentions in Europe," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(28), pages 795-834.
    14. Adriana D. Kugler, 2004. "The Effect of Job Security Regulations on Labor Market Flexibility. Evidence from the Colombian Labor Market Reform," NBER Chapters, in: Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, pages 183-228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Mr. Marcello M. Estevão, 2005. "Product Market Regulation and the Benefits of Wage Moderation," IMF Working Papers 2005/191, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Davide Furceri & Annabelle Mourougane, 2012. "How Do Institutions Affect Structural Unemployment in Times of Crises?," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 59(4), pages 393-419, September.
    17. International Monetary Fund, 2006. "Germany: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2006/017, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Anders Bornhäll & Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Niklas Rudholm, 2017. "Employment protection legislation and firm growth: evidence from a natural experiment," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 169-185.
    19. Doan, Tinh & Tran, Tuyen Quang & Nguyen, Hien, 2018. "Provincial Competitiveness And Labour Market Returns In Vietnam," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 59(2), pages 95-112, December.
    20. Campos, Nauro F. & De Grauwe, Paul & Ji, Yuemei, 2023. "Structural reforms and economic performance: the experience of advanced economies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    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:kap:decono:v:153:y:2005:i:4:p:399-423. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.