IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ulp/sbbeta/2024-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reallocating the Clock: How public services are shaping women’s time use in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Romane Frecheville-Faucon
  • Agathe Simon

Abstract

This paper studies the role of public services in shaping the housework of women and promoting their labour participation in Europe. We explore how public services can be a direct source of employment, notably through schools and hospitals and how they reduce the burden of unpaid labour through their ’defamilialisation’ function. We have elaborated a novel database covering public service provision in 450 European regions, combined with data from the 2012 and 2016 European Quality of Life Surveys (EQLS). Employing a multilevel model analysis, we assess the influence of regional public service availability on women’s time spent on paid and unpaid work. Our findings indicate that the availability of public care services is associated with a decrease in unpaid work hours, while other services emerge as a source of employment for women, significantly increasing their involvement in paid work. We also show that schools and hospitals seem to be associated with an increase in unpaid work, indicating that public services do not fundamentally change the gendered division of labour but are rather instruments for the reallocation of time.

Suggested Citation

  • Romane Frecheville-Faucon & Agathe Simon, 2024. "Reallocating the Clock: How public services are shaping women’s time use in Europe," Working Papers of BETA 2024-42, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2024-42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://beta.u-strasbg.fr/WP/2024/2024-42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ezcurra, 2010. "Does decentralization matter for regional disparities? A cross-country analysis," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(5), pages 619-644, September.
    2. Arnstein Aassve & Bruno Arpino & Alice Goisis, 2012. "Grandparenting and mothers’ labour force participation: A comparative analysis using the Generations and Gender Survey," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(3), pages 53-84.
    3. Nikolay Angelov & Per Johansson & Erica Lindahl, 2016. "Parenthood and the Gender Gap in Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 545-579.
    4. Gomes, Pedro Maia & Kuehn, Zoë, 2019. "You’re the One That I Want! Public Employment and Women’s Labor Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 12702, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Sandra L. Hofferth, 1999. "Child Care, Maternal Employment, and Public Policy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 563(1), pages 20-38, May.
    6. Attila Bartha & Violetta Zentai, 2020. "Long-Term Care and Gender Equality: Fuzzy-Set Ideal Types of Care Regimes in Europe," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 92-102.
    7. Kassim Tawiah & Samuel Iddi & Anani Lotsi, 2020. "On Zero-Inflated Hierarchical Poisson Models with Application to Maternal Mortality Data," International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, Hindawi, vol. 2020, pages 1-8, December.
    8. Penn, Helen, 2009. "International Perspectives On Quality in Mixed Economies of Childcare," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 207, pages 83-89, January.
    9. Daniela Del Boca, 2002. "The effect of child care and part time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 549-573.
    10. Ginevra Floridi & Ludovico Carrino & Karen Glaser & Candace Kemp, 2021. "Socioeconomic Inequalities in Home-Care Use Across Regional Long-term Care Systems in Europe [Demography of informal caregiving]," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 76(1), pages 121-132.
    11. Claudio Lucifora & Dominique Meurs, 2006. "The Public Sector Pay Gap In France, Great Britain And Italy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(1), pages 43-59, March.
    12. Attila Bartha & Violetta Zentai, 2020. "Long-Term Care and Gender Equality: Fuzzy-Set Ideal Types of Care Regimes in Europe," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 92-102.
    13. Taryn W. Morrissey, 2017. "Child care and parent labor force participation: a review of the research literature," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 1-24, March.
    14. Susan Himmelweit, 2002. "Making Visible the Hidden Economy: The Case for Gender-Impact Analysis of Economic Policy," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 49-70.
    15. Emanuela Cardia & Serena Ng, 2003. "Intergenerational Time Transfers and Childcare," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(2), pages 431-454, April.
    16. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1366 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Milla Salin & Minna Ylikännö & Mia Hakovirta, 2018. "How to Divide Paid Work and Unpaid Care between Parents? Comparison of Attitudes in 22 Western Countries," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(10), pages 1-20, October.
    18. Goodman, D.C. & Fisher, E. & Slukel, T.A. & Chang, C.-H., 1997. "The distance to community medical care and the likelihood of hospitalization: Is closer always better?," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(7), pages 1144-1150.
    19. Robert McClelland & Shannon Mok, 2014. "Labor Force Participation Elasticities of Women and Secondary Earners within Married Couples: Working Paper 2014-06," Working Papers 49433, Congressional Budget Office.
    20. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Gabriel Leite-Mariante, 2023. "The Child Penalty Atlas," NBER Working Papers 31649, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Johannes Geyer & Peter Haan & Katharina Wrohlich, 2014. "The Effects of Family Policy on Mothers' Labor Supply: Combining Evidence from a Structural Model and a Natural Experiment," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1366, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    22. Sandrine Dauphin, 2010. "Action publique et rapports de genre," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(3), pages 265-289.
    23. Ralitza Dimova & François-Charles Wolff, 2011. "Do downward private transfers enhance maternal labor supply? Evidence from around Europe," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(3), pages 911-933, July.
    24. Brooks-Gunn, J. & McCormick, M.C. & Shapiro, S. & Benasich, A. & Black, G.W., 1994. "The effects of early education intervention on maternal employment, public assistance, and health insurance: The infant health and development program," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(6), pages 924-931.
    25. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2009. "Maternal Labor Supply and the Introduction of Kindergartens into American Public Schools," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Pelin Akyol & Zeynep Yılmaz, 2024. "Effects of Grandmothers' Proximity on Mothers' Labour Force Participation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(5), pages 1122-1162, October.
    2. Deng, Yue & Zhou, Yuqian & Hu, Dezhuang, 2023. "Grandparental childcare and female labor market behaviors: Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Taryn W. Morrissey, 2017. "Child care and parent labor force participation: a review of the research literature," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Ainoa Aparicio Fenoll, 2020. "The uneven impact of women's retirement on their daughters' employment," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 795-821, September.
    5. Wang, Ye & Zhao, Xindong, 2022. "Grandparental childcare, maternal labor force participation, and the birth of a second child: Further knowledge from empirical analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 762-770.
    6. Bruno Arpino & Chiara Pronzato & Lara Tavares, 2014. "The Effect of Grandparental Support on Mothers’ Labour Market Participation: An Instrumental Variable Approach," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 369-390, November.
    7. Klára Kalíšková & Daniel Münich, 2023. "The impact of childcare availability on maternal employment: Evidence from Czech municipalities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-26, July.
    8. Gørtz, Mette & Sander, Sarah & Sevilla, Almudena, 2023. "Does the Child Penalty Strike Twice, and If So Why?," IZA Discussion Papers 16557, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1747 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Fang, Guanfu & Miao, Liya, 2024. "Expanding boundaries: The Impact of kindergarten availability on women's employment in China," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2020. "Does subsidized care for toddlers increase maternal labor supply? Evidence from a large-scale expansion of early childcare," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    12. Audrey Bousselin, 2022. "Access to universal childcare and its effect on maternal employment," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 497-532, June.
    13. Gørtz, Mette & Sander, Sarah & Sevilla, Almudena, 2025. "Does the child penalty strike twice?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    14. Eva Garcia-Moran & Zoe Kuehn, 2017. "With Strings Attached: Grandparent-Provided Child Care and Female Labor Market Outcomes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 80-98, January.
    15. Eva Garcia-Moran & Zoe Kuehn, 2017. "With Strings Attached: Grandparent-Provided Child Care and Female Labor Market Outcomes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 80-98, January.
    16. Daniela Del Boca, 2015. "Child Care Arrangements and Labor Supply," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 88074, Inter-American Development Bank.
    17. Janice Compton, 2015. "Family proximity and the labor force status of women in Canada," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 323-358, June.
    18. García-Morán, Eva & Kuehn, Zoe, 2012. "With strings attached: Grandparent-provided child care, fertility, and female labor market outcomes," MPRA Paper 37001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Bruno Arpino & Chiara D. Pronzato & Lara P. Tavares, 2012. "Mothers’ labour market participation: Do grandparents make it easier?," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 277, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    20. BOUSSELIN Audrey, 2017. "Childcare, maternal employment and residential location," LISER Working Paper Series 2017-05, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    21. García-Morán, Eva & Kuehn, Zoe, 2013. "With strings attached: Grandparent-provided child care and female labor market outcomes," MPRA Paper 48953, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ulp:sbbeta:2024-42. 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: the person in charge The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask the person in charge to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bestrfr.html .

    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.