1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«In this article I explore one of the features of [Gary] Becker’s Egalitaria—the patterns in employment rates for parents of young children. I begin with a review of explanations for sexual asymmetries in the work of parents; why we do not today live in Egalitaria. I then ponder how far down the road to Egalitaria we have travelled in the years since Becker’s speculation, bringing evidence from Canada, the USA, the UK, and Germany. Finally, I use Canadian evidence to assess the success of some common policies that might be used to accelerate the trip to Egalitaria.» (p. 258) À noter que les données canadiennes proviennent principalement du Québec.

Questions/Hypothèses :
«For the purposes of this article, I will refer to Becker’s hypothesized future as ‘Egalitaria.’ In Egalitaria, childcare responsibilities are no longer sexually asymmetric and employment among those with young children does not differ systematically for mothers and fathers.» (p. 258)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«I use microdata on the labour force for all four countries. For Canada, I use the monthly Labour Force Survey, from which data are available monthly from 1976 to 2011. […] For the USA, I use the March Current Population Survey going back to 1968. In the UK, I use the Spring (April–June) waves of the quarterly Labour Force Survey and its antecedents, going back to 1975.4 Finally, in Germany I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel.» (p. 265)

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«From this work, I draw two primary conclusions. First, Becker’s intuition that the gap in the employment of mothers and fathers was closing was correct—and this gap fell by nearly half in a relatively short 20-year period during the 1970s and 1980s. Parental employment patterns are not biologically fixed; the evidence presented here shows maternal employment can swing strongly in a short time period. Second, policy by itself seems to have a modest impact. Maternity leave makes the gap larger while the leave is underway, but does not seem to be compensated by more work by mothers when the child is older. The evidence from Quebec and from Germany suggests that large childcare subsidies can have a more lasting impact, but a large parental employment gap still remains even with these programs in place.» (p. 277) About the province of Quebec, the author notes that «[w]hile not completely closing the gap between the employment of mothers and fathers, the Quebec childcare reform uncovers evidence that childcare subsidies may have a continued impact on maternal work even after the child graduates into regular school. This sustained and continued impact suggests that childcare subsidies may do more to close the parent employment gap than parental leave policies.» (p. 277)