This project provides a review of how and how far social investment policies enable women’s labour participation in Europe and East Asia. It focuses on five areas of work-family reconciliation policies (child care, parental leaves, maternity protection, flexible working hours and women’s pension income in older age) in seven research sites (France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, South Korea, Sweden and the UK).
These issues are important because: 1) many of the sites are facing similar socio-economic challenges, such as low fertility rate and shortage of labour; 2) there is a common concern regarding unequal gender division of labour in the family and its knock-on effects on women’s labour participation and the financial independence they need for exercising personal choice on their roles in the family and economy at different stages of life; 3) Europe and East Asia countries have different cultural heritage and welfare traditions and potentially differences in the understandings and practices of social investment perspectives.
The objectives of the project are 1) to examine the meanings of the social investment perspective in the selected sites; 2) to identify similarities and differences in their work-family reconciliation measures; 3) to examine the effectiveness of these policies in promoting the social inclusion of women in the labour market and the family; 4) to explore factors contributing to or hampering such effectiveness; 5) to promote knowledge transfer between these sites; 6) to derive innovative policy suggestions to enhance the effectiveness of work-family reconciliation measures.
The main findings are as follows:
1) The understandings of social investment in Europe are expressed in EU directives and other policy documents with explicit rationales, aims, objectives, policy elements, policy targets, potentials and drawbacks. The understandings in East Asia are more reflected in the existence of social investment provisions, such as childcare and other work-family reconciliation measures. Some scholars reckon social investment measures could provide an answer to the multiple challenges faced by developed economies while others criticize that social investment measures could lead to more problems, such as reinforcing the dominance of the capitalist labour market and focusing too much on future generations at the expense of those who are in need at present.
2) Most governments value the importance of child care as a measure in reducing the caring responsibilities of the family. However, their commitments vary. A similar situation is found in other policies such as maternity protection and parental leaves. These could be due to factors such as residual welfare ideologies and financial constraints.
3) No significant increase in women’s relative labour participation rate (the difference between male and female full-time labour participation rate) is found although the social investment perspective has been influential in most research sites for more than a decade. Nor any major difference is noticed in the women’s relative labour participation rate among sites with different levels of government commitment to the provision of work-life reconciliation measures.
4) The ineffectiveness of conventional work-family reconciliation measures could be a result of their failure in addressing diversity among women. Current provisions concentrate on women providing care for young children and neglect the needs of women caring for other family members in needs because of other reasons (such as disabilities or chronic illnesses). Other explanations include the difficulties in changing the traditional gender division of labour and the impact of austerity policies subsequent to recent financial crises.
5) The project provides the researcher with the resources to visit different research sites to discuss issues with a wide range of audiences. The researcher has been enabled to serve as a bridge between the two regions (Europe and East Asia) and also between two communities (academic and policy) to promote mutual understanding and knowledge exchange.
6) The project has identified some innovative policy measures, including measures adopting a softer approach (such as the award of family-friendly employers promoted in Hong Kong and the campaign for no overtime work on Wednesdays in South Korea) and those of a more assertive nature (such as the non-transferrable daddy’s leave in some European countries and the legislation on carers’ paid leave currently under debate in the EU).
