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1 Working Paper No Differing welfare regimes: Decomposing Patterns of Female Employment in International Comparison Dirk Hofäcker A modified version of this paper will appear as chapter 2 in: Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Heather Hofmeister (Eds.) Globalization, Uncertainty, and Women in Society (Forthcoming) Faculty of Social and Economic Science Department of Sociology I Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg Lichtenhaidestrasse 11 P.O. Box 1549 D-9645 Bamberg Germany

2 CHAPTER II Differing welfare regimes: Decomposing Patterns of Female Employment in International Comparison Dirk Hofäcker, University of Bamberg, Germany 1. Introduction If one looks only about a century back, labor market involvement was a strongly male activity. A clear division of labor existed in most middle class families, relying on a male breadwinner supported by a female homemaker. However, in the course of recent social processes - especially, as we will argue, the consequences of globalization - this division of labor has been challenged by an increasing integration of women into the labor market: In some countries, these increases even lead to the partial replacement of the traditional model by new patterns often summarized under catchwords such as adult worker (Lewis 23) or dual earner (Korpi ). In public debates, these developments have often been interpreted as significant advances in the dismantling of gender differences. However, this lopsided positive view of labor market developments has also been criticized by a number of social scientist, especially representatives of feminist theory (e.g. Daly, Fagan and Rubery 1999, Hakim 1997, Sainsbury 1999). Firstly, these scholars referred to the fact that, despite changes in female labor market participation, the division of work inside the household has only marginally changed. Secondly, empirical studies emphasized that the frequently used consideration of crude labor force participation rates possibly obscures important differences in the extent and quality of women s labor market integration (e.g. Hakim 1993, Jonung and Persson 1993). The emergence of new atypical forms of work (like parttime work or flexible work arrangements) which in the optimistic view created the opportunities for women to find places in the labor market, was in the feminist view considered to be the substructure of persisting gender-based labor market inequalities. Henceforth, it was argued that female life courses, though statistically more fastened to the labor market, have remained critical in terms of economic security. Thirdly and finally, cross-national statistical comparisons suggested that political regimes, welfare arrangements and especially family policies supported women s labor supply to a varying degree, resulting in marked international differences in the actual labor market integration of women (e.g. Lewis 1993, Sainsbury 1999). 1

3 Reverting to the spadework of the above mentioned scholars while at the same time using most recent cross-nationally comparable data, the article at hand intends to provide an internationally comparative overview of key features in the development of female labor market participation and links their developments patterns to key aspects of globalization processes. As such, the overview intends to serve as contextual background for the subsequent country studies in this anthology. In a first step, the paper will develop hypotheses about globalization and its expected effects on female life courses (chapter 2). Based on stock data, the article will then test these hypotheses using most recent empirical statistical figures. It will put emphasis on describing the position of women in the labor market in different national contexts, focusing especially on their overall integration into paid employment and their most common work patterns (chapter 3). It will thereby pay special attention to cross-national differences and will review selected institutional characteristics of the countries for their explanation (chapter 4). Chapter 5 finally summarizes the results of the preceding analyses and points to further research tasks. 2. Globalization and the Development of Female Employment: General Hypotheses Generally, the GLOBALIFE research project utilizes a theoretical approach operating at three different theoretical levels when approaching the description and explanation of life course patterns under the influence of globalization (see Blossfeld 1999, ): - On a macro-theoretical level, it assumes that there is a unique globalization force that can be observed in most modern societies, comprising phenomena such as the growing importance of knowledge in modern societies, a rapid tertiarization of the economic structure, an increasing call for flexibility, increasing instability of social relations and the increasing global competition between welfare states leading to a stagnation and reduction in welfare state measures (see HOFMEISTER in this volume). - These macro processes may, however, lead to very different results at the national level. The reason for these differences lie at the institutional level where country-specificinstitutional 'packages', (welfare systems, educational and employment systems, family systems etc.) filter the influences of the overall globalization process in a specific way. These historically grown institutions show a considerable developmental inertia and therefore have a "tendency to persist in the process of globalization" (Blossfeld : 2). - Filtering processes at the institutional level may consequently lead to clearly differing results at the individual level: While in some countries, the globalization process can be 2

4 expected to lead to profound changes in individual life courses, other countries may show much lesser effects on the individual level. With this theoretical framework in mind, we can develop general hypotheses about women s labor force participation in the globalization process. First, women can be expected to have been strongly affected by processes of globalization: On the labor supply side, educational expansion led to an increasing involvement of women in higher education and therefore to their rising labor market potential. Furthermore, the decreasing stability of the malebreadwinner model, especially the increasing inability to support a family based on only one income, fostered female involvement in the labor market. Finally, the increasing instability of marriage generally supported a more individual design of female life courses rather than their orientation at a stable family pattern. On the other hand, on the labor demand side, tertiarization processes created new possible working opportunities for women. The erosion of the typical employment contract and its gradual replacement by atypical employment forms may additionally also have favored female employment, as women could be expected to be more inclined to take up reduced, restricted or flexible work due to their less continuous life course characteristics. Taking together supply and demand side factors, one should expect that as a consequence of the globalization process, female employment should have clearly increased during the last decades. We may call this theoretically based expectation Globalization hypothesis I. However, we might also assume that this integration might not have taken place uniformly across all work sectors. We may in fact assume that women s employment will concentrate in certain domains: concerning economic sector, especially in the (tertiary) service sector, and in terms of working arrangements rather in flexible work forms such as part-time work, temporary contracts or self-employment. We may term this expectation Globalization hypothesis II. But as pointed out above, we should expect that despite the theoretical assumption of an overall increase and specific concentration of female employment, there will be country specific differences in the actual realization of female employment due to institutional differences. These institutional filters include, among others, different national labor markets, welfare states and value systems. We will name this assumption of internationally different outcomes due to institutional filters our institutional hypothesis. It needs to be noted that globalization and institutional hypotheses are by no means competing assumptions, but rather have a complementary relationship: The globalization hypothesis describes the overall developmental process, within which national variations may occur, which are then to be explained by the institutional approach. 3

5 3. Female employment in the globalization process: an overview of trends based on stock data To test the practical appropriateness of the above-mentioned hypotheses, the following chapter will give a general overview of most recent data related to women s participation in the labor market. The description of trends will be structured to answer the following questions, turning from general to specific: 1) To what extent are women integrated into the labor market? (Section 3.1) 2) If women participate in employment, what is their labor force status and in which sectors of the economy are they typically found? (3.2) 3) What are the typical job characteristics of women in terms of working hours and types of contract? (Section 3.3) Data will be reviewed for all countries represented in this volume, ordered according to the welfare state/labor market typology used in this book (see Esping-Andersen 199, Ferrera, Blossfeld et al.,forthcoming). For achieving a maximum of cross-national comparability, trends will mainly be analyzed using stock data from large-scale international data sources such as ILO (Key Indicators of the Labour Market / KILM) or the OECD (Historical Statistics, Statistical Compendium). Depending on data availability, the presented time series will concentrate on the time from the 197s/8s until present Women s Overall Labor Force Participation As a starting point for our analysis, Figure 1 gives an overview of women s overall labor force participation as a percentage of the female working age population (here defined as women aged years). In accordance with our hypotheses, a first finding from a consideration of almost all depicted countries is that there has been a visible increase in female participation ratios during the last three decades, with signs of stabilization during the 199s. Despite this similarity in the overall trend, one can observe clear differences between the country clusters in terms of the realized extent of female labor force integration. High participation rates are observed in the social-democratic countries, where female labor force participation has a deeply rooted history, and in liberal countries, where current levels are a result of substantive increases in the last decades. The conservative countries also show signs of increasing female labor force participation, though, at a more moderate level. Within them, the Netherlands constitute an exceptional case where female employment has dramatically risen from less than 3% in the early 197s to more than 6% by the year. The lowest level of female labor force participation can clearly be found in the South European/Latin Rim cluster 4

6 where women s employment participation ratio has, despite partial increases, remained well below the level of 5% until very recently. Post-communist countries display an especial pattern with female labor force participation varying between around 8% (Estonia) and 5% (Hungary) without any visible pattern. Initially high participation rates are probably due to socialist ideology, which strongly supported female labor force participation. However, this picture changed in the course of the economic transition shock causing increasing distortions in labor markets that especially affected women: They were mostly employed in public services and light industries which clearly declined in the course of the transition while men were at least initially protected in the heavy industry. At the same time women were less likely to take up new jobs in the private market sector, partly due preconceptions of the employers. Furthermore, early retirement schemes as well as general parental leave schemes fostered a withdrawal of women from the work force (see Unicef 1999, Sasser 21 and Ruminska-Zimny 22 for details on these processes). Although labor force participation ratios provide a first picture of female integration into the labor market, they might as an aggregated measure obscure several variations within female employment, for example, across different age groups. Figure 2 therefore provides an overview of the structure and development of age-specific labor force participation rates in different welfare regimes and across different time points ranging from the years 197 to. In liberal welfare regimes (first column), female labor force participation is already very comprehensive at early ages, reaches a maximum around age 3 and subsequently remains stable until the mid 5s. After this age, however, we can observe a gradual decrease of female labor force participation. Over time, the reported increase in labor force participation shifts up the curve, i.e. it generally leads to an increase of labor force participation in the core age groups from 3 to 55. In all three liberal countries, this upward shift has reduced or even eliminated the baby effect, i.e. the clear decline of participation ratios around the mean age of first childbirth in the mid 2s. An even more continuous and high labor force integration of women until the mid-6s prevails in social-democratic countries (second column). Only around the official retirement age, female participation rates decline sharply. Again, the overall increase in female labor force participation can be traced back to an increase across all age groups, with the exception of a minor decline in Sweden between 199 and. Conservative countries (third column) show a slightly different pattern with low participation ratios for younger women, but a steep increase when reaching the mid/late 2s. In the consecutive age groups, female labor force participation then remains mostly stable until reaching (early) retirement age. As in liberal regimes, the increase in labor force participation has 5

7 eliminated the baby peak in the mid-2s. Visible remainders of this social phenomenon do, however, persist in Southern European countries (fourth column), especially in Spain. Furthermore, these countries show signs of an even more pronounced delayed entry into the labor market, indicated by low rates of female labor force participation in the younger age groups. 1 Post-communist countries (fifth column) again reveal a very distinct pattern. Low female participation rates in early adulthood are followed by a sharp increase at the age of 24 processes that might indicate significant barriers to female employment in younger age groups. Rates than plateau for about 5 years to consequently rise until a maximum at the age around 4. Until the mid 5s, labor force participation remains stable, but sharply declines after this age, possibly an indication of the massive usage of early retirement policies to battle the adverse effects of the economic shock in transition countries (Lohdahl and Schrooten ). Summarizing, our results for the development of overall female labor force participation generally foster the globalization hypothesis, predicting a considerable increase in female employment participation across all regime clusters. However, we also observed clear crossnational differences in both the extent to which women are integrated in employment and the employment integration across different age groups, which speaks much in favor of an institutional hypothesis. In the subsequent chapters, we will now turn to a more detailed analysis of female employment to investigate whether our hypotheses may also hold at this level Women s labor force status Following the consideration of women s overall labor market participation, we will now turn attention to the concrete labor force status of women. Table 1 gives an overview of this dimension in different welfare regimes, distinguishing between the statuses of wage and salaried workers, self-employed and helping family workers. 2 A first finding from this table is that if women participate in the labor market, they can, in the large majority, be found in dependent work that accounts for more than 9% of female labor force involvement in almost every regime type. The Southern European / Latin Rim - and more recently Canada - coun- 1 See various articles in Blossfeld et al. 24 for details on this process. 2 Employees are defined as those workers who hold the type of job defined as paid employment jobs based on explicit or implicit employment contracts which provide for a basic remuneration not directly dependent upon the revenue of the unit for which they work. Self-employed are those working in a job where the remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits derived from the goods and services produced. Contributing family workers are those workers who hold a self-employment job in a market oriented establishment operated by a related person in the same household. Figures might not always add up to 1% per year due to the fact that there may be a varying quantity of workers who could not be included in the above mentioned categories due to insufficient information. (see KILM 21 Manual, Indicator 3). 6

8 tries do, however, constitute an exceptional case in this respect. 3 Here the proportion of dependent work makes up only about 2/3 of women s economic activity while at the same time a considerable percentage can be found in both self-employment and family work. The high but declining shares of family work can largely be attributed to the economic structure in these countries, where both employment in industry and agriculture played an important role. Especially employment in the agricultural sector is often connected with working in family-based businesses. The high proportion of female self-employment, which has recently experienced a considerable renaissance in several OECD countries (OECD ), deserves special attention. To explain the remarkably high figures, especially in Southern Europe, one needs to recognize that self-employment is clearly no homogeneous category (see Bögenhold and Staber 1991, 1993). It can, as extreme cases, include both the successful management of an own company and false self-employment in dependent-contractor relationships. The ILO KILM database provides a proxy measure of these aspects when splitting self-employment into selfemployment as employees and as own account workers. While the first category refers to individuals who work on own account and engage one or more persons to work for them, the latter denotes self-employed who engage no employees on a permanent basis (see ILO KILM 21 Manual, Indicator 3). Especially the latter group can be expected to disproportionately include precarious work forms such as false self-employment, at-home-work, telecommuting, subcontracting or the like. Figure 3 gives an overview of this split of self-employment for the countries where ILO data was available. It shows that self-employment in the Southern European countries cluster can largely be attributed to high values of own-account workers, a pattern that seems to appear less in other regime types. Though being very preliminary, these figures suggest that in the Southern European countries, self-employment may be regarded as a new form of marginal employment for women. It needs to be noted that even in the countries where it is high, self-employment constitutes clearly no purely female phenomenon, as male figures are everywhere exceeding female values (see ILO KILM 21). Nonetheless, due to its quantitative extent, its importance for female labor force participation remains out of question and calls for a more explicit consideration of this aspect in future studies Female participation in dependent employment: Work characteristics Following the above overview of women s employment status, we will in the following concentrate on the actual work characteristics of women. As pointed out in the theoretical part, 3 Due to methodological problems with the comparability of Mexican female employment status figures, we will 7

9 we would due to our globalization hypotheses expect women to cluster in flexible employment forms such as part-time and/or fixed-term employment. To empirically test this assumption, we will in the following therefore look at the importance of these two work forms and its development in the countries featured in this volume. (i) Part-time work Figure 4 first gives an overview of the relative importance of part-time employment for female employment as a whole 4. It clearly reveals considerable variation between the countries under examination: Lowest part-time shares are found in post-communist countries where reduced working hours have constantly played only a marginal role for women. In Southern European countries, part-time work plays a similarly negligible role, although some signs of a minor increase exist. Clear differences emerge between countries of the conservative regime cluster: While part-time employment is of rather moderate importance in both France and Germany, it has become the dominant form of employment for women in the Netherlands. 5 All conservative countries show signs of a minor increase in part-time employment in the last two decades. A heterogeneous picture also shows up in liberal countries: Female part-time employment plays a rather moderate role in both overseas countries (USA, Canada) while it is of clearly higher importance in the United Kingdom, possibly indicating differences between the liberal countries in terms of work cultures (WALSH and WIGLEY 21) and regulatory frameworks for working-time (Rubery et al ). Finally, in social-democratic states, parttime employment used to play a central role, which has, however, recently declined. In all countries considered, part-time employment, if existent, has clearly been a female phenomenon with women making up around 2/3 of all part-timers [ILO 21, results not displayed here]. Although the above results already give a first impression of the varying importance of parttime work in different regime clusters, recent research has pointed to the limited comparability of harmonized part-time employment rates between countries (van Bastelaer et al. 1997). Establishing a unique demarcation line as done by the 3-hours limit of the ILO indicator used above- can obscure important differences in terms of actual working hours. Figure 5 therefore shows a more detailed decomposition of female employment by hour-bands for selected country examples. An exemplary comparison of the UK and the United States confirms in the following concentrate on figures for Italy and Spain (ILO 21 Manual, Indicator 3). 4 Part-time employment was defined as employment less than 3 hours in line with the standard OECD definition (ILO KILM 21, Manual Indicator 5). 5 In fact, recent research literature refers to the central importance of part-time employment for the strong increase in Dutch overall female employment rates in the 197s (see for example Daly ). 8

10 the differences in the extent of female working hours. While in the overseas countries women are strongly engaged in full-time or close-to full-time work (more than 35 weekly working hours), British women can to a clearly larger extent be found in more reduced work form (1 to 29 working hours/week). Considerable intra-regime differences can also be observed within the conservative cluster. While longer working hours predominate in Germany, female parttime employment is highly shaped by very short working hours in the Netherlands. In social-democratic countries, very short working hours only play a marginal role. Part-time employment in these countries usually means working in slightly reduced working hours, but close-to-full-time employment. An even stronger concentration on longer working hours can bee observed in Southern European and especially post-communist countries. If women in these countries take part in employment, they almost invariably do it in strongly standardized full-time working hour relationships. Summarizing, we can observe that part-time employment plays an important role for female employment in a considerable number of welfare regimes. The frequently used one-sided interpretation of the rise of this work form as increasing precariousness of female employment is, however, critical (see Klijzing, forthcoming). As Blossfeld and Hakim (1997) have shown, part-time employment may in certain circumstances be an effective means of providing a supplementary half income for married couples or make up a substantial opportunity for reconciling family and working life (ILO 21). Furthermore, the actual precariousness of part-time work will strongly depend on its treatment by welfare state institutions. Especially the Netherlands provide an illustrative case where part-time employment receives a favorable welfare treatment as part of a strategy to establish this work form as the standard work form of both men and women (the so called combination scenario, see for example Knijn 22). (b) Fixed-Term employment The above examination has confirmed our expectations of a substantial importance of parttime employment for female employment as a whole. Can we find similar results for fixedterm employment? In analogy female part-time employment, Figure 6 shows the importance of fixed-term contracts as a percentage of overall female dependent employment. As can be observed by direct comparison with the relative incidence of part-time employment, fixedterm contracts play a visible, but clearly less important role. Furthermore, we can observe only small differences between welfare regimes: In liberal, social-democratic and the conservative countries, fixed-term employment accounts for around 1% of female employment with no significant change in its level over time. A clear divide can, however, be observed 9

11 within the Southern European cluster 6 : While fixed-term employment in Italy plays a role comparable to those in the above listed countries, it amounts for more than a third of total female employment in Spain. Although trends for a convergence are visible, the difference between the two countries remains significant. Finally, in post-communist countries, fixedterm employment is only of marginal importance, making up constantly less than 1% of female employment; a result that confirms our previous observation of the predominance of standard employment relationships in post-communist countries. 3.4 Interim Summary If we review the reported results on the background of the hypotheses put forward in section 2, we generally find support for our globalization hypotheses across welfare regimes: In all considered country examples, we have observed an increase of women s labor force participation, generally confirming our expectations based on globalization hypothesis I. Furthermore, we found that this overall increase has at least to some extent taken place in specific flexible labor forms: Despite certain cross-national variations in extent and characteristics, part-time employment was found to be a significant work reservoir for women. Female selfemployment did in some countries show a potential to become a new feature of female work, possibly even a new marginalized form of employment. Finally, fixed-term employment was also found to constitute a relevant aspect of female employment, though its extent clearly does not reach part-time levels. Putting all these results together, we may therefore, with befitting care, speak of a proof for our globalization hypothesis II. In addition, our results showed that, despite the existence of an overall globalization-induced trend, clear cross country differences persist, concerning both the extent to which women are generally integrated in the labor force and the feminization of specific employment forms. Despite sporadic exceptions, these differences structure well along the lines of the extended Esping-Andersen regime typology: Social-democratic countries are generally characterized by a high and stable labor market integration of women over the life course. Most women are engaged in near-to-full-time jobs with only slightly reduced working hours, while other atypical work forms (fixedterm contracts, self-employment) play only a marginal role. This general pattern has remained very stable over the observed time period, pointing to a longer history of gender equality measures and active labor market integration policies in these countries (DiPrete et al. 1997). 6 No data was available for the Mexican case. 1

12 Liberal countries also show a high integration of women into the labor force. Nonetheless, this integration seems to be less uniform over the life course, showing gradual decreases following the mid-5s. Flexible work forms play a varying role: Part-time work is of considerable importance in the UK whereas it is a less important phenomenon in overseas countries. Fixed-term contracts and self-employment are of moderate importance although recent statistics point to an increase of the latter work form in Canada. The exact antonym to these highly integrative regimes is represented by Southern European / Latin Rim countries which to a far lower and less continuous degree integrate women into the labor force. Even if they do, labor market integration is not stable over age groups but shows clear patterns of both a delayed entry and exits around the child phase. A possible reason for this might be the high standardization of work in terms of working hours, allowing for only few flexible work solutions. Possible alternatives are offered by other, more precarious work forms such as fixed-term contracts (Spain) or selfemployment (both Southern European countries). Conservative regimes take a middle position between the regimes described above. Female labor force integration is on the rise but still lower than in liberal and socialdemocratic countries. While in the 197s, female employment was still characterized by a temporary exit from employment, conservative countries now seem to approach a pattern of a more stable participation over the life course. Considerable intra-regime variations can, however, be observed in the work form through which the integration of women is achieved. The Netherlands largely accomplishes this integration through part-time jobs, which are clearly less important in Germany and France, where rather longer working hours prevail. Other atypical work forms have not yet established themselves as significant components of female workforce participation in most conservative countries. Finally, post-communist countries still seem to be strongly characterized by the relicts of previous communist employment patterns. Female employment is still relatively high and mostly connected with full-time standard employment, while any other atypical forms of employment play only a rather marginal role. Eventually larger numerical differences between post-communist countries and the relatively irregular participation pattern across the life course point to a high volatility of current patterns. 11

13 4. Women and the Labor Market: A short overview of some institutional background patterns All in all, the systematic cross-country differences in female employment patterns worked out above provide confirmation for our institutional hypothesis that regime- or country-specific institutions might filter general globalization influences in different ways. In the following we will present a very general investigation of the institutional backgrounds that can be held responsible for the observed systematic variations using stylized institutional facts. In order to analyze possible institutional background patterns for the development of female employment, we construct a simple explanatory model (see Table 2). Within this model, we assume that two kinds of factors influence female labor force participation: On the one hand, female employment requires labor force demand, i.e. available job positions for women. On the other hand, women willing to participate in the labor market often find themselves in the position of having to reconcile workforce participation with responsibilities and tasks in the family sphere. Female labor force participation will therefore also be dependent on the extent of institutional reconciliation support fostering female labor force supply. Furthermore, we assume that both demand and supply can be provided by either the (welfare) state or through the market. The state can create demand for female labor mainly through an adequate number of jobs in public services. On the other hand, it can foster women s labor force supply by public reconciliation policies such as organized childcare or family-friendly social policies (see Sainsbury 1999). In comparison, the market can stimulate female labor force demand by an adequately sized service sector. On the other hand, women s labor supply can be encouraged by private reconciliation support measures, such as employer-provided childcare services or flexible work arrangements. If neither the state nor the market stimulates female labor force demand or supply, welfare responsibility will need to be transferred to other subsidiary institutions, especially the family. In addition to these factors, we can expect that female labor force participation will strongly depend on the characteristics and regulations of national labor markets. As Blossfeld et al. (forthcoming) have pointed out, women s chances to enter and move within the labor market may very well vary with the degree of openness of an economy. Labor markets with a low level of regulation and low barriers to (re-)employment will therefore be able to easily integrate women into the labor force. We will in the following use this model to explore basic institutional features of different regime clusters. Due to reasons of simplicity and data availability, we will thereby have to restrict our analysis in two respects: First, we will concentrate on a juxtaposition of institutional 12

14 factors with overall participation ratios, which will allow for a more to-the-point graphical representation of the results. Reference to other dependent variables such as patterns across age groups or atypical employment patterns will be made where applicable. Secondly, we will focus on the correlation between institutional factors and participation patterns at one time point, namely the period of the mid- to end-199s for which data was best available. 4.1 Female Labor Demand: Public and Service Sector Employment For an analysis of different labor force demand aspects, Figure 7 contrasts female labor demand through the state (Figure 7.1) 7 and the market (Figure 7.2) 8, both plotted against participation ratios for all countries of this book for which data was available. Dotted lines indicate the mean value of the respective indicator. Looking at demand induced by the state, we can observe that social-democratic countries, especially Sweden, show a high share of public sector employment, paralleled by a generally high integration of women into employment. Similarly high values for both dimensions can also be observed in the post-communist countries of Estonia and Hungary, probably due to their communist heritage of both high integration of men and women into the labor force and of high state involvement in the economy. In contrast to these countries, both the Southern European/Latin Rim and the liberal countries reveal a relatively low public sector share - notably while at the same time showing very different female employment integration patterns. For the conservative cluster, public sector data was only available for Germany, which mainly lies in the range of the liberal countries. If we contrast these figures with data for service sector employment, we can observe that it is now the liberal states, which stand at the top of the scale on both dimensions. Again, Sweden and Denmark also display high values on both dimensions; which is probably due to the fact that a large number of the above analyzed public sector employment is actually in jobs classified as personal services. In conservative countries, generally characterized by a moderate integration of women into employment, we find considerable variation between the Netherlands, with a high service sector share, and Germany, which shows below-average values on this dimension. Lower service sector employment values can be found in both the Southern European/ Latin Rim and the post-communist regime, which still dispose of considerably industry-based economies. Nonetheless, both country groups integrate women into the labor market to very different extents. The above discussion indicated that the isolated examination of state or market institutions does not suffice for an encompassing explanation of female employment patterns: countries 7 Indicated by the share of public employment as % of total employment 13

15 with very similar state or market involvement sometimes reveal very different employment profiles. However, the simultaneous examination of both market and state influences enables a more comprehensive approximation of institutional background patterns for female employment. Social-democratic countries create demand for female employment mainly through a large public sector, which due to its specific nature - also accounts for a high number of service jobs. In comparison, while public sector employment is comparably low in the liberal countries, this lack of state-induced demand is partly compensated through market demand in the form of a well-developed service sector. Southern European/Latin rim countries, show below-average demand on both the state and market side, which may provide a first explanation for their observably low realization of female employment. Finally, conservative and postcommunist countries reveal a less unique picture with considerable cross-country variation. Generally, conservative countries to a larger extent endue a moderately sized service sector to integrate women into employment. In post-communist countries, such a sector has not yet fully developed so that female employment in these countries is strongly triggered by the traditionally large public sector. As this sector has recently shown strongly declining tendencies, the future of female labor force demand in the transitional countries may possibly become increasingly critical in forthcoming decades. 4.2 Female Labor Supply: Public and Private Child Care Services In a second step, we take a closer look at childcare services as an indicator of reconciliation support. 9 In analogy to the public/private-differentiation for the description of labor demand, Figure 8 shows the coverage rates for public child care facilities for children aged -3 (8.1) 1 and as indicator for private reconciliation services the number of women reporting employer-provision for child day-care (8.2). If we look at childcare provided by the state, we again find a combination of high female employment and a high level of public sector involvement in social-democratic countries, which show the highest level of public childcare. France and Estonia also display high levels of childcare coverage, while all other countries for which data was available have only rudimentary early child care facilities. Looking at child- 8 Indicated by the share of service sector employment as % of total employment 9 It needs to be noted that, of course, child care is not the only means of supporting the reconciliation family and working life. Recent literature also refers to other measures, such as paid leave schemes or specific tax advantages (SAINSBURY 1999). We will, however refer to childcare as (i) its clear effect on favouring female employment has been proven in a number of studies, and (ii) it easily allows for a direct comparison of both welfare state and labour market measures. 1 Child care facilities have a special importance for this age group, since they allow women an initial re-entry into the labour market after the immediate childbirth period. 14

16 care facilities provided by private employers again reverses the picture to some extent. The social-democratic countries of Scandinavia show only a low level of market-based childcare, while this level is clearly higher in liberal countries, especially the United States. Again, values within the conservative cluster reveal marked variations, with the Netherlands again clearly exceeding the average. Southern European countries repeatedly score low on both the public and the private dimension. Summarizing for labor supply factors, the notion of a systematic interplay of state and market institutions in different regime types could be again confirmed. While social-democratic countries stimulate female labor force participation through generous state involvement in childcare, the liberal countries attempt to compensate the near lack of public institutions by a higher involvement of employers in reconciliation support. Southern European countries again score low on both the welfare and the market dimension while conservative countries again reveal considerable heterogeneity. Unfortunately, only few comparable data was available for the different post-communist countries. However, recent synthesis reports for Central and Eastern Europe generally suggest that child care institutions for young children (-3 years) have been moderate but significant in communist times (Kamerman 23). However, as a consequence of welfare retrenchment in the course of the transition process they have clearly declined (SCHNEPF 21), thereby lowering public support for female labor force supply. At the same time, it can be expected that labor market supplements have not yet developed. The remarkable outlier case of Estonia does, however, call for a more detailed analysis of intra-regime differences based on comparable data. 4.3 Labor Market Characteristics To finalize the discussion of institutional filters a country/regime level, the article will give an overview of basic labor market characteristics in different regime contexts. We will mainly concentrate on the rigidity of labor markets measured by the extent of state regulation and labor markets entry restrictions, measured by the duration of unemployment. Following our general flexibilization argument developed in section 2, we would expect small labor market rigidity and low entry restrictions to provide the most favorable chances for female employment participation. Figure 9.1 displays the duration of female short-term unemployment in different countries, indicated by the percentage of unemployment less than 3 months as of overall female employment. High shares of short-time unemployment can be seen as an indicator of high labor market flexibility. As could be expected, we find comparably high shares of short-term unemployment in the liberal welfare regimes, although there are clear differences between the 15

17 United States with very high and the UK with more moderate labor market flexibility. Notably, labor markets also show signs of flexibility in Mexico and Denmark. In all other countries for which data were available, short-term unemployment is clearly of lower importance. This diagnosis is especially true for the Southern European countries, where it accounts for less than 2% of overall unemployment. Figure 9.2 complements the above discussion of labor market flexibility with an additive measure of two OECD Employment Protection Indices that comprise measures of regular procedural inconveniences for individual notice and dismissal and the difficulty of dismissal for regular employment (OECD 1999). This measure can be read as a very rough proxy variable for labor market regulation by the state. Index values range from to 6 where higher values indicate a higher regulative density. As could be expected, the results from this index plainly confirm the above observations. Liberal countries where labor market flexibility proved to be high constantly show very low levels of state regulation. This pattern also holds true for Denmark and therefore distinguishes it within the social-democratic cluster from Sweden in labor market terms. Both conservative and Southern European countries combine a moderate to low labor market flexibility with rather high state regulations, although, again, larger cross-country differences can be observed. Regulative differences between the Czech Republic (high) and Hungary (weak) again point to a not yet determined institutional pattern in post-communist countries. The results from the OECD index complement the previous description of labor market flexibility in so far as they shed light to its downside : Though highly flexible labor markets make it easy for women to enter employment, the widely observable absence of public employment protection in these countries suggests a higher volatility of women s employment in these countries Summary A summarizing overview of the results from the institutional comparisons shows that the systematic regime-specific structure of patterns in female employment can be connected with a systematic structure of institutional design features: Social-democratic countries were discovered to have a high, continuous and close-to-fulltime integration of women into the labor force. This pattern is mainly achieved through a central role of the state in accounting for both the demand and the supply of female labor. Especially the generous provision of public child care fosters female employment through the facilitated reconciliation of family and working life even at children s younger ages. 16

18 Liberal countries showed a similar performance in terms of women s labor force integration. However, the institutional overview has shown that this seemingly identical pattern is achieved by a completely different institutional design. While public involvement in the stimulation of female labor force demand and supply is low, we find a comparably high share of service sector employment and fairly generous market-based childcare provision, both fostering female employment. Furthermore, labor markets in these countries are highly flexible, allowing for an easier, but at the same time also more vulnerable integration of women into the workforce. In liberal countries, flexible labor markets as well as market based-demand and supply measures therefore constitute a functional equivalent to the strong Scandinavian welfare state in terms of enabling high female employment participation. However, it needs to be noted that this seemingly identical result is achieved at the cost of the individualization of the work-family-reconciliation conflict as well as more job insecurity for women within the labor market. Southern European / Latin Rim countries show a weak performance in both the public and private dimensions of female labor force demand and supply. Furthermore, labor markets in these regimes are highly rigid and mostly organized around a standard employment contract. It is this combination of institutional patterns as well as the central role of the family in these regime types which can be held responsible for a relatively low and problematic integration of women into the labor force. It is therefore not surprising, that Southern European women in need for a second income may evade into marginal employment forms such as fixed-term employment and precarious self-employment. Conservative countries have been observed to take a middle position in the realization of female employment. Similar results were also found for the institutional support patterns, with varying but mostly moderate values of a state- respectively market-provided promotion of female labor supply and demand. Clear cross-country differences between the conservative states, for example the exceptional position of France in terms of child care or the high importance of the service sector in the Netherlands point to important institutional mechanisms at the country level which will need to be examined in more detail in the following country chapters. Finally, for post-communist countries only a limited number of observations could be made due to the lacking availability of respective data. However, the results suggest that a unique pattern of institutional design has not yet developed in these countries. Again, these differences may point to differences at the country level, which will need to be further examined. Recent social science studies furthermore point to the fact that future re- 17

19 search will have to deal more explicitly with the interaction of processes of globalization on the one hand and the transformation from a planned to a market economy on the other hand. It is this superimposition of processes and the possibilities and constraints associated with it that one will have to bear in mind when analyzing institutional responses of transition countries to globalization forces. Nonetheless, this qualification does by no means challenge the general applicability of the globalization argument to postcommunist countries. It is rather the high dynamic of current social processes and the youthfulness of institutional responses that can be held responsible for the observed variations in statistical results. 5. Conclusion Summarizing, our results have shown that there generally seems to be a background force of globalization at work, which has led both to an increased integration and a certain sectorspecific concentration of women in the labor force. Furthermore, given the presence of the above mentioned globalization effect, we have also found clear cross-country differences in terms of women s labor force integration. These differences could generally be well brought in line with institutional background features of welfare states and labor markets. These results can serve as a general guideline for the following country analyses at the micro-level. However, in this respect, it is also important to keep in mind the restrictions of the approach taken in this basic overview chapter: First, Following its aim to longitudinally describe major developments and characteristics of female labor force participation in different country contexts - and the data availability shortages associated with this ambitious goal - this paper had to concentrate on a limited number of female employment characteristics. This picture could be extended by a more detailed analysis of women s occupational positions when in employment or the gender-specific wage gap women experience when being in the labor market. Furthermore, while this paper had to restrict itself to an illustrative overview of stylized facts, a further analysis of the institutional backgrounds influencing female employment patterns could additionally include further factors such as the demographic background of the considered countries or a detailed analysis of family policy or labor market institutions (see for example Sainsbury 1999, Hofäcker 24). Finally, this comparative research had to restrict itself to highly standardized stock data in order to meet preconditions for possibly broad international comparability. This may on the one hand require appropriate methodological carefulness in the comparison of statistical indicators across countries (see for example the discussion of part-time work in chapter 3.3). On 18

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