What is it about?
The article is about how childcare services impacts gender-specific patterns of time conflict. The main finding is that the policy context most strongly affects men, i.e., men in municipalities with ECEC services exhibit higher levels of time conflicts than their counterparts in municipalities without this type of childcare. In contrast, women's perceived time conflicts are barely related to childcare services, in particular if the children are small. Our analyses support the view that childcare services induce a more equal within household division of labour.
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Why is it important?
Most previous studies on the effects of childcare policies only looked at women and/or labour market involvement. Our study emphasizes that to understand the implications of these policies we should look at its broader consequences, i.e., at different spheres of life. Moreover, the article demonstrates that importance to study reconciliation policies from both a women's and a men's perspective, since these policies have very different gender-specific impacts. This needs to be taken into account for future policy making.
Perspectives
Whereas our analyses were rather troubling at first sight, I think they make a lot of sense. This does of course not mean, that childcare policies are "bad" and that we should stay with the male breadwinner model, since this makes men happier! However, the findings do point to the fact that in order to put equlized gender-roles in the labour market but most importantly also within households forward, we have to think about how to bring men "in".
Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen
University of Berne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Perceiving Reconciliation: Child Care Policies and Gendered Time Conflicts, Gender & Society, September 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0891243217727719.
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