TY  - JOUR
A1  - Biegert, Thomas
A1  - Brady, David
A1  - Hipp, Lena
T1  - Cross-national variation in the relationship between welfare generosity and single mother employment
JF  - The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
N2  - Reform of the U.S. welfare system in 1996 spurred claims that cuts to welfare programs effectively incentivized single mothers to find employment. It is difficult to assess the veracity of those claims, however, absent evidence of how the relationship between welfare benefits and single mother employment generalizes across countries. This study combines data from the European Union Labour Force Survey and the U.S. Current Population Survey (1992-2015) into one of the largest samples of single mothers ever, testing the relationships between welfare generosity and single mothers’ employment and work hours. We find no consistent evidence of a negative relationship between welfare generosity and single mother employment outcomes. Rather, we find tremendous cross-national heterogeneity, which does not clearly correspond to well-known institutional variations. Our findings demonstrate the limitations of single country studies and the pervasive, salient interactions between institutional contexts and social policies.
KW  - single mothers
KW  - employment
KW  - welfare state benefits
KW  - cross-national
KW  - heterogeneity
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221120760
SN  - 0002-7162
SN  - 1552-3349
VL  - 702
IS  - 1
SP  - 37
EP  - 54
PB  - SAGE Publishing
CY  - Thousand Oaks
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Hipp, Lena
A1  - Schlüter, Charlotte
A1  - Molina, Stefania
ED  - Dobrotić, Ivana
ED  - Blum, Sonja
ED  - Koslowski, Alison
T1  - The role of employers in reducing the implementation gap in leave policies
T2  - Research handbook on leave policy
N2  - Although mothers and fathers in almost all rich democracies are entitled to some form of paid parenting leave, fathers in particular do not take all the leave available to them. As employers play an important role in the implementation of parenting leave policies, this chapter investigates which workplace characteristics influence mothers' and fathers' uptake of their statutory leave entitlements. In Part 1, we estimate the size of the gap between statutory leave entitlement and leave uptake across genders and countries by combining data from the OECD and the European Labor Force Survey. In Parts 2 and 3, we review the literature on structural, cultural, and normative explanations for the gap in parenting leave uptake. We conclude the chapter with suggestions for further research, including the need for reliable data on the size of the implementation gap and research on non-European countries.
KW  - parental leave
KW  - policy implementation
KW  - employment
KW  - workplace culture
KW  - gender equality
Y1  - 2022
SN  - 978-1-80037-221-4
SN  - 978-1-80037-220-7
U6  - https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800372214.00036
SP  - 338
EP  - 352
PB  - Edward Elgar Publishing
CY  - Cheltenham, UK
ER  -