ten - What do people want? Leave policy preferences in different countries

Summary

Introduction

Leave policies related to parenting are often studied from a policy development perspective or in relation to their outcomes, such as uptake, fertility, child development, maternal employment or father involvement. This chapter addresses another important, yet underexplored dimension: individual preferences regarding leave policies. This is an important issue since it contributes to the legitimacy of existing social arrangements and can point to possible grounds for reform (Svallfors, 2012).

Leave policies in industrialised countries have developed at different rates, within specific social and economic contexts and political ideologies and following distinct policy objectives (Kamerman and Moss, 2009). Today there is considerable heterogeneity across leave schemes, notably the total duration of paid leave available for parents, including Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leaves, and the extent to which mothers and fathers have individual entitlements and/or are encouraged to share them. Leave schemes vary on further dimensions such as the amount of payment, flexibility or eligibility criteria, as discussed throughout this book, but this chapter focuses on these two aspects specifically. For instance, while in the Nordic countries, such as Sweden and Norway, well-paid leave of about one year for both parents was already implemented in the 1970s, in liberal welfare states, statutory paid leave is available for a relatively shorter duration – or does not yet exist in the extreme case of the US (see Chapter Nine) – and tends to target mothers more than fathers.

Do these different institutional contexts influence what individuals consider as ‘good’ leave policies? When it comes to the care of a new-born child, do attitudes vary across countries? How satisfied or dissatisfied are individuals with leave arrangements? This chapter addresses these largely unexplored questions by analysing leave policy preferences in 27 industrialised countries, mostly in Europe (for a full list, see Table 10.1). The first objective is to describe preferences across countries and welfare regimes regarding leave duration and the gender division of leave. The second is to identify, across welfare regimes, the factors associated with individuals’ dissatisfaction with the duration of leave currently available in their own country, which includes the development of an indicator for dissatisfaction.

Framework of the study

Welfare attitudes, welfare regimes and leave policies

‘Welfare attitudes’ refer to individuals’ values and preferences regarding the degree and type of state intervention for citizens’ social and economic security (Svallfors, 2012).