Documents Gornick, Janet C. 15 results

"This paper investigates wage gaps between part- and full-time women workers in six OECD countries in the mid-1990s. Using comparable micro-data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), for Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the US, the paper first assesses crossnational variation in the direction, magnitude, and composition of the part-time/full time wage differential. Then it analyzes variations across these countries in occupational segregation between part- and full-time workers. The paper finds a part-time wage penalty among women workers in all countries, except Sweden. Other than in Sweden, occupational differences between part- and full-time workers dominate the portion of the wage gap that is explained by observed differences between the two groups of workers. Across countries, the degree of occupational segregation between female part- and full-time workers is negatively correlated with the position of part-time workers' wages in the full-time wage distribution."

"This paper draws on the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) microdata to paint a portrait of child poverty across a diverse group of countries, as of 2004-2006. We will first synthesize past LIS-based research on child poverty, focusing on studies that aim to explain cross-national variation in child poverty rates. Our empirical sections will focus on child poverty in 20 high- and middle-income countries – including three Latin American countries, newly added to LIS. We will assess poverty among all households and among those with children, and using multiple poverty measures (relative and absolute, pre- and post- taxes and transfers). We will assess the effects of crucial micro-level factors – family structure, educational attainment, and labor market attachment – considering how the effects of these factors vary across counties. Finally, we will analyze the extent to which crossnational variation in child poverty is explained by families' characteristics and/or by the effects of (or returns to) those characteristics. Those returns encompass both market and state-generated income."

"In the past two decades, many researchers have used the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data to analyse women's economic status, or economic gender inequality, across the industrialized countries. Researchers concerned with labour market outcomes have concluded that: (i) women's labour market status lags men's in nearly every LIS country and time period; (ii) motherhood is a consequential factor nearly everywhere; while parenthood typically has little effect (or a positive effect) on men's employment rates and earnings, it weakens women's everywhere; (iii) against this backdrop of commonality, gendered outcomes vary dramatically across countries; and (iv) variation in policies, or policy packages, explains a substantial share of the observed variation in outcomes. Researchers focused on poverty have found that: (i) in several countries, post-tax-and-transfer poverty is more prevalent among women than men, mothers compared with fathers, and female-headed households relative to male-headed households; (ii) solo mothers everywhere face a heightened risk of low income and/or poverty, especially in the English-speaking countries; (iii) across the LIS countries, single elderly women are also at heightened risk, with the USA standing out as an extreme case; and (iv) cross-national variation in tax-and-transfer policies explains a large share of variation in post-tax-and-transfer income."

"In this article, we describe the social and economic changes that have contributed to contemporary problems of work—family conflict, gender inequality, and risks to children's healthy development. We draw on feminist welfare state scholarship to outline an institutional arrangement that would support an earner—carer society—a social arrangement in which women and men engage symmetrically in paid work and unpaid caregiving and where young children have ample time with their parents. We present a blueprint for work—family reconciliation policies in three areas—paid family-leave provisions, working-time regulations, and early childhood education and care—and we identify key policy design principles. We describe and assess these work—family reconciliation policies as they operate in six European countries widely considered to be policy exemplars: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and France. We close with an analysis of potential objections to these policies."

"Parental leave laws can support new parents in two complementary ways: by offering job-protected leave and by offering financial support during that leave. This study assesses the design of parental leave policies operating in 21 high-income countries. Specifically, the study analyzes how these countries vary with respect to the generosity of their parental leave policies; the extent to which their policy designs are gender egalitarian; and the ways in which these two crucial dimensions are inter-related. The study finds that public policies in all 21 study countries protect at least one parent's job for a period of weeks, months, or years following the birth or adoption of a child. The availability and generosity of wage replacement varies widely, as does the gendered nature of policy designs. Four countries stand out as having policies that are both generous and gender egalitarian: Finland, Norway, Sweden and — unexpectedly — Greece."

"This paper assesses women?s poverty in 26 diverse LIS countries ? five Anglophone countries, six Continental European countries, four Nordic countries, two Eastern European countries, three Southern European countries, and six Latin American countries. Our analyses are organized around four questions: (1) What is the probability that prime-age women, compared to their male counterparts, live in poor households? (2) How does the overall pattern differ when we consider pre-transfer as well as post-transfer income, and when we consider absolute as well as relative poverty? (3) How do women?s poverty rates, compared to men?s, vary by family type, by educational attainment, and by labour market status? (4) How does our cross-national portrait of gender and poverty shift when we consider person-level income as well as household-level income? We conclude that: women?s market income lags men?s everywhere; public income transfers matter for reducing poverty disparities by gender; families are crucial venues for income support for partnered women, especially women with weak labor market attachment; single mothers remain extremely economically vulnerable in many countries; and institutional contexts matter."