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The subjective well-being of women in Europe: children, work and employment protection legislation

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Abstract

Conflicts regarding family and workplace obligations often lead to frustration, dissatisfaction and lower levels of happiness. Taking into account the current low fertility rates in many European countries, the subjective well-being of women seems to be a crucial factor in population growth strategy. The rather low reproduction level underlies the analysis of women’s subjective well-being in respect to their employment and maternity status in Europe. How much do the European countries differ in terms of females’ subjective well-being? Does employment protection legislation explain these differences through mothers’ employment patterns? This paper shows a significant negative association between the subjective well-being of women aged 17–54 and the rigidity of labor protection regulations. The conclusion stems from a multilevel model based on the European Value Study of 2008. The results showed that the subjective well-being of working mothers is higher in countries with liberal labor legislation while it is significantly lower in countries with strict employment protection legislation.

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Fig. 1

Data source OECD.StatExtracts, Employment Protection > Strictness of employment protection (http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ALFS_SUMTAB)

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Notes

  1. Fertility rates declined from well above replacement levels to well below by the middle of 2000 s in almost all European countries (Dubrow and Sanderson 2000; Del Boca and Sauer 2009; Adsera 2011; World Bank Fertility rates).

  2. Let me note that this paper is particularly concentrating on EPL, taking into account social policies as a control factor.

  3. I did the preliminary tests on confirmatory factor analysis for 27 countries and there are no differences in measurement items for happiness and life satisfaction in this survey, meaning that people in different countries do understand these two questions in the same way.

  4. All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life these days?

    Completely dissatisfied ……………. 10. Completely satisfied.

  5. Taking all things together, would you say you are: (1) Very happy; (2) Rather happy; (3) Not very happy; (4) Not at all happy.

  6. Life satisfaction is rather regarded as the outcome of an individual's evaluation process including his or her material and social aspirations and achievements, while happiness is seen as an outcome of a person's positive experiences, particularly close personal relationships (Haller and Hadler 2006).

  7. The formula is the following: (Xi − Xminimum)/(Xmaximum − Xminimum), where Xi is the score of the variable according the original scaling.

  8. I am following Inglehart and Klingemann (2000), Inglehart and Christian (2005) and OECD (2011) to combine the two indicators in one index.

  9. Since 1990, the OECD tackled the task of constructing a good measure of these regulations. Despite some limitations, the OECD indicator still represents a unique cross-country measure of protection legislation. It has been shown to be consistent with several proposed alternative measures ranging from employers’ surveys (OECD Employment Outlook 2004, p. 64).

  10. The overall summary measure of EPL strictness relies on three main components related to protection of regular workers against (individual) dismissal, specific requirements for collective dismissals and regulation of temporary forms of employment (OECD 2004, p. 65).

  11. It includes the following items: (1) Notification procedures, (2) Delay involved before notice can start, (3) Length of the notice period at 9 months’ tenure, (4) Length of the notice period at 4 years’ tenure, (5) Length of the notice period at 20 years’ tenure, (6) Severance pay at 9 months’ tenure, (7) Severance pay at 4 years’ tenure, (8) Severance pay at 20 years’ tenure. Moreover, it also includes the items on collective dismissals.

  12. It includes the following items: (1) Valid cases for use of fixed-term contracts, (2) Maximum number of successive fixed-term contracts, (3) Maximum cumulated duration of successive fixed-term contracts, (4) Types of work for which temporary work agency (TWA) employment is legal, (5) Restrictions on the number of renewals of TWA assignments, (6) Maximum cumulated duration of TWA assignments.

  13. It is worth to note that exactly women who are expected to bear the main impact of maternal leave changes as, even where parental leave equally applies to fathers, it is they who take the majority of the leave (95 %) (see more details in Pezzini 2005).

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Acknowledgments

This study was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2015. The author is thankful for valuable comments to Prof. R. Inglehart, Ch. Welzel, H. Duelmer, E. Ponarin, F. Sarracino and A. Zaharov given within LCSR conferences. The author greatly appreciates the comments of B. Lind (NRU HSE, Russia) and professional reviewers of the Mind & Society Journal.

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  1. United Arab Emirates University, P.O. 1551, Al Ain, UAE

    Tatiana Karabchuk

  2. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Tatiana Karabchuk

  3. BGSS Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Tatiana Karabchuk

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Karabchuk, T. The subjective well-being of women in Europe: children, work and employment protection legislation. Mind Soc 15, 219–245 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-016-0194-3

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