Welfare and work. The gendered organisation of work and care in different European Countries

Abstract

Modern societies are characterised by profound changes in both working conditions and family formation. Today's workplaces are marked by high flexibility, great job instability and variable working hours. A dual-earner family has replaced the traditional male-breadwinner family and the norm is two working adults. However, the pattern of women's involvement in employment differs in all labour markets depending on the gendered division of paid work, unpaid work and care obligations. These differences can be seen as the combined effect of the individual household strategies and the shape of family and labour market policies in the European welfare regimes. The article analyses household strategies in combining paid work, unpaid work and care in four European countries – Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The main conclusion is that the division of paid work, unpaid work as well as caring obligations is gendered in all four countries. Compared with women, men tend to be more flexible, have more secure positions in the labour market and seem to be more involved in unpaid voluntary activities and seem thus more integrated in the society and have a higher level of civic participation. On the other hand, today, an increasing number of women are fully active in the labour market and their level of participation in civic activities becomes more and more similar to men's. However, the burdens of caring for children and other members of the household are still very unevenly divided between men and women, which makes the conflicts between obligations at work and in the households significantly more troublesome for women than for men.