Work and children in Spain: challenges and opportunities for equality between men and women

Claudia Hupkau () and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela ()
Additional contact information
Claudia Hupkau: CUNEF Universidad
Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela: Universitat de Barcelona & Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB)

SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, No 7, 243-268

Abstract: Abstract Over the past decades, Spain has seen a striking convergence between women’s and men’s participation in the labour market. However, this convergence has stalled since the early 2010s. We show that women still fare worse in several important labour market dimensions. Gender inequalities are further aggravated among people with children. Women with children under 16 are much more likely to be unemployed, work part-time or on temporary contracts than men with children of the same age. We show that it is unlikely that preferences alone can account for these gaps. A review of the evidence shows that family policies, such as paternity leave expansions, financial incentives in the form of tax credits for working mothers and subsidised or free childcare for very young children, could help reduce the motherhood penalty. However, such policies are likely to be more effective if combined with advances in breaking up traditional gender roles.

Keywords: Gender gaps; Inequality; Family policy; Motherhood penalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13209-021-00243-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:series:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s13209-021-00243-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13209

DOI: 10.1007/s13209-021-00243-7

Access Statistics for this article

SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association is currently edited by Nezih Guner

More articles in SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association from Springer, Spanish Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().