Babies and Bosses - Reconciling Work and Family Life
A Synthesis of Findings for OECD Countries
Finding a suitable work/family life balance is a challenge that all parents face. Some people would like to have (more) children, but do not see how they could match that commitment with their employment situation. Other parents are happy with the number of children in their family, but would like to work more. Yet other parents who are happy with their family situation, may wish to work at different hours, or reduce hours worked to spend more time with their children. This book synthesises the finding of the 13 individual country reviews published previously and extends the scope to include other OECD countries, examining tax/benefit policies, parental leave systems, child care support, and workplace practices.
"...a good source for a socio-political analysis of OECD countries and comparative political hypothesis testing."
-Stan Silverberg, Catawba College
"...a great way of helping students learn to read and interpret graphical data."
-Ken Wedding, author of The AP Comparative Government and Politics Examination: What You Need to Know, Second Edition
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Tax and Benefit Systems and the Work Choices by Parents
This chapter discusses key characteristics of tax and benefit systems across the OECD, and the support they provide to families and children. The chapter looks at spending on family benefits and its implications for the reconciliation of work and family life, and the degree of targeting of public support on low-income groups. It then considers how tax/benefit systems alter financial incentives to work for second earners in couple families and how they affect the distribution of paid work in these families. The chapter also discusses how tax/benefit systems may provide sole parents with financial incentives to work, and how differences in the general policy stance towards sole parents contribute to marked differences in benefit dependency among these families across OECD countries.
Also available in: French
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