Welfare State Policy

Family Policy, work patterns, and perceptions

A vast breadth of empirical literature exists that investigates the determinants and patterns of female labour market integration. One of the crucial findings is that policy structures and, in particular, external childcare are among the most important factors facilitating and influencing female employment. While the extant literature has largely focused on employment, we aim at investigating female (and male) work patterns from a broader perspective. In particular, we investigate the role of varying policy contexts on the within-household division of labour, namely on the allocation of time of partners to paid work, care work and housework, in five European countries.

SNF-project “The Elasticity of Family Models Revisited: Policy configurations and the gender-specific reconciliation of work and  care (2019-2023).

Projektwebsite

Related publications:

• STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle (2019). “How does working time flexibility affect gender-specific work intentions?” in: Careja, Romana; Emmenegger, Patrick and Nathalie Giger (eds.), in European Social Model in Crisis. Springer.
• STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle and Dominique OEHRLI (2017). “Perceiving Reconciliation: Childcare Policies and Gendered Time Conflicts”, Gender and Society 31(5): 597-623.
• STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle (2011). Dimensions of family policy and female labour market participation: Analysing group-specific policy effects, Governance 24(2): 331-357.
• STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle (2008). Women, Labor, and Public Policy. The female labour market integration in the OECD countries: A comparative perspective, Journal of Social Policy 37(3): 383-408.
• STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle (2007). Der Einfluss der sozialpolitischen Kontexte auf die Frauenerwerbstätigkeit in der Schweiz, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 59(4): 589-614.
• STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle (2007). Policies, Frauen und der Arbeitsmarkt. Die Frauenerwerbstätigkeit in der Schweiz im internationalen und interkantonalen Vergleich. Reihe Policy-Forschung und Vergleichende Regierungslehre, Band 4. Münster, Lit Verlag.

Welfare State Policy and Policy Feedback

This area of research focuses on the question of how and why different countries or subnational units vary in their supply of welfare state policies and – most importantly – what consequences these different policies have on societal, economic, and political outcomes. The crucial assumption on which the different research projects are built, suggests that the policy environment influences citizens’ value and behavior patterns. Policies, however, typically do not affect the entire population in a uniform way; rather, different groups of citizens may react to and be influenced by a given policy context quite differently.
While this idea influences many empirical studies executed by Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen and her team, recently she has been contributing to the field of policy feedback research on a more conceptual basis.

Related publications:

• KUMLIN, Staffan; HAUGSGJERD, Atle and Isabelle STADELMANN-STEFFEN (2019). “Welfare State Consequences for Trust: More Political than Social?”, in: Eric M. Uslaner (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 385-408.
• ARNOLD, Tobias and Isabelle STADELMANN-STEFFEN (2017). “How Federalism Influences Welfare Spending: Belgium Federalism Reform Through the Perspective of the Synthetic Control Method”, European Journal of Political Research 56(3): 680-702.
• KUMLIN, Staffan and Isabelle STADELMANN-STEFFEN (2016). “Studying How Policies Affect the People: Grappling with Measurement, Causality and the Macro-Micro Divide”, in: Jaap Woldendorp and Hans Keman (eds.), Handbook on Methods and Applications in Political Science, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited: 343-358.
• KUMLIN, Staffan and Isabelle STADELMANN-STEFFEN (eds.) (2014). How Welfare States Shape the democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation, Voting and Attitudes. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781782545484.xml