Do Work Family Policies Explain Female Labor Participation Across EU Countries?
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Balancing work and family responsibilities remains one of the main challenges for women’s labor market participation in Europe. Despite long-standing policy efforts to promote gender equality, female labor force participation still varies widely across EU member states, suggesting that institutional and social contexts play an important role in shaping women’s employment outcomes. Therefore, understanding which work–family policies are most effective in supporting female labor force participation is important for both academic research and policy development. This thesis examines how work-family policies, especially public family spending and childcare enrollment, relate to female labor force participation across 27 EU member states, controlling for female educational attainment, the gender pay gap, and fertility timing. Using Eurostat data from 2016 to 2023, the analysis primarily relies on a pooled OLS regression model, with two-way fixed effects and OLS with country dummies used as robustness checks. The findings suggest that higher family policy spending is positively associated with female employment, while formal childcare enrolment shows an unexpected negative relationship. Structural factors such as female education and the gender pay gap appear to reflect long-standing differences between countries rather than short-term variation. Overall, the results indicate that work-family policies matter, but their effectiveness depends on broader institutional and social conditions within each country.
Author: Punchihewa, Chathurika Indunil
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7165830007