DONDENA Seminar - Emmanuele Pavolini

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“An Elephant in the Family Policy Room: How Care Culture Moderates the Effects of Public Childcare Expansion on Women’s Labor Market Participation in Europe”

SPEAKER: Emmanuele Pavolini (University of Milan)

ABSTRACT: 

The paper investigates how cultural contexts, particularly gender care culture, influence the extent to which formal public childcare supports the increase in women’s labor market participation. Previous research has documented the significance of both structural factors, such as formal childcare services, and cultural contexts, including care culture and individual attitudes, in relation to female labor market participation. However, few studies have examined these elements jointly. The study utilizes individual-level data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) on women’s employment and their attitudes. This data is integrated with time-varying regional-level information on public early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision as well as on gender care culture. We employ multi-level models for our analysis. The findings indicate that in contexts where traditional cultural values regarding gendered care prevail, increasing public ECEC provision is particularly effective in supporting women’s labor market participation, especially by boosting full-time employment. This effect appears to be independent of individuals’ attitudes. This contribution underscores the interaction between structural and cultural factors in shaping employment behaviors, suggesting that the outcomes of social policy interventions, such as increases in ECEC, are heavily influenced by cultural contexts. Importantly, policies aimed at fostering equality in employment participation are likely to have stronger effects in contexts where gender equality is not supported by prevailing cultural values. 
 

BIO:

Emmanuele Pavolini is Full Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Milan. He has focused his research interests in two fields: studies on welfare systems in a comparative perspective, with particular attention to the social protection systems of Southern Europe and social inequalities in access to welfare services; the analysis of the labor market and the mechanisms of economic development. Until 2024 he was co-director of the Journal of European Social Policy and expert for the European Commission on welfare issues within the European Social Policy Network (ESPN). He is co-chair of Espanet Italia and was a member of the Board of Espanet Europe. Since 2020 he has also been Affiliated Professor at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, and since 2025 to the Dondena Center of Bocconi University.