Child-related leave and women’s labour market outcomes: towards a new paradigm in the European Union?

The current European Union (EU) legislative framework on child-related leave is facilitating an imbalance in the take-up of leave by women over men. There is a consolidated EU right to maternity leave for mothers but there is no parallel EU right to paternity leave for fathers. The EU right to parental leave is for both working mothers and fathers, but its design does not encourage an equal take-up by women and men. The aim of this article is to gain insight into the effects of child-related leave on women’s labour market outcomes. On the one hand, it reviews and analyses economic literature which points to the adverse consequences of leave on women’s earnings, and even on women’s labour market participation when the absences from work are very prolonged. On the other hand, it underlines the new direction followed by the European Commission towards greater equality between men and women at home and at work.     

THEORIZING SANCTIONING IN A CRIMINALIZED JUVENILE COURT*

Recent juvenile justice reforms have produced increasingly complex and criminal‐like approaches to sanctioning youths, yet research to date has not examined the full range of newly available sentencing options nor systematically drawn on theories of adult sentencing. The present study addresses these issues by developing competing hypotheses about the effects of legal, extralegal, and processing factors, as well as sentencing options, in a highly proceduralized and criminalized juvenile court in Texas. These hypotheses are then tested using quantitative and qualitative data. The results are largely consistent with derived expectations and do not support arguments that increased proceduralization and criminalization of juvenile courts will eliminate consideration of age, gender, or race/ethnicity in sentencing decisions.     

The Difference a Job Makes: Licit and Illicit Work Experiences and Aspirations at a Transitional Housing Facility for Women Leaving the Sex Industry

This investigation establishes a baseline understanding of how women exiting the sex industry understand the economic options available to them by reviewing their work experiences in the legal economy, histories of sex industry involvement, and their aspirations for legal work upon entering a yearlong residential program offered at a transitional housing facility. Specifically, it explores how prior work experience, type of sex industry involvement, and demographic characteristics such as race and age intersect with women’s legal work aspirations upon leaving the sex industry. Analysis indicates that women’s occupational choices are limited by prior experiences within the formal and informal economies and that women of color and poor women of all ethno-racial backgrounds are particularly likely to face disadvantages in both economic sectors. Findings accordingly indicate that rehabilitative settings must consider whether the career pathways they create lead to economic self-sufficiency and reduce the likelihood that women will return to life situations they express a desire to leave.     

The American Psychological Association's amicus curiae brief inPrice Waterhouse v. Hopkins

The use of amicus curiae briefs to inform the courts about the scientific literature requires merging scientific and legal perspectives. A brief submitted by the APA inPrice Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989) demonstrates how the values of the legal system can predominate over the values of science. The brief differed from a scientific review in three ways: (1) selective use of theories only when they supported the brief's position, (2) acceptance of Hopkins's contention concerning disputed facts, and (3) incomplete representation of the empirical literature. This article examines four of the main arguments in the brief. Half of the 33 studies cited in the brief for these arguments offered no support for the brief's position. In addition, the brief made no mention of a substantial body of research (78 studies) that directly contradicts these arguments.The authors would like to thank Ralph Alexander, Terri Baumgardner, Dennis Doverspike, Rick DeShon, Jan Dorsett, Lynn Kahney, Paul Levy, Robert Lord, Karen Maher, Marty Murphy, Jackie Szmania, and Linda Subich for their comments.     

Legal parent versus biological parent: the impact of disclosure

This article addresses arguments regarding disclosure of information to donor-conceived individuals, showing that disclosure is entirely different from the recognition of parental rights and responsibilities for the gamete providers. It argues that disclosure of information is not equivalent to saying: "donors are parents". Instead, information release simply provides a basis for donors, donor-conceived individuals and recipient parents to exchange information about themselves. When a jurisdiction enacts laws that provide for such information release, these statutes are distinct from any other legal rights and responsibilities for any members of the donor-conceived community. In its first section, the article briefly explains the means for determining legal parentage before reviewing research on how parents tell their children about their means of conception. Next, it explores studies of why members of the donor-conceived world search, providing an empirical basis for the claim that disclosure does not equal parenthood. The article explores concerns about information release, and, in the final section, suggests possible approaches for protecting the rights of donor-conceived people while reinforcing the legal separation between social and biological parents.     

EFFECTS OF SKILL-BASED VERSUS INFORMATION-BASED DIVORCE EDUCATION PROGRAMS ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND PARENTAL COMMUNICATION

This study used a pre- and postevaluation with a control group to compare the effectiveness of two divorce education programs: skill-based Children in the Middle (CIM) and informationbased Children First in Divorce (CFD). Each treatment group consisted of approximately 125 divorcing parents mandated to attend divorce education in Florida. The control group consisted of 64 divorcing parents not mandated to attend divorce education in Alabama for lack of a program. Treatment and control parents lived in comparable cities with comparable demographics. Results indicate that CIM, not CFD, improved parental communication. Both CIM and CFD reduced child exposure to parental conflict. Neither program had effects on domestic violence, actual parental conflict, or child behavior problems. Across all groups, parents with greater divorce knowledge and communication skills experienced more reciprocal discussions with the other parent, less parental conflict, less domestic violence, and they exposed children to less conflict.     

Reconfiguring Law: An Ethnographic Perspective from Botswana

Using two marital disputes, this article examines women's experiences in bringing legal claims regarding family property in Botswana. It highlights the ways women draw on diverse economic and social resources available to them through their differing positions within gendered social networks that shape daily life and affect the ability to access and manipulate a legal system incorporating Tswana customary law and European law. The divergent discourses among women and between women and men document how the administrative and theoretical separation of legal systems does not extend to people's uses of the law in arranging their own lives. This analysis challenges the formalist model of legal pluralism by demonstrating that legal arguments are constructed from the gendered social and economic facts of individuals'lives that traverse the legal categories of European and customary law. It also contributes to feminist legal scholarship by explicitly marking the links among gender, power, and law.     

Political Liberalism, Marriage and the Family

Can and should political liberals recognize and otherwise support legal marriage as a matter of basic justice? In this article, we offer a general account of how political liberals should evaluate the issue of whether the legal recognition of marriage is a matter of basic justice. And, we develop and examine some public reason arguments that, given the fundamental interests of citizens, could justify various forms of legal marriage in some contexts. In particular, in certain conditions, the recognition of some form of legal marriage may be the best way to protect the fundamental interests of women as citizens in freely chosen associations. Or, it may be that, in certain conditions, to secure the social conditions necessary for gays, lesbians and bisexuals to be free and equal citizens, some form of legal marriage can or should be recognized.     

Undermining Gender Equality: Female Attrition from Private Law Practice

The number of women in the legal profession has grown tremendously over the last 40 years, with women now representing about half of all law school graduates. Despite the decades‐long pipeline of women into the profession, women's representation among law firm partnerships remains dismally low. One key reason identified for women's minority presence among law firm partners is the high level of attrition of women associates from law firms. This high rate of female attrition undermines efforts to achieve gender equality in the legal profession. Using a survey of 1,270 law graduates, we employ piecewise constant exponential hazard regression models to explore gendered career paths from private law practice. Our analysis reveals that, for both men and women, the time leading up to partnership decisions sees many lawyers exit private practice, but women continue to leave private practice long after partnership decisions are made. Gender differences in leaving private practice also surface with reference to cohorts, areas of law, billable hours, firm sizes, and career gaps. Notably, working in criminal law augmented women's risk of leaving private practice, but not for men, while taking time away from practice for reasons other than parental leaves, hastens both men's and women's exits from private practice.     

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority of Bridewealth in a Post‐Apartheid South African Community

This article examines the persistent authority of lobola, the customary practice for forming marriages in many South African communities. South African marriage rates have sharply fallen, and many blame this on economic challenges completing lobola. Using in‐depth, qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu‐Natal, where lobola demands are the country's highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola's authority survives because lay actors have innovated new approaches for pursuing emerging desires for marriage via lobola. I argue that dyadic narratives of marriage increasingly circulate alongside “traditional” extended‐family narratives, especially among the young women who strongly support lobola while yearning for gender‐egalitarian marriages. My argument synthesizes actor‐oriented analyses of legal pluralism with Ewick and Silbey's theorization of lay actors’ role in producing legality to illuminate how lay actors contribute not only to the form and content of different legal systems, but also to the reach of their authority.     

Parental-leave policy for male lawyers in Helsinki and Montreal: cultural and professional barriers to male lawyers’ use of paternity and parental leaves

Family policies in Finland and French Canada (Québec) include fathers’ rights to paternity and parental leaves, which have resulted in more fathers using parental leave. Yet this policy has a limited outreach to male-dominated professions, including the legal profession. In this article, we examine attitudes to paternity and parental leaves among male lawyers and the motives behind their decisions to use or not use them. We approach the issue from the perspective of the legal profession’s professional ethos, which impacts lawyers’ attitudes and practices regarding work-life balance. In our analysis, we draw on 20 Finnish and 18 Quebecois interviews with current and former male lawyers from private law practices in two urban civil-law contexts: Helsinki, Finland and Montreal, Canada. The findings indicate that, in traditionally male-dominated professions, it is not enough to provide men with a statutory right to paternity and parental leave. There is also a need for organisational solutions and peer encouragement in the work environment so that men feel comfortable taking leave.     

Reflecting on Brexit: migration myths and what comes next for EU migrants in the UK?

This article considers the potential impact of Brexit on the family and welfare entitlement of EU migrants living in the UK and of UK migrants living in other EU Member States. Whilst the vast majority of those campaigning for the UK to leave the EU (publicly at least) argued in favour of those already present in the UK at the time of the referendum having their status protected, the government has been considerably less vocal in its support for this outcome. As such, EU migrants living in the UK presently face considerable uncertainty as to their own and their families’ future legal status and entitlement to welfare rights. The article will expose some of the evidential and legal gaps in the assertions made about EU migrants’ socio economic entitlement with a view to providing a more informed, legally accurate appraisal of how the Brexit negotiations could unfold.     

Islamic Law in Action: A Historical Discussion

This review essay engages Kristen Stilt's recent book, Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Everyday Experiences in Mamluk Egypt (2011), in a fashion that highlights its contributions to the study of Islamic law. In particular, it underlines the methodological arguments made in the book that might help us think about Islamic legal practice in sophisticated and historically grounded ways. As elaborated in the article, these arguments have important implications for modern as well historical settings. Specifically, Stilt's discussion of “Islamic law in action” reveals the inherent flexibility of Islamic legal practice to accommodate political change. The article also discusses how further research on the topic could benefit from specific approaches and orientations.     

Concepts of Representation and the Passage of the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill

The Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill was introduced to the House of Commons in October 2001, gaining Royal Assent in February 2002. The Bill followed the decrease in the numbers of women elected in the 2001 General Election. It permits political parties to introduce positive action in the selection of candidates. The Bill received cross party support and had an easy passage through both Houses of Parliament. Informed by feminist concepts of representation this article examines the arguments employed by MPs and Peers in support of the legislation. Arguments associated with the claim that women have a different political style received little support. There was greater discussion of, and support for, arguments based on symbolic representation and substantive representation, although many MPs were reluctant to make the strong claim that women's substantive representation is dependent upon women's presence. However, the most widely supported argument in favour of the Bill was the justice argument, namely, that women are currently being denied equal opportunities in the parties' selection processes.     

Does the Unconstrained Legal Actor Exist?

Abstract. The unconstrained legal actor, typically a judge, is a central character in modern jurisprudence. He is feared by legal formalists, legal positivists, and Ronald Dworkin alike. He is lauded by some legal realist and critical legal studies theorists. Stanley Fish says that all of this theorising is pointless because the unconstrained legal actor cannot exist. My paper evaluates Fish's arguments for this surprising position.     

Examining an Extension of Johnson’s Hypothesis: Is Male Perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence More Underreported than Female Violence?

This paper examines two hypotheses about under-reporting in intimate partner violence data. The first hypothesis holds that significant amounts of under-reporting of intimate partner violence occur due to stigma. The second examines the empirical evidence behind Johnson’s (Journal of Marriage and the Family 57:238–294, 1995) contention that controversial findings of equal rates of intimate partner violence perpetration among men and women occur through a combination of heterogeneity in type of intimate partner violence and missing data. E.M. and Data Augmentation are used to correct for item non-response in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Strong support is found for general under-reporting; weak support is found for greater under-reporting of male violence.     

Effective handling of health-related leaves of absence

This article will address the legal obligations of employers in non-union settings toward employees who request pregnancy leave, parental or medical leave, workers' compensation leave, and other forms of disability leave. Specifically, this article will address the legal standards set forth under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, various state pregnancy and family leave acts, workers' compensation retaliatory discharge authority, and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. In addition, this article will provide practical guidance for employers in formulating effective leave policies that provide the maximum amount of operational flexibility while at the same time minimizing the risk of costly and excessive litigation.     

Undocumented consciousness: Citizenship and illegality in the lives of US citizen youth

This paper examines the impact of immigration law on US citizens' understanding of legal status categories. Prior research on legal consciousness has uncovered the ways in which undocumented persons make sense of and navigate their legal position in society. Less is known, however, about the paradox of US citizen children who are legally protected by their citizenship yet grow up in the context of their parents' precarious immigration statuses. Drawing on interviews with US citizen youth and undocumented parents, I conceptualize the phenomenon of undocumented consciousness to explain how US citizens make sense of parental legal status vulnerability. By witnessing their parents' blocked opportunities from work, travel, and other aspects of life, youth begin to attach meaning to citizenship and its protections, all the while forming an understanding of what it means, practically, to live in the United States with and without legal status. Findings reveal the mechanisms by which it is possible for functions of immigration law to have adverse impacts on the lives of US citizens themselves.     

GENDER ISSUES IN FAMILY LAW

Family mediation has been the target of criticism from feminists, the legal profession, and mental health professionals. Although this article will primarily address the concerns of feminists, it will, to a limited extent, address some of the concerns put forth by the other groups because of the similarities in their perspectives. Many of the concerns and issues expressed by feminists are valid on one hand, yet contradictory on the other. By exploring the gains made by women and how these gains were incorporated in the Ontario Family Law Act, the contradictions inherent in their arguments will be revisited and discussed in relation to a feminist-informed mediation process. This article will explore seven aspects of the feminist critique of family mediation: protection of women and children's rights, spousal and child support, equal distribution of marital property, negotiations, empowerment, custody, and spousal abuse. Many of these issues are intertwined and therefore will occasionally be discussed in relation to other issues.     

Australian Rules: The Rise of Rights and the Demise of the Right

Over a number of years there has been a public debate in Australia over the place of legal rights in the struggle for Indigenous economic, social and cultural gains. Most Indigenous leaders have called for a rights agenda as a solution to Indigenous disadvantage. However, one leader has been a vocal critic of this approach. This paper considers the possibility that although the debates may fundamentally represent different views as to how best to improve conditions for Indigenous Nations, they also represent differing approaches to harnessing the support of mainstream Australia in a politically conservative environment. In coming to this position, I am reminded of the arguments put by proponents of the Critical Legal Studies movement in US, that rights are merely abstractions, and the counter by Patricia Williams, a Critical Race Theorist, that as a result, they can be framed in a variety of ways and can take the form required by the community in which they are found. In Australia, minority groups must find an indexically-open vehicle, fitting to the Australian rhetorical structure(s), to represent their struggle for economic, social and cultural rights. Tracey Summerfield is a white woman born in Perth, Western Australia. Thanks to Stephanie Monck, a Kungarakan/Warramungu woman from the Northern Territory, who provided assistance and feedback on an earlier version. The views expressed here are, of course, those of the writer alone.