Parental Leave and Gender Equality: Lessons from the European Union

abstract This article describes the development of European Union parental leave policy and its impact on mothers'and fathers'access to parental leave in the individual nations that make up the union. Cross-national variations in parental leave policy are described and analyzed. Although the 15 countries belonging to the EU in 2002 are concerned about helping working parents reconcile employment and family responsibilities, so far, only one—Sweden—has begun to develop a parental leave policy likely to facilitate men's and women's sharing of responsibility for breadwinning and child care.     

The Rising Tide Economy: Lessons from the Squeezed Middle for Progressive Economic Policy

For all its rhetorical potency, the policy implications of the ‘squeezed middle’ are yet to be fully explored. This article looks at what the phenomenon means for the design and prosecution of progressive economic policy. It argues that any progressive government today needs to adopt a new first order goal of economic policy: ensuring that the material wellbeing of ordinary working people rises when the economy grows, a project referred to as ‘building a rising tide economy’. This objective would sit in addition to the traditional goals of sustained GDP growth, high employment, low inflation and poverty reduction. It would have real implications across a range of important policy areas.     

Campaigning against the Cuts: Gender Equality Movements in Tough Times

The Coalition's economic strategy poses a significant threat to gender equality in the UK. In the absence of committed gender equality advocates in the government, campaigning is, again, from the outside. This article presents some of the new strategies developed by individuals and organisations such as the Women's Budget Group and the Fawcett Society to fight against the cuts and considers the effectiveness of their approaches.     

Pension Programs Around the World: New Comparative Global Policy Data

Abstract

Income protection during old age is a universally recognized human right. Are nations fulfilling their responsibility for income support for older adults? Using a new global dataset on social protection conceptualized and built by two of the authors, this paper examines whether countries have legislated for national pension systems, and the characteristics and adequacy of those systems.     

Rising to the Top: Gender,Political Performance,and Party Leadership in Parliamentary Democracies

Party leaders are the main actors controlling campaign strategies, policy agendas, and government formation in advanced parliamentary democracies. Little is known, however, about gender and party leadership. This article examines gendered leadership patterns across 71 political parties in 11 parliamentary democracies between 1965 and 2013. It shows that men and women have different access to, and experiences in, party leadership and that these gendered political opportunity structures are shaped by parties' political performances. Women are more likely to initially come to power in minor opposition parties and those that are losing seat share. Once selected for the position, female leaders are more likely to retain office when their parties gain seats, but they are also more likely to leave the post when faced with an unfavorable trajectory. Together, these results demonstrate that prospective female leaders are playing by a different (and often more demanding) set of rules than their male counterparts.     

Assessing the Impact of Parliamentary Design: The Case of the Danish Committee on Gender Equality

This article contributes to the literature on parliamentary design in general and the pioneer literature on parliamentary bodies specialized in gender equality in particular. It does so by establishing a frame for the critical assessment of the impacts of such an institutional design. Moreover, by using interviews and data on the behavior of committee members, it demonstrates the advantages of applying a mixed method within a field that has mostly relied on participant interviews. A systematic analysis of the impact of the Danish Committee on Gender Equality shows that although this particular committee has not succeeded in adding the perspective of gender equality to legislation, it has increased parliamentary control with the government. Furthermore, it has enabled much better interaction between parliament and civil society organizations.     

Gender Equality as a Closed Case: A Survey among the Members of the 2015 Danish Parliament

Despite almost unanimous adherence to the principle of gender equality in contemporary Denmark, a society with a long historical record of gender equality policies and almost 40 percent women in parliament, are there still divergences to be found among the members of parliament concerning gender equality principles and policies? This article argues that in order to identify underlying cleavages it is necessary to pose fundamental questions that go beyond the day‐to‐day disagreements on policy issues. Based on a new survey of the members of the Danish parliament, this study finds that the support for gender equality is not just a matter of lip service insofar as few MPs hold traditionalist views on women. However, the study reveals conflicting perceptions, left‐right cleavages and gender gaps, sometimes also within the parties. A new discourse is identified, supported by a large minority that includes all of the male MPs from the four right‐wing parties; this minority considers gender equality to be a ‘closed case’ – that is, as having by and large been achieved. This may provide clues to the puzzle of the stagnation in gender equality reforms in spite of the general support for ‘gender equality’. The article discusses the possible connection between the ‘closed case’ discourse, present neoliberal trends in society and the recent construction of gender equality as an ‘intrinsic Danish value’ – an argument familiar in other countries with a harsh debate over immigration.