Contextualizing the Education Effect on Women's Employment: A Cross‐National Comparative Analysis
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12256 |
| Date | 01 February 2016 |
| Published date | 01 February 2016 |
| Author | Caroline Berghammer,Nadia Steiber,Barbara Haas |
N S University of Vienna and Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU)
C B University of Vienna and Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU)∗
B H Vienna University of Economics and Business∗∗
Contextualizing the Education Effect on Women’s
Employment: A Cross-National Comparative
Analysis
The authors examine how and why the effect
of education on women’s employment varies
cross-nationally.First, they present a theoretical
model that (a) outlines the micro-level mecha-
nisms underlying education effects on women’s
employment in the couple context and (b) pro-
poses contextual moderators at the country level.
Second, they test the theoretical model against
survey data from the United Nations’ Genera-
tions and Gender Programme for 5 European
countries (Austria, France, Germany, Hungary,
and Norway). The data comprise 10,048 edu-
cationally homogamous heterosexual couples
involving a woman age 20–45. The results
Department of Economic Sociology, Universityof Vienna,
Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Vienna, Austria
(nadia.steiber@univie.ac.at) and Wittgenstein Centre for
Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA,
VID/ÖAW, WU), International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis, Schlossplatz 1, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.
∗Department of Sociology, Universityof Vienna,
Rooseveltplatz 2, 1090 Vienna,Austria and Wittgenstein
Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA,
VID/ÖAW, WU), ViennaInstitute of Demography/Austrian
Academy of Sciences, Welthandelsplatz 2, 1020 Vienna,
Austria.
∗∗Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of
Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna,
Austria.
Key Words: couple employment, cross-national compar-
isons, dual-earner,education, gender.
indicate that more highly educated couples are
more likely to have dual-earner arrangements
in each country, yet the strength of education
effects varied substantially between countries
and across the family life cycle. In contrast
to prior work, the authors nd that education
effects are not generally smaller in countries
that are supportive of women’s employment.
This relation holds only for later child-rearing
phases.
More highly educated women are more strongly
involved in the labor market. This general pat-
tern has been conrmed by numerous studies
covering different parts of the world (e.g.,
Berghammer, 2014; England, Garcia-Beaulieu,
& Ross, 2004; England, Gornick, & Shafer,
2012; Evertsson et al., 2009; Evertsson, Eng-
land, Hermsen, & Cotter, 2007; Nieuwenhuis,
Need, & van der Kolk, 2012; Rubery, Smith,
& Fagan, 1999). It is consistent with human
capital theory and the logic of opportunity costs:
The more highly educated have a greater wage
potential, and therefore it is relatively more
costly for them not to work. Moreover, higher
education tends to be associated with more
egalitarian gender role attitudes and better labor
market opportunities. It has in fact become
a truism—in the academic community and
beyond—that women’s employment is higher
246 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (February 2016): 246–261
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12256
Contextualizing the Education Effect 247
at higher levels of educational attainment. Yet
the literature shows interesting variations across
countries in the strength of education effects
on women’s employment (e.g., England et al.,
2012; Evertsson et al., 2009; Kenjoh, 2005)
that warrant closer examination and explana-
tion. The central aim of the present study is
to foster our understanding of how and why
education effects on women’s employment vary
cross-nationally.
To this end, we rst present a comprehen-
sive theoretical model that (a) outlines the
micro-level mechanisms commonly argued
to underlie education effects on couples’
employment arrangements and (b) lays out the
contextual conditions at the country level under
which we may expect the different micro-level
mechanisms to be of greater or lesser relevance.
Second, we use international survey data to test
hypotheses derived from the theoretical model.
The focus of the investigation is on education-
ally homogamous couples that represent the
majority of couples in the countries analyzed.
We examine education effects on couples’
employment in ve countries—Austria, France,
Germany,Hungary, and Norway—each with dif-
ferent structures of opportunities and constraints
for high-educated and low-educated women
and men. Following a small-country-sample
approach (Yu, 2015), we use comparable survey
data from a limited number of countries that
show a theoretically informative variation in
welfare state arrangements, socioeconomic
conditions, family policies, and gender cultures
(Haas, Steiber, Hartel, & Wallace, 2006; Sains-
bury, 1999). Austria and Germany represent
the conservative welfare state arrangement
that is geared toward maintaining social strat-
ication and offers limited state support to
maternal employment in the context of a tra-
ditional gender culture. Norway represents
the social-democratic north of Europe with a
strongly redistributive welfare state arrange-
ment that is based on egalitarian principles
that foster wage equality and support an equal
integration of women and men into the labor
market. France combines a conservative welfare
state with a strong state support to families
with small children. Finally, Hungary is our
representative of the former socialist countries
of central-eastern Europe that still feature lower
levels of welfare (e.g., low wage levels) and
that have a long tradition of integrating women
into the labor market despite the prevalence of
traditional beliefs about women’s role in society
(Haas et al., 2006).
Within this comparative setting we explore
how cross-national differences in contextual
conditions translate into variations in the effect
of education on the employment arrangements
of educationally homogamous couples. In con-
trast to prior studies, we do not assume that the
educational gradient in employment participa-
tion is stable across the life course. Instead, we
examine the ways in which education effects
vary with the presence and age of children.
The remainder of this article is structured as
follows. In the next section, we present the the-
oretical framework to study education effects
on the employment arrangements of education-
ally homogamous couples. Then we describe the
data and methods used in the empirical analy-
ses. This is followed by a description of the con-
textual conditions in the countries analyzed and
our specic hypotheses regarding cross-national
differences in education effects on employment.
The subsequent section presents our empirical
results. In the nal section we summarize and
discuss our ndings.
T F
Education Effects: Micro-level Mechanisms
Education is key to understanding labor market
behavior. In theoretical and empirical work it
tends to be used as a proxy for human capital and
wage potential (Mincer, 1958). Classic human
capital theory holds that more highly educated
individuals are more likely to be employed than
the lower educated because their opportunity
costs of not having a job are higher (in terms
of forgone income; see Becker, 1991). Against
the backdrop of assortative educational mat-
ing and marriage (Blossfeld & Timm, 2003;
Schwartz & Mare, 2005), however, the effect of
a partner’s income represents a mechanism that
may counteract the opportunity cost effect of
women’s own education. High-educated women
tend to earn high wages and to be partnered with
high-income-earning men. Whereas their own
income potential increases their incentive to join
the labor market (opportunity cost effect), their
partner’s income serves to reduce this incen-
tive (income effect; cf. Killingsworth & Heck-
man, 1986). Conversely, low-educated women
tend to have lower wages, and they tend to
be partnered with low-income-earning men. In
terms of opportunity costs, their incentives to
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