employment protective legislation is likely to widen the gender gap in specific
investments resulting in greater occupational segregation than would otherwise result.
The most important women-friendly policies include generous paid maternity and
parental leaves, and extensive public childcare provision. Statutory maternity leave
serves as extra employment protection targeted at women to protect them from dismissal
risks. It works in this way by prohibiting employers from dismissing pregnant workers.
In their strongest forms, statutory maternity and parental leaves guarantee a mother’s
return to the job she held before childbirth. Paid—as opposed to unpaid—maternity and
parental leaves protect women against loss of income during pregnancy and childrearing.
Extensive availability of public childcare similarly protects women from loss of income
due to childrearing by enabling mothers to return to work. Childcare, however, also
protects women from risks of skill depreciation and missed skill acquisition opportunities
in ways that even the most generous of paid leaves cannot hope to match. Let me
elaborate on the differences between generous paid leaves and childcare.
II
.4.
GENDER BIAS OF WELFARE STATES
:
LIMITS OF WOMEN
-
FRIENDLY POLICIES
The two types of women-friendly policies discussed so far are likely to interact
with skill regimes in different ways. Statutory leaves and public childcare provision are
both intended to promote women’s employment. They nonetheless differ on a dimension
that is critical for women’s human capital development: paid leaves increase women’s
time off work, while extensive childcare provision reduces it. This means that paid
leaves potentially widen the female-male gaps in the number of years worked—unless the
government mandates paternity leaves on fathers forcing men to take time-off-work—
18
Convention