Women, Work, and Babies: Family-Labor Market Policies in Three European Countries

Abstract

This analysis of the family-labor market policies of three European countries—Sweden, the former East Germany, and the former West Germany—contends that the major influences on such policies are the labor needs of the economic system; state-promoted notions of equality of opportunity versus equality of result; and public attitudes toward gender, motherhood, and equality. It demonstrates the contradiction inherent in policies that seek both to protect mothers and to promote equality in the workforce and the need to consider equality of result, as well as equality of opportunity, as a potential policy goal.