Aging societies have been challenged by a growing shortage of skilled workers and the rising costs of pensions (Lynch 2006). Consequently, policymakers raised retirement ages to extend working lives and increase the labor market participation of older workers (Crossdale et al. 2022). However, this strategy deepens inequalities and puts disadvantages on those without opportunities to work longer (Mäcken et al. 2022, Bennett and Möhring 2015). Access to the labor market has remained impeded for certain populations, especially for women. This is unfortunate because the integration of women into the workforce is a particularly promising means of substantially enhancing the aging workforce. One explanation is that, compared to men, women are culturally expected to shoulder the lion share of unpaid care work (Meyer and Pfau-Effinger 2006). European countries largely rely on the family, and therefore women, to provide care and have not developed successful strategies to encourage women to remain in the labor force (Foster and Walker 2013). This is problematic because earlier employment choices (e.g. labor market exit, reduction of working hours) based on earlier family events (e.g. childbirth, partnership) have an impact up until late working life (Wahrendorf et al. 2018). Consequently, women’s late working lives tend to be characterized by unpaid care work or part-time employment. In contrast, men’s late working histories turn out largely structured around full-time work (Komp-Leukkunen 2019, Stafford et al. 2019, Wahrendorf et al. 2018). The main purpose of this study is to, first, explore the working trajectories for the groups of men and women in late life, and second, associate these trajectories with family history across welfare regimes.
We advance existing research in four ways. First, this is the first study that examines how the association between gendered late working life trajectories and earlier family history differs by five welfare regimes – including Post-socialist countries. The majority of studies examined or compared single countries (Lacey et al. 2016, Ehrlich et al. 2020, Stafford et al. 2019, König 2017, Fasang 2010). However, the generalization of one country's findings is not fruitful because public policies vary across countries (Mayer 2004, Kuitto and Helmdag 2021, Möhring 2016). By comparing welfare regimes, we gain a better understanding of how individual life courses depend on different types of national contexts. Second, previous research has mostly focused on single outcomes and especially retirement timing to understand late employment (Madero-Cabib et al. 2015, König 2017, Fasang 2010, Toczek et al. 2022, Bennett and Möhring 2015). However, explaining retirement does not provide knowledge about those older people excluded from the workforce (e.g. women). Moreover, to understand late employment it’s necessary to simultaneously inspect multiple indicators anchored in employment histories. Our sequence and cluster analysis contribute to closing this research gap by capturing trajectories of late employment over time. This allows us to use the actual late employment history of our sample as an outcome instead of single employment statuses (Aisenbrey and Fasang 2010). Third, much research has insufficiently addressed the explanatory role of early family history concerning late employment trajectories, also due to the focus on shorter time periods, such as short-term effects of caregiving on employment(Bertogg et al. 2021, Lalive and Zweimüller 2009) or multi-channel work-family sequence analyses (Lacey et al. 2016, McMunn et al. 2015, Madero-Cabib and Fasang 2016). Few studies have employed a life course perspective to examine how late working life is associated with family history, such as childcare or coresidential partnership (Wahrendorf et al. 2018, Worts et al. 2016). A fourth shortcoming is the investigation of groups of men and women together when deriving employment history types (Wahrendorf et al. 2018, Hoven et al. 2018). This likely obscures meaningful differences between them because women’s employment histories are more disruptive than men’s (Komp-Leukkunen 2019).
This study tackles previous shortcomings by analyzing how the gender-specific association between family history and late working life histories differs by five welfare regimes. We use life history data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARELIFE) to answer the following research questions: Do working life trajectories in Europe differ by gender? Can these trajectories be explained by family history? Does the association between late working life trajectories and family history vary across welfare regimes? We carry out explorative sequence analyses for the groups of men and women fifteen years prior to retirement (50 to 65 years). The resulting types of employment histories serve as the outcome in a multinomial regression framework with family history and welfare regimes as predictors.
Theory And Evidence
Previous research has suggested the suitability of the life course concept in explaining working trajectories (Hoven et al. 2018, Madero-Cabib and Fasang 2016). The life course concept focuses on trajectories of employment histories instead of single events (Aisenbrey and Fasang 2010) and assumes that individual histories are shaped by earlier events in life and socio-political frameworks that influence individual behaviour (Dannefer 2003, Elder et al. 2003, Mayer 2004). Specifically, according to the theory of cumulative (dis)advantages, adversities in earlier life accumulate into growing disadvantages which are enhanced through social characteristics (e.g. gender) according to the concept of intersectionality (Holman and Walker 2020). Older workers with discontinuous employment histories, which are predominant among women are most likely in part-time employment or unpaid care work (Komp-Leukkunen 2019, Hoven et al. 2018).
According to the human capital theory, individuals weigh costs and benefits when they choose between employment and unpaid work (Becker 1965). These choices are shaped by societal norms and their reproduction via policies (Dewilde 2003). If societal norms and associated welfare state policies assign care responsibility to women, remaining in employment will only be implementable with great hurdles (De Tavernier 2016). Hence, the resulting choices may be gendered because men and women have different opportunities presented to them and these decisions are assumed to impact employment up until late working life. For instance, past discontinuities in working life due to child-rearing among women cause less work experience which might offer fewer employment histories. Previous research has shown long-term effects of earlier family events on late employment: Partnered women with children are more likely in unpaid care or part-time work in old age, whereas men are more likely full-time employed (Worts et al. 2016, Wahrendorf et al. 2018, Abendroth et al. 2014).
The welfare state is seen as an important factor shaping the structure of an individual’s life course. Their social security institutions and policies structure employment histories by rewarding continuous employment biographies (permanent full-time employment) which are mainly valid for men, whereas women are generally expected to follow normal family biographies (marriage, childcare) (Kohli 2007, Mayer 2004, Lewis 1992). Countries can be grouped into different types of welfare regimes that impact individual employment histories depending on their level of intervention (Esping-Andersen 1990, Arts and Gelissen 2002). Women’s attachment to the labor market is stronger in the social democratic regime (e.g. Sweden), which supports flexible careers, the dual-earner model and public child care (Mayer 2004, Anttonen and Sipilä 1996) – compared to the conservative (e.g. Germany) and southern regime (e.g. Greece), which rely on women to shoulder care responsibilities (Worts et al. 2016). The conservative regime highly regulates working life by rewarding continuous working biographies, whereas the southern regime is characterized by a lack of intervention. Both regimes produce high levels of gender inequality (Möhring 2016). Moreover, countries of the liberal regime (e.g. UK) support market mechanisms that produce welfare, which in turn encourage the traditional breadwinner-caretaker division. Prior research has found that British women who are partnered are more likely in unpaid care or part-time work in late working life (Wahrendorf et al. 2018). Lastly, the post-socialist regime (e.g. Poland) is characterized by a high prevalence of female full-time employment and only short employment disruptions due to the provision of public child care (Buchholz et al. 2008).
Based on these theoretical and empirical considerations, we argue that late working life histories differ heavily by gender. First, we hypothesize that women’s late working life is strongly shaped by unpaid care and part-time work compared to men, while men’s late working life is mainly characterized by full-time work (H1). Second, we expect that family history contributes to these inequalities: We hypothesize that family history increases the women’s probability of being in domestic and part-time work (H2a), and the men’s probability of working full-time (H2b). Lastly, we hypothesize that the former associations between family history and late working life trajectories are most pronounced in welfare regimes that encourage the breadwinner-caretaker division (H3).