In the first Episode of Series 2 of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Marika Jalovaara from the University of Türku in Finland and Anette Fasang from Humboldt University in Berlin about their research, Family Life Courses, Gender and Mid-Life earnings. The research explores whether the reputation of Nordic countries for having family friendly policies that create a fairer and more equal society is deserved. Using register data from Finland, the researchers look at the earnings of adults based on their family lifecourse and reveal 2 groups of young adults who should be a focus for policy makers and researchers going forward.
Transcript
Do Nordic countries live up to their promise of creating fairer and more equal societies?
In the first Episode of Series 2 of our podcast looking at research emerging from the Equal Lives project, we talk to Marika Jalovaara from the University of Türku in Finland and Anette Fasang from Humboldt University in Berlin about their research, Family Life Courses, Gender and Mid-Life earnings. The research explores whether the reputation of Nordic countries for having family friendly policies that create a fairer and more equal society is deserved. Using register data from Finland, the researchers look at the earnings of adults based on their family lifecourse and reveal 2 groups of young adults who should be a focus for policy makers and researchers going forward.
Christine Garrington 0:00
Welcome to DIAL, a podcast where we tune into evidence on inequality over the lifecourse. In this series we discuss findings from DIAL’s Equal Lives project which looks at how inequality impacts the lives of young adults. Our guests today are Marika Jalovaara from the University of Türku in Finland and Equal Lives Principal Investigator Anette Fasang from Humboldt University in Berlin. They have been looking at family life courses, gender and midlife earnings. I started by asking Marika about the background to the research.
Marika Jalovaara 0:30
Our study focuses on how the combination of family events across the life course is associated with midlife earnings for men and women. Many studies on family lives on inequality only look at what we call penalties and premiums associated with specific single-family events such as getting married or becoming a parent or getting divorced. For instance studies on so called motherhood penalties compare women with and without biological children to show disadvantages associated with motherhood but over the life course people experience different combinations of family events. Some cohabit, some get married, some separate or divorce, many re-partner maybe several times and some do none have these and most do combinations. And we wanted to see how the combined occurrences of family events is associated with midlife earnings and we look at both annual and accumulated earnings at midlife.
Christine Garrington 1:30
Okay right, so Anette who and what were the main focusses of this particular piece of research?
Anette Fasang 1:34
So unlike many previous studies that compare mothers to childless women we looked at men and women with all types of family life courses in this study and we focus specifically on Finland. So Finland is particularly interesting in our case because it’s one of the egalitarian Nordic welfare states that are often seen as a blueprint for family friendly policies and also kind of as forerunners in developing social and gender inequality but recently there has also been some debate on whether the Nordic model really achieves its egalitarian goals so we wanted to see if it can live up to its promises.
Christine Garrington 2:14
Okay, can you tell us where you got your information from and why it was such a good source of data for looking at these questions?
Anette Fasang 2:22
Yeah so we used an unusually rich data set and combining information from several administrative data sources so called register data. For example, from taxation registers, also birth registers, residential registers where we have very detailed information for several thousand men and women covering their life course from age 18 to almost up to age 40. And this is really quite unusual to have such broad access to different types of administrative data that enabled us to do this study it also provides very precise earnings information.
Christine Garrington 3:01
Now Marika as part of the research you use quite specialist techniques to identify seven typical family life courses for people aged from 18 to 39 – how did you go about doing that?
Marika Jalovaara 3:13
We used a technique called sequence analysis- it was developed in biology to study strings of DNA but instead of DNA our sequences are given by family life courses. We have said the same individuals every month from age 18 to 39 and reconstruct their family situations over the entire time period and clash analysis that determines the similarity between the sequences and based on that we can group them into so called clusters of similar sequences. And this gives us a typology of different family life courses so each group represent a typical family experience from age 18 to 39.
Christine Garrington 3:57
Okay so what were those groups or types of life courses Anette?
Anette Fasang 4:01
So first of all we had three of the seven groups that were characterised by a long lasting marriage. One was a marriage with few or no children – mainly childless marriage some had one child late. And then we have two groups that are married with two kids one very early already in their early 20s and the other quite late in their mid to late 30s. In particular these two later groups we also call the normative family life courses because they come from most with societal expectations about getting married and having two children. So in Finland we also have a strong two child norm and they are also most supported by institutions and family policies. But these were only three out of the seven types we then also had four types that’s where marriage basically played no role, only a very limited role, despite its normative relevance in Finland. So here we had one group that we call the childless serial cohabitors. These are people who don’t have kids and are in unmarried relationships that are oft the short term, then they break up into a new one, these serial cohabitors. Then we have a group of cohabiting parents. So these are unmarried parents that are mostly together in stable relationship their simply not married. And then two groups that were particularly interesting from a social policy perspective, as sort of risk groups, the one as single parents, often early single parents at a young age. And then the second one is a group of never partner, childless individuals, which is quite large in our case, and we were actually surprised to find that it is such a large group with particularly men who never were in longer term committed relationships and don’t have children by age 40.
Christine Garrington 5:53
Yeah, that’s a group we’ll talk about, again in a moment because you say quite important, very interesting. Marika when it came to what people then earned in midlife, which of those groups was earning the most and which was earning the least?
Marika Jalovaara 6:04
Earnings were highest for the most normal family life courses that combined stable marriage with having two or more children, for men and women. And midlife earnings were lowest for and unpartnered mothers and four never partnered, childless men.
Christine Garrington 6:18
And when you looked specifically at the differences in what men and women were earning, what did you find there?
Marika Jalovaara 6:23
But actually, we found that earnings gaps by family lives are small among women, but sizable among men, and the gender disparities in earnings are remarkably high, particularly between men and women with normative family lives. And this kind of gap between married mothers and married fathers remains invisible when looking only at motherhood panellists. This stronger association between family life and midlife earnings for men might be counter intuitive since most research claims that family lives matter more for women’s earnings but our findings are in line with research suggesting that marriage plays a larger role in men’s labour market outcomes than women’s. So women’s earnings in Finland are comparably low no matter what their family life course is just maybe for different reasons.
Christine Garrington 7:11
And were you surprised to see such big gaps, especially in the more traditional family life course?
Anette Fasang 7:15
Yes, we were I mean, first of all, this is against the egalitarian goals of the Nordic welfare states. And previous research had shown them that earnings differences between mothers and childless women, the motherhood penalties are quite low in Finland. So we thought probably here we will find a more egalitarian distribution also by gender. But indeed, we found this very sizable gaps between men and women who are married with children. And this is true even though women have an average higher education than men in Finland. And they also work full-time. So it’s not the case that these working mothers simply earn less because they work part-time. But they work full-time just as men, it’s simply that their earnings are lower.
Christine Garrington 8:01
So are there any clues then to as to what could be causing the gender earnings gap here?
Marika Jalovaara 8:06
There are many factors that contribute to this persistent gender earnings gap. Compared to men, women take much longer family leaves. This is partly encouraged by this cash for Care Benefit. It’s paid to parents of children under three years of age who are not in public day care, and it’s nearly always the mother, who then cares for the children at home for many, many years. And this, of course, affects women’s labour market position, and the labour market is highly gender segregated and female dominated fields have lower pay. This gap is not as wide as in liberal countries, but it’s still striking given that Finland is one of the most egalitarian nations in the world.
Christine Garrington 8:42
So what is the, for you, is the key takeaway about gender earnings gap here then?
Anette Fasang 8:47
So our findings really stressed that the motherhood penalty alone would miss a main part of family related earnings inequality in Finland. Instead, here the main source of inequality is between married mothers and fathers.
Christine Garrington 9:01
Let’s go back now to that other group that really caught your eye – these childless never partnered men tell us about them Anette.
Anette Fasang 9:11
Yeah so they were really apparent as a large group. In our analysis 23% of men and our study group were experienced the family life of never being partnered and not having children. And they are interesting as a social risk group also because we see in our analysis that they have the lowest earning among men, so they are socioeconomically disadvantaged and also they don’t have a family network and immediate nuclear family network to fall back on. So future research really should analyse this group more and see how they are integrated into wider kinship networks and friendship networks. And what has going on here was this accumulation of disadvantage both in the labour market and in the family domain.
Christine Garrington 9:58
Yeah, that 23% of the sample – a really striking figure. So Marika is not having children something that’s becoming increasingly common in Finland?
Marika Jalovaara 10:08
Fertility levels have declined in the Nordic countries since 2010. And in Finland, the decline is really strong total fertility rate has dropped to 1.41 and level of childlessness are exceptionally high, and they are highest among lower educated women and men. For instance, more than 1/3 of low educated men remain childless. And our previous study has shown that childlessness is strongly related to never partnering, and cohabition instability. And this new study shows that never partnered childless men also have low earnings compared to other men, even when we take into account their education and many other confounders. And this is an example of how socio-economic disparities and family formation can lead to accumulation or disadvantage across the life course of men and women.
Christine Garrington 10:56
No, indeed. And for those interested to tackle inequality, Anette, and to make society fairer for all this must be a deeply worrying trend.
Anette Fasang 11:04
Yes, I mean, I think our findings show that there are new groups, new social risk groups that are growing like these never partnered, childless men, but also that even in the egalitarian Nordic countries, gender inequality is still very high and persistent, and specifically between men and women who follow these normative family lives. So here, we cannot conclude from low earnings differences between mothers and childless women, that it’s an egalitarian with regard to family lives. But policymakers really have to turn to a gender inequality and what is causing it in connection to family lives, but also simply in the labour market to tackle these kinds of inequalities.
Christine Garrington 11:47
So to sum up then, you’ve used advanced research methods from very rich data to examine these important questions. What do you conclude from your findings? And what do they tell us about whether and if so, how these family friendly policies for which the Nordic countries are so well known, are really achieving when it comes to tackling inequality Marika?
Marika Jalovaara 12:07
We wanted to see whether the Nordic model really lives up to its promises. And our answer was not really. In the Nordic welfare states the main story might not be inequality between mothers and childless women, but rather between married mothers and married fathers, so these earnings differences between men and women who follow the most normative family lives and among men with different family life courses are among the main sources of inequality that should be tackled with policymakers with egalitarian goals.
Christine Garrington 12:36
Family Life Courses, Gender and Mid-Life earnings is research by Marika Jalovaara and Anette Fasang and is published in the European Sociological Review. You can find out more about the Equal Lives project at www.equal-lives.org. Thanks for listening to this episode of our podcast, which is presented and produced by Chris Garrington. And don’t forget to subscribe to the DIAL podcast to access earlier and forthcoming episodes.