The main objective of the paper is to examine the role of measured competencies in the labour market outcomes in two groups of European nations (the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland on the one hand, and Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium on the other) that differ not only in their long term historical development, but also in their current orientation toward innovations, labour market flexibility, the openness of tertiary education and gender equality. The results of structural modelling based on data from the PIAAC (adult competencies) project of the OECD provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that the direct positive effect of competencies on labour market outcomes (namely on wages) are stronger in innovation-oriented countries, while the transitive (Central European) countries exhibit a stronger tendency towards factors typical for a “credential society” (characterised by the stronger role of formal education and larger wage gender gaps).
The article deals primarily with the division of household labour in the family from the gender perspective. Although the concept of the working woman is not at all new, the growing participation of women in a paid work and their increased professional realization has not been accompanied by a more egalitarian division of household work in families. This is the situation which can be described as a gender gap in the private sphere. Household work continues to be structurally as well as symbolically tied up with the woman. On the other hand we can be a witness of some technological processes that lead to the de-qualification of household work and feelings of meaninglessness of housework for women. Conventional identities (homemaker, breadwinner) may be challenged but cultural notions of masculinity and femininity run deep. The paper further investigates husbands' and wives' perception of fairness of the domestic division of labour as well as micro- and macro-level factors that influence the division of housework. In the final part two perspectives dealing with the position and role of fathers in families are analysed - the perspective of role inadequacy and the developmental perspective. It is stressed that the developmental perspective is more appropriate for researching changes in men's family roles. Changes in men's behaviour by stressing what father more involved in activities around children gains in comparison with stressing what he sacrifices makes the developmental perspective more advantageous over other perspectives in solving the problem of low activity of men in childcare. In the conclusion we ask whether it is useful at all to aspire for the more equal distribution of household labour in the family.
This paper examines the role of occupational resources (field of occupation, socio-economic status, and income) in the odds of having a highly educated partner, having a partner with lower education, and staying single. The analysis of the EU-SILC 2013 data demonstrate that women with better jobs and higher incomes have higher odds of living in a homogamous union with a highly educated partner. The data also show that if high resource women do not live with highly educated men, they are less likely to marry down compared to women with fewer resources and are more likely to stay single. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that women working in female-dominated professions are more likely to marry down and that the effect of the field cannot be explained by fewer personal resources. We also tested the idea that the link between individual resources and living arrangements is moderated by the female employment rate. We demonstrate that women are more likely to partner down in countries with higher female labour force participation. However, this tendency does not hold for high-income women.
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