Women's Labour Force Attachment in Europe: An Analytical Framework and Empirical Evidence for the Household

This paper has two major aims. First, it argues that for employment issues, economics and sociology do not carry out substitutional but complementary research. Interdisciplinary research on labour markets is strongly needed to fully understand the mechanism of labour markets. Second, it theoretically discusses the influence of the household on women's labour market behaviour and shows some evidence from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The increased labour market participation of women in Europe has led to an intensive interdisciplinary research. The economic view of supply (construction of preferences) and demand (firm's rationales) shows that institutional systems, which are considered as exogenous, influence the labour market behaviour of individuals and households. These institutional systems which are the 'black boxes' in the economic view, constitute the main focus of the sociological approach to work. This paper shows that a theoretical connection of labour economics and sociology within an institutional approach, coupled with a gender order perspective, provides a useful framework of analysis. Within this framework, I distinguish between the individual actors of a labour market - namely households, firms and the state - and analyse the interdependencies between them. Political measures influence not only households (e. g. education, care activities) but also firms (e. g. organisation of production). The interaction of these three spheres determines the quantity and quality of the labour market participation of women. The empirical part of this paper tests some of the determinants of the labour market behaviour of women with the help of the data of the European Community Household Panel. It is argued that the determinants of women’s labour market behaviour are interrelated with a whole set of social and economic institutions which form a specific employment system.