This article investigates the association between economic uncertainties, work-family reconciliation policies and women’s short-term childbearing intentions in ten European countries. I introduce the Capability Approach to this issue and argue that short-term childbearing intentions are an indicator of women’s capabilities to start a family or to have additional children. Data from the European Social Survey is used. The analysis reveals that the association between economic uncertainties and short-term childbearing varies by the number of children already born, education and institutional contexts. Being in paid work have a positive impact on childless women’s short-term intentions in some countries, while in other countries, unemployed childless women are those most likely to intend to have a child in the near future. Other aspects of economic uncertainties, namely perceived job and income insecurity, have a negative impact on short-term childbearing intentions, regardless of motherhood status. The analysis also shows that the combination of weaker institutional support for work-family reconciliation, perceived job and income insecurity and low educational skills are associated with lower childbearing intentions, but the pattern across the ten countries varies by motherhood status, and is slightly more evident for childless women. This study has shown the importance of embedding individual decision processes in a broader social societal context.

Previous studies have shown that unfavourable working conditions, in terms of overtime, unsocial and inflexible working, etc., influence men’s and women’s work–family conflict. The relationship between working conditions and childbearing has rarely been studied, however. This study addresses the impact of family-friendly working conditions and individual resources on young adult women’s capability to have children in Sweden, and whether these factors have different impact on childless women’s and mothers’ further childbearing behaviour. The conceptual framework is inspired by Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, which helps to advance our understanding of how institutional context, workplace practices and individual life situation shape women’s propensity to have children. Analysis of data extracted from the Swedish panel survey YAPS shows that especially the transition to the second child is associated with women’s family-friendly working conditions, while the partner’s family-friendly working conditions is associated with the transition to both first and second births. The analysis also reveals that family-friendly working conditions are most salient for the less educated and low income childless women’s transition to motherhood, and for low educated mothers’ second birth.

This article examines gender differences in work-to-home conflict (WHC) and home-to-work conflict (HWC) in 10 European countries and considers to what extent such differences can be linked to the institutional/societal context. This study combines the conventional demand-resource approach and an institutional framework on work–family reconciliation policies and gender norms by using data from the European Social Survey. The analyses reveal that work and home demands affect men’s and women’s perceived conflict somewhat differently, and that the two conflict dimensions are gender asymmetrical and linked to patterns that result from men’s and women’s traditional home and work spheres. This cross-country comparative analysis shows greater gender gap in perceived conflict in countries with weaker policy support for work–family reconciliation and more traditional gender norms suggesting that individuals’ perceptions of WHC and HWC are institutionally embedded.

This study develops a conceptual framework with a capabilities and agency approach for analyzing work–life balance (WLB) applied in two societies (Hungary and Sweden), which have different working time regimes, levels of precarious employment, and gender equality discourses and norms. Inspired by Amartya Sen, we present a model illustrating how agency freedom for WLB depends on multiple resources at the individual, work organizational, institutional, and normative/societal levels. Using a unique qualitative survey conducted in two cities, Budapest and Stockholm, we analyze how mothers and fathers subjectively experience the tensions between family and work demands, and their possibilities for alternative choices (agency freedom). We find similarities in these tensions involving time pressure and time poverty, cutting across gender and education. Our Hungarian parents, nevertheless, experience greater agency inequalities for WLB, which reflect weaker institutional resources (conversion factors) as well as cultural/societal norms that act as constraints for WLB claims in the workplace and household. Our study reveals that Swedish parents, both men and women, express a strong sense of entitlement to exercise rights to care.