Gender Gap in Parental Leave Intentions: Evidence from 37 Countries

Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender-based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context contribute to this inequality, we assessed parental-leave intentions in young adults (18–30 years old) planning to have children (N = 13,942; 8,880 identified as women; 5,062 identified as men) across 37 countries that varied in parental-leave policies and societal gender equality. In all countries, women intended to take longer leave than men. National parental-leave policies and women’s political representation partially explained cross-national variations in the gender gap. Gender gaps in leave intentions were paradoxically larger in countries with more gender-egalitarian parental-leave policies (i.e., longer leave available to both fathers and mothers). Interestingly, this cross-national variation in the gender gap was driven by cross-national variations in women’s (rather than men’s) leave intentions. Financially generous leave and gender-egalitarian policies (linked to men’s higher uptake in prior research) were not associated with leave intentions in men. Rather, men’s leave intentions were related to their individual gender attitudes. Leave intentions were inversely related to career ambitions. The potential for existing policies to foster gender equality in paid and unpaid work is discussed.Gender Gap in Parental Leave Intentions: Evidence from 37 CountriespublishedVersio

Gender Gap in Parental Leave Intentions: Evidence from 37 Countries

Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender-based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context contribute to this inequality, we assessed parental-leave intentions in young adults (18–30 years old) planning to have children (N = 13,942; 8,880 identified as women; 5,062 identified as men) across 37 countries that varied in parental-leave policies and societal gender equality. In all countries, women intended to take longer leave than men. National parental-leave policies and women’s political representation partially explained cross-national variations in the gender gap. Gender gaps in leave intentions were paradoxically larger in countries with more gender-egalitarian parental-leave policies (i.e., longer leave available to both fathers and mothers). Interestingly, this cross-national variation in the gender gap was driven by cross-national variations in women’s (rather than men’s) leave intentions. Financially generous leave and gender-egalitarian policies (linked to men’s higher uptake in prior research) were not associated with leave intentions in men. Rather, men’s leave intentions were related to their individual gender attitudes. Leave intentions were inversely related to career ambitions. The potential for existing policies to foster gender equality in paid and unpaid work is discussed

Identifying major policy challenges and policy interventions via expert methods

This paper presents the application of expert decision methods for the formulation and prioritization of the long-term economic, social and environmental policies in the Slovak Republic. The Partnership Agreement for the Slovak Republic (PA) is an underlying strategy for investments from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in the period 2021-2027. Policies implemented under the PA will allocate €13.4b on four policy objectives. This paper concentrates on the policy objective 4 ‘Social development’. The authors co-operated with the Deputy Prime Minister Office and assembled panels of top Slovak experts on social and economic issues. The Delphi and Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methods were combined for analyzing major development challenges and eliciting policy priorities. The methods combined the bottom-up and top-down approaches to policy making. Nine potential policy measures in three policy areas emerged from the Delphi exercise. The AHP exercise applied three criteria (relevance, urgency and feasibility) to rank the abovementioned measures within three policy areas. As for the Policy Area 1 (Labour market, employment, training and institutions) the measure 4.1.1 ‘Improving access to employment and modernizing institutions and services on labour market’ clearly dominated over the measure 4.1.2 ‘Supporting a better work-life balance’. The measure 4.2.2 ‘Equal access to quality and inclusive education’ emerged substantially more important than measures 4.2.1 ‘Improving the quality and effectiveness of education and training systems’ and 4.2.3 ‘Support to life-long learning’ in the Policy Area 2 ‘Education and skills’. Finally, measures 4.3.2 ‘Supporting social and economic integration of marginalized Roma communities’ and 4.3.3 ‘Ensuring equal access to healthcare including primary care’ received the highest ranks in the Policy Area 3 ‘Health and social services’

Antecedents and consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs:a systematic review

RATIONALE: Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories can have severe consequences; it is therefore crucial to understand this phenomenon, in its similarities with general conspiracy belief, but also in how it is context-dependent. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this systematic review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the available research on COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and to synthesise this research to make it widely accessible. METHODS: We present a synthesis of COVID-19 conspiracy belief research from 85 international articles, identified and appraised through a systematic review, in line with contemporary protocols and guidelines for systematic reviews. RESULTS: We identify a number of potential antecedents of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs (individual differences, personality traits, demographic variables, attitudes, thinking styles and biases, group identity, trust in authorities, and social media use), their consequences (protective behaviours, self-centred and misguided behaviours such as hoarding and pseudoscientific health practices, vaccination intentions, psychological wellbeing, and other negative social consequences such as discrimination and violence), and the effect sizes of their relations with the conspiracy beliefs. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that understanding both the potential antecedents and consequences of conspiracy beliefs and how they are context-dependent is highly important to tackle them, whether in the COVID-19 pandemic or future threats, such as that of climate change