Increasing the Political Participation of Mothers with Young Children – The Effect of Work Patterns and Work-Family Policies in Cross-National Comparison

Whilst one might presume mothers with young children have vested interest in shaping the political future, they are among the least active in conventional forms of political participation. This is not least a consequence of gendered work patterns: Unlike most men, women with small children are often faced with the decision to either focus on care work and thus risk to be alienated from the public sphere, or they are left with the double burden of both care and paid work, which leaves little time for political activity. While the cross-national variation in the effect of having children indicates its context-dependency, little is known about how political participation levels of mothers can be increased. Research into the context effects on political participation focuses primarily on characteristics of the political sphere. However, given the importance of work-family policies for the life situation of mothers, there is a good reason to expect them to play an equally important role for women’s political participation. Yet so far, this association has not been in the focus of scholarly attention. This study addresses this gap by exploring the link between work-family policies and the political participation of mothers in Europe. Using data from the European Social Survey, it examines through a set of multilevel models how different work-family policies, such as childcare and paid parental leave, impact on women’s political participation, both indirectly through work patterns, and directly. The results show that there is indeed a positive effect of strong work-family policies; however, only those policies that defamilialise care work can mitigate the negative effect of children and boost the political participation of mothers. These findings also emphasise again the relevance of gendered disadvantages in other areas of life for the explanation of women’s (and mothers’) systematic exclusion from political participation.