The making and breaking of families : Studies on inequalities in the face of parenthood and separation

Becoming a parent for the first time is one of the most life-altering events individuals experience. For some, this life-altering change is also followed by the breaking of families when couples part ways in either divorce or separation. This thesis is comprised of four studies in which women and men are followed over the process of becoming parents as well as through separation from marriage and cohabitation, and is mainly centered on Sweden. Study I gives an overview of how parents’ labour earnings have developed over time in Sweden within couples. At the birth of the first child, women's contribution to the family's work income drops sharply. The study shows a small change among couples who became parents more recently, especially in those families where the woman has a high level of education. The change seems to be driven by men’s work adjustments, pointing to a small, albeit important shift towards increases in equal parenting. Study II tracks how first-time parents’ labour earnings develop in relation to separation from cohabitation and marriage. In the study, it is argued that the benefits from the economies of scale that exist when resources are pooled in one household unit cannot be accessed following a separation and that this would constitute a driving force for separating women and men to take measures that increase their labour earnings. As a side effect of the separation, earnings would thus develop better for separated parents than for coupled parents. Contrary to expectations, the results show how separating mothers’ earnings trajectories instead lag behind coupled mothers’. This is most pronounced among women who already from start has the lowest labour earnings. Among men, separating fathers are on poorer earnings trajectories already before the separation compared to coupled fathers. Study III broadens the previous argumentation to also include counterarguments about constraining factors. By comparing the situation for mothers in Sweden with that in Western Germany, where women's labour market participation is lower after childbirth, strengths and weaknesses are revealed in both countries' social policies. In Sweden, separations are followed by a negative effect on mothers' labour earnings, raising the question of what constraints single mothers face in working life. German mothers are instead pushed towards increasing their earnings. But also here, women face constraints as they never reach the same earnings levels as before having children, which Swedish mothers do. In both cases, mothers with the lowest earnings seem to face the greatest obstacles. Study IV investigates how sick leave patterns for mothers and fathers in Sweden vary over time around the separation. The study supports that both selection- and causal effects explain parents’ sick leave patterns. Clear peaks in sick leave rates during the separation year indicate a crisis effect among mothers and fathers across educational levels. Sick leave patterns following the separation show that mothers experience cumulatively growing sick leave rates compared to partnered mothers that exceed the initial peak, while fathers, especially those with primary education, have chronically higher long-term sick leave rates compared to partnered fathers.