Mara Yerkes | Utrecht University (original) (raw)

Papers by Mara Yerkes

The Transformation of Solidarity

In the introductory chapter we distinguished three social foundations of the welfare state. In th... more In the introductory chapter we distinguished three social foundations of the welfare state. In the first place, there has to be an awareness of the social nature of risks. We defined social risks as risks that do not result from individual choice but as risks that are (also) produced by the social system of production. We discussed the risk of occupational disability in an industrial economy as an example of a social risk. In the second place, there has to be a willingness to share these social risks. Because social risks are, to some extent, risks that are produced by the system of production, there has to be a willingness to handle the negative consequences of these risks (poverty, sickness) collectively. In the third place, the welfare state rests on a number of social institutions intended to manage social risks, such as social insurance, labour market regulation, collective labour agreements and so forth. In the debate about changing welfare states, the emphasis is often on political theories of the welfare state and institutional change because processes of retrenchment or the restructuring of welfare states are highly political in nature. In contrast, we speak of the social foundations of the welfare state and concentrate on sociological theories of the welfare state and of social change in this book because we believe that the primary cause of the transformation of the welfare state is to be found in processes of social change. [introduction extract]

The Transformation of Solidarity, 2012

1 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Fr... more 1 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 /20072013) under grant agreement n° 320294 (bEUcitizen project). In particular we are thankful to Manuela Naldini and Trudie Knijn for their precious comments, as coordinators of the work package "Balancing gender and generational citizenship" within which this study was conducted

Comparative family policy research has advanced significantly in recent years. The growing availa... more Comparative family policy research has advanced significantly in recent years. The growing availability of more and better data have improved our understanding of cross-national similarities and differences in family policies, as well as how they shape the lives of different families. Despite these advancements, comparative family policy research continues to face difficulties. The multifaceted nature of family policies makes cross-country comparisons complex. Conceptualizing our theoretical understanding of which policy aspects matter and why as well as operationalizing them into measurable indicators, often remains problematic for comparative analyses. Using examples of British and Swedish policies on childcare, a policy area particularly prone to conceptual challenges, we discuss the difficulties involved in conceptualizing family policies in comparative research. We argue that taking a capabilities approach provides a useful way forward in the field and show how such a conceptua...

PLOS ONE, 2020

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic is more than a public health crisis. Lockdown measures have subst... more Objective The COVID-19 pandemic is more than a public health crisis. Lockdown measures have substantial societal effects, including a significant impact on parents with (young) children. Given the existence of persistent gender inequality prior to the pandemic, particularly among parents, it is crucial to study the societal impact of COVID-19 from a gender perspective. The objective of this paper is to use representative survey data gathered among Dutch parents in April 2020 to explore differences between mothers and fathers in three areas: paid work, the division of childcare and household tasks, and three dimensions of quality of life (leisure, work-life balance, relationship dynamics). Additionally, we explore whether changes take place in these dimensions by comparing the situation prior to the lockdown with the situation during the lockdown. Method We use descriptive methods (crosstabulations) supported by multivariate modelling (linear regression modelling for continuous outco...

One year after passage of the European work-life balance directive, and thus recognition of the n... more One year after passage of the European work-life balance directive, and thus recognition of the need for policy support, measures to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are shaping parents’ work-life balance in significant ways. Academically, we are challenged to explore whether existing theoretical frameworks hold in this new environment with combined old and new policy frameworks. We are also challenged to understand the nuanced ways in which the first lockdown affects the combination of paid work and care. We address both of these issues, providing a cross-sectional comparative analysis of highly educated mothers’ perceptions of work-life balance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland and the Netherlands. Our findings show that highly educated Finnish mothers have more difficulty combining work and care during the first lockdown than Dutch mothers. The absence of state-provided care during the lockdown creates greater difficulty for full-time working Finnish mothers in a du...

Community, Work & Family, 2020

Community is a key dimension in the work-family interface as highlighted by the recent Covid-19 p... more Community is a key dimension in the work-family interface as highlighted by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Yet it is critically understudied by much work-family scholarship. We highlight and address crucial barriers preventing the integration of the community concept, developing an interdisciplinary communitybased capabilities approach. This approach conceptualizes three components of community: local relationships, local policies and locality (place, space and scale). Local relationships include formal and informal relationships, networks, and a sense of belonging. Dependent on the broader socioeconomic context, local policies and services can provide important resources for managing these relationships and work-life situations more generally. These relationships and policies are embedded in specific geographical localities, shaping and being shaped by social action. This interdisciplinary conceptualization of community allows relational, spatial, structural and temporal aspects of community to be integrated into a more broadly applicable conceptual approach. We base this approach on the capability approach, which allows for a pluralistic work-life framework of what individuals value and do. We further argue for a conceptualization of family as community, moving towards a work-community interface. The resulting conceptual approach is useful for explaining work-life processes for individuals with and without care responsibilities, and offers a new framework for studying the social trends intensely and rapidly highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Community, Work & Family, 2020

Vulnerable communities face significant risks in times of COVID-19. Communities with deeply entre... more Vulnerable communities face significant risks in times of COVID-19. Communities with deeply entrenched poverty, overcrowded housing, and limited employment flexibility (e.g. communities where individuals are unable to work from home, miss a day of work, or face long and crowded commutes), face greater immediate risk of COVID-19. Other vulnerabilities, such as homelessness, disability, older age, or poor mental health, can increase the risks individuals face (The Lancet, 2020). Local services, oftentimes extensively scaled

International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 2012

Studies of employment often focus on general labour market developments or the employment status ... more Studies of employment often focus on general labour market developments or the employment status of vulnerable groups concentrated at the lower end of the labour market. In contrast, the employment of highly educated individuals, in particular PhD recipients, has received less empirical attention. This article contributes to this area using data from a web survey carried out among respondents at four universities in the Netherlands. Dutch doctoral recipients have an above-average employment rate of 86 per cent. In addition, when looking at variables related to academic and non-academic employment, demographic variables, such as age and children living in the household, as well as publications submitted and accepted, are more closely related to contract type (permanent versus temporary) than factors such as PhD supervision and labour market preparation. Gender is a particularly important variable related to employment status, with male doctoral candidates more likely to be employed outside academia. We conclude with recommendations for PhD candidates, their supervisors and universities.

Kazoku syakaigaku kenkyu, 2016

In this article, we assess the extent to which national-level work-family policies in the Netherl... more In this article, we assess the extent to which national-level work-family policies in the Netherlands enable various groups of working parents (men versus women, low versus highly educated, and dependent employees versus self-employed to combine work and care. We answer this question by conducting a policy analysis using Sen s (1992 capability framework. Applying this perspective, we evaluate the availability, accessibility and design of work-family policies in the Netherlands. Moreover, we consider the importance of collective agreements and the organizational context. Our analysis shows that current work-family policies and collective agreements in the Netherlands o er certain groups greater capabilities to reconcile work and care than others. Childcare policy o ers less accessibility for the self-employed and exible work arrangements enable women more than men to take on care tasks and work part-time. In addition, higher educated individuals have greater access to exible work arrangements than lower-educated workers, but o en use this exibility to work more rather than reconcile work with care. Moreover, current care leave policies enforce rather than challenge existing socio-cultural norms, and alternatives to the one-and-a-half earner model remain limited.

Community, Work & Family, 2018

Considerable work-family research has investigated the gendered division of work and care. Gender... more Considerable work-family research has investigated the gendered division of work and care. Gender differences in leisure time have received much less attention from work-family scholars, despite the potential importance of such inequalities for women's quality of life. Combining key insights from the substantial gendered leisure studies literature with work-family scholarship, the current study examines cross-national variation in gender differences in leisure quality. Using data on 23 countries from the 2007 International Social Survey Program, we expected that women's leisure quality would be lower than men's, but the gender gap would be smaller in countries with more gender egalitarian attitudes and divisions of care (via de-familialisation and paternity leave) and where women have more bargaining power. Our results show that these country characteristics moderate the association between gender and the extent to which free time is used to relax and recover. In countries with conservative gender norms, low levels of childcare coverage, limited paternity leave and lower political power for women, women's leisure quality is lower than men's. In more egalitarian countries, the gender gap in leisure quality is lower and in some cases, reversed. These results are in line with findings from cross-national research on the gendered division of labor and offer an important contribution to understanding gender differences in leisure quality across countries. RESUMEN Numerosos estudios sobre la conciliación de la vida laboral y familiar han investigado la distribución por sexos del trabajo remunerado y las tareas domésticas y de cuidado. Las diferencias de género en tiempo de ocio han recibido mucha menos atención de los investigadores sobre conciliación, pese a la importancia potencial de esas desigualdades para la calidad de vida de las mujeres. Combinando información clave de la extensa literatura de estudios sobre ocio por género con estudios sobre conciliación de la vida laboral y familiar, el estudio analiza las diferencias de ARTICLE HISTORY

Journal of European Social Policy, 2018

This article analyses childcare services in six countries, assessing this policy instrument’s pot... more This article analyses childcare services in six countries, assessing this policy instrument’s potential to facilitate parents’ capabilities for arranging childcare in a way they have reason to value. It draws on Sen’s capability approach to conceptualize and assess childcare policy design across five key aspects of childcare provision (accessibility, availability, affordability, quality and flexibility) in a country-comparative perspective. The conceptualization of the multifaceted nature of childcare provides compelling insights into the complexity of comparing childcare services across countries. The ensuing analysis and comprehensive overview of national policies challenges the idea of a defamilialization policy cluster, which masks key distinctions between public and market service provision. The more nuanced conceptualization and operationalization of childcare policy design through the capability approach reveals parents’ real opportunities for arranging childcare and the vary...

Journal of Sociology, 2017

Mothers’ return to work following childbirth is widely recognized as a key stage in establishing ... more Mothers’ return to work following childbirth is widely recognized as a key stage in establishing employment arrangements that disadvantage them in the long run. This article investigates why mothers accept these unequal arrangements using data from a qualitative study of 109 Australian mothers. It focuses on mothers’ perceptions of the fairness and justice of the flexibility of arrangements they commonly enter into upon return to work. The article draws attention to the importance of different justice frameworks, distributive, procedural and interactional, in understanding women’s acceptance of gender inequality in paid work. The results indicate that most mothers view their workplace arrangements as fair, consistent with a distributive justice framework. Many women also place great importance on interactional justice, particularly in their experiences in negotiating flexibility. The article also identifies differences across employment type with women in jobs with career prospects ...

Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken, 2015

The Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, 2008

In recent years there has been an increased interest in understanding the welfare state from a li... more In recent years there has been an increased interest in understanding the welfare state from a life course approach. On the one hand, the welfare state through its laws, policies, and institutions, shapes and structures the life course. The welfare state influences both the timing of life course events, such as the age at which people marry or have children or the age at which people retire, as well as the duration of life course events, such as education and training. On the other hand, individual needs in relation to the welfare state change across the life course. During certain stages of the life course an individual may have more need for help or assistance from the welfare state than at other times. These needs can, in turn, give rise to new welfare state arrangements, as welfare states adjust policies to address changing social risks in society (Yerkes, 2011). In other words, individual life courses and the welfare state are inextricably linked (see Mayer and Schoepflin, 1989). In this chapter we take a closer look at this relationship, introducing the concept of the life course and examining how it has changed in recent years. We begin by defining the life course, as well as introducing a number of other core concepts. In the sections that follow, we look at how the life course has become increasingly dynamic and diversified as a result of the social and economic process of post-industrialisation, as well as differences in the gender order, and other demographic changes. In post-industrial societies, welfare states are increasingly faced with pressures associated with changing and emerging social risks – risks which are no longer absorbed by the family or the labour market (Esping-Andersen, 2002). These risks pose significant challenges to welfare states and we discuss this in sections two and three. In the next section, using examples from Western welfare states we show how the welfare state structures the life course and how macro-level processes affect welfare states (and therefore impact the life course). The final section provides a brief conclusion

PLoS ONE, 2013

A delay in PhD completion, while likely undesirable for PhD candidates, can also be detrimental t... more A delay in PhD completion, while likely undesirable for PhD candidates, can also be detrimental to universities if and when PhD delay leads to attrition/termination. Termination of the PhD trajectory can lead to individual stress, a loss of valuable time and resources invested in the candidate and can also mean a loss of competitive advantage. Using data from two studies of doctoral candidates in the Netherlands, we take a closer look at PhD duration and delay in doctoral completion. Specifically, we address the question: Is it possible to predict which PhD candidates will experience delays in the completion of their doctorate degree? If so, it might be possible to take steps to shorten or even prevent delay, thereby helping to enhance university competitiveness. Moreover, we discuss practical do's and don'ts for universities and graduate schools to minimize delays.

International Journal of Computer Vision - IJCV, 2006

Employment patterns are gender-driven, yet analyses of women’s employment often fail to recognize... more Employment patterns are gender-driven, yet analyses of women’s employment often fail to recognize the heterogeneous patterns evident within women’s labour market participation itself. This article examines the variation in women’s labour market participation in light of Hakim’s heterogeneity argument. It focuses on the effects of individual differences in educational level, marital status, motherhood and cohorts in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK for the period 1992-2002, disregarding Hakim’s focus on individual attitudes and preferences as the cause of this heterogeneity. Results from a quantitative study using panel data show that women’s labour market participation patterns vary greatly, and that educational level and motherhood are the strongest determinants of this variation. At the same time, cross-country variation is evident. Not only do the results of this study confirm the variation in women’s employment patterns, they raise questions about the theoretical understandin...

The Transformation of Solidarity

In the introductory chapter we distinguished three social foundations of the welfare state. In th... more In the introductory chapter we distinguished three social foundations of the welfare state. In the first place, there has to be an awareness of the social nature of risks. We defined social risks as risks that do not result from individual choice but as risks that are (also) produced by the social system of production. We discussed the risk of occupational disability in an industrial economy as an example of a social risk. In the second place, there has to be a willingness to share these social risks. Because social risks are, to some extent, risks that are produced by the system of production, there has to be a willingness to handle the negative consequences of these risks (poverty, sickness) collectively. In the third place, the welfare state rests on a number of social institutions intended to manage social risks, such as social insurance, labour market regulation, collective labour agreements and so forth. In the debate about changing welfare states, the emphasis is often on political theories of the welfare state and institutional change because processes of retrenchment or the restructuring of welfare states are highly political in nature. In contrast, we speak of the social foundations of the welfare state and concentrate on sociological theories of the welfare state and of social change in this book because we believe that the primary cause of the transformation of the welfare state is to be found in processes of social change. [introduction extract]

The Transformation of Solidarity, 2012

1 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Fr... more 1 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 /20072013) under grant agreement n° 320294 (bEUcitizen project). In particular we are thankful to Manuela Naldini and Trudie Knijn for their precious comments, as coordinators of the work package "Balancing gender and generational citizenship" within which this study was conducted

Comparative family policy research has advanced significantly in recent years. The growing availa... more Comparative family policy research has advanced significantly in recent years. The growing availability of more and better data have improved our understanding of cross-national similarities and differences in family policies, as well as how they shape the lives of different families. Despite these advancements, comparative family policy research continues to face difficulties. The multifaceted nature of family policies makes cross-country comparisons complex. Conceptualizing our theoretical understanding of which policy aspects matter and why as well as operationalizing them into measurable indicators, often remains problematic for comparative analyses. Using examples of British and Swedish policies on childcare, a policy area particularly prone to conceptual challenges, we discuss the difficulties involved in conceptualizing family policies in comparative research. We argue that taking a capabilities approach provides a useful way forward in the field and show how such a conceptua...

PLOS ONE, 2020

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic is more than a public health crisis. Lockdown measures have subst... more Objective The COVID-19 pandemic is more than a public health crisis. Lockdown measures have substantial societal effects, including a significant impact on parents with (young) children. Given the existence of persistent gender inequality prior to the pandemic, particularly among parents, it is crucial to study the societal impact of COVID-19 from a gender perspective. The objective of this paper is to use representative survey data gathered among Dutch parents in April 2020 to explore differences between mothers and fathers in three areas: paid work, the division of childcare and household tasks, and three dimensions of quality of life (leisure, work-life balance, relationship dynamics). Additionally, we explore whether changes take place in these dimensions by comparing the situation prior to the lockdown with the situation during the lockdown. Method We use descriptive methods (crosstabulations) supported by multivariate modelling (linear regression modelling for continuous outco...

One year after passage of the European work-life balance directive, and thus recognition of the n... more One year after passage of the European work-life balance directive, and thus recognition of the need for policy support, measures to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are shaping parents’ work-life balance in significant ways. Academically, we are challenged to explore whether existing theoretical frameworks hold in this new environment with combined old and new policy frameworks. We are also challenged to understand the nuanced ways in which the first lockdown affects the combination of paid work and care. We address both of these issues, providing a cross-sectional comparative analysis of highly educated mothers’ perceptions of work-life balance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland and the Netherlands. Our findings show that highly educated Finnish mothers have more difficulty combining work and care during the first lockdown than Dutch mothers. The absence of state-provided care during the lockdown creates greater difficulty for full-time working Finnish mothers in a du...

Community, Work & Family, 2020

Community is a key dimension in the work-family interface as highlighted by the recent Covid-19 p... more Community is a key dimension in the work-family interface as highlighted by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Yet it is critically understudied by much work-family scholarship. We highlight and address crucial barriers preventing the integration of the community concept, developing an interdisciplinary communitybased capabilities approach. This approach conceptualizes three components of community: local relationships, local policies and locality (place, space and scale). Local relationships include formal and informal relationships, networks, and a sense of belonging. Dependent on the broader socioeconomic context, local policies and services can provide important resources for managing these relationships and work-life situations more generally. These relationships and policies are embedded in specific geographical localities, shaping and being shaped by social action. This interdisciplinary conceptualization of community allows relational, spatial, structural and temporal aspects of community to be integrated into a more broadly applicable conceptual approach. We base this approach on the capability approach, which allows for a pluralistic work-life framework of what individuals value and do. We further argue for a conceptualization of family as community, moving towards a work-community interface. The resulting conceptual approach is useful for explaining work-life processes for individuals with and without care responsibilities, and offers a new framework for studying the social trends intensely and rapidly highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Community, Work & Family, 2020

Vulnerable communities face significant risks in times of COVID-19. Communities with deeply entre... more Vulnerable communities face significant risks in times of COVID-19. Communities with deeply entrenched poverty, overcrowded housing, and limited employment flexibility (e.g. communities where individuals are unable to work from home, miss a day of work, or face long and crowded commutes), face greater immediate risk of COVID-19. Other vulnerabilities, such as homelessness, disability, older age, or poor mental health, can increase the risks individuals face (The Lancet, 2020). Local services, oftentimes extensively scaled

International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 2012

Studies of employment often focus on general labour market developments or the employment status ... more Studies of employment often focus on general labour market developments or the employment status of vulnerable groups concentrated at the lower end of the labour market. In contrast, the employment of highly educated individuals, in particular PhD recipients, has received less empirical attention. This article contributes to this area using data from a web survey carried out among respondents at four universities in the Netherlands. Dutch doctoral recipients have an above-average employment rate of 86 per cent. In addition, when looking at variables related to academic and non-academic employment, demographic variables, such as age and children living in the household, as well as publications submitted and accepted, are more closely related to contract type (permanent versus temporary) than factors such as PhD supervision and labour market preparation. Gender is a particularly important variable related to employment status, with male doctoral candidates more likely to be employed outside academia. We conclude with recommendations for PhD candidates, their supervisors and universities.

Kazoku syakaigaku kenkyu, 2016

In this article, we assess the extent to which national-level work-family policies in the Netherl... more In this article, we assess the extent to which national-level work-family policies in the Netherlands enable various groups of working parents (men versus women, low versus highly educated, and dependent employees versus self-employed to combine work and care. We answer this question by conducting a policy analysis using Sen s (1992 capability framework. Applying this perspective, we evaluate the availability, accessibility and design of work-family policies in the Netherlands. Moreover, we consider the importance of collective agreements and the organizational context. Our analysis shows that current work-family policies and collective agreements in the Netherlands o er certain groups greater capabilities to reconcile work and care than others. Childcare policy o ers less accessibility for the self-employed and exible work arrangements enable women more than men to take on care tasks and work part-time. In addition, higher educated individuals have greater access to exible work arrangements than lower-educated workers, but o en use this exibility to work more rather than reconcile work with care. Moreover, current care leave policies enforce rather than challenge existing socio-cultural norms, and alternatives to the one-and-a-half earner model remain limited.

Community, Work & Family, 2018

Considerable work-family research has investigated the gendered division of work and care. Gender... more Considerable work-family research has investigated the gendered division of work and care. Gender differences in leisure time have received much less attention from work-family scholars, despite the potential importance of such inequalities for women's quality of life. Combining key insights from the substantial gendered leisure studies literature with work-family scholarship, the current study examines cross-national variation in gender differences in leisure quality. Using data on 23 countries from the 2007 International Social Survey Program, we expected that women's leisure quality would be lower than men's, but the gender gap would be smaller in countries with more gender egalitarian attitudes and divisions of care (via de-familialisation and paternity leave) and where women have more bargaining power. Our results show that these country characteristics moderate the association between gender and the extent to which free time is used to relax and recover. In countries with conservative gender norms, low levels of childcare coverage, limited paternity leave and lower political power for women, women's leisure quality is lower than men's. In more egalitarian countries, the gender gap in leisure quality is lower and in some cases, reversed. These results are in line with findings from cross-national research on the gendered division of labor and offer an important contribution to understanding gender differences in leisure quality across countries. RESUMEN Numerosos estudios sobre la conciliación de la vida laboral y familiar han investigado la distribución por sexos del trabajo remunerado y las tareas domésticas y de cuidado. Las diferencias de género en tiempo de ocio han recibido mucha menos atención de los investigadores sobre conciliación, pese a la importancia potencial de esas desigualdades para la calidad de vida de las mujeres. Combinando información clave de la extensa literatura de estudios sobre ocio por género con estudios sobre conciliación de la vida laboral y familiar, el estudio analiza las diferencias de ARTICLE HISTORY

Journal of European Social Policy, 2018

This article analyses childcare services in six countries, assessing this policy instrument’s pot... more This article analyses childcare services in six countries, assessing this policy instrument’s potential to facilitate parents’ capabilities for arranging childcare in a way they have reason to value. It draws on Sen’s capability approach to conceptualize and assess childcare policy design across five key aspects of childcare provision (accessibility, availability, affordability, quality and flexibility) in a country-comparative perspective. The conceptualization of the multifaceted nature of childcare provides compelling insights into the complexity of comparing childcare services across countries. The ensuing analysis and comprehensive overview of national policies challenges the idea of a defamilialization policy cluster, which masks key distinctions between public and market service provision. The more nuanced conceptualization and operationalization of childcare policy design through the capability approach reveals parents’ real opportunities for arranging childcare and the vary...

Journal of Sociology, 2017

Mothers’ return to work following childbirth is widely recognized as a key stage in establishing ... more Mothers’ return to work following childbirth is widely recognized as a key stage in establishing employment arrangements that disadvantage them in the long run. This article investigates why mothers accept these unequal arrangements using data from a qualitative study of 109 Australian mothers. It focuses on mothers’ perceptions of the fairness and justice of the flexibility of arrangements they commonly enter into upon return to work. The article draws attention to the importance of different justice frameworks, distributive, procedural and interactional, in understanding women’s acceptance of gender inequality in paid work. The results indicate that most mothers view their workplace arrangements as fair, consistent with a distributive justice framework. Many women also place great importance on interactional justice, particularly in their experiences in negotiating flexibility. The article also identifies differences across employment type with women in jobs with career prospects ...

Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken, 2015

The Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, 2008

In recent years there has been an increased interest in understanding the welfare state from a li... more In recent years there has been an increased interest in understanding the welfare state from a life course approach. On the one hand, the welfare state through its laws, policies, and institutions, shapes and structures the life course. The welfare state influences both the timing of life course events, such as the age at which people marry or have children or the age at which people retire, as well as the duration of life course events, such as education and training. On the other hand, individual needs in relation to the welfare state change across the life course. During certain stages of the life course an individual may have more need for help or assistance from the welfare state than at other times. These needs can, in turn, give rise to new welfare state arrangements, as welfare states adjust policies to address changing social risks in society (Yerkes, 2011). In other words, individual life courses and the welfare state are inextricably linked (see Mayer and Schoepflin, 1989). In this chapter we take a closer look at this relationship, introducing the concept of the life course and examining how it has changed in recent years. We begin by defining the life course, as well as introducing a number of other core concepts. In the sections that follow, we look at how the life course has become increasingly dynamic and diversified as a result of the social and economic process of post-industrialisation, as well as differences in the gender order, and other demographic changes. In post-industrial societies, welfare states are increasingly faced with pressures associated with changing and emerging social risks – risks which are no longer absorbed by the family or the labour market (Esping-Andersen, 2002). These risks pose significant challenges to welfare states and we discuss this in sections two and three. In the next section, using examples from Western welfare states we show how the welfare state structures the life course and how macro-level processes affect welfare states (and therefore impact the life course). The final section provides a brief conclusion

PLoS ONE, 2013

A delay in PhD completion, while likely undesirable for PhD candidates, can also be detrimental t... more A delay in PhD completion, while likely undesirable for PhD candidates, can also be detrimental to universities if and when PhD delay leads to attrition/termination. Termination of the PhD trajectory can lead to individual stress, a loss of valuable time and resources invested in the candidate and can also mean a loss of competitive advantage. Using data from two studies of doctoral candidates in the Netherlands, we take a closer look at PhD duration and delay in doctoral completion. Specifically, we address the question: Is it possible to predict which PhD candidates will experience delays in the completion of their doctorate degree? If so, it might be possible to take steps to shorten or even prevent delay, thereby helping to enhance university competitiveness. Moreover, we discuss practical do's and don'ts for universities and graduate schools to minimize delays.

International Journal of Computer Vision - IJCV, 2006

Employment patterns are gender-driven, yet analyses of women’s employment often fail to recognize... more Employment patterns are gender-driven, yet analyses of women’s employment often fail to recognize the heterogeneous patterns evident within women’s labour market participation itself. This article examines the variation in women’s labour market participation in light of Hakim’s heterogeneity argument. It focuses on the effects of individual differences in educational level, marital status, motherhood and cohorts in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK for the period 1992-2002, disregarding Hakim’s focus on individual attitudes and preferences as the cause of this heterogeneity. Results from a quantitative study using panel data show that women’s labour market participation patterns vary greatly, and that educational level and motherhood are the strongest determinants of this variation. At the same time, cross-country variation is evident. Not only do the results of this study confirm the variation in women’s employment patterns, they raise questions about the theoretical understandin...