WOMEN'S STRATEGIES TO CONCILIATE PAID LABOR AND CARE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Abstract

This article aims to present the main features of female employment over the last 40 years, in order to stress persistent gender gaps and other gender deficits. In order to do that, we relied on two very consistent international databases on labor market issues, ILO´s (KILM) and OECD´s. Both allowed a cross country analysis on the profile of female employment for more than 20 countries (advanced economies, countries from the developing world and most regions of the world). The results show that women have strongly benefitted from the dynamics of wage relations by the end of the XX century due to the decline of fertility  rates and the rise of their human capital. Regressions, whose methodology takes into account the specific traits of each country, acknowledge both factors as the most significant in accelerating female participation in the labor market, the former being the most remarkable. This empirical investigation has brought to light other variables with huge impact on the promotion of female labor activity, even though they vary according to age brackets. The article questions whether these key factors are gradually loosing impact in reducing gender asymmetries in the labor market. It also highlights the emergence of two distinct female occupational strategies: one, first best, and the other, second best, as a consequence of the exhausting of a first generation pattern of women´s participation in the labor market.