The gender-responsiveness of the local public sector plays a crucial role in shaping the opportunities and challenges faced by women in balancing career ambitions with motherhood. Effective local governance can provide supportive infrastructure and policies that address the unique needs of working mothers, such as affordable childcare, family-friendly workplace policies, and parental leave provisions. By fostering an environment that empowers women to thrive both professionally and personally, gender-responsive local governance can contribute significantly to gender equality and the overall well-being of communities.
The pressures arising from the challenge to balance career ambitions with family responsibilities vary enormously from one place to another. Yet, existing research has tended to overlook the geographical and governance aspects of this dilemma, which could result in an inadequate understanding of the issue and lead to ineffective policy responses.
A recent article in the Journal of Economic Geography examines how variations in the quality of regional institutions affect women’s capacity to reconcile career and motherhood and, consequently, gender equality within Europe.
Using panel data from 216 regions across 18 European countries, the authors uncover a positive effect of regional institutional quality on fertility rates, taking into account variations in female employment. Specifically, the authors find that a 1 per cent increase in local institutional quality is associated with an average increase in fertility rates of 8 per cent, revealing that high-quality regional governments can help create the right ecosystems for women to reconcile motherhood with active participation in the labour market.
Moreover, the authors find that European regions with better government quality provide a more reliable environment for managing the career/motherhood dilemma often faced by women. In contrast, women living in regions with weaker government institutions are more constrained in both their career and childbearing options. Specifically, a 10 per cent increase in the Quality of Government Index leads to an 11.1 per cent decrease in the likelihood of a region exhibiting stark gender inequality, characterized by low female labor market participation and fertility rates.
Read the full (open source) article:
Costanza Giannantoni, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Regional government institutions and the capacity for women to reconcile career and motherhood, Journal of Economic Geography, Volume 25, Issue 3, May 2025, Pages 311–328
