ABSTRACT
While the male breadwinner family model had already started to decline during the last quarter of the twentieth century (Lewis 2001; Harkness 2008), preoccupations around work-family conflicts have only been raised in more recent times (Scott and Clery 2013). Women’s increased labour market participation and, more generally, a rise in the number of hours of paid work within families (Coltrane 2000; Harkness 2008) have created the need for policy measures that attempt to alleviate potential tensions between employment and family responsibilities and, ultimately, to reduce gender inequalities. One solution is to offer job-protected leave from employment for those periods where care is especially needed.
