Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Maternity leave policy is gendered in nature, enabling women to reconcile responsibilities within the public and private spheres. Despite recognition of the value of leave policies, extreme cross-national variation in policy exists. This paper is founded in feminist theory and builds upon the concept of representation as developed by Hanna Pitkin (1967). The analysis extends the literature by applying Pitkin’s theory of representation to maternity leave policy. Based upon the model developed by Beckwith & Cowell-Meyers (2007), the analysis investigates the explanatory power of descriptive representation, along with parliamentary factors and civil society contexts, which predict substantive representation, operationalized as maternity leave policy. A large-n, cross-national, quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the variables that significantly predict maternity leave policy. The results reveal that female labor force participation and children under the age of 15 both significantly predict the variance in the dependent variable.