Mind the gap: The role of family policies and the gender-egalitarian climate in shaping gender and ethnic labour market inequalities in Europe

Abstract This study is related to a growing literature on the impact of a receiving context on immigrant labour market outcomes. Unlike previous comparative research, which has been primarily concerned with immigrant men, our focus is on immigrant women and the role of institutions particularly relevant to them. Using the European Union Labour Force Surveys (2011–5) augmented with country-level data, we estimate country fixed-effects models to study gender and ethnic inequalities in labour force participation across European countries. Our results underline the complexity of how family policies and gender-egalitarian contexts are related to gender and ethnic inequalities in the labour market. On the one hand, we find gender inequalities to be less pronounced in countries with more generous family policies and a higher gender-egalitarian climate. On the other hand, our results indicate that at the same time, the selected institutional characteristics are related to increased ethnic inequalities in the labour market.