Thesis
Rethinking parenting leave, sexual division of labour, and substantive equality : a transformative EU parenting leave model
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2025
- Thesis identifier
- T17562
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 202172974
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- This thesis offers a normative rethinking of parenting leave as a means of transforming the sexual division of labour within the family and facilitating substantive equality between the sexes and between groups of parents with different sexual and/or gender identities and family forms in the EU. The thesis normatively critiques and reconstructs the EU parenting leave framework, consisting of maternity leave under the Pregnant Workers Directive and paternity and parental leave under the Work-Life Balance Directive. To do so, it enriches socio-legal policy research with feminist legal theory. The thesis first makes an original contribution to feminist legal theory by examining the meaning of equality through a theoretical refinement of Fredman’s four-dimensional model of substantive equality. It then turns this model into an analytical method by distilling from it methodological and normative principles for the purpose of critiquing and reconstructing parenting leave law and policy. The thesis demonstrates that rather than facilitating substantive equality, EU law reinforces inequalities between parents: it perpetuates the gendered parental role stereotypes epitomised by the breadwinner-caregiver dichotomy, socially excludes parents who do not conform to the heteronormative nuclear family ideal, and entrenches socio-economic disadvantages by devaluing pregnancy and parenthood. Employing two Nordic parenting leave frameworks as current ‘best practice’ case studies of policy models which transform the sexual division of labour within the family, the thesis then devises a transformative parenting leave model for the EU. This model is an original contribution to socio-legal parenting leave policy research. By universalising the ‘feminine’ characteristic of caregiving as a gender-neutral parenthood norm, the transformative model deconstructs the sexual division of labour within the family and thus facilitates substantive equality between the sexes and between parents regardless of their sexual and/or gender identity and family form.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Mitchell, Lynsey
- Rose, Emily (Sociologist)
- Zahn, Rebecca
- Resource Type
- DOI
Relations
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PDF of thesis T17562 | 2025-12-19 | Public | Download |