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Maternity Policy in the United Kingdom: The Impact on Women's Status in Household Responsibility, Freedom of Movement, and Economic Autonomy

Received: 20 April 2022    Accepted: 18 May 2022    Published: 26 May 2022
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Abstract

With the development of society and the rise of women's movements, women's status has been paid more and more attention. Women's status is a multi-dimensional concept, and there are many standards for measurement. This paper selects three of the earliest used and representative three dimensions, which are household responsibilities, freedom of movement, and economic autonomy. The concept of women's status is complex, and there are many factors that may affect female status. The maternity policy is one of the population policies and also one of the most important guarantees for the welfare of women. It is a broad concept covering family support measures, family mutual employment measures, reproductive health measures and maternity insurance, which are all to ensure the basic living needs of female workers when they give birth to children and maintain social stability. Therefore, the impact of maternity policy on the status of women is very huge. This paper explores how maternity policy affects the status of women as measured by the three dimensions mentioned above. By comparing with other European countries, explore what efforts have been made in the UK to improve the status of women, and which policies have been proved to have a positive impact on the promotion of gender equality. Moreover, based on the conclusions, this paper also puts forward implications on how to increase the fertility rate and improve the maternity policy in China.

Published in Humanities and Social Sciences (Volume 10, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14
Page(s) 126-133
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Maternity Policy, Women's Status, The United Kingdom

References
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[3] Kühner, Stefan. "Country-level comparisons of welfare state change measures: another facet of the dependent variable problem within the comparative analysis of the welfare state?" Journal of European Social Policy 17.1 (2007): 5-18.
[4] Hegewisch, Ariane, and Janet C. Gornick. "The impact of work-family policies on women's employment: a review of research from OECD countries." Community, Work & Family 14.2 (2011): 119-138.
[5] Clasen, Jochen, ed. Social insurance in Europe. Policy Press, 1997.
[6] Rathnam, Padma Sukumar. Education as an indicator of women's status and it's impact on fertility and contraception in Pakistan: a multivariate analysis. Diss. University of Texas at Austin, 1995. 10.
[7] Dyson, Tim, and Mick Moore. "On kinship structure, female autonomy, and demographic behavior in India." Population and development review (1983): 35-60.
[8] Blumberg, Rae Lesser. "“Dry” Versus “Wet” Development and Women in Three World Regions." Sociology of Development 1.1 (2015): 91-122.
[9] Kohan, Shahnaz, Ferdos Talebian, and Soheila Ehsanpour. "Association between women's autonomy and family planning outcome in couples residing in Isfahan." Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research 19.5 (2014): 451.
[10] Steele, F., S. Amin, and R. T. Naved. "The impact of an integrated micro-credit program on women's empowerment and fertility behavior in rural Bangladesh: Population Council." Policy Research Division Working Paper 115 (1998).
[11] Al-Riyami, Asya A., and Mustafa Afifi. "Determinants of women's fertility in Oman." Saudi medical journal 24.7 (2003): 748-753.
[12] Islam, Mohammad. "Women's Empowerment in Bangladesh: A Case Study of Two NGOs." (2014).
[13] Upadhyay, Ushma D., and Michelle J. Hindin. "Do higher status and more autonomous women have longer birth intervals? Results from Cebu, Philippines." Social science & medicine 60.11 (2005): 2641-2655.
[14] Lee-Rife, Susan M. "Women's empowerment and reproductive experiences over the lifecourse." Social Science & Medicine 71.3 (2010): 634-642.
[15] Ojo, Stephen S., and Ayesoro Sunday Adesina. "Women empowerment and fertility management in Nigeria: a study of Lafia area of Nasarawa State." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 5.26 (2014): 9.
[16] OECD database. https://stats.oecd.org/#.
[17] Becker, Sascha O., Peter H. Egger, and Maximilian von Ehrlich. "Effects of EU regional policy: 1989-2013." Regional Science and Urban Economics 69 (2018): 143-152.
[18] Liu, Hongyan, Dian Yu, and Hui Wang. "A review of the development of maternity leave policy in China over the past 70 years." China Population and Development Studies (2019): 1-16.
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  • APA Style

    Yang Qu, Ke Gao. (2022). Maternity Policy in the United Kingdom: The Impact on Women's Status in Household Responsibility, Freedom of Movement, and Economic Autonomy. Humanities and Social Sciences, 10(3), 126-133. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14

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    ACS Style

    Yang Qu; Ke Gao. Maternity Policy in the United Kingdom: The Impact on Women's Status in Household Responsibility, Freedom of Movement, and Economic Autonomy. Humanit. Soc. Sci. 2022, 10(3), 126-133. doi: 10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14

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    AMA Style

    Yang Qu, Ke Gao. Maternity Policy in the United Kingdom: The Impact on Women's Status in Household Responsibility, Freedom of Movement, and Economic Autonomy. Humanit Soc Sci. 2022;10(3):126-133. doi: 10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14,
      author = {Yang Qu and Ke Gao},
      title = {Maternity Policy in the United Kingdom: The Impact on Women's Status in Household Responsibility, Freedom of Movement, and Economic Autonomy},
      journal = {Humanities and Social Sciences},
      volume = {10},
      number = {3},
      pages = {126-133},
      doi = {10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20221003.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.hss.20221003.14},
      abstract = {With the development of society and the rise of women's movements, women's status has been paid more and more attention. Women's status is a multi-dimensional concept, and there are many standards for measurement. This paper selects three of the earliest used and representative three dimensions, which are household responsibilities, freedom of movement, and economic autonomy. The concept of women's status is complex, and there are many factors that may affect female status. The maternity policy is one of the population policies and also one of the most important guarantees for the welfare of women. It is a broad concept covering family support measures, family mutual employment measures, reproductive health measures and maternity insurance, which are all to ensure the basic living needs of female workers when they give birth to children and maintain social stability. Therefore, the impact of maternity policy on the status of women is very huge. This paper explores how maternity policy affects the status of women as measured by the three dimensions mentioned above. By comparing with other European countries, explore what efforts have been made in the UK to improve the status of women, and which policies have been proved to have a positive impact on the promotion of gender equality. Moreover, based on the conclusions, this paper also puts forward implications on how to increase the fertility rate and improve the maternity policy in China.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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    AU  - Ke Gao
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    AB  - With the development of society and the rise of women's movements, women's status has been paid more and more attention. Women's status is a multi-dimensional concept, and there are many standards for measurement. This paper selects three of the earliest used and representative three dimensions, which are household responsibilities, freedom of movement, and economic autonomy. The concept of women's status is complex, and there are many factors that may affect female status. The maternity policy is one of the population policies and also one of the most important guarantees for the welfare of women. It is a broad concept covering family support measures, family mutual employment measures, reproductive health measures and maternity insurance, which are all to ensure the basic living needs of female workers when they give birth to children and maintain social stability. Therefore, the impact of maternity policy on the status of women is very huge. This paper explores how maternity policy affects the status of women as measured by the three dimensions mentioned above. By comparing with other European countries, explore what efforts have been made in the UK to improve the status of women, and which policies have been proved to have a positive impact on the promotion of gender equality. Moreover, based on the conclusions, this paper also puts forward implications on how to increase the fertility rate and improve the maternity policy in China.
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Author Information
  • Development Research Center of Shandong Provincial People's Government, Jinan, China

  • Development Research Center of Shandong Provincial People's Government, Jinan, China

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