Helen Kowalewska
Biographic Data
| ID | 282282 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Kowalewska |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen |
| FAMILY NAME | Kowalewska |
| SIGNATURE | KOWALEWSKA H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bath |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7991-5371 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Take a Load Off? Not for Mothers: Gender, Cognitive Labor, and the Limits of Time and Money
Globally, women perform the lion’s share of domestic labor. Research indicates that gender disparities in cognitive labor—the “thinking work” required to anticipate and monitor household needs—are even more pronounced than in physical household labor. Although traditional theories explain the gender division of physical household labor in terms of time, money, or gender performance, the applicability of these frameworks to the mental load is uncl…
Economic, Normative, and Moral Reasoning in Employer Attitudes to Maternity Leave
Employer attitudes towards maternity leave are often framed as a tension between opposition based on costs or ideal worker norms, versus normative or ethical support. How do employers combine and prioritise these justifications in practice? Drawing on interviews with thirty-seven British managers, this article develops a typology of employers – risk-averse, business-first, and value-driven – distinguishing the nature of support and underlying ble…
The female-breadwinner well-being 'penalty: Differences by Men's (Un)employment and Country
This article examines the relationship between female breadwinning and life satisfaction in heterosexual couples. We extend previous research by treating the man's employment status as a variable that helps to explain rather than confounds this relationship, and by comparing multiple countries through regression analyses of European Social Survey data (Rounds 2-9). Results provide evidence of a female-breadwinner well-being 'penalty': men and wom…
Gendered employment patterns: Women’s labour market outcomes across 24 countries
An accepted framework for ‘gendering’ the analysis of welfare regimes compares countries by degrees of ‘defamilialization’ or how far their family policies support or undermine women’s employment participation. This article develops an alternative framework that explicitly spotlights women’s labour market outcomes rather than policies. Using hierarchical clustering on principal components, it groups 24 industrialized countries by their simultaneo…
Bringing Women on Board? Family Policies, Quotas and Gender Diversity in Top Jobs
An influential body of work has identified a 'welfare-state paradox': work-family policies that bring women into the workforce also undermine women's access to the top jobs. Missing from this literature is a consideration of how welfare-state interventions impact on women's representation at the board-level specifically, rather than managerial and lucrative positions more generally. This article contributes to addressing this 'gap'. A fuzzy-set Q…
Breadwinning or on the breadline? Female breadwinners’ economic characteristics across 20 welfare states
In analysing heterosexual couples’ work–family arrangements over time and space, the comparative social policy literature has settled on the framework of the ‘male-breadwinner’ versus the ‘dual-earner’ family. Yet, in assuming men in couple-families are (full-time) employed, this framework overlooks another work–family arrangement, which is the ‘female-breadwinner’ couple. Including female-breadwinner couples matters because of their growing prev…
Bringing Women on Board: The Social Policy Implications of Gender Diversity in Top Jobs
This paper argues that analyses of the gendered character of welfare states should be broadened to include women's share of board and executive roles, as well as the affirmative-action policies (e.g. gender boardroom quotas) that help to overcome the gender stereotypes (e.g. women are 'nice', men are 'assertive') and opaque selection procedures at the root of this. Such indicators may seem beyond the remit of social policy analysis, which is conc…
Beyond the ‘train-first’/‘work-first’ dichotomy: How welfare states help or hinder maternal employment
Since the mid-1990s, welfare states have introduced various ‘activation’ policies designed to promote employment. Most typologies distinguish between a Nordic-style ‘train-first’ approach focused on developing jobseekers’ employability and an Anglo-Saxon ‘work-first’ approach that instead emphasises quick job (re-)entry. These typologies tell us what activation means for the unemployed (male) worker. However, by ignoring the family, they overlook…
Diminishing Returns: Lone Mothers’ Financial Work Incentives and Incomes under the Coalition
Lone mothers in the UK are a key target group of tax-benefit measures designed to ‘make work pay’. This article assesses how the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition's ‘make work pay’ agenda since 2010 has potentially affected single mothers. It calculates two lone mothers’ incomes and incentives for a range of working hours and wage rates under the Coalition and previous New Labour government. While the Coalition's measures substantially impr…
Breadwinning or on the breadline? Female breadwinners’ economic characteristics across 20 welfare states
In analysing heterosexual couples’ work–family arrangements over time and space, the comparative social policy literature has settled on the framework of the ‘male-breadwinner’ versus the ‘dual-earner’ family. Yet, in assuming men in couple-families are (full-time) employed, this framework overlooks another work–family arrangement, which is the ‘female-breadwinner’ couple. Including female-breadwinner couples matters because of their growing prev…
The female-breadwinner well-being 'penalty: Differences by Men's (Un)employment and Country
This article examines the relationship between female breadwinning and life satisfaction in heterosexual couples. We extend previous research by treating the man's employment status as a variable that helps to explain rather than confounds this relationship, and by comparing multiple countries through regression analyses of European Social Survey data (Rounds 2-9). Results provide evidence of a female-breadwinner well-being 'penalty': men and wom…
Bringing Women on Board? Family Policies, Quotas and Gender Diversity in Top Jobs
An influential body of work has identified a 'welfare-state paradox': work-family policies that bring women into the workforce also undermine women's access to the top jobs. Missing from this literature is a consideration of how welfare-state interventions impact on women's representation at the board-level specifically, rather than managerial and lucrative positions more generally. This article contributes to addressing this 'gap'. A fuzzy-set Q…
Gendered employment patterns: Women’s labour market outcomes across 24 countries
An accepted framework for ‘gendering’ the analysis of welfare regimes compares countries by degrees of ‘defamilialization’ or how far their family policies support or undermine women’s employment participation. This article develops an alternative framework that explicitly spotlights women’s labour market outcomes rather than policies. Using hierarchical clustering on principal components, it groups 24 industrialized countries by their simultaneo…
Beyond the ‘train-first’/‘work-first’ dichotomy: How welfare states help or hinder maternal employment
Since the mid-1990s, welfare states have introduced various ‘activation’ policies designed to promote employment. Most typologies distinguish between a Nordic-style ‘train-first’ approach focused on developing jobseekers’ employability and an Anglo-Saxon ‘work-first’ approach that instead emphasises quick job (re-)entry. These typologies tell us what activation means for the unemployed (male) worker. However, by ignoring the family, they overlook…
Bringing Women on Board: The Social Policy Implications of Gender Diversity in Top Jobs
This paper argues that analyses of the gendered character of welfare states should be broadened to include women's share of board and executive roles, as well as the affirmative-action policies (e.g. gender boardroom quotas) that help to overcome the gender stereotypes (e.g. women are 'nice', men are 'assertive') and opaque selection procedures at the root of this. Such indicators may seem beyond the remit of social policy analysis, which is conc…
Diminishing Returns: Lone Mothers’ Financial Work Incentives and Incomes under the Coalition
Lone mothers in the UK are a key target group of tax-benefit measures designed to ‘make work pay’. This article assesses how the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition's ‘make work pay’ agenda since 2010 has potentially affected single mothers. It calculates two lone mothers’ incomes and incentives for a range of working hours and wage rates under the Coalition and previous New Labour government. While the Coalition's measures substantially impr…
Diminishing Returns: Lone Mothers’ Financial Work Incentives and Incomes under the Coalition
Lone mothers in the UK are a key target group of tax-benefit measures designed to ‘make work pay’. This article assesses how the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition's ‘make work pay’ agenda since 2010 has potentially affected single mothers. It calculates two lone mothers’ incomes and incentives for a range of working hours and wage rates under the Coalition and previous New Labour government. While the Coalition's measures substantially impr…
Beyond the ‘train-first’/‘work-first’ dichotomy: How welfare states help or hinder maternal employment
Since the mid-1990s, welfare states have introduced various ‘activation’ policies designed to promote employment. Most typologies distinguish between a Nordic-style ‘train-first’ approach focused on developing jobseekers’ employability and an Anglo-Saxon ‘work-first’ approach that instead emphasises quick job (re-)entry. These typologies tell us what activation means for the unemployed (male) worker. However, by ignoring the family, they overlook…
Breadwinning or on the breadline? Female breadwinners’ economic characteristics across 20 welfare states
In analysing heterosexual couples’ work–family arrangements over time and space, the comparative social policy literature has settled on the framework of the ‘male-breadwinner’ versus the ‘dual-earner’ family. Yet, in assuming men in couple-families are (full-time) employed, this framework overlooks another work–family arrangement, which is the ‘female-breadwinner’ couple. Including female-breadwinner couples matters because of their growing prev…
Bringing Women on Board: The Social Policy Implications of Gender Diversity in Top Jobs
This paper argues that analyses of the gendered character of welfare states should be broadened to include women's share of board and executive roles, as well as the affirmative-action policies (e.g. gender boardroom quotas) that help to overcome the gender stereotypes (e.g. women are 'nice', men are 'assertive') and opaque selection procedures at the root of this. Such indicators may seem beyond the remit of social policy analysis, which is conc…
Bringing Women on Board? Family Policies, Quotas and Gender Diversity in Top Jobs
An influential body of work has identified a 'welfare-state paradox': work-family policies that bring women into the workforce also undermine women's access to the top jobs. Missing from this literature is a consideration of how welfare-state interventions impact on women's representation at the board-level specifically, rather than managerial and lucrative positions more generally. This article contributes to addressing this 'gap'. A fuzzy-set Q…
Gendered employment patterns: Women’s labour market outcomes across 24 countries
An accepted framework for ‘gendering’ the analysis of welfare regimes compares countries by degrees of ‘defamilialization’ or how far their family policies support or undermine women’s employment participation. This article develops an alternative framework that explicitly spotlights women’s labour market outcomes rather than policies. Using hierarchical clustering on principal components, it groups 24 industrialized countries by their simultaneo…
The female-breadwinner well-being 'penalty: Differences by Men's (Un)employment and Country
This article examines the relationship between female breadwinning and life satisfaction in heterosexual couples. We extend previous research by treating the man's employment status as a variable that helps to explain rather than confounds this relationship, and by comparing multiple countries through regression analyses of European Social Survey data (Rounds 2-9). Results provide evidence of a female-breadwinner well-being 'penalty': men and wom…
Take a Load Off? Not for Mothers: Gender, Cognitive Labor, and the Limits of Time and Money
Globally, women perform the lion’s share of domestic labor. Research indicates that gender disparities in cognitive labor—the “thinking work” required to anticipate and monitor household needs—are even more pronounced than in physical household labor. Although traditional theories explain the gender division of physical household labor in terms of time, money, or gender performance, the applicability of these frameworks to the mental load is uncl…
Economic, Normative, and Moral Reasoning in Employer Attitudes to Maternity Leave
Employer attitudes towards maternity leave are often framed as a tension between opposition based on costs or ideal worker norms, versus normative or ethical support. How do employers combine and prioritise these justifications in practice? Drawing on interviews with thirty-seven British managers, this article develops a typology of employers – risk-averse, business-first, and value-driven – distinguishing the nature of support and underlying ble…
Economics (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (6 works) · Labour economics (6 works) · Welfare (6 works) · Demographic economics (4 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (4 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Welfare state (4 works)