In this paper we develop a composite indicator of Support for Women’s Employment from a series of indices of female friendly policy on child care, maternity, working time and family leave. Researchers typically make generalizations about the determinants of female-friendly labor market policy based on a single policy measure, such as maternity leave or equal pay. We argue that this approach is problematic because female-friendly policies are not stand-alone. For example, maternity leave cannot engender better long-term attachment to the labor market in the absence of affordable childcare. As such, it is important that we consider not just the determinants of individual policies but of the broad spectrum of policies that contribute to a female-friendly labor market. It is our hope that the more holistic approach facilitated by the development of such a composite indicator will make a significant contribution to work on cross-national variation in female-friendly labor market policy.
