Career interruptions due to childcare and different family policy regimes. A multilevel approach

This paper analyses the generation gap in the duration of long-term career interrup-tions due to childcare among mothers of two children and how are these differences moder-ated by a country’s dominating family policy regime. The outcomes of the multilevel analysis reveal that mothers born after 1960 have significantly lower odds of interrupting their career for longer than ten years compared to older women. A country’s dominating family policy model plays a significant role in explaining propensity of long career breaks. Mothers from countries with post-socialist, Southern European and pro-egalitarian models exhibit lower odds of experiencing long-term career interruptions than those in pro-traditionalist countries. Differences between generations are moderated by countries’ family policy models. Among younger generation, the propensity of experiencing long career breaks is smaller in the post-socialist and non-interventionist regimes than in countries with a pro-traditionalist family poli-cy legacy.