Comparative welfare state research as examined the outcomes of active labour market policies (ALMP) and work-family reconciliation policies by and large been separately. As a result, potential complementarities between these policy areas have received scant attention empirically. Using macro-level data, this study answers the question to what extent, and in which way, governments' efforts in ALMP and in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are complementary to each other in promoting women's employment rates and reducing women's unemployment and inactivity rates in 30 OECD countries from 1985 to 2018. The article theorises about how the various policies that constitute a welfare state relate to each other, distinguishing between pluralism, complementarity and substitutability. These findings provide support for the notion of welfare pluralism, in the sense that ALMP and ECEC policies work together in improving women's employment rates in slightly different ways: ALMP achieve this through reducing women's unemployment rates, whereas ECEC also achieve lower inactivity rates for women. There was, however, more support for the notion of substitution rather than complementarity: the marginal benefits associated with an increase in either ALMP or ECEC were smaller in the context of large investments in the other policy. In other words, the highest rates of women's employment, and the lowest rates of unemployment and inactivity, are found in countries with large investments in both ALMP and ECEC, but such higher investments are associated with diminishing returns.

中文翻译：

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没有和解就没有激活？1985-2018 年 30 个经合组织国家 ALMP 和 ECEC 在妇女就业、失业和不活动方面的相互作用

比较福利国家研究检查了积极的劳动力市场政策 (ALMP) 和工作与家庭和解政策的结果，这些研究基本上是分开的。因此，这些政策领域之间的潜在互补性在经验上很少受到关注。本研究利用宏观数据回答了政府在 ALMP 和幼儿教育和护理 (ECEC) 服务方面的努力在多大程度上以及以何种方式在提高女性就业率和降低女性失业率方面相辅相成的问题1985 年至 2018 年 30 个经合组织国家的不活动率和不活动率。本文对构成福利国家的各种政策之间的相互关系进行了理论分析，区分了多元化、互补性和可替代性。福利多元化，从某种意义上说，ALMP 和 ECEC 政策以略微不同的方式共同提高妇女的就业率：ALMP 通过降低妇女失业率来实现这一目标，而 ECEC 还可以降低妇女的不活动率。然而，替代而不是互补的概念得到了更多的支持：在对另一项政策进行大量投资的情况下，与增加 ALMP 或 ECEC 相关的边际收益较小。换句话说，女性就业率最高，失业率和闲置率最低，出现在对 ALMP 和 ECEC 进行大量投资的国家，但这种较高的投资与收益递减有关。