Disabling Effects of Enabling Social Policies on Gender Equality in Organizational HR Development

Human capital and its use on the labour market are associated with desirable outcomes for individuals, organisations and societies. A variety of social policies, such as paid parental leave and formal childcare, are designed to enhance parents’ labour force participation. These policies vary considerably in extent and nature between states, with different influence on men’s and women’s decision regarding their labour market supply and on organisations’ expectations towards labour availability, potentially affecting employers’ willingness to invest in their employees. Thus, social policies may indirectly influence individuals’ human capital and career development. Using a sample of over 13,500 individuals from 19 countries, we investigate the moderation effect of gender on the relationship between social policies and human resource development practices. Both policies have disabling effects for women, but not for men. We provide explanations for the counterintuitive result regarding the provision of childcare with reference to the statistical discrimination effect.