With national data from 18 OECD countries between 1980 and 2007, Thevenon (2013,2015) analyses how aggregate levels of female labour force participation respond to policies that support the work-life balance. The analysis takes in variables on paid leave (public spending and duration), child care serv ices for children under the age of 3 (public spending and enrolment rates), public expenditure on other family benefits, and financial incentives to work (such as tax incentives that encourage both partners in couple families to go out to work). The results reveal, in particular, that expansions in child care service provisions significantly boost women’s labour market participation and exert a greater positive influence on female employment than variations in the weeks of paid leave. Child care provision for the under 3s doubled, on average, betw’eenthe mid-1990s and the late 2000s, producing an estimated 2.5 percentage point increase in the employment rates of 25-to-54 year-old women - a quarter of the total increase between 1995 and 2008.