Family, Work and Welfare Policies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. In this respect, as early as Prokop (1978) already mentioned the existence of a ‘female mode of production’, a mode of production where behaviours are reminiscent of the mother–child relationship, that is the willingness to build an emotional relationship, the identification with the child, and the ability to anticipate and satisfy the child's desires. This perspective implies a radical review of the meaning of the work activity, which could be understood as the expression of the crisis of male employment models and, on the other hand, the appearance of female models. 2. Reconciliation is a word that was first used in the early 1990s in EC documents to identify the principle underlying Community's directives, briefings, recommendations and suggestions addressed to Member States in order to encourage them to support family-friendly policies. Work–family reconciliation policies include all those arrangements intentionally or unintentionally promoting a balance between paid work and care responsibilities and all the strategies aimed at balancing conflicting time demands in order to reduce time conflicts in everyday life (Scisci & Vinci, 2002 Scisci , A. & Vinci , M. ( 2002 ) Differenze di genere, famiglia, lavoro , Carocci , Roma . [Google Scholar], 2006). 3. The key role and the interconnection between fertility and employment among women, as well as the influence of the gender system and, on the whole, of the welfare system are corroborated by the results of the latest EU Labour Force Survey (EUROSTAT, 2003 EUROSTAT ( 2003 ) European Social Statistic. Labour Force Survey Result 2002 , Office for Official Publications of the European Communities , Luxembourg . [Google Scholar]). 4. It is based on the gendered division of labour, focussing on the involvement of women in unpaid care work and on women's social and economic dependency on the male breadwinner. Hence, the definitions of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ male breadwinner models (Lewis, 1992 Lewis , J. ( 1992 ) ‘Gender and the development of welfare regimes’ , Journal of European Social Policy , vol. II , no. 3 , pp. 159 – 173 . [Google Scholar], pp. 159–173). 5. This criterion is based on the ‘Families of nations’ classification (Millar & Warmann, 1996 Millar , J. & Warmann , A. ( 1996 ) Family Obligations in Europe , Report, Family Policy Studies Center , London . [Google Scholar]) which considers the importance that national laws and social policies attach to family care obligations and responsibilities for the weakest members. In Europe, following this approach, three clusters of countries can be identified. In Scandinavian countries, which are characterised by minimum family obligations and direct state intervention, work–family reconciliation and family-friendly policies are inspired by an integrationist approach and are aimed at combining work and family life by preserving gender equality (through parental leave schemes and labour market flexibility) as well as children's rights. In continental Europe, unpaid care work falls on the nuclear family; work–family reconciliation is based on the segregation of unpaid family work and paid work—which do not occur concurrently, as a result of long parental leaves and the inadequate provision of childcare services. Finally, the third cluster is composed of southern European countries, where unpaid care work involves the extended family, and work-life strategies are mostly ‘family-oriented’: in this framework, all care responsibilities fall on women

Economics · Family-friendly · Political science · Sociology · Welfare · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Psychology · Social Policies and Family · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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