Balancing work and care in South Europe: policy challenges in the road to recovery (original) (raw)
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Rethinking Gender, Work and Care in a New Europe
Rethinking Gender, Work and Care in a New Europe, 2016
Work-life balance became an independent scientific field within sociology during the 1960-1970s as more and more women entered the labour market. In the beginning, theories and models mainly focused on Western countries and their circumstances. In recent years, however, studies have been published that attempt to tackle the special case of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (e.g. Glass and Fodor, 2011). The main goal of Rethinking Gender, Work and Care in a New Europe edited by Triin Koosalu and Dirk Hofäcker, is to describe the processes that took place in these countries from a cross-national perspective and to analyse their social outcomes not only from the perspective of work-life balance but care, an under-researched area in post-socialist countries. Their main question is whether standard theoretical approaches or empirical evidence, mainly based in Western Europe, can be applied to CEE countries. The book offers a comprehensive approach; the authors examine all the postsocialist countries without presenting them as completely homogeneous. They not only look at them from a comparative perspective, but discuss (some of) them as stand-alone cases while building on Bohle and Greskovits's typology of postcommunist political economies (neoliberal, embedded neoliberal regime, and neocorporatist countries) (Bohle and Greskovits, 2012). The four main topics the authors cover are: family policies and norms, women's participation in the labour market, the balance between parenthood and paid work, and occupational and social mobility. As the authors emphasize, the most important conclusions of this volume are the following: there are intragroup differences between CEE countries and there are more similarities between Eastern and Western Europe than previously assumed. Furthermore, regional norms about parenthood have to be taken into account as the theories are based on Western European women's experiences, which indicates that a new theoretical background is needed. Lastly, findings on Eastern countries can still be ephemeral, given the high dynamics of changes the region is going through. Among family policies of post-socialist welfare states, the most important to understanding the dynamics of female employment are the public policies regulating parental leave and childcare. The first chapter, written by Sonja Blum, focuses on the effect of the financial and economic crisis on family policies as a part of the comparative approach. The current categorizations of welfare regimes (like Esping-Andersen's) are also criticized for not being able to recognize the prevalence of hybrid forms. As the families' reaction to the crisis could be an important element of the comparison between existing typologies and recent trends of family policies, it is slightly problematic that the most recent data on family spending is from 2010. The same concern applies to childcare services. In that case, the most recent data dates back to 2006 (and as the authors point out, makes no distinction between part-time Zsófia Viktória Kiss
We will focus our discussion on at-home childcare allowances (which are not compatible with paid work), in particular maternity leave, paternity leave and parental leave. Section 2 will deal with current reform trends in Europe. Section 3 will concentrate on measuring the differential use of leaves between mothers and fathers. We will point out the fact that there are no available indicators and statistics to allow an appropriate follow-up of existing differences. Section 4 will discuss the short, medium and longterm impact both on women involved and on the labour market configuration. We will set up a methodological premise and will state that the effects analysis is also determined by the options taken into account by researchers. We will emphasize that many studies on this subject still find it very difficult to even consider the possibility for men getting involved in housekeeping tasks. Section 5 finally includes the summary and conclusions. Some countries are now implementing non-transferable leaves for fathers, but their duration is still very short. There is also a clear tendency towards increasing transferable parental leaves, which in all countries are taken first and foremost by mothers. In order to ensure that they are equally used by both parents and prevent them from having a negative impact on the sexual division of labour, parental leaves must be nontransferable in the first place. They should also be equal leaves with allowances covering 100% of wage or a similar rate, and finally they should not be too long.
Work-care Regimes, Policies and Gender: a mysterious European threesome
Arguing that European family lives are affected by many societal factors, this article discusses the interplay between three sets of phenomena: the management of work and care responsibilities, workcare policies and regimes, and gender order within the family context. Based on discussions about orientations to work and care, we compare European countries and analyze regularities and singularities among them. Identifying and assessing the interplay between structural, institutional and cultural determinants of orientations we try to explain country diversity mobilizing data from the European Social Survey (rounds 2002, 2004 and 2006) and data from Eurobarometer 2003. The paper is organized around three analytical axes. First, we analyze how work and family orientations are perceived by the Europeans. Secondly, we assess different European political policies regarding work and care arrangements, the outcome being a proposal for a workcare political typology. And finally we discuss the connections between those policies and the production or reproduction of gender order within the family. We conclude that in countries with more egalitarian gender values and policies targeted at workcare arrangements, individuals experience less workfamily conflict. Conversely, in countries with more traditional gender values and restricted or disadvantaged policies we found more familywork conflict. But institutional constraints don't act alone: orientations to work and care differ according to age, education, family forms and employment status.
Southern European welfare regimes and the worsening position of women
Journal of European Social Policy, 1999
The article contributes to the current debate on welfare regimes, bringing together the widespread need for a fourth welfare regime besides Esping-Andersen's well-known typology, and the results of its feminist critique. It is particularly in the case of Southern European countries that a gendered point of view seems crucial, to define the specificities of a different path in developing social protection. On the other hand, comparative analyses on gender and welfare state only seldom consider Mediterranean countries. In these countries the concept of subsidiarity formulated for continental-corporatist welfare regimes has to be modified: the family is still centre stage, but in the sense that only certain social risks are covered largely by the welfare state, those against which the family cannot protect itself. On the contrary, the state does not support families' normal functioning, as usually happens in etatist conservative countries. The only form of help on the part of the state has so far been to tolerate family strategies which bring together many 'breadcrumbs' of revenue. Since this relationship between the family and social policies has usually remained invisible, it is highly probable that today's rationalizing interventions on social provisions may have even worse effects on women's condition. Some recent transformations of Italian welfare state are analysed as an example of such a danger.
A Mysterious European Threesome: Workcare Regimes, Policies and Gender
Arguing that European family lives are affected by many societal factors, this article discusses the interplay between three sets of phenomena: the management of work and care responsibilities, workcare policies and regimes, and gender order within the family context. Based on discussions about orientations to work and care, we compare European countries and analyze regularities and singularities among them. Identifying and assessing the interplay between structural, institutional and cultural determinants of orientations we try to explain country diversity mobilizing data from the European Social Survey (rounds 2002, 2004 and 2006) and data from Eurobarometer 2003. The paper is organized around three analytical axes. First, we analyze how work and family orientations are perceived by the Europeans. Secondly, we assess different European political policies regarding work and care arrangements, the outcome being a proposal for a workcare political typology. And finally we discuss the connections between those policies and the production or reproduction of gender order within the family. We conclude that in countries with more egalitarian gender values and policies targeted at workcare arrangements, individuals experience less workfamily conflict. Conversely, in countries with more traditional gender values and restricted or disadvantaged policies we found more familywork conflict. But institutional constraints don't act alone: orientations to work and care differ according to age, education, family forms and employment status.
Work-Life Reconciliation Policies From Well-Being To Development: Rethinking EU Gender Mainstreaming
Across the European Union (EU), gender policies are cross-cutting initiatives incorporated within the major axes of regional operational programs, and specifically, within active labor-market, local development and inclusion policies. This is the so-called gender mainstreaming across EU Structural Funds, calling for increasing policy instruments integration. The aim of this paper is to understand if and how to improve women’s well-being and subsequently participation in collective action through reconciliation policies. These measures aim to allow women and men to choose how they can reconcile family care, paid work, career advancement, and leisure. The idea is that such a choice implies a time allocation pattern, which is not exclusively determined by market mechanisms and/or policy measures, but also by cultural trajectories, moral values, intrinsic motivations and rules (Folbre, Nelson 2002; North, 2005; Witt 2003), varying across regions and within groups. Furthermore, the outco...
Paid to Care: The Origins and Effects of Care Leave Policies in Western Europe
Social Politics, 2003
A number of European countries have adopted paid child care leaves and allowances in the name of parental choice and valuing care. We examine the origins and consequences of these policies in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, and Norway. Care leave policies have been politically attractive to center-right governments seeking to fight unemployment, contain spending on child care, and appeal to parents struggling to balance work and family. Yet given the low benefits provided by these programs, choices for parents remain deeply constrained by gender and class. These policies also are likely to reinforce the traditional division of care work in the home. Temporary homemaking is being institutionalized as the norm for many women, who face potentially negative consequences for their earnings and long-term employment trajectories.
3. WELFARE REGIMES IN RELATION TO PAID WORK AND CARE
Advances in Life Course Research, 2003
Ideologies on work, caregiving, family, and gender relations vary across countries and over time. Contemporary perspectives typically stress child well-being; women's caregiving burden; or gender equality; the tensions among these can be resolved in societies that combine intensive parental time for children with gender-egalitarian divisions of labor. Social and labor market policies that would support such a society are the most developed in the Social Democratic countries, with the Conservative countries of continental Europe and the Liberal English-speaking countries lagging substantially (most markedly, the United States). That policy variation appears to shape cross-country variation in crucial parent and child outcomes.