The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy over the Life Course 019751815X, 9780197518151

Table of contents :
Contents
Contributors
Introduction: Family Change, Family Life Courses, and Family Policy • Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas J. Besharov
Part I: Social Context and Conceptual/Theoretical Issues
Section 1: The Changing Context of Family Relations
Introduction to Section on the Changing Context of Family Relations • Neil Gilbert
1. Change and Variety in Family Forms: Patterns in World History • Peter N. Stearns
2. Family Change in the Context of Social Changes in Asia • Stuart Gietel-Basten
3. Changing Families in Europe: Convergence or Divergence? • Manuela Naldini
4. Family Change in the Context of Social Changes in the United States • Nicholas H. Wolfinger
5. Family Policies in Long-Term Perspective • Thomas Bahle
Section 2: Theoretical Issues
Introduction to Section on Theoretical Issues • Birgit Pfau-Effinger
6. Theorizing the Relationship between Family, Gender, and the Welfare State • Mary Daly
7. Theorizing the Relationship between the Welfare State and the Life Course • Martin Kohli
8. Intersectionality and Family Policy: The Transnational Political Economy of Care • Fiona Williams
9. Understanding Family Policy Transformation in the Light of Critical Political Economy • Emanuele Ferragina
10. Theorizing the Role of Culture and Family Policy for Women’s Employment Behavior • Birgit Pfau-Effinger
Section 3: The Role of Ideas and Politics in the Development of Family Policy
Introduction to Section on the Role of Politics and Ideas in the Development of Family Policies • Birgit Pfau-Effinger
11. The Politics of Work-Family Policies • Patricia Boling
12. The Politics of Ideas in Family Policy: Parties, Electoral Competition, and Shifting Norms • Timo Fleckenstein and Samuel Mohun Himmelweit
13. The Role of Religion for the Development of Work-Family Policies: The Example of Confucianism • Ito Peng and Alex Payette
14. The Role of the “Social Investment” Concept for the Development of Family Policy • Chiara Saraceno
15. Public Attitudes toward Responsibility for Childcare in Welfare Regimes • Jing Guo and Neil Gilbert
Part II: The Life Course and Family Policy
Section 4: Before/Instead of Marriage: Cohabitation
Introduction to section on Before/Instead of Marriage: Cohabitation • Douglas M. Call and Douglas J. Besharov
16. Global Trends in Cohabitation • Nora Sánchez Gassen
17. Cohabitation through the Life Course • Elizabeth Thomson
18. The Various Roles of Cohabitation in the United States • Sharon Sassler and Alexandra Cooperstock
19. Increasing Cohabitation and Decreasing Marriage: Explanations • Nora Sánchez Gassen
20. The Comparative Stability of Cohabitation versus Marriage • Laurie DeRose
21. The Legal Framework of Cohabitation: Toward Greater Recognition • Margaret Ryznar and Anna Stępień
22. Treat All Families Equally? Why Policies Should Adapt to Evolving Patterns of Cohabitation • Antonela Miho and Olivier Thévenon
Section 5: Family Policies and Starting a Family
Introduction to Section on Family Policies and Starting a Family • Neil Gilbert
23. Social Investments in Early Childhood • Phyllis Jeroslow
24. Childcare Policies and Fertility Considerations • Anna Cristina d’Addio
25. Framing Reproductive Policy: IVF and the Religious Factor • Ronald M. Green
26. Same-Sex Unions and Childrearing • Sean Cahill
27. Raising Children in Stepfamilies: Policy Issues • J. Bart Stykes
28. Cross-Border Marriages and Marriage Migration • Hélène Le Bail
29. Educating Parents: Critical Policy Issues • Claude Martin
Section 6: Childcare-Related Policies: The Preschool Years
Introduction to Section on Childcare-Related Policies: The Preschool Years • Mary Daly
30. Diversity of Childcare Policies in Nordic Welfare States • Ann-Zofie Duvander and Anita Nyberg
31. Parenting Leave Policies and Their Variations: Policy Developments in OECD Countries • Ivana Dobrotić
32. Explaining Variations in Family Policy through a Gender Lens • Mary Daly and Emanuele Ferragina
33. Social Policies for Lone Mothers in Europe: A Life-Course Perspective • Hannah Zagel
34. Childcare by Fathers in the Context of Active Father-Oriented Policies • Guðný Björk Eydal and Tine Rostgaard
35. The Matthew Effect in Early Childhood Education and Care: How Family Policies May Amplify Inequalities • Wim Van Lancker
Section 7: Family Disruptions
Introduction to Section on Family Disruptions • Neil Gilbert
36. Transition to Adulthood and the Emancipation Process • Antonio López Peláez and Amaya Erro-Garcés
37. Public Policy toward the Removal of Children from the Family • Jill Duerr Berrick
38. Principles of Public Policy for Child Protection: Cross-National Perspectives • Marit Skivenes
39. Varieties of Public Policy toward Domestic Violence • Emily Sack
40. Economic Resources after Divorce: Family Income and Housing in the Wake of Israel’s Neoliberal Welfare Reforms • Anat Herbst-Debby, Amit Kaplan, and Miri Endeweld
41. Post-separation Parenting Policies: Social and Legal Issues around Parental Responsibility after Divorce and Separation • Kirsten Scheiwe
Section 8: Intergenerational Support
Introduction to Section on Intergenerational Support • Mary Daly, and Birgit Pfau- Effinger
42. Family and State Responsibility for Care for Older People • Marco Arlotti, Emmanuele Pavolini, and Costanzo Ranci
43. Unpacking the “Eldercare Regime”: The Many Faces of Long-Term Care within and across Societies • Lorraine Frisina Doetter, Johanna Fischer, and Heinz Rothgang
44. The Growth and Consequences of Quasi-markets in Long-Term Care • David Palomera and Margarita Léon
45. Childcare by Grandparents in the Context of Welfare State Policies • Valeria Bordone, Karsten Hank, Cecilia Tomassini, and Bruno Arpino
46. Policies for Active Aging and Their Family-Related Assumptions and Consequences • Myra Hamilton, Virpi Timonen, Lyn Craig, and Elizabeth Adamson
47. Intergenerational Resource Transfers in the Context of Welfare States • Pieter Vanhuysse and Róbert Iván Gál
48. Welfare State Policies toward Financial Solidarity between Generations • Patricia Frericks
Index

Citation preview

The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy Over the Life Course

OXFORD LIBRARY OF I N T E R N AT I O N A L S O C I A L P O L I C Y

Edi tors -​i n -​C h i ef Douglas J. Besharov and Neil Gilbert In collaboration with the International Network for Social Policy Teaching and Research

The Oxford Handbook of Governance and Management for Social Policy Edited by Karen J. Baehler The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy Over the Life Course Edited by Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas J. Besharov

OXFORD LIBRARY OF I N T E R N AT I O N A L S O C I A L P O L I C Y

The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy Over the Life Course Edited by

Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas J. Besharov

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Control Number: 2022941723 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​751815–​1 DOI: 10.1093/​oxfordhb/​9780197518151.001.0001 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Marquis, Canada

CONTENTS

Contributors  xi Introduction: Family Change, Family Life Courses, and Family Policy  1 Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas J. Besharov Part I  •  Social Context and Conceptual/​Theoretical Issues Section 1  • The Changing Context of Family Relations Section editor: Neil Gilbert Introduction to Section on the Changing Context of Family Relations  21 Neil Gilbert 1. Change and Variety in Family Forms: Patterns in World History  25 Peter N. Stearns 2. Family Change in the Context of Social Changes in Asia  55 Stuart Gietel-​Basten 3. Changing Families in Europe: Convergence or Divergence?  78 Manuela Naldini 4. Family Change in the Context of Social Changes in the United States  97 Nicholas H. Wolfinger 5. Family Policies in Long-​Term Perspective  119 Thomas Bahle Section 2  • Theoretical Issues Section editor: Birgit Pfau-​Effinger Introduction to Section on Theoretical Issues  139 Birgit Pfau-​Effinger 6. Theorizing the Relationship between Family, Gender, and the Welfare State  143 Mary Daly

Theorizing the Relationship between the Welfare State and the Life Course  160 Martin Kohli 8. Intersectionality and Family Policy: The Transnational Political Economy of Care  182 Fiona Williams 9. Understanding Family Policy Transformation in the Light of Critical Political Economy  201 Emanuele Ferragina 1 0. Theorizing the Role of Culture and Family Policy for Women’s Employment Behavior  224 Birgit Pfau-​Effinger 7.

Section 3  • The Role of Ideas and Politics in the Development of Family Policy Section editor: Birgit Pfau-​Effinger Introduction to Section on the Role of Politics and Ideas in the Development of Family Policies  243 Birgit Pfau-​Effinger 11. The Politics of Work-​Family Policies  247 Patricia Boling 12. The Politics of Ideas in Family Policy: Parties, Electoral Competition, and Shifting Norms  270 Timo Fleckenstein and Samuel Mohun Himmelweit 13. The Role of Religion for the Development of Work-​Family Policies: The Example of Confucianism  290 Ito Peng and Alex Payette 14. The Role of the “Social Investment” Concept for the Development of Family Policy  308 Chiara Saraceno 15. Public Attitudes toward Responsibility for Childcare in Welfare Regimes  324 Jing Guo and Neil Gilbert Part II  •  The Life Course and Family Policy Section 4  • Before/​Instead of Marriage: Cohabitation Section editors: Douglas M. Call and Douglas J. Besharov Introduction to section on Before/Instead of Marriage: Cohabitation  345 Douglas M. Call and Douglas J. Besharov

vi

C o n ten ts

16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

Global Trends in Cohabitation  349 Nora Sánchez Gassen Cohabitation through the Life Course  367 Elizabeth Thomson The Various Roles of Cohabitation in the United States  388 Sharon Sassler and Alexandra Cooperstock Increasing Cohabitation and Decreasing Marriage: Explanations  419 Nora Sánchez Gassen The Comparative Stability of Cohabitation versus Marriage  437 Laurie DeRose The Legal Framework of Cohabitation: Toward Greater Recognition  462 Margaret Ryznar and Anna Stępień Treat All Families Equally? Why Policies Should Adapt to Evolving Patterns of Cohabitation  477 Antonela Miho and Olivier Thévenon

Section 5  •  Family Policies and Starting a Family Section editor: Neil Gilbert Introduction to Section on Family Policies and Starting a Family  497 Neil Gilbert 23. Social Investments in Early Childhood  501 Phyllis Jeroslow 24. Childcare Policies and Fertility Considerations  530 Anna Cristina d’Addio 25. Framing Reproductive Policy: IVF and the Religious Factor  566 Ronald M. Green 26. Same-​Sex Unions and Childrearing  584 Sean Cahill 27. Raising Children in Stepfamilies: Policy Issues  601 J. Bart Stykes 28. Cross-​Border Marriages and Marriage Migration  615 Hélène Le Bail 29. Educating Parents: Critical Policy Issues  633 Claude Martin

Conte nts

vii

Section 6  • Childcare-​Related Policies: The Preschool Years Section editor: Mary Daly Introduction to Section on Childcare-​Related Policies: The Preschool Years  651 Mary Daly 30. Diversity of Childcare Policies in Nordic Welfare States  655 Ann-​Zofie Duvander and Anita Nyberg 31. Parenting Leave Policies and Their Variations: Policy Developments in OECD Countries  678 Ivana Dobrotić 32. Explaining Variations in Family Policy through a Gender Lens  695 Mary Daly and Emanuele Ferragina 33. Social Policies for Lone Mothers in Europe: A Life-​Course Perspective  716 Hannah Zagel 34. Childcare by Fathers in the Context of Active Father-​Oriented Policies  736 Guðný Björk Eydal and Tine Rostgaard 35. The Matthew Effect in Early Childhood Education and Care: How Family Policies May Amplify Inequalities  758 Wim Van Lancker Section 7  •  Family Disruptions Section editor: Neil Gilbert Introduction to Section on Family Disruptions  777 Neil Gilbert 36. Transition to Adulthood and the Emancipation Process  781 Antonio López Peláez and Amaya Erro-​Garcés 37. Public Policy toward the Removal of Children from the Family  808 Jill Duerr Berrick 38. Principles of Public Policy for Child Protection: Cross-​National Perspectives  824 Marit Skivenes 39. Varieties of Public Policy toward Domestic Violence  837 Emily Sack 40. Economic Resources after Divorce: Family Income and Housing in the Wake of Israel’s Neoliberal Welfare Reforms  869 Anat Herbst-​Debby, Amit Kaplan, and Miri Endeweld

viii

C o n ten ts

41. Post-​separation Parenting Policies: Social and Legal Issues around Parental Responsibility after Divorce and Separation  891 Kirsten Scheiwe Section 8  • Intergenerational Support Section editors: Mary Daly and Birgit Pfau-​Effinger Introduction to Section on Intergenerational Support  913 Mary Daly, and Birgit Pfau-​Effinger 42. Family and State Responsibility for Care for Older People  917 Marco Arlotti, Emmanuele Pavolini, and Costanzo Ranci 43. Unpacking the “Eldercare Regime”: The Many Faces of Long-​Term Care within and across Societies  939 Lorraine Frisina Doetter, Johanna Fischer, and Heinz Rothgang 44. The Growth and Consequences of Quasi-​markets in Long-​Term Care  961 David Palomera and Margarita Léon 45. Childcare by Grandparents in the Context of Welfare State Policies  979 Valeria Bordone, Karsten Hank, Cecilia Tomassini, and Bruno Arpino 46. Policies for Active Aging and Their Family-​Related Assumptions and Consequences  998 Myra Hamilton, Virpi Timonen, Lyn Craig, and Elizabeth Adamson 47. Intergenerational Resource Transfers in the Context of Welfare States  1015 Pieter Vanhuysse and Róbert Iván Gál 48. Welfare State Policies toward Financial Solidarity between Generations  1034 Patricia Frericks

Index   1053

Conte nts

ix

CO N T R I B U TO R S

Elizabeth Adamson

Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney Marco Arlotti

Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Social Sciences Marche, Polytechnic University Bruno Arpino

Associate Professor, Department of Statistics, Computer Science, Applications, University of Florence Thomas Bahle

Lecturer, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim Jill Duerr Berrick

Professor, Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley Douglas J. Besharov

Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park Patricia Boling

Purdue University Valeria Bordone

Department of Sociology, University of Vienna Sean R. Cahill

Director, Health Policy Research, The Fenway Institute Douglas M. Call

Deputy Director, Center for International Policy Exchanges School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park

Alexandra Cooperstock

PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Cornell University Lyn Craig

Professor and Discipline Chair of Sociology and Social Policy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne Anna Cristina D'addio

Senior Policy Analyst (Thematic Lead), Global Education Monitoring Report Mary Daly

Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford Anat Herbst-​Debby

Bar Ilan University of Tel Aviv Laurie DeRose

Assistant Professor, Sociology, The Catholic University of America Ivana Dobrotić

Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Social Policy Unit, University of Zagreb Lorraine Frisina Doetter

Tenured Lecturer in Public Health, University of Bremen Ann-​Zofie Duvander

Professor, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University Miri Endeweld

Israel National Insurance Institute

Amaya Erro-​Garcés

Associate Professor, Department of Business Administration, Public University of Navarra Guðný Björk Eydal

Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of Iceland Emanuele Ferragina

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement Sciences Po Johanna Fischer

Postdoctoral Researcher, Research Centre on Inequality and Social Policy, University of Bremen Timo Fleckenstein

Associate Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science Patricia Frericks

Professor, Department of Sociology and Economy of the Welfare State, University of Kassel Róbert Iván Gál

Head of Research Centre Corvinus, Institute of Advance Studies, Corvinus University Stuart A. Gietel-​Basten

Professor, Division of Social Science and Division of Public Policy, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Neil Gilbert

Distinguished Professor of Social Welfare and Milton and Gertrude Chair in Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley Ronald Michael Green

Professor Emeritus for the Study of Ethics and Human Values, Department of Religion, Dartmouth College

xii

C o n tr ibutor s

Jing Guo

Associate Professor, Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health, Department of Social Work, University of Hawaii at Manoa Myra Hamilton

Associate Professor, Work and Organisational Studies, University of Sydney Karsten Hank

Professor, Institute of Sociology & Social Psychology, University of Cologne Phyllis Jeroslow

Training and Curriculum Specialist, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley Amit Kaplan

Senior Lecturer, School of Government and Society, Tel Aviv-​ Yaffo Academic College Martin Kohli

Professor Emeritus, Department of Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute Hélène Le Bail

Sciences Po, Paris Margarita León

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Universitat Autònoma Barcelona Antonio López Peláez

Full Professor, Department of Social Work, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia Claude Martin

Research Professor, INSHS CNRS Antonela Miho

École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris School of Economics

Samuel Mohun Himmelweit

Fellow, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science Manuela Naldini

University of Torino Anita Nyberg

Professor of Gender Studies, Stockholm University David Palomera

Researcher, Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGOP), Autonomous University of Barcelona Emmanuele Pavolini

Department of Political Science, International Relations and Communication, University of Macerata Alex Payette

Adjunct Professor, Department of Political Science, Glendon College Ito Peng

University of Toronto Birgit Pfau-​Effinger

University Professor for Sociology of Cultural and Institutional Change, Department of Social Sciences, University of Hamburg Costanzo Ranci

Pr. Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano Tine Rostgaard

Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University Heinz Rothgang

University of Bremen Margaret Ryznar

Professor, Indiana University McKinney School of Law Emily J. Sack

Professor of Law , Roger Williams University School of Law

Nora E. Sánchez Gassen

Senior Research Fellow, Nordregio Chiara Saraceno

honorary fellow, Collegio Carlo Alberto Sharon Sassler

Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Department of Sociology, Cornell University, The Brooks School of Public Policy Kirsten Scheiwe

Professor of Law, Department of Education and Social Sciences, University of Hildesheim Marit Skivenes

Professor, Dept. of Adm. Org., Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism Peter N. Stearns

Professor of History, George Mason University Anna Stępień

Barister, Anna Stępień Law Office J. Bart Stykes

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Sam Houston State University Olivier Thévenon

Head of Child Well-​Being Unit, OECD Centre for Well-​Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity, OECD Elizabeth Thomson

Professor Emerita of Demography, Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University Virpi Timonen

Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki

Contributors

xiii

Cecilia Tomassini

Full Professor in Demography, Department of Economics, University of Molise Wim Van Lancker

Associate Professor, Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven Pieter Vanhuysse

Professor of Politics and Public Policy, Department of Politics and Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern Denmark

xiv

C o n tr ibutor s

Fiona Williams

Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds Nicholas H. Wolfinger

Professor, Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah Hannah Zagel

Head of Research Group, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Introduction: Family Change, Family Life Courses, and Family Policy Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-​Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas J. Besharov

Abstract This introductory chapter begins by looking at the changes in the formation and functioning of conventional family life, the most palpable of which have occurred in the wealthy countries represented in the membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD). These changes have had a significant impact on the timing and responsibilities of various stages in the family life course as well as the disruptions to this pattern. This book develops and applies a life-​course perspective to interpret and understand these and other changes and examine how policy has engaged with them. Three particular perspectives can be identified as especially important: a gender perspective, an intersectional perspective, and a social investment perspective. Among the advanced industrialized nations, life course, gender, and social investment concerns have fed into the reform of welfare policies, with challenges posed by changing patterns of family life especially coming to the fore. As a result, family policy is a vibrant field of policy development and reform. Taken together, in a context of a general expansion of family-​oriented policy, there has been a broad trend toward the extension of social rights and care-​related infrastructure as policies target the behavior of families and individual family members in their everyday life and the reconciliation of care responsibility and employment. Key Words: OECD countries, family life course, gender, intersectionality, social investment, welfare policies, family policy, family-​oriented policy, social rights, care-​related infrastructure

Introduction Over the last 50 years, social, economic, and technological forces have disrupted established patterns of family life in advanced industrial societies. Cultural values and social norms of parental and partner behavior are in flux, as is the customary gender division of labor in household production and kinship care. Major medical advances in reproductive technology have transformed the timing and possibilities of procreation. As family arrangements have become increasingly diverse, the definition of “family” is more challenging to specify. There are families composed of married and unmarried couples; heterosexual, homosexual, and transgender couples, with and without children; single-​parent families; polygamous families; and multiple biological-​parentage families made possible by modern technology—​for example, when one woman’s egg is implanted in the uterus of another and impregnated by third party (Mason and Ekman 2017).

Efforts to identify the human relationships that define “family” as a category for social policy are further complicated by an egalitarian dilemma, which stems from a desire to treat everyone equally and prescribes that all forms of human relationships merit the same social protection. If the definition of “family” becomes a vessel into which any human condition can be poured, there is little basis for distinguishing family policy from any other form of social protection. On the other hand, a definition of family that may exclude some people and forms of familial living from consideration can result in some groups getting more public support and recognition than others, along with the accompanying danger of stigmatizing those not recognized within the particular definition of family (Gilbert 1983). All of this is to say that the definition of family is often highly contested. A UN report notes that international standards do not prescribe a specific concept of family and suggests that the family should be understood “in a wide sense” (Gennarini 2016, 1). This wide sense is reflected in the preamble to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which describes the family as “the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-​being of all its members and particularly children.” And at the same time that family arrangements become increasingly diverse, more traditional patterns of family life are on the wane. Demographic Trends and Changing Family Structures The most palpable changes in the formation and functioning of conventional family life have occurred in the wealthy countries represented in the membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD). These changes have had a significant impact on the timing and responsibilities of various stages in the family life course, as well as the disruptions to this pattern. The first stage is increasingly marked by cohabitation before marriage. People are marrying and remarrying and having children later in life, parental responsibilities for the care of children are changing along with responsibilities for elder relatives, and disruptions to the traditional life course, such as separation and divorce, are rising. Overall, adherence to the conventional family life course is on the decline. For example, the OECD countries have seen a dramatic rise in the rate of women who have not married by ages 40 to 44—​so much so that it is not uncommon to find countries in which 25% of women in this age group have never married, as illustrated in Table I.1. To take just one example, if the current US trend continues, it is anticipated that by 2030, 25% of middle-​aged Americans are unlikely to have ever married (Wang and Parker 2014). Between 1970 and 2017, most OECD countries experienced a substantial decline in marriage rates (as illustrated through an indicative selection of countries in Figure I.1). Falling marriage rates have been accompanied by a rising tide of cohabitation, particularly

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M a ry Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effin ger , Neil Gilbe rt, and Douglas J. Bes harov

Table I.1  Rising percent of women never married by ages 40–​44 • Hungary

• 5.1% in 1970 to 26.4% in 2018

• Denmark

• 6.6% in 1970 to 24.7% in 2018

• France

• 8.5% in 1970 to 32.0% in 2013

• Germany

• 6.4% in 1987 to 23.2% in 2018

• Norway

• 6.9% in 1970 to 32.6% in 2018

• United Kingdom

• 7.3% in 1971 to 14.9% in 2011

• Japan

• 5.3% in 1970 to 17.8% in 2015

• United States

• 5.5% in 1970 to 14.6% in 2010

Source: UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs World Marriage Data 2019, https://​pop​ulat​ion.un.org/​Marri​ageD​ata/​Index.html#/​marita​lSta​tusD​ata.

Per 1,000 People

among those in the younger generation. In the United States, 59% of adults aged 18 to 44 have cohabitated at some point in their lives (Horowitz, Graf, and Livingston 2019). While cohabitation helps to fill a void in interpersonal relations, it is a weak substitute for marriage when it comes to reinforcing stable attachments of family life. Married couples score higher on subjective measures of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and well-​being than cohabiting partners, but some of this difference is undoubtedly a selection effect (Eurofound 2019; Horowitz, Graf, and Livingston 2019; Wilcox, Dew, and ElHage 2019). Children born to cohabitating couples are more likely to have their parents split up by age 12 than those born into married families, regardless of the mother’s educational level (Social Trends Institute 2017). At the same time that cohabitation is rising, studies find that some countries have an increasing number of young adults who are not engaged in dating and the intimacies associated with interpersonal relationships leading to marriage. For instance, 11.0 10.0 9.0 8.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0

United Denmark Korea Sweden Poland Germany Japan OECD Australia United Spain States average Kingdom 1970

1995

France

Chile

Italy

2017

Figure I.1  Crude marriage rate  Source: OECD 2021.

I n t ro d u c t ion : Family Ch an ge, Family Life Courses , and Family Policy

3

the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2011) reported that 70% of never-​married Japanese men are not in a relationship, and that 27% have no interest in forming a relationship with the opposite sex; among never-​ married Japanese women, 60% were not in a relationship and 21% were not interested in forming one. In addition, 36% of never-​married men and 39% of never-​married women between the ages of 18 and 34 reported having no sexual experience—​a trend referred to as the “celibacy syndrome.” In South Korea, 40% of people in their 20s and 30s appear to have quit dating altogether (Park 2015). The US General Social Survey also reveals a significant decrease in sexual activity among young adults to the extent that approximately one in three men aged 18 to 24 years reported no sexual activity in 2018 (Ueda et. al. 2020). Another important change in the family life course involves the increasing disruptions to married life. The divorce rate, indicated by the number of divorces per 1,000 people, increased in almost all OECD countries between 1970 and 1995 (see Figure I.2 for key country examples). Moreover, the trend continued between 1995 and 2017 in a smaller number of these countries, while the majority experienced a shift in the trend toward a decline in the divorce rate. However, in most countries, the divorce rate in 2017 was still higher than it was in 1970. The changing landscape of marriage, divorce, and sexual behaviors has been accompanied by another dramatic shift in traditional family life-​course activities. This is the growth in women entering the paid workforce, which has modified the conventional gender division of labor in family life. This growth, which started in part in the first half of the 20th century, accelerated after the 1970s, and was highest in the century’s last decades. The strong increase indicates in part a shift from women’s informal work in the male-​breadwinner family toward a participation of women and men in the labor market

4.5 4.0 Per 1,000 People

3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

United Denmark Sweden Korea States

Spain Australia OECD France Germany Hungary United Japan average Kingdom 1970

1995

Italy

Chile

2017

Figure I.2  Crude divorce rate 1970, 1995, 2017  Source: OECD 2021.

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M a ry Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effin ger , Neil Gilbe rt, and Douglas J. Bes harov

on the basis of the “adult worker family.” However, the increase in women’s labor force participation rate is also due to a shift within women’s employment—​from jobs as waged workers or “working family members” in the traditional and, in part, informal sectors mainly in rural areas, which were often not covered by official statistics, toward jobs in formal employment in the modern industrial and service sectors (Pfau-​Effinger 2004). Since the start of the 21st century, the female labor force participation rate has remained stable or even decreased, particularly in the countries with the highest rates of employed women (see Figure I.3). As women’s labor force participation has intensified, many aspects of household production and family care have been outsourced to the market and the state. Increasingly, contemporary families are no longer units of economic production where survival depends on a sexual division of labor and emotional relationships are reinforced by an instrumental interdependence in managing the quotidian demands of family life. This development has been variously described as the “de-​institutionalization” of family life and “defamilialization,” exemplified by the state and the market assuming responsibility for many core functions of family life, thereby allowing greater freedom and individual autonomy for parents—​while undermining the interdependence of marital bonds (Esping-​Andersen 1999; Cherlin 2004; Lundqvist and Ostner 2017). As might be expected, along with the attenuation of intimate relationships, the unraveling of marital bonds and the increasing rate of female labor force participation, fertility rates have fallen to a historic low in most wealthy countries (see Figure I.4). Since 1960, the average

70%

Sweden Denmark Australia United Kingdom United States Germany Spain Korea OECD countries France Japan

60% 50% 40%

Poland Chile Italy

30% 20% 10% 0% 1890 1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

2016

Figure I.3  Female labor force participation Source: Our World in data based on OECD (2017) and Long (1958). Note: For some observations prior to 1960, the participation rate is calculated with respect to the female population aged 14 and over. See the original source for details.

I n t ro d u c t ion : Family Ch an ge, Family Life Courses , and Family Policy

5

6.0 High-income countries 95% prediction interval World

5.5

Live births per women

5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 1950

1975

2000

2025

2050

2075

2100

Year Figure I.4  High-​income countries: Total fertility  Source: 2019 United Nations, DESA, Population Division. Licensed under Creative Commons license CC BY 3.0 IGO. United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2019. http://population.un.org/wpp/

fertility rate in Europe fell from 2.56 to 1.5, a level well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman (OECD 2021). At 1.25 births per woman, Spain now has among the lowest fertility rates in Europe. Looking further afield, in 2019, for the first time in history, the Korean fertility rate dropped below one birth per woman. Demographers describe fertility rates this low as entering a national death spiral, making it very difficult for a shrinking population to regain its size. And this has a ripple effect on family life. As fewer people experience being fathers and mothers, having brothers and sisters, and being grandparents, the web of intergenerational family relationships withers, generating a need for care outside the family while widening social isolation and loneliness (Cacioppo and Cacioppo 2018; HRSA 2019). The social consequences of declining fertility do not end there, however. As childbearing has plummeted, the average life expectancy in OECD countries has soared; in Europe it climbed from 62 to 82 years between 1960 and 2021(World Bank 2021). Those coming into the world are living longer, leaving fewer people in the working age population to finance the pay-​as-​you-​go social security programs that support the retired elderly (especially since official retirement ages have not been raised correspondingly). Between 1950 and 2050, the share of people aged 65 years and older as a proportion of the working age population (15–​64 years of age) is expected to rise from 15% to 56% in the member countries of the European Union (see some examples in Figure I.5). This means that fewer than two working-​age people will be on hand to provide for each older

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90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Japan

Spain

Italy

Korea

Poland Germany OECD France United Sweden Denmark Chile Australia United average Kingdom States 2000

2050

Figure I.5  Ratio of the inactive elderly population (65+​) to the labor force 2000 and 2050 Source: OECD 2017.

person by the middle of this century, a much heavier burden than in 1950, when the old-​ age dependency ratio was seven working-​age people for each elderly person. To take an example, Japan and Korea are projected to experience a huge decline between 1950 and 2050, from more than 10 to less than 1.5 working-​age people per elderly person (OECD 2017). Of course, these estimates assume that 65 is the normal age of retirement at which workers become eligible for old age pensions. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, the age of eligibility for pensions has been slowly rising in many of the OECD welfare states—​but not nearly enough to reflect lower birthrates and longer life spans. Such demographic and employment trends have altered the customary stages of family life and pose a critical challenge to both families and states in promoting the health and well-​being of coming generations. Architects of the modern welfare states in OECD countries did not anticipate the sharp decline in fertility and increase in life expectancy that have reshaped the course of family life since the second half of the 20th century. For example, when Otto von Bismarck initiated Germany’s social security scheme in 1889, with the fertility rate at five children per woman, average life expectancy of only 45 years of age, and the age of retirement at 65 years, the pension policy was fiscally sound. By 2020, life expectancy in Germany had jumped to 82 years and the fertility rate had sunk to 1.6, while the age of retirement remained at 65 years, increasing to 67 by 2029. The climbing old-​age dependency ratio creates immense pressures on old age pensions and healthcare services for older people, imposing an enormous burden on the public budgets of the developed welfare states. At the same time, welfare states are struggling to meet the childcare needs of two-​earner families, while the increasing rate of divorce and single parenthood leaves family units with fewer adults to care for children and elderly kin. Overall, the dwindling and changing nature of family bonds has undermined the capacity of this institution to perform the essential functions delegated to it of procreation, socialization, nurturing of the young, care for the elderly,

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the transmission of cultural values, and the promotion of social cohesion. Policy has had to respond. Social Policy and the Life Course In this Handbook, we develop and apply a life-​course perspective to interpret and understand these and other changes and examine how policy has engaged with them. There is both a theoretical and empirical scholarship on the relationship between social policy and the life course. Much of this work is rooted in the idea of the life course as a social institution that policy engages with and helps partly to construct (Kohli 2007; Leisering and Leibfried 1999). The life-​course perspective conveys the notion of life as a sequence of stages based on the patterning of biography and associated economic and social roles and relationships, cultural expectations, and legal obligations and rights. In a relational usage, the life-​course approach has an affinity with the idea of “linked lives,” a concept developed originally by Glen Elder (1974), which underscores the interdependence of family members’ lives and sociohistorical influences as expressed through networks of shared relationships over time. When a life-​course perspective is applied to social policy analysis, the spotlight is turned on social policy’s engagement with the temporal organization of life and its management of social risks associated with different life stages. Social policy assumes the role of defining and organizing support for particular statuses, institutions, phases, and transitions (Leisering and Leibfried 1999). Mayer and Müller (1986) have highlighted the role of social policy in terms of its contribution to constituting individual and collective life through law, for example, and in connecting family, labor market, health, and education as intersecting frames that shape individual and collective life courses. The management of age groups is one of the foremost organizing logics of social policy and family policy (Lynch 2006). In most social policy systems, older people and children, however defined, are the main recipients or “clients” of public benefits and services, mainly through pensions and health services for the former, and health and education services for the latter (Birnbaum et al. 2017). In essence, a life-​course approach emphasizes how policy helps to frame the roles, relationships, rights, and responsibilities at different stages of life and how policy goes beyond age categories to shape the social organization of biographies and life events themselves. Some examples of work employing a life-​course approach help to reveal the depth and reach of the approach. Taking the temporal structuring approach, Leisering and Leibfried (1999) offer a detailed analysis of how social policy engages with the life course in the context of poverty in unified Germany, especially revealing how social policies lay down normative and institutional models to structure and integrate different life-​course phases. These scholars highlight social policy’s role in shaping both the typical routines and overall timing of different life-​course phases and transitions. Among many possible examples are the standardization of schooling systems or the integration of age and status-​related conditions for the purpose of receiving pensions, family benefits, and other state benefits.

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One might even say that social and family policies confer a particular life-​course status on people (“child,” “student,” “mother,” “carer”). Moehring (2016) takes this line of thinking forward by identifying different life-​course regimes in 14 countries in Europe from an examination of older people’s life histories, especially in regard to employment. She identifies three sets of social policy–​related factors at work. First, confirming Leisering and Leibfried’s perspective, social security institutions impose a structure on individual life courses: classically youth, midlife, and retirement. Second, they integrate the different parts of the life course and thereby produce continuity over time and among age groups, for example the coordination of the move from education to employment, or that from employment to retirement. Third, they create and generalize social norms and modify the opportunity structures associated with different aspects or stages of the life course. There are other approaches, too, which, although they may not develop a theorization of a policy’s engagement with or effect on the life course, are informed by life-​course thinking and are therefore relevant to this Handbook. Three particular perspectives can be identified as especially important. The first is a gender perspective. This emphasizes how biographies and life courses vary by gender and spotlights the causal role played by how social and family policy supports and incentivizes particular kinds of household or family models and behaviors on the part of individuals. This perspective places analytic attention on the degree to which social policy reinforces a male breadwinner household arrangement as against a more individualized life-​course model (Lewis 2001; Crompton 2006). This scholarship reveals the nature and extent of social and family policy’s engagement with female and male life courses. Of great significance here is welfare states’ support for marriage as a particular type of family and gender arrangement. Montanari’s (2000) analysis of cross-​national policy developments in 18 OECD countries between the 1930s and the 1990s shows how the architecture of family benefits and services was accompanied by a parallel architecture supporting the married family arrangement. Policy’s engagement with other social institutions, such as parenthood and childhood, is also important in shaping life courses, as many of the chapters in this Handbook show. Part of the significance of the gender framework is that it incorporates care and relationship-​sustaining activities as a direct and/​or indirect concern of social and family policy. Bordone et al. (2017) show that the likelihood of grandparents providing care to their grandchildren in European countries is strongly linked to the availability and organization of supportive policy arrangements. This is also true of care at the upper end of the life course: research has investigated how the type and degree of contribution made by relatives varies depending on how much a welfare state subsidizes care and “socializes” it through public services (Dykstra and Hagestad 2016). We adopt a gender-​sensitive approach in our application of the life-​course lens. This means that we look at both the practices and structures that might underpin or result in differences and inequalities between women and men. An intersectional perspective is also essential, bringing a whole new range of insights as it opens up the matter of interacting systems of inequality. This perspective foregrounds

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difference and inequalities as diverse and complex, eschews single-​axis analyses of the dynamics of difference and sameness, and views gender as intersecting with other inequalities and subject to multiple causality (Cho et al. 2013). It challenges our usual habits of argument and analysis by positing overlaps and conflicting dynamics among race, gender, class, sexuality, nation, and other inequalities (Lykke 2011). In the context of difference and inequality, sexuality and sexual preference are vitally important (and generally receive too little attention). In particular, they bring to the fore the matter of how law and policy construct the family rights of members of the LGBTQ+​community, particularly as the recognition of same-​sex marriage, adoption, and eligibility for family benefits are becoming major points of contestation. An intersectionality perspective also brings in the underpinning effects of social class differences, both in their own right and in concert with other lines and forms of difference and inequality. A further relevant perspective is that of social investment, which is a dominant frame in the current rethinking and reanalysis of the welfare state in Europe (prior to the COVID-​ 19 pandemic anyway). In representing the old social insurance model as “passive” and “outmoded,” this perspective sees the reform of the welfare state as lying in better resourcing the youngest age groups, more effective smoothening of life-​course transitions, and a better balance between productive and unproductive (or so-​called “passive”) redistribution (Jenson and Saint-​Martin 2006; Esping-​Andersen 2009; Morel et al. 2011). In its most expansive version in academic work, the philosophy underpinning social investment is said to focus on three main social policy functions: (1) the creation of capacities, which involves a shift in policy from an exclusive focus on present costs to a focus on current and future impacts; (2) addressing social risks within life-​course dynamics, which involves a move from a clear-​cut divide between those who pay and those who are recipients of welfare provision to a vision in which individuals change status in different phases of their lives and are supported by policy to do so; (3) altering the risks associated with different life courses (Hemerijck 2017). Although not necessarily theorized explicitly, the idea of life course as a given structure runs through a lot of this work. That said, the social investment notion of life course is that of a standardized life-​course biography, an orientation that has occasioned some criticism from gender scholars (e.g., Saraceno 2015). A social investment lens suggests that we should investigate contemporary social policy’s tendency to promote a more differentiated life-​course model as compared with the past. Social policy has always been focused on securing particular periods of the life course—​ especially differentiating between being under and over working age and viewing the latter as a period necessitating income-​smoothening measures (Falkingham and Hills 1995). What is different now? Nowadays (and partly as a result of a focus on social investment), social and family policy is actively concerned with the earliest phase of life; the early education and care of very young children is of increasing interest, along with the resourcing of the youngest stages of life more generally. As this plays out in policy, we see a greater focus on children’s development and a greater differentiation of childhood into particular phases or stages (Daly 2019). A significant number of the Handbook’s contributions

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critically engage with social investment and also question what is the contemporary policy “settlement” in regard to issues of life course and family organization. Family Policy Constellation Among the advanced industrialized nations, life course, gender, and social investment concerns have fed into the reform of welfare policies, with challenges posed by changing patterns of family life especially to the fore. As a result, family policy is a vibrant field of policy development and reform. Diverse public measures have been implemented to restructure family allowance schemes, support women’s labor force participation, harmonize work and family life, and address the implications of cohabitation and same-​sex partnerships for recognition and welfare eligibility. Table I.2 sets out a stylized package of family policy benefits that characterizes many of the OECD countries. It is clear that the package includes both financial assistance and support through services. The overall size of these packages varies, as do the eligibility and amounts of specific benefits. For example, Ireland’s universal children’s allowance pays $1,848 per child per year up to the age of 18 for all families, whereas Canada’s benefit is income tested for children under 17 and pays $4,803 per child under age 6 and $4,053 for those aged 6 to 17 (Collyer et al. 2020). In some cases, the value of family benefits can be quite hefty. For instance, in 2019 Hungary introduced a sweeping array of family benefits designed to increase the country’s fertility rate, which included an all-​purpose interest-​free loan of $34,500 to women aged under 40 who were in their first marriage and had been employed for at least three years, 30% of which would be forgiven on the birth of a second child and the whole debt canceled on the birth of a third child (Fidesz 2019). As well as income support, many countries are also introducing a range of support services for families. These are of various types. Family policy reforms have especially Table I.2  Package of family policy benefits Children’s allowances—​payments that can vary based on the number of children, their age, and family income. Child-​related tax expenditure benefits—​tax credits for children and for childcare costs.

Day care—​publicly provided care for preschool children and cash payments for home care of preschool children.

Family support benefits—​financial aid, including birth grants, housing loans, automobile payments, back-​to school supplements for stay-​at-​home parents.

Family and parenting services—​home visiting nurses for families with infants. courses and programs of education for parents around parenting, general family-​oriented social work, and child protection services. Maternity and parental leave—​paid leave from work during pregnancy and early childhood, which varies in length and can include incentives for the participation of fathers (“use it or lose it” daddy quota).

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included an extension of welfare state support for public or publicly financed, extrafamilial day care for children under school age. A main aim of these policies is to support women’s labor force participation. Such policies are in part also connected with a “social investment” strategy that, as mentioned, conceptualizes early education of children as an investment in the human capital of the future labor force (Morel et al. 2011; Saraceno 2015). And yet there is tension here. Whereas many welfare states have introduced and expanded day care and educational programs for preschool children, care for the under-​ threes is in many countries regarded as best carried out in the family. There remains, therefore, a traditional cultural and institutional distinction between children under and over the age of three, which deems it quite undesirable to include children under three in educational programs (Haskova and Saxonberg 2016). There are also service supports that are on the rise, especially when looked at globally. Concerns about the conditions and practices of childrearing, and factors relating to children’s well-​being and development, are leading to a growth of measures oriented to family support and parenting support across the world (Daly et al. 2015). In some cases, this involves the introduction of new policies and provisions; in others it centers around a reorientation or reframing of existing policies. Family support and parenting support vary widely in practice and in their popularity within and across world regions. In some regions of the world, such as Southeast Asia and sub-​Saharan Africa, systematic, government-​led support initiatives are rare. Regions where support seems to be developing strongly include Europe, the Central and Eastern European and Commonwealth of Independent States regions, Latin America, and a few countries in Africa and Asia (Daly et al. 2015). The evidence suggests that, where it exists, family support is being developed in two main forms, through (1) services—​especially social, health, and psychological services to families; and (2) the establishment or reorientation of economic support to families, especially cash payments to make them conditional on parents engaging in particular behaviors (such as ensuring the child’s attendance at school or health checkups). Parenting support, on the other hand, is primarily focused on imparting information, education, skills, and support to parents in the form of health-​related interventions and educational support on child development and childrearing for parents. To complete the picture, paid maternity, paternity, and parental leave with job protection make up another site of reform and innovation, designed also with women’s labor force participation in mind. The design of such leave policies varies with regard to constituent elements like the duration of the leave, the relative generosity, the recipient (mother, father, or couple), and the possibility for flexible use and for a combination with part-​ time employment. The institutional logic on which remuneration is based also differs; it can, for example, be constructed as a percentage of the parent’s previous income, or as a flat-​rate benefit. Almost all EU welfare states have also been experimenting with policy to encourage greater engagement of fathers in family life, so much so that paternity leave

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is, in the European policy constellation anyway, an essential element of the family leave package (Daly and Ferragina 2018; Haskova and Saxonberg 2016). Welfare states vary widely in terms of how they construct access to these benefits and services. Most widely, countries have extended rights and protections for children with married parents to children whose parents are cohabiting. Many welfare states have also liberalized divorce law and extended social rights for families and children after divorce and in nontraditional family settings. The policy measures include, for example, an obligation for child alimony from the noncustodial parent after divorce or the option for shared custody. The extent to which LGBTQ+​families are granted family benefits and services is a widespread cross-​national variation. Another important trend is around care for older people and frail adults. In this regard one sees the extension of social rights and infrastructure for public or publicly paid, extrafamilial care for older persons in need of care (Ranci and Pavolini 2015). In most OECD countries, public financial support covers a share of the costs for long-​term care for older people. The estimated share of the total costs of care covered by public social protection systems is higher in the European and East Asian countries than in the United States. (Hashiguchi et al. 2020, 21). To some extent, this trend has been connected with a “marketization” of care on the basis of the privatization of care services and the extension of provider competition (Brennan et al. 2012; Gilbert 2015). The main policy instruments of long-​term care include public or publicly paid care service agencies, and the payment of cash allowances in the context of—​more or less strongly regulated—​“cash-​for-​care” systems that people in need of care can use to “buy” the care on “quasi-​markets” for care services (Da Roit and Le Bihan, 2019). Some countries have also introduced “re-​ enablement” measures, improving rehabilitation services for older persons in need of care. The aim of these policies is to support people in need of care to remain active and independent in their everyday lives (Aspinal et al. 2016; Eggers et al. 2019). In spite of the trend toward the extension of extrafamilial care, substantial parts of care work are still provided within the family, mainly by female members. This, too, is subsidized or otherwise encouraged by policies. In order to support caring by family members, many welfare states have introduced pay and social security credits into informal care provision to encourage people to provide for older and frail family members. Among the main instruments here are benefits and allowances for familial care work and paid care leave (Eggers et al. 2020; Frericks et al. 2014). Leave to care for older or ill relatives is much less prevalent, but it is in the EU’s sights as an important reform (Spasova et al. 2018). All of these reforms have contributed to changes in the structures of intergenerational support (Gál et al. 2018). Taken together, in a context of a general expansion of family-​oriented policy, there has been a broad trend toward the extension of social rights and care-​related infrastructure as policies target the behavior of families and individual family members in their everyday life and the reconciliation of care responsibility and employment. Endogenous pressure

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on policies because of demographic change (fertility rates, life expectancy), the increase in women’s labor force participation, and individuation tendencies contribute to this development. Furthermore, diffusion of the policy concept of the “social investment state” as well as cultural change toward a more gender-​egalitarian culture also contribute to the transformation of family policies (Fleckenstein 2011). However, the trends have been rather uneven, with substantial differences between the different parts of Europe, and between the advanced industrial societies on different continents (Daly and Ferragina 2018; Ranci and Pavolin 2015). Such differences will be investigated in the chapters that follow. Handbook Structure and Outline The Handbook examines contemporary trends and issues in the formation of families over five stages of the life cycle and how they interact with family-​oriented social policies of modern welfare states, mainly in the OECD countries of Western Europe, East Asia, and the North America. Focusing largely on family needs in the early stages of the life course, the conventional package of policies tends to emphasize programs and benefits clustered around measures to support marriage, childbearing, care, the reconciliation of employment, and childcare during the preschool years. We add to this by also looking at later phases of the family life course. In taking a life-​course perspective, this Handbook extends the purview to encompass five stages of family life. These are (1) cohabitation, (2) marriage and starting a family; (3) the early years of parenting, care, and employment; (4) the period of transitions and later life, including family breakdown; and (5) intergenerational supports across the life course. The Handbook is divided into two main parts. The first part, organized into three sections, offers a panoramic introduction to the setting and issues that contemporary family policies have been designed to address. The chapters in Section 1 provide a landscape view of the social and demographic changes shaping family relations in the 20th and 21st centuries. The social trends involve, for example, the impact of the sexual revolution, the family’s declining role as a unit of production, the trends toward individualization, and the waning of intergenerational ties. This section explores also the norms, cultural values, and structural characteristics underlying the pluralization of family life and the changing patterns in the family life course across a range of regions of the world. The chapters in the second section engage in theoretical reflection, setting out some primary theoretical orientations on the ways in which welfare states are connected with social structures, the structuring of the life course, cultural ideas, and political economy. The five chapters here are also concerned with the theoretical basis of the relationship between welfare state policy and outcomes in terms of social inequality. They discuss the utility of an intersectionality approach and offer theoretical reflection and approaches to analyzing the role of family policy for social inequality, with a main focus on gender, social class, and migration.

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The third section in the first part delves further into the politics and ideas that both underlie and affect policy and practice. The main aim of the five chapters in this section is to understand the role of the ideational basis of politics for reforms in family policies and for cross-​national differences in their development. The chapters also analyze the complex mechanisms and processes through which politics and ideas interact in explaining policy development. These chapters also address the role of cultural values and attitudes among the population for the development of ideas in the political process. Following this contextual and theoretical backdrop, the second part and main body of the volume is organized around five benchmark periods (as represented in Figure I.6) that encompass the main stages of the family life cycle. Section 4 explores the role of cohabiting relationships in the development of family relationships and how this role has changed over time. After describing global rises in cohabitation rates, the chapters trace cohabitation rates through the life course. Explanations are offered for the rise in cohabitation and the instability it adds to family arrangements—​for adults and children. The section ends with a consideration of the relevant legal and policy frameworks and how they might be modified in order to better protect cohabitants and their children. Examining the policies and practices associated with starting a family, Section 5 deals with many of the significant challenges encountered when couples seek to form marital relations and have a child. The chapters here highlight the policy issues raised by the increasing diversity of family life, which includes same sex unions, cross-​border marriages, and the formation of stepfamilies. The analyses also engage with the policy responses to the challenge of declining fertility via social benefits to ease the burdens of dual-​earner families, measures governing the use of new assisted reproduction technologies, and services to promote parenting skills. Section 6 focuses on the preschool years. The chapters here examine how states have designed and implemented policies to support parents and families with childrearing. A number of themes are explored. These include an analysis of the policy packages that countries have devised and put in place, focusing on childcare and parental leave, especially as

Cohabitation in Early Relationships

Marriage and Childbirth /Starting a Family

Preschool years and Childcare

Family Transitions and Disruptions

Intergenerational Supports and Active Aging

Figure I.6  Five stages of Family life 

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these are now at the cutting edge of state support for young families in the early life-​course phase of childrearing. The section is especially concerned with factors that impact both the organization and associated outcomes of the policy approaches, with an emphasis on gender and social class-​related dimensions. The chapters in Section 7 concentrate on policies that address the struggles and adversities that often disrupt family life. These disruptions occur when children leave home either voluntarily in the customary transition to adulthood or through involuntary removal by the state when parents are perceived to be unable to fulfill basic responsibilities for their children’s well-​being. Another source of disruptive transitions in family life involves parental conflicts that lead to separation and divorce. The policies presented in this section deal with sensitive issues around the state’s intervention in parent-​child relations and in relations between married or cohabiting adults. The Handbook’s final section turns to the theme of intergenerational support, especially later in the life course. The seven chapters that make up this section place the spotlight on intergenerational support and care associated with family membership, considered especially from the perspective of how welfare state policies frame such support and care. The transfer of resources, including material resources but especially “immaterial resources” like care time, are a guiding interest throughout this section of the Handbook that seeks to link family, generations, gender, and state policies. Drawing on a multidisciplinary group of experts from many countries, this Handbook is intended to be a reference work that provides students and scholars in policy-​related disciplines with a wide-​ranging perspective on the diverse ways that family policies respond to contemporary issues and trends over the life course. References Aspinal, Fiona, Jon Glasby, Tine Rostgaard, Hanne Tuntland, and Rudi G. J. Westendorp. 2016. “New Horizons: Reablement—​Supporting Older People towards Independence.” Age and Ageing 45 (5): 572–​576. Birnbaum, Simon, Tommy Ferrarini, Kenneth Nelson, and Joakim Palme. 2017. The Generational Welfare Contract: Justice, Institutions and Outcomes. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Bordone, Valeria, Bruno Arpino, and Arnstein Aassve. 2017. “Patterns of Grandparental Childcare across Europe: The Role of Policy Context and Working Mothers’ Need.” Ageing & Society 37 (4): 845−873. Brennan, Deborah, Bettina Cass, Susan Himmelweit, and Marta Szebehely. 2012. “The Marketisation of Care—​Rationales and Consequences in Nordic and Liberal Care Regimes.” Journal of European Social Policy 22 (4): 377–​391. Cacioppo, John, and Stephanie Cacioppo. 2018. “The Growing Problem of Loneliness.” The Lancet 391 (10119): 426. https://​www.thelan​cet.com/​journ​als/​lan​cet/​arti​cle/​PIIS0​140-​6736(18)30142-​9/​fullt​ext. Cherlin, Andrew. 2004. “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage.” Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (4): 848–​861. Cho, Sumi, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall. 2013. “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis.” Signs 28 (4): 785–​810 Collyer, Sophie, Megan Curran, Irwin Garfinkel, David Harris, Mark Stabile, Jane Waldfogel, and Christopher Wimer. 2020. What a Child Allowance Like Canada’s Would Do for Child Poverty in America. New York: Century Foundation. https://​tcf.org/​cont​ent/​rep​ort/​what-​a-​child-​allowa​nce-​like-​cana​das-​would-​do-​for-​ child-​pove​rty-​in-​amer​ica/​?agr​eed=​1. Crompton, Rosemary. 2006 Employment and the Family: The Reconfiguration of Work and Family Life in Contemporary Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Daly, Mary. 2019. “Children and Their Rights and Entitlements in European Welfare States.” Journal of Social Policy 49 (2): 343–​360. Daly, Mary, Rachel Bray, Zlata Bruckauf, Jasmina Byrne, Alice Margaria, Ninoslava Pecnik and Maureen Samms-​Vaughan. 2015. Family and Parenting Support in a Global Context. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti. Daly, Mary, and Emanuele Ferragina. 2018. “Family Policy in High-​Income Countries: Five Decades of Development.” Journal of European Social Policy 28 (3): 255–​270. Da Roit, Barbara, and Blanche Le Bihan. 2019. “Cash for Long‐Term Care: Policy Debates, Visions, and Designs on the Move.” Social Policy & Administration 53 (4): 519–​536. Dykstra, Pearl. A., and Gunhild O. Hagestad. 2016. “How Demographic Patterns and Social Policies Shape Interdependence among Lives in the Family Realm.” Population Horizons 13 (2): 12–​20. Eggers, Thurid, Christopher Grages, and Birgit Pfau-​Effinger. 2019. “Self-​Responsibility of the ‘Active Social Citizen’: Different Types of the Policy Concept of ‘Active Citizenship’ in Different Types of Welfare States.” American Behavioral Science 63 (1): 43–​64. Eggers, Thurid, Christopher Grages, Birgit Pfau-​Effinger, and Ralf Och. 2020. “Re-​conceptualising the Relationship between De-​familialisation and Familialisation and the Implications for Gender Equality—​ the Case of Long-​Term Care Policies for Older People.” Ageing & Society 40 (4): 869–​895. Elder, Glen 1974. Children of the Great Depression: Social Change in Life Experience. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Esping-​Andersen, Gøsta. 1999. Social Foundations of Post Industrial Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Esping-​Andersen, Gøsta. 2009. The Incomplete Revolution: Adapting to Women’s New Roles. Cambridge: Polity. Eurofound. 2019. Household Composition and Well-​ Being. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Falkingham, Jane, and John Hills, eds. 1995. The Dynamic of Welfare: Social Policy and the Life Cycle. Hemel Hempstead, UK: Prentice Hall. Fidesz Newsletter. 2019. “All You Need to Know about the Latest in Hungary’s Pro-​family Policy.” Brussels: European Parliament. https://​fid​esz-​eu.hu/​en/​all-​you-​need-​to-​know-​about-​the-​lat​est-​in-​hunga​rys-​pro-​fam​ ily-​pol​icy/​. Fleckenstein, Timo. 2011. “The Politics of Ideas in Welfare State Transformation: Christian Democracy and the Reform of Family Policy in Germany.” Social Politics 18 (4): 543–​571. Frericks, Patricia, Per H. Jensen, and Birgit Pfau-​Effinger. 2014. “Social Rights and Employment Rights Related to Family Care: Family Care Regimes in Europe. Journal of Aging Studies, 29: 66–​77. Gál, Róbert Iván, Pieter Vanhuysse, and Lili Vargha. 2018. “Pro-​elderly Welfare States within Pro-​child Societies.” Journal of European Public Policy 25 (6): 944–​958. Gennarini, Stefano. 2016. “There Is No Definition of the Family.” New York: The Center for Family and Human Rights. https://​c-​fam.org/​fri​day_​fax/​un-​rep​ort-​no-​def​i nit​ion-​fam​ily/​. Gilbert, Neil. 1983. Capitalism and the Welfare State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gilbert, Neil. 2015. “Restructuring the Mixed Economy of Welfare: Three Modes of Privatization.” European Policy Analysis 1 (1): 41–​45. Hashiguchi, Tiago Cravo Oliveira, and Ana Llena-​Nozal. 2020. The Effectiveness of Social Protection for Long-​ Term Care in Old Age: Is Social Protection Reducing the Risk of Poverty Associated with Care Needs? OECD Health Working Paper No. 117. New York: OECD. Hašková, Hana, and Steven Saxonberg. 2016. “The Revenge of History—​The Institutional Roots of Post-​ Communist Family Policy in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.” Social Policy and Administration 50 (5): 559–​579. Hemerijck, Anton, ed. 2017. The Uses of Social Investment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horowitz, Juliana, Nikki Graf, and Gretchen Livingston. 2019. The Landscape of Marriage and Cohabitation in the U.S. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. https://​www.pewr​esea​rch.org/​soc​ial-​tre​nds/​2019/​11/​06/​ the-​landsc​ape-​of-​marri​age-​and-​cohab​itat​ion-​in-​the-​u-​s/​. HRSA (Health Resources & Services Administration). 2019. The “Loneliness Epidemic.” Rockville, MD: HRSA. https://​www.hrsa.gov/​enews/​past-​iss​ues/​2019/​janu​ary-​17/​lon​elin​ess-​epide​mic. Jenson, Jane, and Denis Saint-​Martin. 2006. “Building Blocks for a New Social Architecture: The LEGO Paradigm of an Active Society.” Policy and Politics 34 (3): 429–​451. Kohli, Martin. 2007. “The Institutionalisation of the Life Course: Looking Back to Look Ahead.” Research in Human Development 4 (3–​4): 253–​271.

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Leisering, Lutz, and Stefan Leibfried. 1999. Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States: United Germany in Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, Jane. 2001. “The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: Implications for Work and Care.” Social Politics 8 (2): 152–​169. Lundqvist, Åsa, and Ilona Ostner. 2017. “New Social Risk Policies for Germans and Swedish Families.” Paper presented at the Conference on Changing Family Arrangements and Social Welfare Benefits: Effects on Work, Marriage, and Cohabitation, Lisbon, October 31, 2017. Lykke, Nina. 2011. “Intersectional Analysis: Black Box or Useful Critical Feminist Thinking Technology.” In Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-​faceted Concept in Gender Studies, edited by Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar, and Linda Supik, 207–​221. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Lynch, Julia. 2006. Age in the Welfare State: The Origins of Social Spending on Pensioners, Workers, and Children. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Mason, Mary Ann, and Tom Ekman. 2017. Babies of Technology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mayer, Karl Ulrich, and Walter Müller. 1986. “The State and the Structure of the Life-​Course.” In Human Development and the Life Course: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by A. B. Sørensen, F. E. Weiner, and L. R. Sherrod, 217–​245. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Moehring, Katja. 2016. “Life Course Regimes in Europe: Individual Employment Histories in Comparative and Historical Perspective.” Journal of European Social Policy 26 (2): 124–​139. Montanari, Ingalill. 2000. “From Family Wage to Marriage Subsidy and Child Benefits: Controversy and Consensus in the Development of Family Policy.” Journal of European Social Policy 10 (4): 307–​333. Morel, Nathalie, Bruno Palier, and Joakim Palme. 2011. Towards A Social Investment Welfare State?: Ideas, Policies and Challenges. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. 2011. Attitudes toward Marriage and Family among Japanese Singles. Tokyo: National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. http://​www. ipss.go.jp/​site-​ad/​index_​engl​ish/​nfs14/​Nfs14_​Sing​les_​Eng.pdf. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development). 2017. “Old-​Age Dependency Ratio.” In Pensions at a Glance 2017: OECD and G20 Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://​doi.org/​10.1787/​ pen​sion​_​gla​nce-​2017-​22-​en. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development). 2021. Fertility Rates (Indicator). Paris: OECD. doi:10.1787/​8272fb01-​en. https://​data.oecd.org/​pop/​fertil​ity-​rates.htm. Park, Sangyoub. 2015. “A Silent Revolution in the Korean Family.” Contexts 14 (2): 77–​79. https://​journ​als. sage​pub.com/​doi/​pdf/​10.1177/​15365​0421​5585​785. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2004. “Historical Paths of the Male Breadwinner Family Model—​Explanation for Cross-​ National Differences.” British Journal of Sociology 55 (3): 377–​399. Ranci, Costanzo, and Emmanuele Pavolini. 2015. “Not All That Glitters Is Gold—​Long-​Term Care Reforms in the Last Two Decades in Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy 25 (3): 270–​285. Saraceno, Chiara. 2015. “A Critical Look at the Social Investment Approach from a Gender Perspective.” Social Politics 22 (2): 257–​269. Social Trends Institute. 2017. World Family Map 2017: Mapping Family Change and Child Well-​Being Outcomes. New York: Social Trends Institute. https://​wor​ldfa​mily​map.ifstud​ies.org/​2017/​. Spasova, Slavina, Rita Baeten, Stéphanie Costa, Dalila Ghailani, Ramón Peña-​Casas, and Bart Vanhercke. 2018. Challenges of Long-​Term Care in Europe: A Study of National Policies 2018. Brussels: European Commission. https://​ec.eur​opa.eu/​soc​ial/​main.jsp?catId=​738&lan​gId=​en&pubId=​8128&furt​herP​ubs=​yes. Ueda, Peter, Catherine H. Mercer, Cyrus Ghaznavi, and Debby Herbenick. 2020. “Trends in Frequency of Sexual Activity and Number of Sexual Partners among Adults Aged 18 to 44 Years in the US, 2000–​2018.” JAMA Network Open 3 (6): e203833. Wang, Wendy, and Kim Parker. 2014. “Record Share of Americans Have Never Married As Values, Economics and Gender Patterns Change.” Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. https://​www.pewr​esea​rch.org/​soc​ ial-​tre​nds/​2014/​09/​24/​rec​ord-​share-​of-​americ​ans-​have-​never-​marr​ied/​. Wilcox, W. Bradford, Jeffrey Dew, and Alysse ElHage. 2019. Cohabitation Doesn’t Compare: Marriage, Cohabitation, and Relationship Quality. Charlottesville, VA: Institute for Family Studies. https://​ifstud​ies. org/​blog/​cohab​itat​ion-​doe​snt-​comp​are-​marri​age-​cohab​itat​ion-​and-​relat​ions​hip-​qual​ity. World Bank. 2021. Data. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://​data.worldb​ank.org/​indica​tor/​SP.DYN. LE00.IN?locati​ons=​XC.

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PART 

Social Context and Conceptual/​ Theoretical Issues

I

INTRODUCTION TO SECTION 

1

The Changing Context of Family Relations Neil Gilbert

This introductory section provides a landscape view of the changing features of family life and policy trends. Peter Stearns sets the stage with a sweeping historical review of the structure and patterns of family relations from the agricultural age (roughly 3500 BCE to the 18th century) to the 21st century. The next three chapters concentrate on contemporary developments analyzing the emerging cultural values, social norms, and demographic characteristics of family life in the modern industrial worlds of Western Europe, East Asia, and the United States. The various aspects of family life examined here include romantic relationships, assortative mating, diverse household structures, fertility patterns, and the fluctuating division of household/​market labor in modern times. Analyzing the changing patterns of family relations over the course of world history, Peter Stearns (­chapter 1) draws attention to how family life during the agricultural era was profoundly influenced by its function as a unit of production in which all the members participated. With the advent of industrialization, work moved outside the rural home and beyond the control most family units. At the same time, the migration to urban centers disrupted intergenerational ties and the patriarchal structure of family life began to collapse. The family’s diminishing role as a unit of production had important consequences for the division of labor and

the nature of family relations. Stearns notes that by the 21st century, the importance of the family had declined, with marriage rates sinking and divorce rates rising amid increasing rates of childlessness. The waning social, emotional, and material supports of family life are reflected in the increasing reports of loneliness in modern times. Stuart Gietel-​Basten (­chapter 2) examines the family’s social and demographic changes since the mid-​20th century in the East and Southeast Asia territories of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. The demographic trends of family life in these regions have produced some of the lowest fertility rates and the longest life expectancies in the world, which has created issues that could not be imagined in the late 20th century. Geitel-​Basten points out that the rapid decline in family size and increased aging of the population has occurred while social norms and values concerning intergenerational responsibilities have been slow to change. Under these circumstances the traditional filial obligation to care for parents has led to a “4-​2-​1” system, in which two parents end up caring for one child and two sets of grandparents. As mothers increasingly enter the labor force, the social and demographic trends in the East Asian territories create rising pressures on family resources and welfare state provisions for long-​term care of older persons. Tracing the transformations in European family life from historical and comparative perspectives, Manuela Naldini (­chapter 3) distinguishes the patterns of change among five groups of countries: Scandinavian, English-​speaking, Continental Europe, Mediterranean, and Central-​Eastern Europe. These clusters represent not only different geographical regions, but alternative gender and welfare regimes as well. Naldini’s analysis of the trends and patterns from the 1960s to the present illustrates the lines of convergence and divergence among these regions in the changing dimensions of family life. These dimensions include rates of marriage, cohabitation, divorce and out-​of-​wedlock births, increasing labor force participation of women, norms governing sexual relations, “new family” forms, and revised timing of basic stages—​marriage, childbirth, leaving home—​in the family life cycle. She finds a number of common patterns among the countries, such as low fertility rates, increasing pluralization of family life, and later transitions from the parental home. At the same time, much diversity remains in family arrangements, such as the introduction of marriage equality. Nicholas Wolfinger (­chapter 4) surveys the cultural and structural forces that have undermined the traditional nuclear family in the United States since the 1960s. These forces included the sexual revolution facilitated by advances in reproductive technology, heightened individualism, an unfavorable marriage market for women in the 1960s, mothers entering the labor force in unprecedented numbers, declining marriage rates, and a rise in out-​of-​wedlock childbearing. Wolfinger notes that the conservative view that generous welfare benefits reduced the need for marriage fails to comport with the data, which shows that nonmarital fertility increased during the years that welfare transfers were declining. He also points out the need to consider cohabitation when assessing the

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changing character of family life in the United States and comparing it to European experiences. Although in both cases many children born out of wedlock live with cohabiting parents, cohabiting parents tend to form more stable relationships in European countries than in the United States. Wolfinger observes that while the United States is far behind many European countries in adopting policies in response to the changing functions of family proposals for extended paid parental leave, federally subsidized childcare and generous child tax credits have risen to the top of the political agenda. Surveying the historical development of family policies from a cross-​national perspective, Thomas Bahle (­chapter 5) distinguishes three main stages during which various measures emerged in response to family-​related problems that arose in the process of modernization. Initially, the main instrument of family policies involved family allowances supported by nationalist, pro-​natalist movements. The second stage emerged as women entered the industrial labor force in large numbers. Measures such as childcare and family leave aimed to harmonize work and family life, as the dual-​earner family model replaced the male breadwinner model. Bahle sees the third stage developing in response to the pluralization of family life and the changing patterns of the individual life course, which includes the timing of marriage, education, childbearing, and retirement. He suggests that as the third stage evolves, family policies will focus more on individuals in families than on specific types of families.

Th e Ch an gin g Cont ext of Family Re lat ions

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C H A P T E R

1

 hange and Variety in Family Forms: C Patterns in World History

Peter N. Stearns

Abstract This chapter provides a sweeping historical review of the structure and patterns of family relations from the agricultural age (roughly 3500 BCE to the 18th century) to the 21st century. It examines how structures have responded to the two most fundamental changes in human life: the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and the more recent shift from agriculture to urban/​industrial—​a shift still underway in many parts of the world, and still prompting adjustments even in advanced industrial societies. In sketching the basic features of agricultural, and then industrial, families, this chapter captures key aspects of the family dynamic over time. It also analyzes how families have responded to major differences in social structure, such as how birth rates, marriages ages and other crucial patterns have varied considerably between upper and lower classes. Key Words: urban, industrial, agricultural, transition, marriage

The family is surely the oldest human institution, and one of the most flexible. Family structures have responded to the two most fundamental changes in human life: first, the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and second, the more recent shift from agriculture to urban/​industrial—​a shift still underway in many parts of the world and still prompting adjustments even in advanced industrial societies. Sketching the basic features of agricultural, and then industrial, families captures key aspects of the family dynamic over time. Within the basic frameworks, however, families have displayed great variety depending on regional cultures, including the major religions. Variations include specific rules on gender relations in areas such as polygamy and divorce. They cover differences in relationships between extended and nuclear family structures. They certainly embrace variations in emotional style. Families have also responded to major differences in social structure within regional units. Birth rates, marriages ages, and other crucial patterns have varied considerably between upper and lower classes. These kinds of distinctions began to emerge clearly with

agriculture, where social inequalities began to become more extensive overall, and they have continued, though with very different specifics, in the industrial age. Historians have been paying serious attention to past patterns of family life for almost 70 years, though there was some largely antiquarian research earlier, and other disciplines, particularly anthropology, have also contributed important findings. As one marker: the Journal of Family History was launched in 1978. The rise of social history in many countries involved an effort to gain greater understanding of the lives of ordinary people and the role institutions like the family played in the larger society, beneath the workings of kings and warriors. Early work often emphasized family and household structure and related demography. But historical inquiry has been amplified by greater awareness of the roles of women and by growing interest in emotional experience. Many aspects of family life in the past warrant further research; work on family history is not well developed for all major regions, for example, though the geographical imbalance is easing. But quite a lot is known, and the field remains vibrant within the historical discipline more generally (Demos 1999; Maynes and Waltner 2012; Burguiere et al. 1996). Families in the Agricultural Age Agriculture first began to replace hunting and gathering economies around the Black Sea, from about 8000 BCE onward. Agriculture was separately invented in at least two other areas: southern China, around 7000 BCE, and Central America, around 5000 BCE. From the initial centers, agriculture spread gradually, often by force of conquest, and by 1000 BCE agricultural economies embraced many parts of the world, particularly in Afro-​Eurasia, and certainly the largest population groups (though important clusters of hunter-​gatherers and herding nomads persisted into more recent times).Essentially, most human history from 3500 BCE to the 18th century took shape in what can legitimately be called the agricultural age (Christian, Brown, and Benjamin 2013). Agriculture’s big advantage over hunting and gathering (along with many drawbacks) was its provision of a larger food supply, which in turn could support more substantial populations. This advantage had a direct bearing on family structures. The family’s chief function in agricultural societies, along with bearing and raising children, was its service as a basic production unit. Most farming involved family operations, with children beginning to pitch in at a relatively young age. Men were characteristically responsible for planting and harvesting staple crops (like wheat, rice, or corn), with women caring for households and some gardens and livestock around the house. Most urban economic activity took place within the family context as well. Urban artisans lived next to their shops. They might take in apprentices from other families, and outsiders, usually housed and fed with the family, might serve as journeymen. Wives and young children characteristically assisted in production work and sales. To be sure, some economic activities went beyond the family context. Slave estates and mining operations involved larger dimensions, and this was true of some

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manufacturing—​ such as shipbuilding—​ as well. But the family-​ production link was pervasive. This in turn organized many characteristic features of the family during the agricultural age. Most obviously, marriages typically involved careful property arrangements designed to provide economic benefits to the families involved. Parents crafted marriage choices with economic criteria in mind. Dowry exchanges usually brought some property from the bride’s family to the groom (though in sub-​Saharan Africa it was the other way around), such as land, livestock, or an artisan shop. Young people might have some say in mate selection—​this varied both individually and culturally—​but parental voice was usually decisive, and economic criteria were paramount (Flandrin 1979). The family’s production role also undergirded birth rates and basic aspects of parent-​ child relations. Child labor was vital to the family unit. Young children were assigned small tasks (often with considerable free time as well), but by 12 or so (the point in many agricultural societies when a new status was recognized by a religious confirmation ceremony), children began to contribute more seriously. Most agricultural families placed a premium on children’s obedience, and valued offspring who displayed more adult qualities. Agricultural societies might offer some recognition of the special features of childhood and some delight with infants, but childhood itself was not a highly valued state and was rarely remembered with fondness (Aries 1965; Stearns 2016a). Agricultural families required enough children to assure the labor force, but they usually sought to avoid numbers that might overburden economic capacity. The typical agricultural family had six to eight children—​only about half the average biological capacity of 12–​14. Since usually up to half of all children born would die before age five, the characteristic numbers assured a family labor force without excess. Birth-​rate limitations were achieved mainly through periods of abstinence (particularly when a couple reached their late 20s, though many families sought a final child shortly before a wife’s menopause to provide help in later age); some herbal abortifacients or other devices might come into play as well. Inability to have children was a clear family problem, often casting discredit (however unfairly) on the wife; but in fact up to 20% of all couples proved infertile, and they would often seek child labor from other families in the community (Wrigley 1969). Many agricultural societies further regulated family size through infanticide, particularly directed toward female babies. Infanticide was widely practiced in classical China and in Greece and Rome, possibly involving as many as 25% of all children born. The practice was not universal however, and major religions (particularly Christianity and Islam) moved against it with considerable success (Milner 2000). A vital distinction within agricultural societies, though consistent with the economic functions of the family, separated the upper class (often a landowning nobility) from the bulk of the population. Upper-​class families typically sought higher birth rates, since they had the wealth to sustain more children who could later help promote wider family

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27

interests either directly or through well-​placed marriages. (This, of course, was the converse of the patterns that would emerge in industrial societies.) Inheritance was a vital feature of family life, from peasant through artisan to noble; only the lowest rungs of the social scale were not defined by inheritance concerns. Transmission of property from one generation to the next was vital to family prosperity and economic continuity alike. Specific rules varied, to be sure, and this could be a major differentiator among regions: many agricultural societies practiced primogeniture, with the major property passing to the eldest son, but this was not always the case. Quite generally, however, the importance of inheritance helped assure parental authority over children—​the threat of disinheritance, or in the case of women the withholding of dowries, was very real. It could also, however, be a source of generational tension, as young adults might grow impatient with their parents’ continued hold (Hartog 2012; Goody, Thirsk, and Thompson 1978). Agricultural families were resolutely patriarchal—​this was a key change from the more egalitarian relations that had prevailed in hunting and gathering societies. To be sure, some cultures were matrilineal, with identities passed from the mother; this was true in Judaism, for example. Even here, however, the authority of father and husband was clear. Thus, characteristically, when a woman married she passed to the family of her husband, often residing with them in a family compound. Boys and girls were differentiated from an early age, with the greater importance of boys clearly established. And of course sons, or some sons, were the beneficiaries of inheritance, which meant that for most parents the importance of bearing sons was vital to the family future (Wiesner-​Hanks 2008). Patriarchal family values placed great importance on control over female sexuality. Great efforts were made toward preventing premarital sexual activity on the part of girls. In some societies, very early marriage ages, with girls pledged in childhood, were designed to address this problem. Female adultery was a huge issue, and was severely discouraged and punished. In many cases, as in Greek law, adultery was a far more serious offense than rape. Some historians plausibly argue that the obsession with regulating female sexuality was tied to a deep need to assure paternity. In a male-​dominated, property-​based society, men wanted to be sure that they were transmitting property to children who were theirs (Lerner 1987). Efforts to control male sexuality were important as well, but they were characteristically looser. From the earliest days, cities in agricultural societies developed prostitution. Upper-​class men often sought more varied sexual partners. There is no reason to believe that double-​standard sexuality applied widely to the majority of ordinary villagers, but it was a reality for certain families. For many women, patriarchal family structures prompted a particular interest in developing tight emotional bonds with sons, who could be their mainstay in later age and a real, if informal, hedge against abuse. Historians have suggested some variation in the intensity of the mother-​son bond: it may have been more widely developed in China, for

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example, than in Rome; or later in Europe, it was more vivid in Catholic families than in Protestant ones (Grubbs, Parkin, and Bell 2013; Kinney 2003; Rawson 1987). Partly around the structures of patriarchy, agricultural societies frequently developed a strong sense of family honor, to be defended, sometimes violently, against insult or attack. Honor, and the shame attached to dishonor, was most widely developed in the upper classes, but it could shape family culture more widely as well. Honor certainly applied to sexuality: the whole family was shamed by the indiscretion of a daughter or wife. But it could also encompass poverty, or the birth of a disabled or unsightly child, or a blatant lack of appropriate manners. The notion that families could be shamed by the misbehavior of an individual member was a vital feature of family life, and family discipline, more generally (Odeh 2010). Kinship networks were a final aspect of families in the agricultural age that allow some generalization, though the next section will highlight some important variations here. The economic functions of families were obviously enhanced when extended family ties were strong. In some cases, households themselves embraced several generations. In the business classes, kinship relations typically provided the basis for trading networks. As the Arabs, for example, expanded their merchant role after about 600 CE, they often planted uncles or cousins in distant locations to anchor their trading activities. At another level, kinship relations could provide informal opportunities for the exercise of maternal power. An older woman might have considerable control over the daughters-​in-​law her sons brought into the household orbit (Goody 2005; Lynch 2003). Basic family structures in the agricultural age properly invite analysis of the emotional qualities involved, though there are clear limits to what we can know about this aspect of the family past. Considerable debate has centered on love. Agricultural societies often generated important artistic expressions of love in poetry and drama. But, in fact, too much emphasis on love could be regarded as dangerous, particularly given the importance of parental control over marriage. In many agricultural families, love might be encouraged, but after marriage rather than before it. In India, Hindu custom actually provided a short period after marriage in which a couple was supposed to become emotionally acquainted (Stone 1977). Emotions between parents and children pose another analytical challenge. Parents might hesitate to invest too much emotion in young children given the high mortality rates. In very poor families, already saddled with several offspring, even the birth of a child might occasion real resentment, even from mothers. In turn, an emphasis on obedience and discipline might in turn affect the emotions children developed for their parents—​ particularly their fathers. Quite generally, the high levels of child morality surely encouraged a certain degree of fatalism on the part of parents and siblings. On the other hand, there is poignant evidence, from places as diverse as Song China and medieval Europe, of the grief a father could feel and express at the death of a particularly loved daughter or son (Scheper-​Hughes 1993; McNamer 2009).

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29

Given the hierarchical structure of families in the agricultural age, it is reasonable to assume that expressions of anger were not uncommon, as an assertion of power and source of discipline. A study of 17th-​century France revealingly notes that in courts of law men were authorized to say they acted out of anger (and of course defense of honor was widely valued), but women were not seen as worthy of this emotion; they could only claim to have acted from a lesser emotion, such as jealousy (Davis 1990). Fear could be seen as a valid source of discipline as well, if only as a means of trying to keep children safe. Many agricultural societies generated images of “bogeymen” who would wreak havoc on the wayward child (Delumeau 1990; Rosenwein 2020). It would be misleading to claim that historians have a precise fix on the emotional aspects of family life in the agricultural age, particularly given the significant variations among cultures. It is, however, safe to say that emotional values undoubtedly responded to some of the distinctive features of the agricultural family in ways that would differentiate them from more modern assumptions. Variations on the Agricultural Theme Generalizations about the family in the Agricultural Age must take into account not only the significant differences among social classes, but important regional variety as well. Most obviously, major religious systems developed different approaches to several aspects of family life, but there were other distinctions as well. The status of the elderly varied, for example. All agricultural societies credited the elderly (or at least older males) with special wisdom, since memory and oral transmission of knowledge remained vitally important and a key source of information about the family and kinship. But the respect for older members offered in the Confucian cultures of East Asia differed markedly from more ambivalent attitudes in the Mediterranean and European regions, where special wisdom might be leavened by scorn for the infirmities and greed of some older people (and, for women, the loss of function that came with menopause) (Troyansky 2015). At the other end of the life cycle, while many cultures stigmatized certain kinds of infants, there were wide differences in specific approaches. In many African cultures twins were held to be cursed, and often put to death. Europeans traditionally looked askance at the rare baby “born with the caul”—​a piece of membrane from the amniotic sac covering part of the face—​and monitored them carefully through childhood for signs of witchcraft or other evil. On yet another front, while attachment to family honor was a general feature of agricultural families, honor-​based violence seems to have run hotter in Mediterranean cultures than elsewhere, a distinction that still shows up today. Obviously, examples of these variations could be extended into other family interactions and relationships (Peristiany 1966). The most important regional variations, however, arguably attached to three aspects of family life, potentially interrelated to some extent: sexuality and rules for sexual behavior, specific interpretations of patriarchy, and kinship arrangements.

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Sexuality Concerning sexuality, two major religions, Christianity and Buddhism, explicitly contended that celibacy was a spiritually higher state than family engagement. The Buddha himself abandoned his wife and children as he worked toward greater spiritual enlightenment. Christianity was divided over how concerns about sexuality should be enforced: Catholicism eventually sought to insist on priestly celibacy, which was not the approach of the Eastern Orthodox faith. Both branches assumed the importance of celibacy for monks and nuns, however (Brown 2008; Shaw 1998). The most concrete result of this approach was the creation of religious vocations independent of family life. This provided options for both men and women for whom family life might, for whatever reasons, seem too confining: both Christianity and Buddhism created extensive monastic orders, with opportunities for women as well as men. A broader issue applies to the potential implication of the concerns about sexuality for the majority of people, in Christian and Buddhist areas, who did form families but might do so with real anxiety about the validity of their choice, conscious of the snares of family life, the inherent link between family life and human sin. Not infrequently, though usually in later life, the family might be abandoned in favor of a final commitment to a religious vocation. Tensions in the approach to family life showed up explicitly in the version of Buddhism that developed in China, as the religion spread from India from the third century onward. Confucianists, not too enthusiastic about Buddhism in any event, were aware that the Buddhist approach to family hardly comported with their own tradition, where family cohesion was the essential building block of the social order. In response, many Buddhists began to place a more positive spin on the family, while explicitly noting the role of husband and father in maintaining the family hierarchy (Gulik 1974; Cabezon 1991). Obviously, Christian and Buddhist hesitations could form part of an approach that sought to discourage excessive sexuality and prevent sexual activity before marriage. To this extent, they could reinforce strictures that were common in agricultural society. But within marriage itself, there was a potential contrast between the belief that family involvements (sex included) were a second best in terms of religious goals, on the one hand, and the approach taken by other religions such as Hinduism and Islam, on the other. While Indian culture certainly included esteem for pious religious figures who forsook sexuality, it offered far more abundant encouragement to sexual pleasure, at least within the family, than was common with Christianity or Buddhism—​including a more openly sensual art. While sexual manuals circulated in Christian Europe—​the Christian ethic did not monopolize attention—​none received the status of the Kama Sutra, written probably in second century CE, which carefully described methods designed to maximize sexual pleasure for men and women alike. Hindu custom, though carefully discouraging sexual activity before marriage, promoted a period of mutual acquaintance for several days after marriage that was designed to promote successful sexual activity, again with the pleasure of both genders in mind (Caldwell 2000).

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Islam, chronologically the last of the great world religions, would become known for its sometimes severe approach to sexual acts such as adultery, though in fact the religion more commonly encouraged apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation. And there was certainly no tolerance for the kind of sexually explicit art that developed in India—​though explorations of sexuality in literature were widespread. Further, sexual restraint was part of the obligations for pious Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. But there was no overall belief that chastity promoted a higher spiritual state. Sexual pleasure even entered the concept of heaven. The Prophet Muhammad himself provided an example of an active family life. Sexual pleasure, for both husband and wife, were assumed to be a normal part of marriage, except during menstruation; only anal intercourse was forbidden as a method to achieve enjoyment. Wives were urged to shave their public hair to make themselves more attractive to their husbands, while husbands should perform sufficient foreplay to assure their wives’ readiness for pleasure. Contraception was approved—​another contrast with the Christian approach—​when desirable for the health of the couple or for economic reasons (Ali 2006; Ilkkaracan 2008). It is important not to overdo the practical results of religious differences. Christianity did not, for example, usually manage to eliminate prostitution, though there were periodic attempts (nor did Islam, which also had concerns about sex outside of marriage). Buddhism, a highly diverse religion in any event, generated monastic variants that positively welcomed sexuality. It is impossible to know how much normal Christian or Buddhist hesitation, or a certain degree of Islamic ambivalence, actually affected actual family life, though the lessons implanted in youth could have ongoing effects. And all of this operated within the larger framework of agricultural societies, in which concerns about undue fertility amid unreliable recourses for birth control, as well as the importance of marriage, provided general constraints, particularly for the lower classes. Gender Patriarchy, as a basic principle of family organization, was another feature that could be variously interpreted, depending on the specific cultural and political system. Again, religion was often a crucial variable, though other factors could enter in as well. Thus, cultures during the Agricultural Age varied widely on the subject of divorce. Christianity disapproved of divorce, though wealthy nobles could sometimes bargain for church dispensations. Islam, in contrast, accepted divorce, though it was far easier for men than for women to initiate the process. In Confucian China a wife who simply could not reconcile herself to marriage could return to her parents, though it was considered a shameful failure on her part. Polygamy was another variable. It was openly accepted in Islam, so long as a man had the means to support more than one wife. Many rulers in Islam, caliphs and later sultans, not only took multiple wives but also maintained elaborate harems of concubines. Chinese culture allowed for multiple wives or concubines, particularly if the first wife

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proved unable to bear a son. Many African cultures also accepted polygamy. In contrast, Christianity famously prohibited polygamy, though men in the upper classes might maintain other paramours. Nowhere was polygamy common, being beyond the means of most of the population, but it obviously affected family life in some cases (Chapman 2001). Many cultures, again particularly though not exclusively in the upper classes, encouraged marriage arrangements for adolescents, even children. In some cases an arrangement would not immediately lead to cohabitation, but would nevertheless serve as a guarantee of an appropriate property settlement or a larger union between two families. Child marriage, particularly for girls, was particularly common in some Islamic regions and in South Asia, though not unknown in China. Christianity, in contrast, insisted in principle on the importance of consent to a marriage of both parties involves. This most definitely did not prevent many parentally arranged marriages against the will of the young people involved, but it probably did inhibit widespread child marriage. Property was another crucial issue. In most Christian and Confucian cultures, it was assumed that men—​fathers, then husbands or even sons—​maintained control over property. Islam was explicitly different. The Qur’an insisted that wives retained control over some property, and that daughters as well as sons participated in inheritance. The shares differed—​men generally gained twice as much as women—​but the allocations could really count. This could give wives some business opportunities. The provision was particularly important for widows. In many parts of Christian Europe, and for many centuries, widows could find themselves in a parlous state, because they had no independent control of any property involved. This often combined with a frequent belief that it was inappropriate for widows (in contrast to widowers) to remarry (Tucker 1993). Opportunities for women outside the household, as wives or daughters, constituted another variable. A number of cultures insisted that respectable women could largely stay within the family compound. This was true, for example, in classical Greece. Several cultures, beginning in Mesopotamia, added that women should cover their faces when they did go out in public. This custom was revived in the Islamic Middle East, though it did not fully spread to other Islamic regions. But in India, both Hindu and Muslim families often confined wives to the house, or even particular rooms in the house, in the system called purdah. These strictures did not apply in ancient Rome, or in Christian Europe. African regions, meanwhile, in some cases even after the adoption of Islam, resisted these kinds of restrictions and special clothing. When the great Arab traveler Ibn Battuta visited the empire of Mali, in West Africa, he was delighted to see the extent of prayer and religious education, but shocked at the dress and behavior of the women. In China, finally, from the sixth century onward, many wealthy families began the practice of footbinding, breaking some of the small bones of the food in early girlhood, so that adult women would walk with a limited, restrictive gait that was assumed to be a mark of beauty and respectability. Even in the Middle East and China it is important to note that the most extensive restrictions on women applied to urban and upper-​class settings only, where gender distinctions

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were most marked. Peasants and workers, dependent on women’s labor and, often, their role in marketing produce, were typically less restrictive, even with regard to veiling or footbinding (Ebrey and Smith 1993). Variations in the implementation of the patriarchal family system could have an important bearing on the nature of family life, for both genders. Some, obviously, continue to generate regional effects even today, serving as a major source of dispute, globally, over family values. It is important to note how varied the summary list is: there was no culture that was systematically most favorable to opportunities for women in the family. And, of course, as with sexuality, it is vital to remember that some patriarchal arrangements and assumptions applied everywhere. Family and Kinship Some striking differences emerged among major regions in relationships between nuclear families and wider kin networks during the Agricultural Age. At the same time, the extent of the distinctions has been subject to considerable debate, as has the ongoing impact. Jack Goody and others have attempted global summaries of the major extended family patterns that developed in regions around the world, and they can be usefully consulted. Greatest attention, however, has focused on the emergence of a more pronounced emphasis on the nuclear family, along with looser kindship ties, in Western Europe (and later, through migration, North America) (Goody 1983). Two chronological turning points deserve discussion. The first, emerging in Western Catholicism from the fourth and fifth centuries, involved distinctive rules about intermarriage among kin. The second, developing from the later Middle Ages, featured the construction of an unusually late marriage pattern that created what some demographers have called the “European style family.” The first development followed from a concerted effort to ban marriage among close kin, particularly cousins. These prohibitions, increasingly enforced during the Middle Ages, created a greater emphasis on the nuclear family and looser overall family ties, along with greater individualism. In contrast, many agricultural societies encouraged marriages among close kin as part of the arranged marriage system and the efforts to consolidate family property. Even today, in parts of the Middle East, for example, marriages between cousins, parentally orchestrated, remain common. In many regions of Africa, as an extension of this reliance on kinship (and often as part of polygamous systems), men were urged to marry the widows of deceased brothers, in order to assure family support (Schulz et al. 2019). Then, in the later Middle Ages, a distinctive European system was further defined through an emphasis on relatively late marriage ages—​25 or so for women, around 27 for men—​ presumably as a means of assuring that the new family had adequate property and perhaps in order to limit birth rates (Hartman 2004). In addition, a substantial minority of propertyless people were not able to marry at all. This pattern further highlighted the nuclear family, for

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the simple reason that, marrying so late, overlap with adult parents (or putting the same point another way, overlap between children and grandparents) was limited, for, on average, they would die off not long after the new nuclear family was formed. The system depended heavily on community enforcement of prohibitions on sex before marriage—​for there was an obvious gap between sexual maturity and marriage age. Even so, illegitimacy rates did creep up a bit, and many couples, once engaged, indulged in sexual activity, producing a spate of what are called “prebridal pregnancies,” in which a baby was born about seven months after the marriage ceremony. It is vital to note that the upper classes, with larger family size and an earlier marriage age for women, did not develop such distinctive family patterns. Several scholars urge some caution in interpreting these differences, emphasizing that nuclear families were important everywhere even when they operated under a firm kinship umbrella. Others, however, tout the larger significance of the distinctions involved. Some note that when grandparents and extended kin were less available, European families would generate greater coordination between husbands and wives to make the family economy work. Others go further, claiming that Europe’s family structure generated the kind of individualism that in turn undergirds what are called WEIRD societies (Western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic) today. This is, however, a highly debatable extension, particularly in our own age, when other societies are clearly rich, educated, and in some cases democratic as well (Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan 2010). Signs of Change Family forms in agricultural societies were not, of course, changeless, even after the advent of the great religious cultures or particular practices such as footbinding. Several shifts are worth noting in brief: • From the 16th century onward, Spanish and Portuguese conquests in South and Central America generated systematic attacks on many features of indigenous family life, pressing for greater control by fathers and husbands and attempting to outlaw gender flexibility. Sexual contacts with indigenous women, in a system where men of European origin outnumbered female immigrants, produced a growing mixed-​blood population and unusually, and persistently, high rates of illegitimacy (Hecht 2002; Trexler 1999). • ​The African slave trade massively disrupted family life for the slaves themselves, often over a long period of time. Within West Africa, disproportionate seizure of young men not only constricted population growth, but also expanded reliance on polygamy as a reaction to the new gender disparity at marriage age (Allman, Geiger, and Musisi 2002; Fenske 2005). • Peter the Great’s reforms in Russia, around 1700, generated some new opportunities for upper-​class women. An old custom, in which, during the marriage ceremony, the bride’s father would hand over a small whip to the

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new husband as a sign of the transfer of power, was abolished (Clements, Engel and Worobec 1991). • ​In Western Europe the rise of Protestantism had significant implications for family life by abolishing the insistence on priestly celibacy. Martin Luther ceremoniously married a former nun. This cut into any idea that family commitment was spiritually inferior. It also drew new attention to the significance of family life, including the importance of assuring contentment for wives and mothers. Family manuals in 17th-​century England emphasized the positive features of family life as a source of mutual satisfaction, though fathers were given new responsibilities for overseeing the moral education of the children (Greven 1988; Ozment 1985). The Industrial Age Industrial societies began to emerge in the late 18th century, beginning with Great Britain. They involved utilization of dramatic new technologies like the steam engine, extensive growth of manufacturing, rapid urbanization, and a host of other changes. The result, over time, was a substantial alteration of many of the basic characteristics of agricultural societies, including dramatic changes in basic family structure and important challenges to existing assumptions about what the family was for (Stearns 2016b). Three preliminaries are essential. First, while industrialization was ultimately a revolutionary development, it proceeded somewhat gradually and left important sectors of society relatively untouched for a long period, particularly in the countryside. Available data suggest that it takes a half-​century at least, and often 80 years, to move from a predominantly agricultural to predominantly industrial society. This means that definitions of the key changes involved have uneven applicability. Second, industrialization was ultimately a global phenomenon, though it is most commonly studied in its Western manifestations. Japan and Russia began to industrialize rapidly by the 1870s; the Pacific Rim made the turn from the 1950s onward; the 1970s formed the launchpad for China, but places like India, Turkey, Mexico, and Brazil were not far behind. By the later 20th century, in fact, industrialization, and attendant urbanization, became a global phenomenon, though some regions still proceeded more slowly. Of course, later industrializations differed from the initial Western examples, reflecting regional characteristics as well as chronological gaps. On the other hand, many societies introduced important changes in order to clear the way for industrialization—​for example, in seeking to accelerate mass education. The emergence of definably Industrial Age families, like those in the Agricultural Age, is arguably a global process (Mokyr 2012; Stearns 2020b). Third, by historical standards, industrial societies remain fairly novel products, and it is not surprising that adjustments and further changes continue, for example, in several important cases, in the role of women in the workforce. It is possible to argue that by

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the 21st century yet another family type was emerging—​a “postindustrial” case—​but an evolving industrial category is plausible as well. The Family and Production The first change brought about by factory industry was in some ways the most fundamental: work moved outside the home, and therefore outside the full control of most families. What had been atypical now became the norm. And factories were not the only culprit. As bureaucracies became more elaborate, as in Western Europe during the middle decades of the 19th century, in both the public and private sectors, office work became increasingly common. Businesses that had once relied on wives and other family members to maintain the books now recruited more specialized personnel—​often keeping the wives at home in the process. While family shops remained, they were quickly eclipsed by the rise of department stores with their sales staffs, beginning in Paris in the mid-​1830s (Barker 2017; “Effects of the Industrial Revolution,” n.d.). The migration of work confronted families with some truly difficult choices. If children still needed to work to contribute to the family economy, they now might fall under the control of complete strangers, and thus of heightened exploitation. Who would keep house and manage consumption when adult males, at least, were gone most of the day? And what of the family itself in a larger sense: it was becoming less fundamental economically, and this might require some serious recalculation of its utility. Further, in some cases the change could occur with surprising suddenness, in what was obviously a very fluid economic situation. In 1800, for example, only 5% of workers in New York City operated outside the household, but by 1840 the figure was 70%. Reactions to the need for new arrangements varied. In Western Europe and the United States, a predominant impulse for several decades involved urging a primarily domestic focus on women, at least after marriage. Tasks that could be conducted in the home remained important, including, in some cases, keeping a small boarding house. And certain categories of wives, either by choice or necessity, had to continue extramural work: this was true, for example, of urban African Americans in the United States. But for quite a while, respectable middle-​class families assumed that women simply should not engage in formal employment, while the working classes tried to withdraw women from employment after marriage. Japan, also, would see a strong impulse toward women’s domestic role after the first decades of industrialization, around a government-​promoted emphasis on the “wise mother.” But in places like China and Russia, married women continued to work for the most part, which could require painful juggling of tasks between home and job, but which may have assured a greater voice in the family economy as well (Tilly and Scott 1989). Other adjustments could involve the use of older relatives. In the West, co-​residence between older family members, particularly women, and their adult children (and

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children’s children) actually rose during the 19th century, presumably because of service in childcare. It would only begin to drop off again, but then quite rapidly, after the 1920s. Larger reactions to the changing economic environment of the family, and its declining importance, took longer to develop. Until wider employment opportunities opened up, with the spread of white-​collar work, particularly in the 20th century, the family might become more important for women than had been the case before. In the West, it was hard for a single woman to support herself in the 19th century. But men now had less economic need for families, and one probable result—​though impossible to quantify precisely—​was an increasing rate of family abandonment, or what became known as working-​class divorce. Rising legal divorce rates themselves reflected new economic options concerning the family, though other factors were involved (Philips 1991). Urbanization Industrial developments focused primarily on cities and factory towns, which involved massive in-​migration from the countryside. Steam power required a concentrated labor force around the machine itself, and there were other economic spurs to urban development. In addition, factory industry itself displaced tens of thousands of rural manufacturing workers. In some later cases, as in Latin America and the Middle East, urbanization sometimes preceded industrial growth outright. Urban conditions had a huge impact on family life. While communities could reform in the city environment, initially at least movement to the cities could disrupt an individual’s social network, often creating new needs for family formation in compensation. Unquestionably, extended family ties were challenged. Most urban migration involved young adults moving away from the village, and this could severely disrupt ties with older parents and other relatives. For literate groups (and literacy was growing), exchanges of letters might modify the isolation, and with rapidly improving postal service, contact through the mails was a vital aspect of family life in industrial societies during the 19th century. But this could not compensate fully for the loss of direct contact. Further, once new urban families were established, they might deeply resent pressures to keep up with older extended relationships, which might impose unwanted impositions on hospitality, such as insistence on returning for family funerals. These are vital issues in urban African culture today (Huston 1979). Movement to the city and adjustments in extended family ties created obvious problems for marriage formation: parents were simply not available to do the arranging, and young people, more economically independent, might have resented interference in any event. More commitments were now made by young people directly. A revealing sign of the new circumstances was a growing use of newspaper want ads for soliciting mates. This was a practice that accelerated in cities in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, though it was widely criticized by conservatives who worried that families would be formed on the basis of frivolous attractions rather than sober moral criteria. In China, the

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Communist takeover after 1949 led directly to a significant reduction of the parental role in mate selection (Barclay, Crozier-​De Rosa, and Stearns 2020; Epstein 2014). From the outset, finally, urban conditions raised issues about the costs and adequacy of housing, which might impinge on the quality of family life or decisions about how many children could be sustained. This problem, obviously, was class-​specific, with working-​class and immigrant families faced with the most difficult choices. In some cases, housing constraints also began to impose new time commitments for commuting to and from work. For many workers, seeking low costs, commuting often meant walking considerable distances. For members of the middle class, concerned about costs and space but with more resources, choices might involve a move to the suburbs, now facilitated by the growth of tram and rail lines. The term “commuting” first arose in the United States in the 1830s as rail companies lowered, or “commuted,” the fares of regular passengers. And, most importantly, commuting added to the physical gap between jobs and families, and often took significant chunks of time away from family life (Jackson 1987). Demography The development of a dramatically new population structure was initially closely linked to industrialization, though the connections became more complex over time as changes spread to additional parts of the world. The resultant “demographic transition” altered family structure in crucial ways, with impacts as well on the roles and expectations of family members. Birth rates began to drop in places like the United States and France as early as the 1790s, and the trend spread quickly to other parts of the Western world. Almost always, middle-​ class families took the first steps—​as with Quakers in late 18th-​century Philadelphia. But the urban working class joined in fairly soon, and rural families—​particularly in cases where peasants or farmers had property to protect—​participated as well. Religion was a variable, with more secular families changing their habits more quickly than others. But the cumulative results were dramatic. In the United States, where the average woman had seven children in 1800, the norm had dropped to three by the early 20th century, and continued to fall—​despite the continued arrival of immigrants whose initial birth rates were much higher (Haines 1979; Quale-​Leach 1992). Motivations were numerous, but the link to industrialization more generally resulted from a fairly rapid decline in the jobs available for child labor. To be sure, children loomed large in early factories and mines, because of dexterity and low cost, but more advanced technology, and some legal measures designed to limit the exploitation of children, quickly changed this situation, particularly in the cities. Middle-​class families, realizing that their offspring would have better prospects through education than through early child labor, made their own calculations. Lower economic utility for children was increasingly combined with growing expenses and, for some groups, cramped housing.

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Historians debate who decided on the birth rate reduction, and probably both husbands and wives participated. Globally, however, growing education for women invariably correlated with reduced family size, as wives became aware of wider options. These were not, however, always easy decisions, for they could call into question both masculine prowess and maternal capacity. In the West, decisions were further complicated by available methods. To be sure, the vulcanization of rubber in the 1840s allowed the production of cheaper and more reliable condoms and diaphragms. But knowledge of these devices spread slowly, and legal barriers intruded as well. In the United States, for example, concern about sexual license led to restrictions on shipments and advertisements. As a result, in many cases the early decades of birth rate reduction depended on long periods of sexual abstention, another potential complication in family life. The use of abortion also increased, though it was often technically illegal (Gordon 2007; Seccombe 1995). Still, in the West, birth rate reduction began to be matched, by the later 19th century, by a reduction in children’s death rates. In many places, early childhood mortality was still 30% of all those born in 1880, but by 1920 the level had dropped to 5%, and here too the trend would continue. Improved public health measures, including more sterile procedures and urban sanitation, plus higher living standards accounted for the biggest changes, but some families also began to consult pediatricians—​a new medical specialty—​which could lead to further gains (Cutler and Meara 2003). By the early 20th century the new demographic regime was clearly in place throughout Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Further chances would follow from greater access to birth control and additional medical improvements, extending the use of inoculations from smallpox, already a target in the 19th century, to other childhood diseases, and then the emergence of new medicines. Other parts of the world moved toward the demographic transition in somewhat different ways. Here, usually, reduction of the infant death rate came first. Places like Japan, increasingly aware of Western public health measures, moved quickly, eager to improve the size and quality of populations. In the 20th-​century Communist regimes, beginning with the Russian, implemented relevant public health measures, including clinics for expectant mothers, very soon after they won power. Later, international agencies, ultimately led by the World Health Organization, would also facilitate change. New birth rate levels arrived more slowly, as many families continued to depend on child labor and many regimes favored population growth. But change did occur, as families realized the expense of traditional levels and as school requirements cut into child labor. The Russian birth rate began to drop by the 1930s, and decisive birth rate reductions occurred in Latin America by the 1970s, sometimes involving mothers deceiving both husbands and priests in hopes of assuring a better future for their children. In China, the Communist regime famously did an about-​face in 1978, realizing that population pressure was retarding industrialization and forcibly imposing a one-​child limit on many families (Kirk 1996).

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By the 21st century the patterns were increasingly global, though different regions were still in varied stages of transition and sub-​Saharan Africa, particularly, was just beginning to shift toward lower birth rates. Methodologies varied, to be sure: some areas depended heavily on abortion, because birth control devices seemed unfamiliar and expensive. Government compulsion in China sometimes forced both abortions and sterilizations, but this was an unusual extreme. Everywhere, however, families increasingly had to adjust to unprecedentedly small numbers of children, most of whom were increasingly likely to survive. The family purpose of raising children remained intact in some senses; indeed, with fewer children many parents invested increasing attention on the offspring they did have. But the quantitative dimensions changed, and this could raise some questions about family functions and, more particularly, the roles of women now that motherhood was more confined to a segment of adult life. The child-​centeredness of the family might diminish. Though it has been less studied, the new demographic regime had implications for siblings as well. No longer were average sibling groups large enough for older members to spend much time actively overseeing their younger brothers and sisters. Direct competition for adult attention might increase—​something that was noticed in the United States in the 1920s amid a flurry of concern about what was now called sibling rivalry (Stearns 1989). Add to this the fact that schooling tended to increase age-​grading among children, with friendships formed with non-​kin in the same school classes, and sibling ties may have changed considerably. Smaller numbers of children, and medical improvements for adults, resulted in dramatic changes in the overall population structure. In agricultural societies, children had constituted about half the total population. Now, however, the age pyramid was far more gradual, with fewer children and higher proportions of older adults. Here, too, there were family implications, which are still vivid today. A larger number of older people might combine with the smaller number of children available to help with their care and support, forcing another set of decisions about what the family was for, and what responsibilities needed to be redefined. Finally, the new demographic system, combined with other developments associated with urbanization, changed the relationship between families and death. The most obvious results here were surely positive. Increasingly, parents no longer had to assume that one or more of their children would die (though this also meant that when a child did die, the emotional impact could be almost unbearable). Children, too, could be increasingly shielded from encounters with death, often experiencing it only in the case of grandparents. Affectionate ties between parents and children might well intensify when the threat of loss was lifted. But in the new regime the role of the family in overseeing death arrangements dropped dramatically, and not only because there was less death to deal with. Many families found that in the tight conditions of urban housing, taking responsibility for preparing bodies

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for burial and arranging other rituals was simply too hard to handle. New government regulations about handling the dead complicated the picture as well. Finally, an increased reliance on medical care meant that, in a growing majority of cases, deaths now occurred in hospitals rather than in or around the home. This often imposed a new responsibility on families, in sometimes anguished interactions with hospital personnel about the appropriate treatment of a member suffering from illness or accident. Here was a new focus for powerful family emotions. But concerning death itself, family responsibilities declined. Increasingly, funeral professionals took over much of the responsibility for managing death, leaving the family to the role of spectators. And while a majority of people still professed a preference for dying at home, the reality was often quite different. To be sure, by 2019 in the United States more deaths were occurring in the home (31%) than in hospital for the first time in a century, often posing a real burden for family members; but a considerable dissociation with death remained common. Here was another area where the responsibilities of the family were redefined, in some ways narrowed, with at least some measurable discomfort resulting (Stearns 2020a). Government Steps In In traditional societies, government actions might certainly affect families—​through taxation or military activities—​but direct interaction was limited. This was not the case in industrial societies or in societies that began to develop new government functions that could pave the way for economic development. Education was the first new link. While a few precedents emerged in the 18th century, the big push toward state-​sponsored and required schooling took shape toward the middle of the 19th century. States in the American North pushed forward by the 1840s. It was in the 1860s that French peasants finally decided that their children should be schooled, that skilled like arithmetic calculation could help on the farm, and that daughters might find new job openings—​even as teachers. Japan installed compulsory schooling in 1872. Expanding educational requirements was another early move of Communist regimes in the 20th century. The pattern became increasingly global (Katz 1989; Weber 1976). Schooling obviously reduced parental controls over children, and this, along with the limits on child labor, might provoke some resistance. It also could lead to more focus on the socialization of the very young, where parental control was less diluted. Parents could also find a set of new tasks, such as trying to assure their offspring’s school success—​a major focus for many mothers in Japan. Several studies have shown that in places like India and Japan, shaming within the family was redirected to promote children’s academic performance. Middle-​class families in many countries, including Communist Russia, sought to maximize educational capacity for their offspring; in South Korea by the late 20th century, this could include arrangements for extra tutoring. To be sure, assimilation of the school requirement did not always occur overnight, particularly in rural areas where children were often withdrawn during key labor periods. Attendance enforcement often

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became really serious only by the 20th century. But there is no question that the development added a really novel dimension to the family experience (Gill and Schlossman 2003). Most obviously, along with the decline of child labor opportunities (also partly enforced by the state), the basic definition of childhood was revolutionized: from a primary focus on work to an increasing focus on educational performance. (In many societies, this shift would be extended by greatly reducing children’s obligations for household chores.) Here was yet another reason to reduce the birth rate, because school preparations cost money even as children’s earning capacity declined. And here also was another reason to raise questions about the purpose of having children in the first place. Through schools but also other mechanisms, governments ventured additional interference with parental authority. By the 20th century, schools often taught not only academic subjects but also new standards of hygiene. In the United States by the 1920s, school inspections of children’s bathing and toothbrushing habits often aimed at amending the behaviors of immigrant families more generally. Communist regimes often used youth groups to urge children to monitor their parents’ political behavior (Vinikas 1992). Extensively as well, governments began to issue advice to parents around health and other issues, often assuming that expert pressure was essential to bring families into the modern age. Official publications in both the United States and Japan, from the early 20th century, gained wide attention—​such as the often reissued pamphlet Infant Care. Initial advice focused on issues like dealing with common illnesses and the importance of guarding against germs, but targets easily expanded, for example in offering emotional guidelines. Official efforts were supplemented by a growing array of presumably expert publications, aimed at parents, reflecting the growth of pediatric medicine and psychology. External advice was not new: it had earlier emanated from religious and moral authorities. But now the volume—​and size—​of publications expanded, with some authors, like Benjamin Spock in the United States, literally becoming household names (Zuckerman 1975). External advice reflected growing parental uncertainties about childrearing, particularly as contacts with the extended family diminished. It might provide valued guidance, but it also might increase anxieties when parents found it difficult to measure up to the latest standards. Compounding the problem was the fact that advice changed frequently on matters such as placement of infants in the crib or whether to discipline or coddle a crying child (Lasch 1991). Government interference on the whole steadily intensified. New problems could draw scrutiny by the later 20th century. Many governments tried to step in to deal with child obesity, for example, in some extreme cases removing children from the homes of apparently unconcerned parents. Even earlier, rising concerns about juvenile delinquency frequently brought new contacts between families and police officials. Property crimes, gang activities, but also sexual behavior, particularly for girls, might become police issues.

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Finally, while government concern about children headed the list, other family activities might be affected by the expanding modern state, for better or worse. Urban housing ordinances might constrain family options in the interests of hygiene and safety. A host of regulations sought to protect family safety amid the growing array of household appliances. The expansion of welfare provisions for the elderly could have a huge impact as well. In the United States the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, though not intended for this purpose, quickly convinced many younger adults that they no longer had primary financial responsibility for ageing parents, potentially alleviating a genuine material problem, but also loosening extended family ties (Hareven 2013). Consumerism All industrializing societies increased opportunities for greater consumerism, as many people gained new interests, as well as capacities, in the acquisition of goods and services beyond subsistence needs. Consumerism was not entirely novel, but its range now expanded steadily, often partially blurring social class lines. Specifics varied from one society to the next; the United States became a particularly eager consumer society, compared both to Europe and East Asia. But there was no question that consumerist behavior ultimately expanded on a global basis, providing a final general industrial component to the reshaping of family life (McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb 1982; Stearns 2006). From the outset, modern consumerism was closely tied to family life (Campbell 1987). The two categories of manufactured items most in new demand in 18th-​century Europe and colonial North America had direct connections. More colorful and stylish clothing, particularly for young people, correlated with the growing interest in romantic courtships, partially independent of parental control. Decorated home furnishings and table settings, including porcelain items now being referred to as “china,” signaled an interest in more comfortable and stylish homes and greater commitment to family dining. Correspondingly, many family members began to designate particular commodities in wills—​a treasured cabinet, a tea set—​in the belief that subsequent generations would appreciate the connection between the material object and a broader expression of familial affection. The new consumer targets were still out of reach for many in the lower classes, and they spread more rapidly in cities than in the countryside, but they gained a wide constituency, well beyond the aristocracies. Even a new interest in buying books directly aimed at children, taking shape at the end of the 18th century, had a strong family connection (Plumb 1982). The linkages expanded with time. During the 19th century, purchases among the middle class increasingly included pianos, which became a staple item in family settings. Home furniture reflected a growing interest in “oriental” carpets and more comfortable chairs and couches. By the late 19th century the array of toys available for purchase expanded, with toy soldiers for boys and more elaborate dolls for girls (including, for a time, dolls with caskets and mourning clothes to train girls for their role in family grief ). The early

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20th century saw new interest in buying toys for infants, including the famous teddy bear. Brief debate surfaced over whether an attachment to “things” was appropriate for the very young, but it was quickly resolved in favor of consumer expansion. Also in the early 20th century, beginning in the United States, courtship practices began to shift into what was called “dating,” which added a new commitment to restaurant meals or movies or other entertainment, inserting a stronger consumer component to the process of (ultimate) mate selection. Overall, as advertisers quickly learned, one of the best inducements for buying products or services involved its linkage to some kind of family goal (Cross 1999). There were some countercurrents. Consumerism could help young people develop tastes that were deliberately unpopular with parents. By the late 19th century, something of a consumer “youth culture” began to emerge that concerned many adults, involving reading tastes, music and dance fads, or clothing styles that seemed inappropriate, in turn creating potential rifts within the family. Opportunities for this kind of “generation gap” would expand later in the 20th century. A student in Shanghai, asked why he preferred McDonald’s restaurants, made it clear that, even though he did not necessarily prefer the food, he appreciated the ability to feel connected to other young people and separate from his parents’ tastes. Early in the 21st century, the introduction of the word “teen” into the Vietnamese language designated young people whose passion for clothing such as tight blue jeans clearly separated them from the adult members of the family (Nguyen 2015). Many parents, correspondingly, grew concerned about their inability to regulate the consumer contacts of their offspring, creating a new challenge to parental responsibility. From the late 19th century onward, in many societies, parents struggled to control comic books, then access to radio shows, then television and movies, then computer games—​ typically fighting a losing battle amid dire warnings of the role of these new media in prompting violence or rampant sexuality. To be sure, some regulations did result, as in movie ratings that sought to limit young people’s access to certain films. And many societies exercised government controls over certain media. But the clash between what many viewed as appropriate “family values” and modern entertainment outlets persisted, forming a durable tension in family life (Starker 2012). Finally, even for adults, the quest for enjoyment and material acquisition could create friction with other family members. The question of who made key consumer decisions developed quickly. In many working-​class families in the West, during the 19th century, male breadwinners engaged in a weekly ritual in which they would turn over household money to their wives, leaving the men to dispose of anything left over. On the other hand, accusations that housewives themselves were succumbing to irresponsible consumer lures created other tensions, particularly in the middle classes, where women seemed to have some leisure time to patrol the aisles of the new department stores. As the family increasingly became a consumer unit, the question of what items to buy, and when, could become a pressure point within marriages as well as parent-​child relationships (Smith 1981).

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As traditional, community-​based leisure forms declined in the growing industrial cities, other interests developed that could prove disruptive to family life. Most obvious was the rising interest in bars and taverns. While some married couples indulged together, men more commonly sought drink and companionship separate from the family—​a pattern still visible in contemporary Japan. New sporting events might also pull men away from the home. But new leisure interests could also draw families together. Family strolls and visits to the growing network of urban parks took hold in many cities from the 19th century onward (Rosenzweig 1985). In the 20th century, radio shows and, particularly, television provided new foci for family life, often reducing contacts, at least for adults, with the wider community (Buxton and Owen 1966). The idea of the family vacation was another striking innovation in industrial societies, from the 19th century onward, increasingly relying on what was, revealingly, called the “family car.” New institutions arose to lure family vacationers, as in the network of Disney theme parks (and their imitators) that developed in many societies after World War II. Even societies like the Soviet Union, though hostile to some aspects of consumerism, developed networks of family vacation sites for the working classes (Aron 2001). The point is clear. While the consumerism that developed in most industrial societies raised some new tensions for the family, it also created new opportunities for family cohesion. To a very real extent, even as the family as a production unit declined, its role as a consumer unit steadily accelerated. A very real question about contemporary family life, in many societies, is whether this new set of family interests provided as strong and reliable a bond as production goals had done in preindustrial settings—​and also whether some individuals might prefer to pursue consumer goals independent of the family altogether (Young and Willmott 1973). The Family as Emotional Unit Families had always developed emotional bonds and functions, even if these were not at the forefront in the age of arranged marriages and reliance on child labor. A key historical question, and a challenging one, is how emotional functions may have changed during the past two centuries, and whether the importance of emotional relationships increased, providing another new focus in family life. There are two related themes here. First, other, more structural changes in family life, such as the new demographic patterns, carried emotional implications in most of the societies involved. Second, the West developed a distinctive family emotional culture from the 18th century onward that has proved persistent, at least in some respects, and that by the 20th century has won some global influence. Families with lower birth rates and growing assurance that children will survive may well, on average, develop more intense emotional ties between parents and individual offspring, particularly as the need to press for child labor diminishes as well. Even more

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obviously, the decline of arranged marriage allowed many young people to highlight the importance of feelings of love and affection in selecting their partners. It was revealing that marriage want ads in the 19th century, in Cairo as well as Chicago, often emphasized the goal of a loving relationship, sometimes explicitly stating that financial arrangements should not distract from this basic purpose. In addition, changes in the rates and arrangements for death could obviously affect the incidence and management of grief in family life (Coontz 2006). Western family culture, centered admittedly in the middle classes, picked up on several of these developments but added a very explicit intensification of the overall emotional goals of family life. A growing emphasis on romantic love developed from the mid-​18th century, spurred additionally by the rise of the novel as a popular reading genre. Several European courts began to allow young people, women as well as men, to break parentally arranged marriage contracts if they contended they could not love their assigned partner. Courtship during the 19th century assumed that romantic love was the desired outcome as a basis for marriage, and letters frequently expressed intense devotion (Lystra 1992). Parental love gained ground more slowly, but most family manuals in places like the United States assumed the intensity particularly of maternal love by the 1820s. Increasingly, children were also expected to contribute active love as one of their key contributions to a loving family. Popularizers urged that the emotional bonds of family not be jeopardized by disruptive emotions such as anger. Children should be disciplined in more positive ways (Mintz 2006). These ideals built upon a growing sense that the family offered an emotional contrast to the harsh, competitive world of industry and commerce—​serving, as one slogan put it, as a “haven in a heartless world.” The image was obviously heavily gendered: men needed to depend on pure, loving wives to maintain the emotional dynamic, offering women a very untraditional and positive role, but a strictly domestic one. In some Protestant countries the family imagery was extended to life after death, when loving family members would be able to reunite in heaven (Lasch 1995; Weaver and Munro 2020). Finally, the ideal 19th-​century family would be a center of happiness for all concerned. Keeping family members happy, children included, illustrated a new family value, and potentially a new set of obligations as well. The rise of the child’s birthday, becoming an increasingly common ritual by the 1850s, was predicated on the notion that children deserved individual recognition and a special chance to be happy, and gradually the celebration was extended to adult family members as well—​confirmed by a new song, “Happy Birthday,” in the 1920s. At the same time, aspirations to happiness could be double-​edged, making families more fragile when happiness seemed thwarted. Several factors contributed to the rising divorce rate in the West by the later 19th century, including changes in law and the declining economic importance of the family, but a contrast between emotional expectations and reality undoubtedly played a role as well (Baselice, Burrichter, and Stearns 2019).

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Imagery of the loving, happy family would undergo some changes in Western society in the 20th century. Grief rituals were toned down, given the changing incidence of death, and some experts urged that children be kept away from this brush with sadness. Love was redefined to include more explicit expectations of sexual pleasure, which had been downplayed in the more prudish 19th century. Increasing debates over women’s special role, highlighted by a widespread entry into the workforce by the 1960s, introduced another set of changes (Friedan 1963). But there was considerable continuity as well, often celebrated in films and TV shows bent on glorifying family love and happiness. The term “soulmate,” to describe a loving partner, was first introduced in 1832, but it gained much wider currency from the 1980s onward. Parents both in the United States and Western Europe, asked in the 21st century what their main hope was for their children, responded “that they be happy” over 75% of the time. In contrast, respondents in India and Mexico stressed achievement, while those in China highlighted good health (Stearns 2019). Western family culture unquestionably had real global influence, at least by the 20th century. Western stories and shows gained a wide audience in other countries, particularly with the rise of Hollywood early in the 20th century. New attitudes to children were also encouraged by changes in the workplace and by human rights efforts. In Japan, a major debate over the priority of love over parental wishes in selecting a mate emerged around 1930, with some widely publicized cases of defiance. Birthday celebrations began to spread more widely by the end of the 20th century, with special party services available for the well-​to-​do in Cairo or Dubai (Morton 1997). There was, of course, no single emotional template for families, either in the ideal or in actuality—​both social class and regional differences persisted. But there was also little question that the various changes in family structure, interacting to some degree with global cultural influences, opened families in many regions to some significant changes in emotional expectations and outcomes. Regional Patterns Family forms continued to vary considerably around the world, reflecting previous regional differences but also some new components. In some cases, differences were a matter of timing: as we have seen, the inception of the demographic transition or the removal of most work from the home occurred at different chronological points depending on the area. But more durable distinctions were often involved, as in the varied regional responses to the priority of children’s happiness over the importance of achievement. Discussed here are some important categories, though it is hardly an exhaustive list. Many reflected levels of urbanization and religious intensity, showing the continuing hold of key traditions, but other factors could be involved as well. While rates of child marriage began dropping rapidly by the late 10th century, the pattern maintained some hold in South Asia and the Middle East. Regional disparities also

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applied to polygamy, though this tradition also was in decline. Attachment to child labor remained unusually strong in South and Southeast Asia, though by the early 21st century levels began to drop considerably; not only economic need, but also a strong cultural preference for making sure children took up their parents’ occupations, helped explain the slight regional anomaly (Hindman 2009). Opinion polls early in the 21st century suggested that two-​thirds of all Indians continued to believe that arranged marriage was preferable to more individualized choice, providing a more solid basis for marital success and freeing women from the stress of competing for male attention. An increase in sometimes violent disagreements over dowry levels, however, complicated the arranged marriage pattern in India. Traditional gender preferences combined with birth rate reduction in distinctive ways in China and India by the later 20th century. Opportunities to identify the sex of a child before birth led to differential rates of abortion, as many families accepted the need to have fewer children (often with little choice in China) but joined this to a continued preference for sons. Gender differences in the ranks of abandoned children were marked as well. The result was a major gap in male and female population levels for adults reaching the age of family formation, complicating the search for a spouse and suggesting wider potential tensions as well (Allendorf and Pandian 2016). Regional adjustments to the changing roles of women in the family continued to vary widely. By the early 21st century, many Middle Eastern countries were experiencing a rapid rise in women’s educational levels and often dramatic reductions in birth rates—​in Iran, for example. But acceptance of work outside the home lagged notably, with women providing at most a quarter of the overall labor force. Divorce rates continue to rise on a global basis, an important facet of the family in industrial or industrializing societies, but regional divisions persisted here as well. Rates were highest in Russia by the early 21st century, but were substantial as well in other parts of northwestern Europe and the United States. Catholic regions—​southern Europe, Latin America—​displayed low rates (though Sri Lanka was lowest of all). East Asian divorce rates were also relatively modest, despite the many structural similarities with Western families; dating patterns also differed, with dating beginning at a later age and involving fewer partners. Many societies struggled to define an acceptable relationship between growing opportunities for individualism and continued emphasis on family solidarity. Some African feminists criticized their Western sisters for overemphasizing the individual, urging the development of an African pattern that would retain the protections of family cohesion. Families in Lebanon, though encouraging school success for children, also worked to maintain a primary family identity (Amadiume 1987; Joseph 2005). Variations of this sort spilled over into disciplinary practices as well. There was great regional differentiation in the acceptability of physical punishments for children (outlawed outright in places like Scandinavia). Use of shame was another variable. Polls in the

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early 20th century revealed that about half of all parents in Taiwan found shaming both acceptable and desirable as part of children’s socialization, while literally no parent in San Diego acknowledged the validity of shaming in any circumstance (Stearns 2017). Differences of this sort reflected the power of previous regional cultures, including in some cases the earlier divisions over the balance between extended and more nuclear families. Whether some distinctions would continue to erode, as industrialization and global contact accelerated, or whether regional traditions would retain a major hold was an open question. The Persistence of Change There was no doubt, however, that major changes in family patterns continued in many parts of the world. Arguably, in most cases, the shifts reflected continued adjustment to the demands of industrial societies: lower birth rates, redefinitions of gender roles, and so on. A few developments did raise a question about whether the broad industrial framework for family life was itself being replaced by another set of new themes. Three or four related developments called for particular attention. First, birth rate reduction in many societies now dipped below population replacement levels. Was this simply a reflection of practical problems such as urban housing conditions, or were a growing number of families no longer including parenthood as a desirable goal? With more women working, and often enjoying their jobs, and with consumer pleasures often outstripping the costs and chores of parenting, the question was an important one. Thus, in China a relaxation of the one-​child policy, designed to spur labor force growth, did not produce the expected increase in birth rates after 2016. Most industrialized countries (though not all), reported an intriguing gap in happiness between couples who were childless and those with children; the gap was greatest in the United States, presumably because of the lack of support services such as parental leave and inexpensive day care (BBC News 2018; Stearns 2004). Second, marriage rates themselves slowed in places like Europe, North America, and Japan. In some cases, couples decided to cohabit without bothering with legal arrangements, an option that had emerged even in earlier industrial cities. Unwed couples were less stable than those that officially married, but they were not necessarily turning away from family life. In some societies, particularly in the West, the rise of an open interest in gay marriage and parenthood showed a commitment to family formation on another front. But a growing number of people simply preferred to live alone, citing their pleasure in making consumer choices on their own, without the need to conciliate a partner. The growing availability of entertainment outlets through the Internet, including abundantly accessible pornography, may have played a role here. Were the functions of the family, as these had been redefined for the industrial age, losing some of their force? Third, increasing longevity, combined with the lower birth rates, intensified questions about the family environment for the elderly, particularly as the rates of debilitating

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diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s accelerated as well. Many elderly people simply had no younger kin, or at least none available for significant interaction. In Japan, a distressing number of older people died alone, in small apartments, their deaths not realized for several days. Some societies began experimenting with other ways to link older people with younger cohorts, outside of family structures. Many societies, finally, were reporting increasing loneliness by the early 21st century, even beyond the ranks of some of the elderly. People who invested heavily in the use of social media, downplaying family and other social contacts, were particularly vulnerable. Again, this might raise questions about the adequacy of the family option in advanced industrial societies (Fernandez and Matt 2019). An intriguing sidebar, warranting serious attention as part of recent family history, at least in the West and East Asia, is the growing reliance on pets for emotional support, by families and individuals alike, including increasingly lavish attention on these pets, adding another dimension to the family dynamic (Grier 2006). Families managed, or were forced to manage, a multitude of adjustments in the encounter with industrialization broadly construed. The contrast between agricultural and industrial forms offers a basic framework for understanding family history. The resultant pattern was increasingly global, though with important regional variants. Many adjustments were successful, perhaps particularly on the emotional front. On the other hand, there is little question that the importance of the family declined overall once it lost its primary production role. The implications of this quiet but powerful shift are still being played out. References Ali, Kecia. 2006. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Allendorf, Keera, and Roshan K. Pandian. 2016. “The Decline of Arranged Marriage? Marital Change and Continuity in India.” Population and Development Review 42 (3): 435–​464. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​ j.1728-​4457.2016.00149.x. Allman, Jean, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, eds. 2002. Women in African Colonial Histories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Amadiume, Ifi. 1987. Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books. Aries, Philippe. 1965. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Vintage. Aron, Cindy S. 2001. Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barclay, Katie, Sharon Crozier-​De Rosa, and Peter Stearns. 2020. Sources for the History of Emotion. London: Routledge. Barker, Hannah. 2017. Family and Business during the Industrial Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baselice, Vyta, Dante Burrichter, and Peter N. Stearns. 2019. “Debating the Birthday: Innovation and Resistance in Celebrating Children.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 12 (2): 262–​284. https://​ doi.org/​10.1353/​hcy.2019.0023. BBC News. 2018. “Mothers, Your Country Needs You!” BBC News, December 25, 2018, sec. China. https://​ www.bbc.com/​news/​world-​asia-​china-​46558​562. Brown, Peter. 2008. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Burguiere, Andre, Christiane Klapisch-​Zuber, Martine Segalen, and Francois Zonabend, eds. 1996. A History of the Family. Vol. 2, The Impact of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

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Hartman, Mary S. 2004. The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hartog, Hendrik. 2012. Someday All This Will Be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hecht, Tobias, ed. 2002. Minor Omissions: Children in Latin American History and Society. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Henrich, Joseph, Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan. 2010. “The Weirdest People in the World?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2–​3): 61–​83; discussion 83–​135. https://​doi.org/​10.1017/​S01405​25X0​9991​52X. Hindman, Hugh D., ed. 2009. The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey. Armonk, NY: Routledge. Huston, Perdita. 1979. Third World Women Speak Out: Interviews in Six Countries on Change, Development, and Basic Needs. 7th ed. New York: Praeger. Ilkkaracan, Pinar, ed. 2008. Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East: Challenges and Discourses. London: Routledge. Jackson, Kenneth T. 1987. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. Joseph, Suad. 2005. “Teaching Rights and Responsibilities: Paradoxes of Globalization and Children’s Citizenship in Lebanon.” Journal of Social History 38 (June): 1007–​ 1026. https://​doi.org/​10.1353/​ jsh.2005.0063. Katz, Michael B. 1989. Reconstructing American Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kinney, Anne. 2004. Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kirk, Dudley. 1996. “Demographic Transition Theory.” Population Studies 50 (3): 361–​387. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1080/​0032​4720​3100​0149​536. Lasch, Christopher. 1991. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton. Lasch, Christopher. 1995. Haven in a Heartless World. New York: W. W. Norton. Lerner, Gerda. 1987. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press. Lynch, Katherine A. 2003. Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200–​ 1800: The Urban Foundations of Western Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lystra, Karen. 1992. Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-​Century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maynes, Mary Jo, and Ann Waltner. 2012. The Family: A World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McKendrick, Neil, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb. 1982. The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-​Century England. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. McNamer, Sarah. 2009. Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Milner, Larry S. 2000. Hardness of Heart/​Hardness of Life: The Stain of Human Infanticide. Lanham, MD: UPA. Mintz, Steven. 2006. Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Mokyr, Joel, ed. 2012. The Economics of the Industrial Revolution. London: Routledge. Morton, Leith. 1997. “The Concept of Romantic Love in the ‘TAIYŌ’ Magazine 1895–​1905.” Japan Review 8: 79–​103. https://​www.jstor.org/​sta​ble/​25790​980. Nguyen, Huong. 2015. “Globalization, Consumerism, and the Emergence of Teens in Contemporary Vietnam.” Journal of Social History 49 (1): 4–​19. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​jsh/​shv​009. Odeh, Lama Abu. 2010. “Honor Killings and the Construction of Gender in Arab Societies.” In “Critical Directions in Family Law,” special issue, American Journal of Comparative Law 58: 911–​952. Ozment, Steven. 1985. When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Peristiany, J. G. 1966. Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Phillips, Roderick. 1991. Untying the Knot: A Short History of Divorce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plumb, J. H. 1982. “The New World of Children in Eighteenth-​Century England.” In The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-​Century Culture, edited by Niel McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, 286–​315. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Quale-​Leach, Gladys Robina. 1992. Families in Context: A World History of Population. New York: Praeger.

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Rawson, Beryl, ed. 1987. The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Rosenwein, Barbara. 2020. Anger: The Conflicted History of an Emotion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rosenzweig, Roy. 1985. Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–​1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheper-​Hughes, Nancy. 1993. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press. Schulz, Jonathan F., Duman Bahrami-​Rad, Jonathan P. Beauchamp, and Joseph Henrich. 2019. “The Church, Intensive Kinship, and Global Psychological Variation.” Science 366 (6466). https://​doi.org/​10.1126/​scie​ nce.aau5​141. Seccombe, Wally. 1995. Weathering the Storm: Working-​Class Families from the Industrial Revolution to the Fertility Decline. New York: Verso Books. Shaw, Teresa M. 1998. Burden of the Flesh. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Smith, Bonnie G. 1981. Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Starker, Steven. 2012. Evil Influences: Crusades against the Mass Media. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Stearns, Peter N. 1989. Jealousy: The Evolution of an Emotion in American History. New York: NYU Press. Stearns, Peter N. 2004. Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America. New York: NYU Press. Stearns, Peter N. 2006. Consumerism in World History: The Global Transformation of Desire. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Stearns, Peter N. 2016a. Childhood in World History. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge. Stearns, Peter N. 2016b. The Industrial Turn in World History. New York: Routledge. Stearns, Peter N. 2017. Shame: A Brief History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Stearns, Peter N. 2019. “Happy Children: A Modern Emotional Commitment.” Frontiers in Psychology 10. https://​doi.org/​10.3389/​fpsyg.2019.02025. Stearns, Peter N., ed. 2020a. Death in Modern World History. London: Routledge. Stearns, Peter N. 2020b. The Industrial Revolution in World History. 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Stone, Lawrence. 1977. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–​1800. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Tilly, Louise, and Joan Wallach Scott. 1989. Women, Work, and Family. London: Psychology Press. Trexler, Richard C. 1999. Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order and the European Conquest of the Americas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Troyansky, David G. 2015. Aging in World History. New York: Routledge. Tucker, Judith. 1993. “Gender and Islamic History.” In Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order, edited by Michael Adas, 37–​74. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Vinikas, Vincent. 1992. Soft Soap, Hard Sell: American Hygiene in an Age of Advertisement. Ames: Iowa State Press. Weaver, John, and Doug Munro. 2020. “Now for the Grand Secret: A History of the Post-​Mortem Identity and Heavenly Reunions, 1800–​2000.” In The Routledge History of Death since 1800, edited by Peter Stearns, 194–​212. London: Routledge. Weber, Eugen. 1976. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–​1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wiesner-​Hanks, Merry E. 2008. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wrigley, E. A. 1969. Population and History. World University Library. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Young, Michael, and Peter Willmott. 1973. The Symmetrical Family. New York: Pantheon Books. Zuckerman, Michael. 1975. “Dr. Spock: The Confidence Man.” In The Family in History, edited by Charles E. Rosenberg. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://​doi.org/​10.9783/​978151​2806​328-​007.

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C H A P T E R

2

F amily Change in the Context of Social Changes in Asia

Stuart Gietel-​Basten

Abstract This chapter examines the family’s social and demographic changes since the mid-​ 20th century in the East and Southeast Asian territories of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. The demographic trends of family life in these regions have produced some of the lowest fertility rates and the longest life expectancies in the world, which has created issues that could not be imagined in the late 20th century. Gietel-​Basten points out that the rapid decline in family size and increased aging of the population has occurred while social norms and values concerning intergenerational responsibilities have been slower to change. Under these circumstances the traditional filial obligation to care for parents has led to a “4-​2-​1” system for many (particularly in China), in which two parents end up caring for one child and two sets of grandparents. As mothers increasingly enter the labor force, the social and demographic trends in the East Asian territories create rising pressures on family resources and welfare state provisions for the long-​term care of older persons. Key Words: demography, family, East Asia, fertility, intergenerational

Introduction The idea of “continuity and change” in relation to the family over time is so well worn as to almost be taken as a given. However, in the case of Asia, it does represent a helpful means of understanding the ways in which the family has (and has not) transformed over the past four or five decades. In some aspects of family life, the region has seen a complete revolution. So much so that one could state that some changes have occurred faster and deeper than almost any other region on earth. On the other hand, certain aspects of family life seem to be remarkably resistant to change and appear, at least at first glance, to be much as they were a generation (or two) ago. In this chapter, I will explore some of the ways in which the family in East and Southeast Asia has changed (or not) in the context of broader social, economic, and political change. Of course, there is a wide literature on the determinants of these changes, which cannot be explored in depth in this overview chapter. It is, however, critical for the reader to be aware that these changes in the family are not the cause of other social changes or

(family) policy developments, nor are they caused by them. Rather, they are intrinsically embedded in these broader systems of society, politics, economy, and, critically, culture. Any attempt to disentangle them, or to determine causal mechanisms, will, inevitably, present a deterministic, two-​dimensional view of the processes of the family. In this sense, then, the chapter will be broadly descriptive in terms of the changes in family structure as brought about through demographic change to allow the reader to see these changes in the embedded context of other chapters in this book and, of course, in the broader literature. These “revolutions” in the shape and structure of the family have been brought about through contributing “revolutions” in fertility, marriage, mortality, and migration, which are considered in turn in the first substantive part of this chapter. After this, I will explore the consequences of these changes to the size and structure of the family in this part of the world—​with a focus on the question “Is the Asian family in ‘crisis’ ”? Asia is currently home to around 4.5 billion people. Its governmental ideologies range from liberal democracy through absolute monarchy to revolutionary socialism. It has some of the lowest and highest human development indicator measures, fertility rates, and life expectancies in the world (Basten 2016; UNDP 2019a, 2019b). Megacities, slums, tribal communities, ancient civilizations, and brand-​new regions—​it is little exaggeration to suggest that the whole world can be found in Asia. While, of course, social policy scholars will be very familiar with the development of family policy in South Korea, Japan, or China, it would be completely incorrect to say that “family policy” is only to be found in these parts of Asia. Indeed, across the continent the issue of family planning is a deeply contested topic, pushed back again to the forefront in the context of shifting political ideologies and demographic scare stories (Santhya 2003; Karamouzian, Sharifi, and Haghdoost 2014; Yılmaz 2015). However, in this chapter we will focus on six territories in East and Southeast Asia: Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. The reason for this focus is purely practical. Each of these share some common demographic characteristics (e.g., low fertility, a rapidly aging population), as well as some similarities in levels of development, an industrial/​ postindustrial economic base, and advanced governance and policy infrastructure. While China is an outlier in terms of political systems and range of development between provinces, the concern over the demographic state of the country means that a comparative approach can be justified. Unless otherwise specified, the data in this chapter are derived from the 2019 Revision of the United Nations’ World Population Prospects (UNPD 2019b). Changing Family Structures and Roles Childbearing Figure 2.1 shows perhaps the most dramatic manner in which some element of the familial experience has changed. The total fertility rate is a synthetic period measure that indicates the number of children a woman would have in the course of her life if the

56

S t ua rt Gietel-Basten

7 6 5

TFR

4 3 2 1

19 60 –1 96 5 19 65 –1 97 0 19 70 –1 97 5 19 75 –1 98 0 19 80 –1 98 5 19 85 –1 99 0 19 90 –1 99 5 19 95 –2 00 0 20 00 –2 00 5 20 05 –2 01 0 20 10 –2 01 5 20 15 –2 02 0

0

China Japan

China, Hong Kong SAR China, Taiwan Province of China Republic of Korea Singapore Western Europe

Figure 2.1  Period total fertility rates, six East and Southeast Asian territories, 1955–​2020  Source: UNDP (2019).

fertility rates observed at each age in the year in question remained unchanged. In the early 1960s, these fertility rates in all territories (apart from Japan) were above five children per woman, and in the case of China, above six. These figures collapsed over the following two decades to the extent that all territories reported fertility below the so-​ called replacement rate by the early 1990s (Basten 2016). Comprehensive family planning programs embedded within (generally) authoritarian state systems and a push for social and economic development form the general backdrop to these dramatic changes (Gietel-​ Basten 2019). While the history of birth control policies in China has been cited as the primary reason for fertility decline in the 1970s (Gietel-​Basten, Han, and Cheng 2019), the role of the “one-​child policy” in further pushing fertility down from the early 1980s is highly contested (Goodkind 2017; Wang et al. 2018). Japan is a notable exception to this time frame, as it had the sharpest fertility decline immediately after the Second World War, when fertility rates fell from around 4.5 in 1947 down to two children per woman by 1960 (Ogawa 2003). To get a comparative sense of the nature of this change, the total fertility rate for the UN region of Western Europe is plotted on the graph. At the start of the period, the total fertility rate for this region was 2.65—​with the country with the highest rate being the Netherlands at 3.2. Indeed, across all of Europe only Albania was posting similar fertility rates to what was seen in this part of Asia at this time. By the turn of the Millennium, though, all of these territories in East and Southeast Asia were posting fertility rates lower than those found in Western Europe.

Family Ch an ge in th e Con text of Social Changes in As ia

57

Indeed, the 21st century has been an era of a transition in these territories, with fertility rates rarely seen before in human history. Whether referred to as “lowest-​low” or “ultra-​ low” fertility, these rates are some of the very lowest in the world (Basten 2015; Billari and Kohler 2004). In recent years, different territories have been competing for the (possibly ignominious) title of the lowest fertility rate in the world. In the third quarter of 2019, it was announced that the total fertility rate of South Korea had fallen to 0.88. Of course, at the subnational level, even lower figures can be found—​such as 0.69 in Seoul (Kim 2019). Gaining reliable, replicable data for the fertility rates of contemporary China (and its recent history) is challenging (Lutz et al. 2007), and some have argued that actual fertility rates may well be much lower than those reported in official statistics (Guo, Gietel-​Basten, and Gu 2018). However, it is widely accepted that recent relaxations in birth control policies had relatively little impact on overall fertility rates, reflecting the challenges of childbearing in contemporary China (Gietel-​Basten 2019). These overall figures, however, can mask important variations in terms of how families are composed both within and across territories. Figure 2.2 shows the parity distribution for different birth cohorts over time for five of the territories under consideration in this chapter. The first immediate change we see is the marked decline in what might be called “larger” families of three or more children—​even though the “ideal number of children” across these territories is generally two or above (Gietel-​Basten 2019). While the two-​child family is certainly predominant in Japan, it is far from the case elsewhere—​accounting for around 40% in other territories. The percentage of one-​child families has increased over time, accounting for around 20% for the latest completed cohorts. Finally, childlessness has increased over time—​albeit with a sizeable range between different territories. Hong Kong currently has one of the highest childlessness rates in the world (Frejka, Jones, and Sardon 2010). For current incomplete cohorts, the evidence suggests that childlessness is, indeed, increasing, and that larger families are continuing to be numerically marginalized (Gietel-​Basten 2019). Of course, the circumstances in China are somewhat different. Contrary to popular belief, the one-​child family is not the only model of contemporary family structure in China. It might be thought that it is very straightforward to calculate just how many people were eligible to have two children in China. However, given the myriad configurations of policy allowances mentioned above, coupled with the “challenging” nature of working with Chinese demographic data, such an exercise is fraught with difficulties. The last serious attempt at this was performed in the late 1990s, where Gu et al. (2007) estimated that 35.4% of the population was covered by a “one-​child policy,” which equated to 438.83 million people. A further 53.6% (or 664.4 million) were covered by the “1.5 children policy,” where rural couples whose first child was female could apply to have a second birth. Some 9.7% (or 20.24 million) were covered by a two-​child policy, while 1.3% (16.12 million) were covered by a three-​child policy. In the 1990s, then, rather than being universal, the “one-​child policy” as such only covered around one-​third of the population.

58

S t ua rt Gietel-Basten

0 Children

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

0.8 Proportion of women with X children

Proportion of women with X children

0.8

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

19 1935 1938 1941 1944 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 19 71 74

19 1935 1938 1941 1944 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 19 71 74

0.8

0.8

2 Children

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

3 Children

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

0.8

19 1935 1938 1941 1944 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 19 71 74

0

19 1935 1938 1941 1944 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 19 71 74

0

Proportion of women with X children

0.6

0

Proportion of women with X children

Proportion of women with X children

0

1 Child

0.7

4+ Children

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

19 1935 1938 1941 1944 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 19 71 74

0

HK

JP

SK

TW

SG

Figure 2.2  Proportion of women with x number of children, completed childbearing cohorts, six East and Southeast Asian territories, 1955–​2020  Source: Adapted, with permission, from the data behind Figure 5 (Frejka, Jones, and Sardon, 2010).

Figure 2.3 adds a further dimension to the picture of the transformation of the family in these six territories. The figure shows the age-​specific fertility rates (ASFRs) for women at four time periods, separated by two decades. Of course, the most immediately striking change over time is the shrinking of the space beneath the curve. This reflects the precipitous decline in overall fertility rates discussed above. However, perhaps the most significant insight from this graph is the change in the ages at which childbearing is

Family Ch an ge in th e Con text of Social Changes in As ia

59

350

250

300 Age specific fertility rates

Age specific fertility rates

300

200 150 100 50 0

50 15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 HK 1955–1960 HK 1995–2000

Age specific fertility rates

Age specific fertility rates

100

300 250 200 150 100 50

200 150 100 50 0

15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 Taiwan 1955–1960 Taiwan 1995–2000

15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 Japan 1955–1960 Japan 1995–2000

Taiwan 1975–1980 Taiwan 2015–2020

400

350

350 Age specific fertility rates

400

300 250 200 150 100 50 0

HK 1975–1980 HK 2015–2020

250

350

Age specific fertility rates

150

China 1975–1980 China 2015–2020

400

0

200

0

15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 China 1955–1960 China 1995–2000

250

15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 S Korea 1955–1960 S Korea 1995–2000

S Korea 1975–1980 S Korea 2015–2020

Japan 1975–1980 Japan 2015–2020

300 250 200 150 100 50 0

15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 Singapore 1955–1960 Singapore 1995–2000

Singapore 1975–1980 Singapore 2015–2020

Figure 2.3  Age-​specific fertility rates, six East and Southeast Asian territories, 1955–​2020  Source: UNDP (2019).

occurring. Teenage fertility has now almost completely disappeared across the territories. Furthermore, childbearing in the early 20s (with the exception of Mainland China) is now also a relatively rare occurrence. In Taiwan in 1975, the average age of women at first birth was 22.9. By 2018 this had risen to 30.9 (ROC Ministry of the Interior 2018). In Hong Kong in the 1950s, for example, the ratio between ASFR at age 20–​24 and 40–​44 was greater than 5:1; now it is just under 1.5:1. In all territories (again, apart from China), the “peak” fertility rates can be found in the early 30s. An allied measure is the age of first birth. Between 1986 and 2018 in Hong Kong, this rose from 26.6 to 31.8 (Census and

60

S t ua rt Gietel-Basten

Statistics Department 2019). China is characterized by earlier childbearing, but this pattern is changing rapidly as age of first birth rapidly increases (Zhao and Kohler 2016). Marriage So far, we have seen a true revolution in the sphere of fertility: in terms of the number of children, the predominance of different (demographic) family forms, and the timing of childbirth. However, in the field of marriage we see a rather more complex picture. To be sure, there has been a matching revolutionary change in the timing of marriage as there has been in terms of childbearing. The age of first marriage in all territories has increased dramatically. In Taiwan in the early 1970s, the mean age at first marriage for brides was just over 22 years old. In 2018 it was 30.2 (ROC Ministry of the Interior 2018). In Japan the age at first marriage rose from 23.8 and 26.6 for women and men, respectively, in 1955 up to 29.4 and 31.1 in 2020 (Statista, 2020). In China the ages of first marriage are lower (around 24 for females and 26 for males in 2010), but the transformation is still very striking—​although changes in the age permitted to marry affected some of these trends over time (Xu 2019). In addition, as this revolution in the age structure of marriage, we have also seen a change in the overall proclivity to marry altogether—​although this is highly differential across the territories (Raymo et al. 2015). Figure 2.4 shows the percentage of never-​married men and women at age 50 for five territories in the region. Again, we clearly see that marriage is a near universal phenomenon for both men and women in China (although there is certainly a modest increase over time into the present (Wei, Jiang, and Basten 2013). However, the percentage of unmarried men and women at age 50 in the other territories is steadily increasing. For women in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, around 15% of women and men remain unmarried at age 50, while the figures are much lower for South Korea—​though these figures have shown a constantly rising trend over the past decades. In Japan, meanwhile, fully one-​quarter of men at age 50 remain unmarried. Of course, the link between these changes in marriage patterns closely mirrors the changes in fertility discussed earlier. This leads us to, perhaps, the first major common element of a stubborn continuity that appears highly resistant to change: the link between marriage and childbearing. In contrast to many settings in Europe, the overwhelming majority of births in these Asian territories occur within marriage. In contemporary Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, the percentage of births occurring outside of marriage is around 2–​6% (compared to more than 60% in France and over 70% in Iceland and Chile (OECD 2018). It is likely that figures from China are in the same ballpark—​or possibly even lower. In Hong Kong these figures are a little higher, but at around 8% they still represent a very small proportion of all births. Despite this, there are still some notable changes in the link between marriage and childbearing. Childbearing outside of marriage is not only associated with a continuing social stigma (Hertog 2009), but the legal rights of such children are often less than those born in marriage (Gietel-​Basten

Family Ch an ge in th e Con text of Social Changes in As ia

61

Men 30% 25% Japan 20% 15% 10%

Taiwan Hong Kong

5% 0%

China

Korea 1970

1975

1980 1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2010

Women 20% 18% 16% 14% 12% 10%

Hong Kong

8%

Taiwan

6%

Japan

4%

Korea

2%

China

0% 1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1985 2000

2005

2010

2010

Figure 2.4  Percentages of never-​married men and women at age 50, six East and Southeast Asian territories, 1955–​2020  Data source: Statistical yearbooks and UN databases.

and Verropoulou 2018). While the number of births outside of marriage remains very low (Gietel-​Basten and Verropoulou 2021), various studies have shown that the number of “bridal pregnancies” (where birth occurs within eight months of marriage) have been increasing (Gietel-​Basten and Verropoulou 2018; Raymo and Iwasawa 2008). It would be incorrect to describe these as “shotgun marriages,” as this only suggests the key role of the broader family in forcing a marriage. Rather, for some, this represents just another chosen pathway to family formation (Raymo et al. 2015). A second notable change is a significant increase in the percentages of men and women who have ever cohabited (linked, perhaps in part, to the changes in bridal pregnancies). Among the 1980–​1984 birth cohort, between 25–​30% of men and women in Japan and Taiwan had lived in a cohabiting relationship (Tsuya 2006). In China, meanwhile, cohabitation has become a “prelude” to an ever growing number of marriages (Zhang 2017). This latter point emphasizes the fact

62

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that cohabitation is still intrinsically linked to the marriage process, rather than an alternative lifestyle within which childbearing can occur (Lesthaeghe 2014). Finally, a word on sexuality. In 2019, Taiwan became the first territory in Asia to legalize same-​sex marriage, following a protracted legal and ideological fight (Ho 2019). It has been argued that this landmark change was brought about by the interaction of the “robust democracy, judicial activism, commitment to constitutionalism . . . and existence of . . . vibrant LGBT communities” on the island (Kuan 2019, 593). Of course, it is too soon to assess the demographic impact of this change on Taiwan, but the cultural impact is clear in terms of a clear shift away from the heteronormative framework that has dominated marriage and the family for centuries. Elsewhere in the region, changes are occurring in terms of the rights of gender and sexual minorities to actualize a family life of their choosing. In Japan some localities have begun recognizing the legal rights of same-​ sex couples (Imahashi, 2019). In China progress is being made in certain aspects of such rights and in the development of gay and lesbian communities (Chiang 2019). There are even some intimations of a move toward granting some relaxations in the strict marriage laws (Liu and Zhu 2020). Yet while advances are occurring, they are not without their discontents (and steps backward). In Hong Kong, for example, legal changes that ensure certain rights for same-​sex couples face a constant battle. Given the history of marriage customs in Hong Kong, and the relatively recent transition to a fully ‘westernised’ conceptualization of marriage a degree, this might be an example what Eric Hobsbawm referred to as an “invention of tradition” (Marco 2020). In other words, we can probably state that we are only at the very beginning of the formal/​institutional changes in terms of the link between heterosexual relations, marriage, and family formation. Mortality The final demographic revolution we must consider relates to mortality. Table 2.1 shows some of the key mortality indicators for the six territories over the past 60 years at two-​decade intervals. Perhaps the most well-​known, and immediately striking, change is the revolution in life expectancy at birth (e0). Over this period, life expectancy at birth in China and South Korea gained around three decades, while the other territories saw an increase of around two decades. Some of these territories now have the highest life expectancies in the world. Indeed, when considered by gender, and at the subnational level, the figures grow even higher. This remarkable figure, however, masks the changes in the composition of mortality over time. Table 2.1 next shows the infant mortality rates (IMR) for the six territories—​the number of deaths before age one for every 1,000 births. We can see that in the mid-​20th century, infant death was a common occurrence among families across the region. In Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, roughly 1 in 20 children died before their first birthday, while in South Korea it was 1 in 10 and in China around 1 in 6. Closely linked to this would be the higher rates of maternal mortality during the same period (Hull and Hosseini-​Chavoshi 2017). In China in 1949, for example, the

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63

Table 2.1  Life expectancy at birth (e0), infant mortality rates (IMR), survivorship to age 60 (l60), and life expectancy at age 60 (e60), six East and South-​East Asian territories, 1955–​2020 China

Hong Kong

Taiwan

Japan

South Korea

Singapore

e0

IMR

l60

e60

1955–​1960

44.5

143.5

40 845

10.64

1975–​1980

65.5

57.5

76 409

16.11

1995–​2000

70.6

36.1

83 446

17.79

2015–​2020

76.6

10.0

90 831

20.21

1955–​1960

65.8

48.1

73 710

16.90

1975–​1980

73.7

13.1

84 944

19.18

1995–​2000

80.0

3.6

92 101

22.95

2015–​2020

84.6

1.3

95 044

26.63

1955–​1960

62.9

60.0

69 950

16.01

1975–​1980

70.8

11.3

81 681

17.15

1995–​2000

75.2

6.8

86 178

20.35

2015–​2020

80.2

3.7

90 459

23.93

1955–​1960

66.4

37.3

75 619

16.22

1975–​1980

75.4

8.5

88 249

19.79

1995–​2000

80.5

3.7

91 931

23.66

2015–​2020

84.4

1.8

94 405

26.73

1955–​1960

52.8

102.5

55 863

11.74

1975–​1980

65.0

34.6

70 921

16.20

1995–​2000

74.9

6.9

86 047

19.97

2015–​2020

82.8

2.1

93 958

25.15

1955–​1960

63.9

44.8

71 128

14.88

1975–​1980

71.0

13.0

82 397

16.89

1995–​2000

77.0

3.7

90 213

20.34

2015–​2020

83.4

1.6

94 834

25.35

Source: UNDP (2019).

maternal mortality rate was around 1,500 deaths per 100,000 deliveries (Di, Yang, and Jin 2017). Over time we can see that these figures have transformed and infant death is now a very rare occurrence (at the population level). Indeed, the figures for Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan are among the very lowest in the world (compared, for example, to 5.9 in 2015–​2020 for the United States). We can see, then, that infant (and maternal) death is no longer a common feature of the family experience in these settings. Such changes were brought about through medical innovation, changing epidemiological conditions, improvements in personal/​public health and sanitation, and other aspects of economic and social development (You, Hug, and Hill 2017). In classical demographic transition theory, this is then linked through to (reinforce) declines in

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fertility—​although these mechanisms and causal pathways are contested (Cleland and Wilson 1987; Weeks 2008). The idea of “mortality transition” posits that improvements in survival begin first with the very youngest (i.e., a reduction in stillbirths) through improvements in infant and child mortality into adulthood and, eventually, reductions in old age mortality (Zhao and Kinfu 2005). The theoretical endpoint of this transition has been suggested to be a “rectangularization of the life table,” where survival to “old age” is almost universal and death is concentrated in some (ill-​defined) time frame (Manton and Tolley 1991). This is accompanied by an “epidemiological transition,” by which the diseases that cause mortality shift from pestilence and famine to lifestyle-​related, chronic diseases (Omran 1971). This links into another contested area regarding whether morbidity is compressing or expanding as life expectancy increases (Crimmins and Beltrán-​Sánchez 2011). All of the above are highly contested and complex debates and issues. All we can do here is cover some of the less contested features of the aging landscape in these Asian territories and point the reader to literature elsewhere. As Table 2.1 shows, there has undoubtedly been a revolution in both survival to old age and longevity at older ages. The fourth column (l60) shows the theoretical number of survivors from 100,000 births at age 60.1 In the mid-​20th century, survival to “older age” was only a minority experience in China, experienced by around half of the population in South Korea, and by seven-​tenths in the other territories. Now, however, it is almost a universal experience, with more than 90% surviving to age 60 in all territories, rising to over 95% in Hong Kong. Extending this, we see that more than 70% would survive to age 80 in Hong Kong and Japan and almost 40% to age 90. We also see that life expectancy at age 60 (represented as e60 in Table 2.1) also increases—​in most cases gaining around 10 years, and in the case of South Korea a remarkable 14 years (Gu et al. 2013, 2017) –​as well as health and other measures of human capital (Lutz, Gietel-​Basten & Marois 2021). Another interpretation is to say that a 60-​year-​old has changed beyond all recognition over time (Scherbov, Sanderson, and Gietel-​Basten 2016). In other words, more people are surviving to some definition of older age, and they are surviving for longer. (For a more macro interpretation of the measures of aging, see Gietel-​Basten, Scherbov, and Sanderson 2015; Mai, Peng, and Chen 2013; Phillips 2000; Scherbov, Sanderson, and Gietel-​Basten 2016). These headline figures, however, mask some important changes. As already mentioned, there is much debate over the nature of ill-​health at older ages, and whether morbidity is compressing or expanding under conditions of longer life spans. Indeed, even the nature of the measures employed are themselves contested (Law and Yip 2003). Despite this, it is fair to say that long-​term, chronic illnesses in older age are 1 Age 60 is chosen as it is a commonly used UN definition of “old age.” This is deeply problematic for a number of reasons, but it is only illustrative in purpose here.

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an increasingly common feature of the family landscape in these Asian territories (Mathers 2017; Zhao and Kinfu 2005). Alzheimer’s disease has seen sharp increases across the region, and this trend is anticipated to continue into the future (Brookmeyer et al. 2007). A final observation regarding these processes of change in older age in the family is that they are not gender-​neutral. In common with other parts of the world, females in the territories covered here report longer life expectancies than males (Gu et al. 2013; Yu and Zhao 2017). In China, for example, female life expectancy at birth is fully five years greater than that of males (2015–​2020). This translates into highly skewed sex ratios at older ages (Davidson, DiGiacomo, and McGrath 2011), with many more females than males. In the territories under observation, there are between 50 and 70 males per 100 females aged above 80. However, because of a lifetime of disadvantage (relative to males), female health in older age is often worse than male health. This circumstance in older age has sometimes been characterized as “dead men, unhealthy women.” Either way, the growing presence of longer-​term chronic illnesses (especially among women) is, again, another significant feature in the landscape of the family in these Asian territories. In the next section, we will explore why this matters. Before moving on to the issue of family roles, it is important to mention one very particular interaction between mortality and fertility that has profoundly shaped the family in some of these territories over the past decades—​and may well shape the marriage market in years to come. As I will discuss in the next section, a profound inequality in gender roles has long existed (and continues to do so). One of the most extreme manifestations of this takes the form of son preference being actuated through sex-​selective abortion. This “sex ratio transition” (Guilmoto 2009) occurred in South Korea and Taiwan, where the sex ratio at birth increased sharply, then declined (Park and Cho 1995). Despite this, there is still a lingering preference for sons, at least in terms of parity-​specific fertility intentions (Basten and Verropoulou 2015; Gietel-​Basten 2018). China, on the other hand, has seen a dramatic increase in the sex ratio at birth over the past three decades, reaching the highest in the world at up to 120 boys born per 100 females (Basten 2012; Basten et al. 2013)—​although the figures are contested (Goodkind 2011). It has been suggested that this skewed sex ratio was exacerbated by gender-​specific components of the country’s birth control policies (Zhu, Lu, and Hesketh 2009). The consequence of this is that there are many millions of excess males—​perhaps 20 million or more—​who may struggle to find females to form couples with (and have, elsewhere, been linked to other potential social problems) (Basten 2012; Poston and Glover 2005). Finally, this skewed sex ratio spilled over into Hong Kong, where the sex ratio increased dramatically in recent years—​however, this was almost exclusively a consequence of mainland mothers giving birth in the territory and returning home (Basten and Verropoulou 2013; Gietel-​ Basten and Verropoulou 2019).

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Migration Clearly, migration forms a central component of demographic change, and it is one that affects the familial landscape in territories across the region—​arguably in quite different ways. Because of the size of China, the role of international migration in the family experience is very modest. Internal migration, however, is a very significant component—​ with recent estimates of the “floating population” within the countries being well over 200 million (Liang, Li, and Ma 2014). As a consequence of the hukou system of household registration, migrants (and their families) are often subject to poorer conditions, wage discrimination, and access to local services (such as education and health) than “native-​born” citizens (Young 2013; Afridi, Li, and Ren 2015). In former years, the predominant model of migration was sole or couple-​migration moving, potentially leaving children at home with family. This notion of “left-​behind children” was linked to a variety of negative social outcomes for both children and their (elderly) caregivers (Jingzhong and Lu 2011). (A related concept is that of the “astronaut family” practiced by [predominantly] Hong Kong and Taiwanese business and professional families and manifested in immigrant gateway cities such as Vancouver, Sydney, and Auckland [Waters, 2002]). However, recent studies have suggested that this model is being supplanted by a nuclear-​family arrangement, where spouse and children join the “pioneer migrant” at the host location (Fan and Li 2019). Despite this, the issue of migrant family rights and hukou reform is still the subject of ongoing discussion in China (Zhang, Wang, and Lu 2019). Finally, a peculiar form of family arrangement occurs across the Hong Kong-​Shenzhen border, where thousands of children born in Hong Kong to Mainland mothers commute daily to attend school across the border. These children effectively hold the right of abode in Hong Kong and it is highly uncertain as to how their future living arrangements will develop (Gietel-​Basten and Verropoulou 2019). Furthermore, as China, Macao, and Hong Kong develop the “Greater Bay Area” initiative, which is designed to integrate this mega-​region, it is possible that mobility in the region could also increase in the future. A second form of migration that has shaped the family in some of these territories is marriage migration (Yeung and Mu 2019). However, the notion is rather heterogeneous in nature. For some people in some territories (especially for men from a lower social strata in South Korea and Taiwan), this migration is a consequence of the skewed sex ratios mentioned earlier, but also linked to a mismatch in expectations of gender roles (Davin 2007). For incoming women (who are predominantly from Southeast Asia, but also poorer parts of China), meanwhile, such marriages can operate as a means of escaping poverty and turbulence in their home countries (Hsia 2010). In Singapore, meanwhile, the fact that 40% of couples involve marriage to a foreigner perhaps reflects the city-​ state’s status as a more pluralist territory with greater levels of international migration (Yeung and Hu 2018). In Hong Kong the proximity to Guangdong Province and the preponderance of cross-​border working means a large number of marriages between local and Mainland men and women occur—​although the characteristics of this are changing

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over time, with greater homogamy occurring (Lin and Ma 2008). In other words, mixed backgrounds within families have become a more notable feature of the landscape in these territories through either marriage migration processes, or from migration more broadly. However these mechanisms operate, it is apparent that women who migrate for marriage in these territories usually find themselves in a highly vulnerable position (Davin 2007). A final aspect of change (in some territories) is the impact of domestic migrants in the household. In Hong Kong and Singapore in particular, migrant domestic workers (MDWs) have become a mainstay of childcare and domestic work in recent decades. In Hong Kong and Singapore, respectively, 15% and 19% of households hire an MDW (Enrich HK 2019). As populations age, and responsibility for care continues to reside within the household (as we will explore below), demand for MDWs to care for older people has increased. In recent years, the number of MDWs in other settings, such as Taiwan and Japan, has increased notably (Lin and Bélanger 2012; Islam and Cojocaru 2016). To conclude: with the possible exception of Hong Kong and Singapore, the territories under exploration here have the popular characterization of being largely insulated from migration processes, with a cultural homogeneity resulting from relatively little international migration. However, through a variety of processes, both internal and international migration have shaped and affected a significant proportion of families in the region. Is the Modern Family in “Crisis”? The previous section sought to provide an overall outline of the changes in the size, structure, and composition of the family over the past six decades or so in six territories in East and Southeast Asia. In many ways, the change has been revolutionary; in others, more gradual and incomplete. But what of the role of the family unit itself, and those within it? A common misconception is to imagine all family patterns in East and Southeast Asia as conforming to the same historical pattern—​broadly associated with a Confucian system. The reality, of course, is that the historical experience of the family pattern is just as diverse as the modern one—​perhaps even more so. In terms of the ideology of filial piety, kinship groups, inheritance practices, household structure, position of women, marriage practices, and levels of non-​kin trust, the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean family patterns share a complex mix of differences and similarities (Suzuki 2013). As a sweeping generalization, though, we can posit that Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean families are the offspring of Confucian families, while Japanese families (broadly akin to their European counterparts) are the offspring of feudal families (Suzuki 2019). Of course, across the region the “modernization of the family” has occurred in ways beyond simply the growing trends in the nuclearization of the family (Esteve and Liu 2017). Marital homogamy has increased and partner choice is an (almost) free choice (Jones 2010); divorce and remarriage are increasingly part of the marital landscape, as is cohabitation (in a rather restricted manner) (Dommaraju and Jones 2011; Jones 2015);

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female education attainment often now outranks that of males (Bauer et al. 2012); and a revolution in female labor force participation has transformed the public sphere roles of women (Brinton 2001; OECD 2011). Attitudes among citizens—​especially younger people—​toward cohabitation, same-​sex marriages, and gender equality at home and the workplace are markedly different from those of their forebears (Gietel-​Basten 2020). Despite this, there is still a remarkable continuity and tension in the modern family in these territories. Filial piety—​or at least an obligation on the part of the family to care for parents—​is still very much alive and well in both family decisions and the view of the state (Zhan and Montgomery 2003). Despite this pressure, commentators (usually male, older, or both) have bemoaned the “social recession” by which citizens (usually named as women) eschew their intergenerational responsibilities and heritage to pursue a reckless, selfish, individualist, Western lifestyle (Gietel-​Basten 2019, chap. 2). Demographic pressures add to these familial expectations. In Mainland China, the “4-​2-​1” system, where two parents need to take care of one child and two sets of (grand)parents, is a striking example of this (Liang 2004). Of course, this care is highly gendered. It is often said that there is an “incomplete gender revolution” (Esping-​Andersen 2009) of gender roles, where expectations in the private sphere have not caught up with those in the public sphere. Time-​use surveys tell us that domestic work and childcare (as well as eldercare) are primarily the burden of women—​often to an egregious degree (Freeman et al. 2018). In South Korea and Japan, for example, women’s work accounted for 85% of all time spent on housework in 2016—​ although this was down from more than 95% just a few decades earlier (Cheng 2020). (Arguably, it would also be fair to say that the gender revolution is “doubly incomplete” in the presence of rampant gender inequality in the workplace, but that is beyond our scope here) (Gietel-​Basten 2020). It is in this context that we can see the very low fertility rates in these territories. Evidence from fertility preferences show that there is no substantive change in the desire to have children among either men or women (Gietel-​Basten 2019, chap. 4). Rather, it has often been argued that women in the region are not so much rejecting children and childbearing, but rather the “marriage package” as a whole (Jones 2005; Raymo et al. 2015)—​encompassing a blend of filial rights and other intergenerational roles, domestic work, and childbearing within a broader constellation of unequal responsibility (Jones and Gubhaju 2009; Raymo et al. 2015). In more technical terms, we can say that there is a “neopatriarchal hierarchy that regulates the complex (re)production of domestic gender inequalities in the Chinese family” (Hu 2018, 310)—​and beyond. Yet there is an overwhelming sense that families (and women) themselves are to blame for this state of affairs. Younger generations are written off as feckless, sexless, and selfish. Wombs become the location of crude policies designed (bizarrely) to offset population aging. Single people are referred to as “a national security threat.” Yet while young people are castigated for not “getting on with it” and starting a family, they themselves feel a

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tremendous sense of hesitation, anxiety, and trepidation about taking on such responsibilities. The costs of setting up a home—​even of a wedding ceremony itself—​become ever greater, and multiply exponentially under the conditions of a fragile labor market. In this sense, then, the very low fertility rates (and the gap between these rates and the aspirations) are the consequence of the malfunctioning of various institutions that do not allow for the aspiration of these forms of family formation. Part of this relates to work culture, part to rigid attitudes about gender roles, and part to the legacy of (productivist) welfare systems. Rather than the hysteria over the consequences of low fertility, then, it is perhaps in these mechanisms that the “crisis” in the modern East Asian family can be found. While this low fertility–​population aging paradigm “hogs the headlines” in terms of the challenges of the modern Asian family, other issues lurk beneath the surface. As already mentioned, discrimination and unequal access to legal rights is a feature of many families deemed to be “nontraditional”—​formed through migration, one-​parent families, and so on (Davin 2007; Jean Yeung and Park 2016). Crucially, these “nontraditional” families are associated with lower incomes (rather than a Second Demographic Transition–​style rejection of traditional roles) (Gietel-​Basten and Verropoulou 2018; Lesthaeghe 2014), thus creating multiple layers of vulnerability. If a growing trend toward a kind of pluralism increases, then addressing the needs of such families—​and redressing imbalances—​ will be a key challenge. The changing age profile of childbearing means that there is a fundamental reshaping of when demographic events occur (i.e., at what stage in career development). In addition, this trend in the rising age of birth has profound biological consequences linked through to policies relating to assisted reproductive technology and its regulation (Takeshita et al. 2003). A further major challenge lies in the sustainability of the current models of care allocation—​whether for children or older persons. Current long-​term care models are profoundly based upon individual responsibility and intrafamilial allocation of care. Formal long-​term care systems across the regions are very much underdeveloped (Fu and Hughes 2009), whether in terms of insurance (Maags 2020) or institutional care (Feng et al. 2012; Peng and Yeandle 2017). In such a relative vacuum, the family takes a primary burden of responsibility. However, changing attitudes toward long-​term care among older persons themselves (Zhan et al. 2006), as well as a reshaping of traditional notions of filial piety and intergenerational relations (Yeh et al. 2013; Lin and Yi 2013; Yi 2013)—​often mediated by changing views of gendered norms—​means that the sustainability of the current system is not guaranteed. High personal savings rates in some territories are indicative of a general switch toward individual responsibility rather than reliance on other kin members (Feng et al. 2011). As already mentioned, migration may well increasingly feature in this changing world of care (Peng 2018). The Hong Kong model of employing migrant domestic workers to care for children within a household is being expanded in the territory to encompass the growing need for eldercare. Indeed, this expansion appears to be at the core of the

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territory’s future plans for managing long-​term care (Enrich HK 2019; Varsity 2019). There is evidence that this expansion of the migrant care sector is also occurring elsewhere in the region, for example in Taiwan and Japan (Islam and Cojocaru 2016; Lin and Bélanger 2012). This model is, arguably, a continuation of the “do-​it-​yourself ” approach to long-​term care (Ogawa 2014), in which the state eschews any responsibilities as provider of care or support to either the recipient or the care provider (Huang and Yeoh 1996). This, however, does not come without its disadvantages. Issues relating to lack of adequate training and recognition are often raised (SCMP 2018), and training efforts by the government have been small-​scale and piecemeal (HKSAR Government/​HKU 2020). Expansion of care in this sector also raises issues about the role of the migrant carer in the family—​especially under the current conditions where “living-​in” is required—​under the conditions of the “privatized sphere of homespace” (Yeoh and Huang 2010). Under these conditions, it has been suggested that there is “a kin-​like relationship [which develops] between [migrant domestic workers] and older people with emotional reciprocity grounded in moral values” (Ho et al. 2018). A further issue relates to the removal of care resources from one location and its implantation in another (Dumitru 2014). In China, meanwhile, it is estimated that there are some 20 million domestic workers, many of which are internal migrants (ILO 2019). A recent ILO–​International Organization for Migration report highlighted a number of important challenges in this sector, including access to rights, labor protection standards, and integration with society (Liu 2017). As demand grows for such care, and supply may be squeezed through the slowdown of population growth in traditional sending countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia, it is possible that existing (and nascent) modes of care based on migration may struggle to grow in the next decades (unless alternative sending countries are identified and developed). The radical changing of the family form will also have profound long-​term implications for the family. In societies where the family plays such a critical role in functional, financial, and social support in older age, what will be the experience of the ever-​growing number of childless (and lifelong single) men and women in the region (Rubinstein 1987; Wu 2004)? More broadly, as the disease burden shifts to longer-​term, chronic complex care needs, and with little sense that the state will step in to play a major role, how will families manage to shoulder these extra burdens in terms of time and resources—​especially if they remain as gendered as they have been? Conclusion Chen and Li (2014, 61) recently concluded that “despite astonishing economic development and modernization, the state-​of-​the-​art literature seems to suggest that family will [retain] its central role in dominating people’s lives in East Asian societies, yet hopefully with a less patriarchal and more equal outlook.” It is surely the case that the family does remain a dominant feature in the lives of men and women in the six territories covered in this chapter. The shape, size, and demographic experience of such families have changed

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almost beyond recognition over the past six decades. The territories have some of the lowest fertility rates and the longest life expectancies in the world. They are grappling with demographic “problems” that would have been unimaginable three decades ago—​of trying to offset population decline rather than how to slow population growth. In many ways, though, there has been a “two-​speed” change in family systems. Attitudes toward gender roles, the sharing of responsibility for care, the link between marriage and childbearing, migrants and their role in society—​all of these have been slow to change, and appear remarkably out of step with what appears, at first sight, to be remarkably (post)modern demographic and economic regimes. We might say that the “compressed modernity” (Chang 2010) that the region has gone through over the past few decades has reshaped the “hardware” (namely the shape and structure of the family) but much less so the “software” (namely the functioning and operation of the family). Without doubt, the attitudes of Millennials and Gen Z’ers in relation to more balanced gender roles at home and at work are more progressive than those of their forebears, as well as holding a more flexible view of the family, sexuality, and so on. Whether or not these attitudes translate into families in these Asian territories transforming into ones with, as Chen and Li put it, “a less patriarchal and more equal outlook” remains to be seen. References Afridi, F., S. X. Li, and Y. Ren. 2015. “Social Identity and Inequality: The Impact of China’s Hukou System.” Journal of Public Economics 123: 17–​29. Basten, Stuart. 2012. “Family Planning Restrictions and a Generation of Excess Males: Analysis of National and Provincial Data from the 2010 Census of China.” Oxford Centre for Population Research Working Papers. Oxford: University of Oxford. http://​pap​ers.ssrn.com/​sol3/​pap​ers.cfm?abstr​act%7B_​%7Did=​2202​738. Basten, Stuart. 2015. “Understanding Ultra-​Low Fertility in Hong Kong.” In Low and Lower Fertility: Variations across Developed Countries, edited by R. R. Rindfuss and M. K. Choe, 63–​86. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Basten, Stuart. 2016. “Fertility Decline.” In Routledge Handbook of Asian Demography, edited by Z. Zhao and A. Hayes, 64–​86. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Basten, Stuart., Quanbao Jiang, Ying Li, and Xiujun Tai. 2013. “Effect of Children Composition on the Sex of Next Birth in the Context of Low Fertility in Rural China.” Oxford Centre for Population Research Working Papers. Oxford: University of Oxford. Basten, Stuart, and Georgia Verropoulou. 2013. “‘Maternity Migration’ and the Increased Sex Ratio at Birth in Hong Kong SAR.” Population Studies 67 (3): 323–​334. Basten, Stuart, and Georgia Verropoulou. 2015. “A Re-​interpretation of the ‘Two-​Child Norm’ in Post-​transitional Demographic Systems: Fertility Intentions in Taiwan.” PloS ONE 10 (8): 1–​16. Bauer, Ramon, Michela Potančoková, and Ann Goujon. 2012. “Populations for 171 Countries by Age, Sex, and Level of Education around 2010: Harmonized Estimates of the Baseline Data for the Wittgenstein Centre Projections.” IR-​12-​016. Laxenburg, Austria: IIASA. Billari, Francesco, and Hans-Peter Kohler. 2004. “Patterns of Low and Lowest-​Low Fertility in Europe.” Population Studies 58 (2): 161–​176. Brinton, Mary C. 2001. Women’s Working Lives in East Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Brookmeyer, Ron, Elizabeth Johnson, Kathryin Ziegler-​Graham, and H. Michael Arrighi. 2007. “Forecasting the Global Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease.” Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association 3 (3): 186–​191. Census and Statistics Department. 2019. Women and Men in Hong Kong–​Key Statistics. Hong Kong: Census and Statistics Department. https://​www.censt​atd.gov.hk/​hks​tat/​sub/​sp180.jsp?prod​uctC​ode=​B1130​303.

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C H A P T E R

3

 hanging Families in Europe: C Convergence or Divergence?

Manuela Naldini

Abstract Tracing the transformations in European family life from historical and comparative perspectives, Manuela Naldini distinguishes the patterns of change among five groups of countries: Scandinavian, English-​speaking, Continental Europe, Mediterranean, and Central-​Eastern Europe. These clusters represent not only different geographical regions, but alternative gender and welfare regimes as well. Naldini’s analysis of the trends and patterns from the 1960s to the present illustrates the lines of convergence and divergence among these regions in the changing dimensions of family life. These dimensions include rates of marriage, cohabitation, divorce and out-​of-​wedlock births, increasing labor force participation of women, norms governing sexual relations, “new family” forms, and revised timing of basic stages (marriage, childbirth, leaving home) in the family life cycle. She finds a number of common patterns among the countries, such as low fertility rates, increasing pluralization of family life, and later transitions from the parental home. At the same time, much diversity remains in family arrangements, such as the introduction of marriage equality. Key Words: family changes, convergence, divergence, pluralization of family life, welfare regimes

Introduction Over the last 60 years, the family in Europe has changed, profoundly and quickly. The first half of the 1960s was the end of what has been called the “Golden Age of Marriage” (Kuijsten 1996; Roussel 1992), when marriage and birth rates were extraordinarily high, marriage and parenthood were strongly linked, marital instability was rare, and the family was based on a clear division of roles: the man (husband and father) was the breadwinner and the woman did the housework. The “great” change started in Scandinavia and Northern Europe (Roussel 1992; Sobotka and Toulemon 2008) and gradually spread throughout the continent and the rest of Europe, at different paces and different times in the various European regions, cohorts, and social groups. The “classic” sequence followed by the conjugal family—​marriage, beginning of sexual relations, childbearing, death of a spouse, and widow-​or widowerhood—​has unraveled. Sexual relations have become disconnected from marriage and childbearing, for women

as well as men. The family and the couple no longer coincide; same-​sex marriage has subverted the norms that regulate marriage. Nowadays, there are many ways of becoming children and parents: biological, adoptive, social, and legal. This has also had a major impact on households, on who lives with whom. As for the forms that households now take, family sizes have shrunk everywhere in Europe, with trends toward fewer children and larger numbers of people living alone. In addition, there are fewer complex household structures, and a general increase in what are somewhat ambiguously called “the new families” (those cohabiting, same-​sex families, single-​parent families, migrant families, blended families). These are new ways of being a family (living together without marrying or as a same-​sex couple), both in terms of the rules and values involved, and because of the emergence of new stages in the individual and family life cycle, or the fact that stages that were once relatively rare (living alone in old age, following a separation, or before becoming a couple) have become more common. The values that guide the choices made by individuals, couples, and families have thus changed significantly. Family relationships, whether horizontal (in the couple) or vertical (in the relationships between generations), have been “democratized,” putting a greater emphasis on individual well-​being, independence and personal fulfillment, and the quality of the relationship (Giddens 1992). Social scientists tend to summarize these developments under the label of “individualization” when talking about diminishing institutional controls over individual’s people biographic decisions (Kuijsten 1996). Can we thus speak of a supposed convergence of demographic changes and family patterns across Europe? At the end of the 1980s, Roussel (1992) scrutinized demographic and family changes that had taken place in 16 European countries, finding signs of both convergence and divergence. Clustering the countries on the basis of fertility rate, cohabitation, divorce, and births out-​of-​wedlock he found low levels in the Southern European countries, high levels in the Nordic countries (with the exception of Norway), and different combinations between countries. The study, however, did not yet include Central-​ Eastern Europe. In the late 20th-​/​early 21st-​century period, a variety of ways of family life and of “doing” family coexist alongside the marriage-​based conjugal family. Taken together, demographic and family changes, and in particular the de-​standardization of life courses, the times, the paces and rhythms of transitions, the dwindling number of children, and the increase in divorces and separations, have brought about a “pluralization” of household and family patterns. Most European countries seem to have moved in the same direction in terms of family pluralization in what has been called “convergence to diversity” (Boh 1989, 296). As Boh pointed out, however, pluralization is a phenomenon and a process that contrasts with the notion of a convergence, as it can—​and in fact does—​take place in different directions and with varying intensity (Kuijsten 1996). It is a diversity that does not depend only on when and how fast these processes occur, but also on the opportunities or barriers

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presented by each country’s institutional, normative, and cultural context. We must not forget that patterns of family formation are matters of longue durée (Braudel 1980), which, however much they may shift, are nevertheless resistant even to radical changes in the political and social context (Therborn 2004). Taking a historical and comparative perspective, this chapter aims to illustrate the timing, pace, nature, and extent of family changes in Europe with regard to demographic trends and family formation patterns (leaving the parental home, partnership formation, and fertility patterns) from the mid-​1960s to the present. It will also seek to understand whether common trends toward convergence in new family patterns are emerging across Europe and, conversely, whether there continue to be considerable and persistent diversity in family patterns within Europe. What are the rhythms, the timing—​and the nature—​of family changes in Europe? Are we seeing a trend toward convergence emerging between Europe’s regions? Does longue durée diversity on the two sides of the imaginary line running from St. Petersburg to Trieste that, according to Hajnal (1965), separated the “Western” from the “Eastern” European family patterns still exist? Or rather, is there a division between the Southern and Northern European family systems (Reher 1998)? Family changes and the convergence or persistent diversity between countries and country clusters will be addressed in the light of the (unfinished) gender “revolution,” and in particular of women’s new but uneven participation in the European labor market and the role of social policies affecting family formation and childbearing. Given the broad swath of time and space we consider here, we will, whenever possible, take the importance of social context (i.e., specific institutional structures and policy settings, norms, values, and gender roles) into account by tracing the lines of convergence or divergence across Europe by grouping the countries into five country clusters. The clusters represent different geographical regions as well as different welfare and gender regimes. Hence, the five groups are the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), the English-​speaking countries (the United Kingdom and Ireland), Continental Europe (Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland), the Mediterranean countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain), and the countries of Central-​Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Poland, and Romania) (see Esping-​Andersen 1990; Olàh 2015; Naldini et al. 2016). This chapter is divided into three main parts. It begins by tracing the main lines of division in Europe, focusing on changes in family formation patterns from a life course perspective (leaving the parental home and partnership formation) and in the recognition of family diversity. The second section looks at changing family formation patterns, by focusing on the postponement of becoming parents as well as the greater opportunities for experiencing parenthood, and the parallel convergence toward declining birth rates. In the third section, convergence or divergence across Europe will be analyzed by taking

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into account women’s new but still uneven participation in the labor market and the role of social policies affecting family formation and fertility patterns across European regions. Transition to Adulthood and Family Formation Leaving the Parental Home: A Contrast between North and South Departure from the parental home is a key event in the life of a young adult, and is commonly seen as a precondition to living in a partnership and becoming a parent. Between the late 1980s and the 1990s, young people have prolonged their stay in the parental home, reflecting both the increase in years in education, and the difficulties of entering the labor market together with increasing level of insecurity. Though the trend can be seen across Europe, several studies (Billari and Kohler 2004; Iacovou 2002; Sobotka and Toulemon 2008) have found sharp differences in young people’s home-​leaving behavior between Northern and Southern European. Young people in the Mediterranean countries, and in Italy and Spain in particular, followed by Portugal and Greece, stay longest in their parents’ homes, and in the highest percentages. In this part of Europe, half or more of 25-​to 29-​year-​olds were still unmarried and living with their parents in the mid-​1990s (Rusconi 2006). The former Soviet bloc countries, which have only more recently been fully included in comparative surveys, are a heterogeneous geocultural area. If we look at the cohort of Central-​Eastern Europeans born around 1960, we see that they tend on average to leave the parental home earlier than their Italian or Spanish peers. However, the bloc is far from homogeneous, as we can see by comparing its 30-​year-​olds who still live with their parents: the percentages in Poland and Hungary are very similar to those in Spain and Italy. More generally, the differences in the life courses of people in their 30s in Southern Europe and in Eastern Europe seem to stem mostly from the subjective motivations behind choosing whether or not to become independent of their families. In the Eastern European countries, young people remain with their parents involuntarily, so to speak, largely because of a lack of housing (see Sobotka and Toulemon 2008, Table 1). By contrast, most young people in Italy and Spain report that they prefer to live with their families until they form one of their own. In Southern Europe, moreover, the main reason for leaving the parental home throughout the early years of the 21st century was marriage (Naldini 2003). We will return later to these first differences, which can be attributed to the long-​term differences in cultural models of the family and of intergenerational solidarity between the East and the West (Hajnal 1965), and between the North and South of Europe (Reher 1998), as well as to the effect of policies supporting young people’s independence. Cohabitation Today, in Europe, very few young couples move directly into marriage, and in many countries, the majority of first unions are now within cohabitation (Haavio-​Mannila and Rotkirch 2010; Nazio 2008; Wiik, Keizer, and Lappegard 2012). This type of solution—​to

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sentimental questions as well as practical housing matters—​is by no means a recent invention, but the meaning people assign to it and the social recognition and legitimacy it enjoys is something new. According to the “Second Demographic Transition” theory (Lesthaeghe 1995; van de Kaa 1987), the “cultural shift”—​connected with the processes of individualization and secularization—​which supposedly has swept through all Western societies since the mid-​1960s—​is the factor that has contributed most to the increase in cohabitation (and the decline of marriage). People’s expectations about the couple have changed, as have, more generally, the role and meaning of marriage. Once a “rite de passage,” it has become more of a “rite de confirmation” (Trost 1981), a possible alternative, a choice that not only can be postponed until the time is right, but can also be reversed when love has run its course. The ways and the reasons of family formation have thus changed, both because marriage is no longer the only way and because there is less asymmetry in the couple and more negotiation about how to become a couple. The transformations of intimacy (Giddens 1992) have also played a role, as the greater emphasis given to the couple’s “story,” the quality of the relationship, individual well-​ being, and the presence (and duration) of love has fueled the rise of couple relationships that are seen as more fluid and less binding, such as unmarried cohabitation or even “living apart together,” or LAT. In recent years, the increase in cohabitation among young people has also been attributed to the greater uncertainty faced by the “new generations” entering adulthood, given the impact of globalization on their employment and earning opportunities (Mills et al. 2005). Zimmermann and Konietzka (2018) found that de-​standardization in couple and family formation not only varies across countries, but is also more pronounced among young people with lower levels of education. Three main stages in the emergence of cohabitation have been identified (Nazio 2008; Sobotka and Toulemon 2008). The first is that of “diffusion,” when an increasing proportion of young adults decide to enter a consensual union, and this eventually becomes a majority practice. In the second stage, of “permanency,” cohabitation tends to last longer and less frequently results in marriage. Lastly, there is a third stage, in which cohabitation is itself considered “a family arrangement,” and pregnancy ceases to be a very strong determinant of marriage among cohabiting couples. During this third stage, childbearing outside wedlock becomes more frequent. In Europe as a whole, the first stage is the most common, with most cohabitations leading eventually to marriage, although the second and third stages are also frequent in Northern Europe. Cohabitation before and without marriage spread earlier and faster in the more secularized northern countries, the United Kingdom, and France, and then more slowly in the less secular countries or those that secularized later, as well as those where family networks are more important. In the former Soviet bloc, once-​rare cohabitations have risen sharply in countries such as Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, and Slovenia,

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where secularization has advanced furthest, but are still infrequent in Catholic Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia (Sobotka and Toulemon 2008). Though cohabitation is now the most common living arrangements to form a union in many countries, there are still pronounced differences between Europe’s geographic and cultural areas. Sizeable numbers of middle-​aged adults cohabit only in Scandinavia and France, and it is in these countries that we find the highest percentages of cohabiting couples with children. At the opposite pole we have the Mediterranean countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) and some countries in Eastern Europe (Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Poland), where the phenomenon, despite rapid growth in the past decade, is still limited (Eurofound 2019; Lappegård 2014). Marriage in Transition The spread of unmarried cohabitation, with or without children, marks a great change in marriage as a social institution, both for the couple and for childbearing. Marriage is still valued as a bond, a mark of prestige and a display of distinction, as Cherlin (2009) put it. Nevertheless, it is now less and less necessary as the basis for setting up a family: one can decide to wed or not to wed, and also to marry and then break up (Naldini 2017). Alongside the changes in marriage’s role and meaning, there has also been a decline and a postponement of marriage. Though marriages continued to be very high from the mid-​1960s to the early 1970s, the breakdown by age and cohort shows both a lower propensity to marry and a drop in the age at first marriage in many countries, and especially in Northern Europe. The mid-​1970s marked a turning point, slowing what until then had been a rise in marriage rates throughout Europe and dramatically reversing the uptrend in the Scandinavian countries. In the following decades, all of “Western” Europe seems to have followed Scandinavia’s example: first the Federal Republic of Germany and Switzerland, then the United Kingdom, and lastly France, Italy, and Spain. Lower marriage rates resulted in part from the spread of cohabitation as an alternative to marriage, and in part from a tendency to postpone the process of forming a family, or, in other words, from an increase in age at first marriage. In Mediterranean countries this change started a decade later than elsewhere, but from the 1990s onward it accelerated markedly. This was also true of the former Soviet bloc countries. Nevertheless, it is here on the marriage front that the imaginary line running from Trieste to St. Petersburg and separating the “Western” from the “Eastern” family model is still visible, not so much—​or not only—​in terms of the propensity to marry, as in mean age at first marriage. As can be seen from Figure 3.1, while Europeans in general are marrying older, Central-​Eastern European women still wed at a relatively early age. Thus, though nuptiality is dropping throughout Europe, its Central and Eastern reaches continue to stand apart.

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Mean age at first marriage for women, 1960–2019 34 32 30 28 26 24 22

Scandinavia

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19 20

15 20

10 20

05 20

00 20

95 19

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Figure 3.1  Mean age at first marriage for women in different country clusters, 1960–​2019  Source: Council of Europe (2004); Eurostat (Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://​ec.eur​opa.eu/​euros​tat/​data​brow​ser/​view/​tps00​ 014/​defa​ult/​table?lang=​en). Note: means for each group. Data are missing for Sweden 2005, Iceland 1960, 1965, 2015, Norway 2005 for Scandinavia; for Ireland 2000, 2019, UK 2005, 2010, 2019 for Anglo-​Saxon countries; for Italy 2015 for Mediterranean countries; for Belgium 2015, 2019, France 2019, Luxembourg 1960, 1965, Germany 2010, 2019, Austria 2010 for Continental countries; Poland 1960, 1965, Slovenia 1960, 1965, Slovakia 2005 for Central-​Eastern Europe.

Same-​Sex Marriage: The East/​West Divide The second major change in marriage came with the introduction of same-​sex, or equal, marriage. The fact that spouses no longer need to be of different sexes has subverted the norms that regulate the marriage from inside, and at the same time contributed to reframing the ways in which the family is both defined and created. Same-​sex marriage is also an epochal shift in the recognition of the rights of homosexual couples. But the forms of legal recognition of same-​sex couple relationships still differ widely, even in a single social and political space such as that occupied by the European Union member states. As Map 3.1 shows, the divisions run deep in how East and West, North and South grant legal recognition to family diversity. The Nordic and Central-​Western countries have been quicker to recognize the rights of same-​sex couples and also their rights to adopt a child, while those in Central-​Eastern and part of Southern Europe have been more reluctant to adapt to the “new” ways of being a family. Nevertheless, recent developments in recognizing the rights of same-​sex couples in countries such as Italy and Croatia have signaled the first halting steps toward convergence (Naldini and Long 2017). Becoming Parents Becoming parents is a crucial step in the life of the individual and the couple, not only because it marks a generational transition and turns the couple into a family,

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Map 3.1  Legislation on same-​sex couples in Europe in 2017 with the Hajnal line 

but also because it heralds a change that, unlike other steps in the life course (e.g., the first job, leaving the parental home, the first partnership union, marrying, and so forth) is no longer reversible. As for other pivotal choices that individuals and families make, how people decide to have children (or just one child) has changed dramatically. Three changes have been especially far-​reaching. First, whether to become parents has changed. Becoming a mother or father is no longer taken for granted, but stems from a “desire” and the new culture of “choice.” Likewise, when to become parents has changed. Not only do people become parents later than in the past, but they also have fewer children. Lastly, how people become parents has changed. We can become parents without being married, and continue to be parents when the parental couple is no longer together (Naldini 2015). Parental responsibilities can be shared with others, among an extended number of family or family-​like members, or shouldered alone. The increase in the ways of becoming parents has also been driven by technological innovations—​the advent of assisted reproductive techniques—​which have extended the ways in which people can have a child and multiplying the ways in which the status of parent or child can be achieved and experienced.

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Total fertility rates for different country clusters, 1960–2019 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5

19 6 19 0 6 19 2 6 19 4 6 19 6 6 19 8 7 19 0 72 19 7 19 4 7 19 6 78 19 8 19 0 8 19 2 84 19 8 19 6 8 19 8 9 19 0 9 19 2 9 19 4 9 19 6 9 20 8 0 20 0 0 20 2 04 20 0 20 6 0 20 8 1 20 0 12 20 1 20 4 1 20 6 18

1

Scandinavia

Anglosaxon

Mediterranean

Continental

Central-Eastern Europe

Figure 3.2  Total fertility rate for different European country clusters, 1960–​2019  Source: World Bank (Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://​data.worldb​ank.org/​indica​tor/​SP.DYN.TFRT.IN); Eurostat (Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://​ec.eur​opa.eu/​euros​tat/​data​brow​ser/​view/​tps00​199/​defa​ult/​table?lang=​en). Note: means for each group. Data are missing for Luxembourg in 1961 and 1963; for UK in 2019.

Fewer Children and Later Starting in the mid-​1960s, the exceptional rise in the number of children known as the “baby boom” was followed by a drop in fertility rates known as “baby bust” period. Though the decrease has affected some countries more than others, the fertility rate is now far beyond the replacement rate in Europe, that is, below 2.1 children per woman (see Figure 3.2). The decline was first apparent in Continental countries, and then in Western Europe and Scandinavia in the early 1970s. Southern Europe joined the low-​ fertility group later, in the early 1980s, followed by the Anglo-​Saxon countries and those of Central-​Eastern Europe. In most of the West, fertility rates sunk below, and in some cases far below, the population replacement rate. Billari and Kohler (2004) distinguish between low-​fertility and lowest-​low-​fertility countries (i.e., under 1.3 children per woman; see Figure 3.2). This distinction crosses—​ and blurs—​the imaginary line, from St. Petersburg to Trieste (Hajnal line), which has historically divided countries with regard to marriage and marriage rate, and thus fertility rate. On the one hand, the low-​fertility countries include both the Anglo-​Saxon and the Scandinavian and Central-​Western countries, with the notable exception of Germany. On the other hand, the lowest-​low-​fertility group includes the Mediterranean countries, Germany, and the Central-​Eastern countries. The latter are an interesting, and in certain respects unique, case. Though the mean age at first marriage here is still comparatively low,

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birth rates—​which were higher than those in the neighboring Western countries, with the contrast between the two Germanies being especially sharp—​began to plunge as the region faced the challenges of transitioning to the market economy. Since the 1990s these countries have been part of the lowest-​low-​fertility group. In parallel with the trend toward the postponement of childbirth and declining birth rates, the number of women who remain childless throughout their reproductive lives has increased. In the German-​speaking countries (except for the former DDR) and in Italy, the high percentages of childless women also seem to contribute to the low completed cohort fertility in these areas (Sobotka and Toulemon 2008). However, it has been pointed out that this cannot be regarded as the cause of the low birth rates in other Southern European countries, or the reason for the falling rates in certain Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania (Olàh 2015). Out-​of-​Wedlock Births on the Rise Another hallmark of family change is the increase in extramarital childbirth, or the number of children born out of wedlock. At the beginning of the 1960s, only 10% of births occurred outside of marriage in Scandinavia, which at the time had the highest rate in Europe. Since the 1990s, around half of all births in this part of Europe are to unmarried couples. In other clusters the rise has been slower, picking up speed only toward the mid-​to late 1980s in the Anglo-​Saxon countries, Eastern Europe, the Continental countries, and Central-​Eastern Europe. In Southern Europe, the increase in out-​of-​wedlock births was not significant until the first decade of XXI century, but since then has been particularly rapid (Naldini 2003; Olàh 2015; Sobotka and Toulemon 2008). It should be borne in mind that high out-​of-​wedlock birth rates can conceal different phenomena. In the Scandinavian countries, most of these births take place in stable cohabiting relationships that are virtually indistinguishable from marriage. This is also true for France and Germany, while in the United Kingdom these births are more often outside a couple relationship. The mothers are thus more likely to be single—​and very young. A promising line of inquiry for understanding the changes in fertility patterns relates them to the increasing diversity of family patterns and their recognized forms. It has been claimed that the retreat of marriage, as a central pillar of the Second Demographic Transition theory, cannot be considered responsible for current low fertility levels (Sobotka and Toulemon 2008). Indeed, in 21st-​century Europe, we see a positive correlation between fertility and unmarried cohabitation, with higher fertility rates in countries with larger proportions of unmarried couples (Lappegård 2014), as well as higher female labor force participation. The reasons that can at different times motivate various social groups to seek to control birth rates or to keep childlessness even at the current low levels are beyond our scope here. In any case, viewing changes in the family from the perspective proposed by Therborn (2004), we can see that individual choices, motives, constraints, and resources are combined in the procreative strategies fielded by

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couples and families—​internal needs—​which in turn interact with external trends and circumstances—​economic and social, as well as political—​rooted in the local and regional level and that of specific family cultures. Parenthood and Family Diversity The fact that there are now different paths to becoming parents is one of the major causes of the “pluralization” of family patterns between the end of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st. The increase in de facto and “reconstituted” families following a separation or divorce and the rise in out-​of-​wedlock births have been contributing factors, as have new assisted reproduction techniques. By separating marriage and filiation, new family living arrangements have brought an array of different ways of “being” parents and children today, while the new techniques—​from artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization to surrogacy—​have expanded the opportunities for “becoming” parents, revolutionizing childbearing and parenthood in what is now one of the greatest challenges for the family of the 21st century. If we look at the forms of recognition granted to parental “diversity” (through adoption, stepchild adoption, and so forth) and in particular at the legal recognition of the opportunities for parenthood offered by assisted reproduction, we see that the situation varies across Europe. In many countries, adoption is open to singles or unmarried couples, while in others it is not (Naldini and Long 2017). But it is in the field of donor-​assisted reproduction that the distinction between the “Eastern” and “Western” families separated by the imaginary line from Trieste to St. Petersburg still holds firm. The differences between Eastern and Western European countries (see also Map 3.1) reflect those in the recognition of same-​sex couples. Homosexual couples (and/​or singles) can access parenthood in all Northern and Anglo-​Saxon countries (including, recently, Catholic Ireland) and in all Mediterranean countries that recognize same-​sex marriage (Spain and, very recently, Portugal), but not in Italy and Greece. In contrast to what we have seen for other dimensions of family change, in the case of family rights, Central-​Eastern Europe is a uniform bloc (see Map 3.1). In this country cluster, in fact, the rights accorded to same-​sex couples are still very limited: people of the same sex cannot marry, nor can they be recognized as parents, even in the blander form provided by stepchild adoption (ILGA-​Europe 2017). The reproductive choices and decisions made by individuals, couples, and families thus shape—​and are shaped by—​their institutional contexts, reflecting not only the demographic changes of a given society, but also its cultural, economic, and social dynamism. For this reason, it is useful to interpret family changes in Europe, and the convergences (or lack of convergence) between regional areas in the light of the role that two factors have in explaining the differences in countries’ reproductive choices: gender equality and social policies.

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Gender Equality, Fertility, and Social Policies Women’s entry to the job market in large numbers and the growth of the feminist movement and women’s attainment of educational levels equaling (or exceeding) men’s are the factors that have had the widest-​ranging repercussions on new demographic and family patterns (Jaumotte 2003; OECD 2001). In this sense, we can say that women have been the undisputed protagonists of the changes in the family. Women’s participation in employment began to increase in most Western countries in the 1970s, but the rise did not become general until a decade later. A look at the long-​term data shows major increases in terms of both women’s employment rate and share of the labor force. Between 1960 and 1990, growth in the female employment rate was particularly high in Scandinavia. High female employment, though still below the Scandinavian levels, was found in the English-​speaking countries from the mid-​to late 1980s and in Continental countries from the early 1990s. Central-​Eastern Europe has a tradition of high female labor force participation but saw a decline from the early 1990s as a result of the countries’ post-​Soviet economic and social restructuring (OECD 2011; Olàh 2015, Fig. 14). The Southern European countries, where women’s share of the labor force had been low except in Portugal, saw rates rising in the 1990s, but without ever reaching the levels of the other country clusters. In addition, increases in the area stalled as a result of the 2008 recession (Saraceno and Naldini 2021). Over and above this general trend, however, major differences persist between and within the country clusters, not only in terms of how many women are employed, but also regarding how much education working women have, what cohort they belong to, whether they have children, and how old their children are. Local and regional variations in each country can also be quite pronounced. There can be no doubt, however, that with the exception of the former Soviet bloc, the long-​term trend throughout Europe is toward greater female participation in the workforce. This “new” participation, and in particular the increase in the number of working mothers, has meant the end of the male breadwinner/​female carer model, with its rigid gender-​based division of family responsibilities, which predominated since the 1950s and 1960s and underpinned European welfare systems in the second half of the century (Daly and Rake, 2003; Lewis 2009). At the end of the 1990s, dual-​earner or one-​and-​a-​half-​earner (with one partner working full time and the other part time) couples, either with or without children, made up the majority of households in most European countries, where two-​thirds of the couples with at least one income are dual-​earners. At the beginning of the 21st century, the dual-​ earner family was the predominant model everywhere except for a few Mediterranean (Italy, Greece, and Malta) and Catholic (Poland and Ireland) countries. However, as the Eurostat data for 2019 show, the fact that both members of the couple are employed does not always mean that both work full time, as the one-​and-​a-​half-​earner model—​where the part-​time worker is almost always the woman, as a wife and mother—​has become very

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common in the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria (OECD 2011; Saraceno and Naldini 2021, Figure 5.4). Though women’s participation in the labor market has increased throughout Europe, the gender gap in paid employment and, even more, in housework shows few signs of closing (Crompton and Lyonette 2007; Dotti-​Sani 2014; Eurostat 2009, Figure 3.3). In this perspective, the term “unfinished revolution” is often used to emphasize that even though there have been profound changes in how women seek employment and earn an income, little progress has been made in achieving a more equal division of housework or altering men’s participation in unpaid work and gender models. The “unfinished revolution,” however, is not just a question of how household chores are divided. It is also a matter of social organization (Esping-​Andersen 2009; Gerson 2010). Changes in the family and women’s roles notwithstanding, workplaces, childrearing and education arrangements, and the current welfare structure (Pfau-​Effinger 2005, 2010) continue to assume the “old” family model—​a model that in most cases is no longer either practicable or desired. Whether and to what extent fairer and more equal relationships between men and women have repercussions on fertility is still an open question (Olàh 2015). In particular, the link between women’s employment and the number of children is one of the issues that have been most highly debated, and also one of the most extensively investigated, as the shift that has taken place since the waning years of the last century suggest that it hinges on the correspondence between social organization and the dominant cultural models for gender and the family (Brewster and Rindfuss 2000). Until the 1990s, in fact, countries with fewer working women also had the highest birth rates, and vice versa, indicating that participating in an organized job market in areas with a highly gendered division of labor and responsibilities was unlikely to be on the cards for women who were burdened with housework and looking after the children. Once the 1990s arrived, the relationship between women’s paid work engagement and birth rates was reversed: the Scandinavian countries, which had long had high rates of female labor market participation, also boasted comparatively high levels of fertility, while Southern Europe, which has been slow to adapt to the growing number of women in the workforce, have low birth rates and low labor market participation. Central-​ Eastern Europe, which had higher average fertility rates and female labor force participation than Western Europe before the collapse of the Communist states, saw both indicators decline steeply in the years immediately following the regime change. As can be seen from Figure 3.3, the correlation between women’s employment rates and fertility rates is still significant in the 21st century: Scandinavia and the Central European countries lead Europe in both rates. In the Southern European countries, by contrast, women’s employment is not only low, but has reached levels that are lower than ever before, and does not seem to have bottomed out. In Central-​Eastern Europe, women’s employment rates are similar to Western Europe’s, and the low fertility rates are similar to the pattern shown in the Mediterranean countries, with the exception of Slovenia, where

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Labor force participation rate, female

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1.6

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Figure 3.3  Correlation between women’s employment and total fertility rate in selected European countries, 2019  Source: Eurostat (Employment rate from 20 to 64 years old: retrieved April 21, 2021, https://​app​sso.euros​tat.ec.eur​opa.eu/​nui/​show. do?data​set=​tesem​010&lang=​en); Eurostat (Fertility rate: retrieved April 21, 2021 from https://​ec.eur​opa.eu/​euros​tat/​data​brow​ser/​ view/​tps00​199/​defa​ult/​table?lang=​en). Note: Data is missing for fertility rate for UK in 2019, it is used 2018.

birth rates are comparatively high. Romania stands apart, with high fertility and low female workforce participation. This chapter will not go into the detailed reasons for the reversal in the relationship between employment and fertility, or for the divergence between countries or country clusters. Suffice it to say that scholars have tended to center the debate on two questions: how societies react to the increase in women’s education and employment, and how countries support the cost of childrearing and the changes in female behavior (Saraceno and Naldini 2021). In the first of these areas of debate, we have explanations that link changes in the family—​fertility rate, specifically—​to gender equality. From this perspective, in order to understand both the about-​face in the nexus between women’s employment and fertility rates and the fact that this association continues to differ across countries, it is important to consider the extent to which the changes in areas such as education and the job market are consistent with the changes (or lack thereof ) in other settings: chiefly within the family, but also in how the world of work is organized. For example, where educated women enter the job market in large numbers but do not feel that they are supported by their spouses/​fathers of their children in household work, or by effective work-​ family balance policies, they may respond by having fewer children or no children at all (McDonald 2000). How different societies support the cost of having children and work-​family reconciliation appears to be particularly important in explaining part of the lack of convergence

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between European countries’ family patterns, and, above all, in explaining why not all countries show a positive correlation (however small it may be) between fertility rate and women’s labor force participation rate. The relationship between social policies and demographic and reproductive behaviors has attracted attention for at least the last three decades, both because of the concerns raised by Europe’s aging population and because of the “winning” example offered by the Scandinavian countries, whose welfare system appears to be able to respond to changes in the women’s job market with policies that promote gender parity and support employment and childbearing (Bahle 2008; Gornick and Meyer 2003; Saraceno and Keck 2011). Nevertheless, the link between social policies and fertility is both complex and little understood (Lappegård 2014). The support provided to families with children varies widely from country to country (Daly and Rake 2003; Gornick et al. 1997; Gornick and Meyer 2009; Koslowski et al. 2020). As a number of scholars have pointed out, these differences are linked to such macro-​level factors as how the labor market operates and is regulated, the dominant cultural models for gender roles and intergenerational obligations, and how social policies function. In this section, we will briefly discuss how European countries’ family policies have converged or diverged. In general, there is a clear separation between Northern and Western Europe, on the one hand, and Southern and Eastern Europe, on the other, regarding social policies supporting families with children. In the low-​fertility Mediterranean and Eastern European countries (Hungary excepted), few services are available for working mothers. Consequently, women who wish to hold a job, who are particularly numerous among the better-​educated women who have accounted for a steadily growing share of the cohorts born since the 1940s, tend to have fewer children. As for the direct and indirect forms of income support, the Southern countries have traditionally done little to help with the costs of having children, nor have they rolled out policies for families with children in recent years (Jurado-​Guerrero and Naldini 2018). Though highly heterogeneous, the Central-​Eastern European countries (Szelewa and Polakowski 2008) tend to provide more benefits for families with children, especially in Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic (Olàh 2015; Rat and Szikra 2018). By contrast, the Scandinavian countries are very supportive of female employment, providing services and encouraging young people to become economically independent by extending a range of rights and benefits. France, with its long-​standing and popular pro-​natalist measures, not only provides a fair measure of early childhood services, but also offers relatively generous tax relief and cash allowances for children (Gauthier 1996; Thévenon 2011). Conclusions Over the last 60 years, family patterns have changed throughout Europe. There are a number of common demographic and family patterns. Leaving the parental home at a later age

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has become a general pattern, while the sequence of sexuality, marriage, and procreation is no longer written in stone—​first, because marriage has stopped being the main reason for leaving home and the majority of young couples live together before or instead of marrying; second, because having children and getting married are no longer indissolubly linked. Everywhere, fertility has dropped well below the replacement level. Nevertheless, historical differences in the “ways” of being a family linger on, making the recognition and social acceptance of family diversity more difficult in some countries than others. Such difficulties are even more marked in the Catholic or majority Christian Orthodox countries. This can be seen, for example, even in how the different ways of forming a family, becoming a parent, or being a son or daughter are recognized and regulated, with the differences between “Western” and “Eastern” as well as Southern Europe continuing to be significant. However useful Hajnal’s division between the “Western” and the “Eastern” family may still be in understanding time differences in family formation (the age at first marriage continues to be younger in Central-​Eastern Europe), the differences in fertility patterns cannot be divided so neatly. The Central-​Eastern European countries are unique in their combination of early marriage and low birth rates. How the country clusters discussed in this chapter are aligned relative to each other also depends on which indicators we consider. If we look at changes in gender relations in the family and the labor market, we see clearer divisions between North and South, both in women’s participation in the workforce and in the gendered division of housework. However, the differences in how much of the “revolution” remains unfinished across countries, not only in terms of how many women are in the labor market and how unpaid work is shared by men, but also in terms of institutional changes, in workplaces, and in child-​care services and welfare state structures as a whole in supporting an equal relationship between men and women is crucial to understanding the persistent diversity across Europe. If we look at how the costs of childrearing are acknowledged, in the form of both cash allowances and services, the traditional divisions of Europe—​particularly those between North and South and between West and East—​are still very much in place. Over and above the clear demographic trends and signs of convergence toward pluralization of family life in Europe, this analysis has confirmed that patterns of family formation also belong—​as Therborn (2004) noted some years ago—​to the longue durée of history. Although family changes may shift shape and have been universal, they are resistant even to radical changes in the political and social framework (such as the Soviet bloc’s breakup). An example of this resistance is provided by the European marriage pattern’s endurance on both sides of the “Hajnal line” from St. Petersburg to Trieste. Even after the sweeping and institutional changes of the last 60 years, the persistent diversity across Europe is still there. This is also reflected in Europe’s different regional, institutional, and cultural country contexts, where some regions in the East and West still show resistance to the institutional changes in marriage and the introduction of marriage equality.

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Jurado, Teresa, and Manuela Naldini. 2018. “Child and Family Policy in Southern Europe.” In Handbook of Child and Family Policy, edited by G. B. Eydal and T. Rostgaard, 209–​222. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Kathleen, G. 2011. The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family. New York: Oxford University Press. Koslowski, A., S. Blum, I. Dobrotić, G. Kaufman, and P. Moss, eds. 2020. International Review of Leave Policies and Research 2020. International Network of Leave Policies and Research. http://​www.leave​netw​ork.org/​ lp_​an​d_​r_​repo​rts/​. Kuijsten, Anton. 1996. “Changes Family Patterns in Europe. A Case of Divergence?” European Journal of Population 12 (2): 115–​143. Lappegård, Trude. 2014. “Changing European Families.” In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families, edited by J. Treas, J. L. Scott, and M. Richards, 20–​43. The Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell. Leitner, Sigrid. 2003. “Varieties of Familialism: The Caring Function of the Family in Comparative Perspective.” European Societies 5 (4): 353–​375. Lesthaeghe, Ron. 1995. “The Second Demographic Transition in Western Countries: An Interpretation.” In Gender and Family Change in Industrialized Countries, edited by K. O. Mason and A. M. Jensen, 17–​62. New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, Jane. 2009. Work-​Family Balance, Gender and Policy. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Lewis, Jane, Mary Campbell, and Carmen Huerta. 2008. “Patterns of Paid and Unpaid Work in Western Europe: Gender, Commodification, Preferences and the Implications for Policy.” Journal of European Social Policy 18 (1): 21–​37. doi:10.1177/​0958928 707084450. McDonald, Peter. 2000. “Gender Equity in Theories of Fertility Transition.” Population and Development Review 26 (3): 427–​439. Mills, M., H. P. Blossfeld, and E. Klijzing. 2005. “Becoming an Adult in Uncertain Times: A 14 Country Comparison of the Losers of Globalization.” In Globalization, Uncertainty and Youth in Society, edited by H. Blossfled, M. Mills, E. Klijzing, and K. Kurz. London: Routledge. Naldini, Manuela. 2003. The Family in Mediterranean Welfare State. London: Frank Cass/​Routledge. Naldini, Manuela., ed. 2015. La transizione alla genitorialità [Transition to parenthood]. Bologna: Il Mulino. Naldini, Manuela. 2017. “The Sociology of the Families.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociology: Core Areas in Sociology and Development of the Discipline. Vol. 1, edited by K. O. Korgen, 297–​304. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/​9781316418376.029. Naldini, Manuela, and Joelle Long. 2017. “Geographies of Families in The European Union: A Legal and Social Policy Analysis.” International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 31 (1): 94–​113. doi:10.1093/​lawfam/​ebw017. Naldini, Manuela, Cristina Solera, and Emmanuele Pavolini. 2016. “Female Employment and Elderly Care: The Role of Care Policies and Culture in 21 European Countries.” Work, Employment and Society 30 (4): 607–​630. Nazio T. 2008. Cohabitation, Family and Society. London: Routledge. OECD. 2001. Employment Outlook. Paris: OECD. OECD. 2011. Doing Better for Families. Paris: OECD. Olàh, Livia. 2015. “Changing Families in the European Union: Trends and Policy Implications.” Paper prepared for United Nations Experts Group Meeting, New York, May 14–​15. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2005. “Welfare State Policies and the Development of Care Arrangements.” European Societies 7 (3): 321–​341. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2010. “Cultural and Institutional Contexts.” In Dividing the Domestic. Men, Women, and Household Work in Cross-​National Perspective, edited by J. Treas and S. Drobnic, 125–​146. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rat, Cristina, and Dorottya Szikra. 2018. “Family Policies and Social Inequalities in Central and Eastern Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Hungary, Poland and Romania between 2005 and 2015.” In Handbook of Child and Family Policy, edited by G. B. Eydal and T. Rostgaard, 223–​235. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Reher, David. 1998. Family Ties in Western Europe: Persistent Contrasts. Population and Development Review 24 (2): 203–​234. Roussel, Louis. 1992. “La famille en Europe occidentale: Divergences et convergences.” Population 47: 133–​152. Rusconi, A. 2006. Leaving the Parental Home in Italy and West Germany: Opportunities and Constraints. Aachen: Shaker. Saraceno, Chiara, and Wolfgang Keck. 2011. Towards an Integrated Approach for the Analysis of Gender Equity in Policies Supporting Paid Work and Care Responsibilities.” Demographic Research 25: 371–​406. Saraceno, Chiara, and Manuela Naldini. 2021. Sociologia della famiglia [Sociology of Families]. Bologna: Il Mulino.

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Sobotka, T., and L. Toulemon. 2008. “Changing Family and Partnership Behaviour: Common Trends and Persistent Diversity across Europe.” Demographic Research 19: 85–​138. Szelewa, D., and M. P. Polakowski. 2008. “Who cares? Changing patterns of childcare in Central and Eastern Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy 18 (2): 115–​131. Therborn, G. 2004. Between Sex and Power: Family in the World, 1900–​2000. London: Routledge. Thévenon, Olivier. 2011. “Family Policies in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis.” Population and Development Review 37 (1): 57–​87. Trost, J. 1981. “Cohabitation in the Nordic Countries: From Deviant Phenomenon to Social Institution.” Alternative Lifestyles 4 (November): 401–​427. Van De Kaa, Dirk J. 1987. “Europe’s Second Demographic Transition.” Population Bulletin 42 (1): 1–​59. Wiik, Kenneth, Renske Keizer, and Trude Lappegard. 2012. “Relationship Quality in Marital and Cohabiting Unions across Europe.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 74: 389–​398. Zimmermann, Okka, and Dirk Konietzka. 2018. “Social Disparities in Destandardization. Changing Life Course Patterns in Seven European Countries. European Sociological Review 34 (1): 64–​78.

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C H A P T E R

4

F amily Change in the Context of Social Changes in the United States

Nicholas H. Wolfinger

Abstract Nicholas Wolfinger surveys the cultural and structural forces that have roiled the traditional nuclear family in the United States since the 1960s. These forces include the sexual revolution facilitated by advances in reproductive technology, heightened individualism, an unfavorable marriage market for women in the 1960s, mothers entering the labor force in unprecedented numbers, declining marriage rates, and the rise of out-​of-​wedlock childbearing. Wolfinger notes that the conservative view that generous welfare benefits reduced the need for marriage fails to comport with the data, which shows nonmarital fertility increased during the years that welfare transfers were declining. He also points out that while the United States is far behind many European countries in adopting policies in response to the changing functions of family proposals for extended paid parental leave, federally subsidized childcare and generous child tax credits have risen to the top of the political agenda. Key Words: individualism, childbearing, fertility, welfare, childcare

If you look back on the Sixties and think there was more good than bad, you’re probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you’re probably a Republican. —​Bill Clinton, speaking at the 2004 BookExpo

In 1962, two graduate school dropouts named Michael Murphy and Dick Price founded the Esalen Institute on a remote tract of land about 150 miles south of San Francisco. Murphy and Price had drifted into the orbit of many of the day’s counterculture thinkers, including Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey, and Allen Ginsberg, and were captivated by the notion of extending learning beyond what they considered the hidebound constraints of the American educational system. Esalen soon came to offer a full program of hippie-​era self-​actualization, including encounter groups, transcendental meditation, gestalt awareness training, and guided acid trips.

Within 10 years, Esalen’s reach went national. A satellite campus in San Francisco was mobbed upon opening, while nearly 100 unaffiliated centers modeling themselves on Esalen had appeared across the country (Storr 2018). In time, outposts cropped up as far away as Switzerland and Bali. Inside those hidebound universities, tuned-​in professors and their students were taking Esalen ideas seriously, and they slowly seeped into the broader culture. “Essentially everything that became known by the 1970s as New Age was invented, developed, or popularized at the Esalen Institute,” observes Kurt Andersen (2017, 178) in his quincentenary history of America. Esalen, continues Andersen, had perfected a new form of American religion, an inward-​looking spiritual ontology for people inclined to reject traditional Abrahamic faith and practice. Esalen wasn’t the root cause of America’s hitherto unknown embrace of solipsism (cf. Lilla 2018), but was at the right place at the right time to incubate and disseminate our strange new civil religion. By the 1970s, scholars had dissected the Esalen ethos (Lasch 1979; Turner 1976) and had given it a name: expressive individualism. At its most fundamental level, it marked a shift from Americans’ orientation from social institutions—​governments, organized religion, community organizations, marriage—​ to individualism. People started saying things like “follow your heart” and “be true to yourself,” while casting a jaundiced eye on tradition, received wisdom, and anything else that might interfere with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The long-​overdue civil rights movements of the 1960s dovetailed with expressive individualism by highlighting equality as a paramount value. Most of all, Americans for the first time saw personal fulfillment as a worthy goal in and of itself. In the 1960s, almost 90% of college freshmen deemed “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” to be a very important or essential personal goal (Pryor et al. 2007; see also Twenge, Campbell, and Freeman 2012). As a 50-​something Generation Xer writing this chapter in 2020, I’m not sure whether I even have a philosophy of life, meaningful or otherwise; as a faculty member at a large state university, I question whether my students even know what a “meaningful philosophy of life” is. A year before the founding of Esalen, a Chicago-​based pharmaceutical company named G.D. Searle and Company began to market a relatively new drug called Enovid. From the beginning it was a controversial product. Access for married women wasn’t secured until a 1965 Supreme Court ruling. It wasn’t until seven years later that a second Supreme Court decision ensured access to Enovid and subsequent birth control pills for all American women. These years also witnessed the proliferation of another new birth control technology, the intrauterine device. This chapter describes how expressive individualism and effective contraception launched the revolution that has reshaped the American family since the 1960s. But they didn’t do it alone: starting in the 1970s, powerful economic forces exacerbated the changes already underway.

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Partisan Differences in Explanations of Family Change Like so much of America, explanations for the transformation in American family life have become highly polarized. Conservatives are inclined to attribute the changing American family entirely to cultural trends—​the customary academic shorthand for expressive individualism and the sexual revolution—​with an assist from the welfare state. They are right to highlight the importance of expressive individualism, but wrong to discount the importance of economic factors. In turn, liberals are correct to highlight how the changing American economy has roiled family life, but often give cultural changes short shrift (Patterson 2014). Cultural upheaval in conjunction with economic change combined to create what W. Bradford Wilcox and I recently called the perfect storm for the American family (Wilcox and Wolfinger 2016, 12). It’s easy to make a strong prima facie case for why both cultural and structural forces have reshaped marriage and childrearing, the primary institutions of the American family. The family started changing in the mid-​1960s, years before the economic tumult of the 1970s upended several decades of sustained economic growth. The structural effects are apparent in the modern class divide in marriage. As recently as 1982, more people without four-​year college degrees were married than were college graduates; up to that point, the numbers had always been pretty similar. But since then, a large divide has emerged. If you have a four-​year college degree, you’re likely to get married and stay married. If you don’t, marriage is much less likely. Both structural and cultural forces, then, are required to explain modern family demography. How the 1960s and 1970s Launched Family Change Arguably, no decade in American history saw more social upheaval than the 1960s. By the time of the Students for a Democratic Society’s famed Port Huron Declaration in 1962, some Americans had begun chafing against what they perceived as the cookie-​cutter conformity of the previous decade. The long arc of the moral universe finally culminated in legal equality for non-​White Americans, and between the sexes. In the following years would come a heretofore unknown loss of faith in public institutions as America was roiled by assassinations, Vietnam, riots, crime, and, a few years later, Watergate. Prior to Vietnam and Watergate, a majority of Americans trusted the federal government. Except for a brief moment after 9/​11, that trust never again reached 50% (Vavreck 2015; Pew Research Center 2019). Faith in other social institutions declined apace with loss of faith in government. (e.g., Putnam 2000). And as the United States shuddered during the annus horribilis of 1968, so went the rest of the developed world (T. Brown 2013, 2014). Expressive individualism and landmark progress on civil rights started to transform America in ways that would prove consequential for the American family. In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s bestseller Sex and the Single Girl introduced the then-​radical notion that unmarried women might go out and have sex for pleasure. Even more influential was Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, published a year later. Friedan’s book gave voice to

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women who weren’t finding satisfaction in connubial housewifery. Women’s labor force participation, already rising, continued to increase (Toosi and Morisi 2017). Of course the vast majority of Americans didn’t drop out, tune in, and turn on. A 1971 poll asked female respondents how often they felt that “being a woman has prevented me from doing some of the things I had hoped to do in life.” Only 7% said “frequently”; 12% said “occasionally”; 79% said “hardly ever” (Caldwell 2020, 42–​43). Instead, the 1960s touched off a quiet revolution, in which some men and women questioned the ideal of heterosexual marriage, parenthood, a sole-​provider husband, and a housewife. Some young women chose to prioritize careers over marriage. Here is what one woman recalled for the New York Times in 2020, decades after reading the Feminine Mystique: When I was in college in 1965, a friend gave me a copy of “The Feminine Mystique,” by Betty Friedan. As a young girl growing up in the 1950s, I was of two minds: On the one hand, I loved school, especially math, loved competing in sports, wanted to make something of myself. On the other hand, I also fantasized about the romantic stories from books and movies and women’s magazines of love and marriage and homemaking. As a student at a women’s college, I was only just beginning to realize how much in conflict those two futures were. The book laid it all out for me, put into words what I had only sensed.

Meanwhile, women poised to start a family in the mid-​1960s received a demographic nudge from the marriage squeeze that originated in the demobilization after World War II (Akers 1967). From 1945 to 1946, the American birth rate shot up from 20.4 births per thousand population to 24.1, almost a 20% increase (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Center for Health Statistics 2003). The baby boom had begun, and birth rates wouldn’t dip to 1945 levels for another 20 years. The sting was in the tail for heterosexual women born in the first couple of years of the baby boom. They started attaining their majority in 1964, 18 years after the boom began, but quickly encountered a vexing marriage market. At that time, the median difference in marriage age was two and a half years, so women born at the beginning of the boom would naturally look to date men born in 1943 and 1944 (US Census Bureau 2019). But the men weren’t there, because birth rates in those years were much lower than then were in the baby boom a couple of years later. A profoundly unfavorable marriage market thus ensued for women in the mid-​1960s. Most of them did eventually get married sometime down the line, but for a small number marriage delayed was marriage foregone. These women would naturally be more receptive to the words of Betty Friedan, Helen Gurley Brown, and other second-​wave feminists of the era. The marriage squeeze didn’t relegate young women to chastity. After all, it occurred at precisely the same moment when effective contraception was available for the first time, and there was burgeoning acceptability of having sex out of wedlock. Indeed, Americans’ sexual behavior permanently changed starting with the cohort that came of age in the

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Median sex partners

Median Number of Sex Partners, by Sex and Decade of Birth 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1910s

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Figure 4.1  Median number of sex partners, by sex and decade of birth 

1960s. As shown in Figure 4.1, the median woman born before 1940 had one median lifetime sex partner (Wolfinger 2018). This rose to two for women born in the 1940s, and three for successive decades. The increase for men was even greater. The medians are smaller for the 1980s and 1990s, in part because these survey respondents are younger, and may have more sex partners in the years to come. In the mid-​1960s, the divorce rate started rising at an unprecedented pace (see Figure 4.2). Divorce rates have always trended upward over the past few hundred years, but the years between the mid-​1960s and 1980 saw the greatest sustained increase in divorce ever recorded (Phillips 1988, 1991). Expressive individualism was the root cause as the divorce boom got underway, and people recognized a newfound ideal of being happy in their marriages. There were far fewer reasons to stay in unfulfilling or rancorous unions. To be sure, this fulfilled a vital need. Here’s what I wrote in my 2005 book Understanding the Divorce Cycle: [Prior to the divorce boom] couples often waited until their marriages had completely deteriorated before seeking a divorce. Normative expectations persuaded quarreling couples

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Figure 4.2  Marriage and divorce since the Civil War 

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to “stick it out” under circumstances such as domestic violence that would today be readily recognized as reasonable grounds for divorce. When couples finally ended their marriages, the situation may have deteriorated far more than is typical in most divorces today. (Wolfinger 2005, 80)

The divorce boom turned out to be a mixed blessing. Social scientists would eventually come to identify numerous adverse consequences of divorce, but at the same time it was a positive development that parents and children need no longer be trapped in destructive marriages (e.g., Amato, Loomis, and Booth 1995; Jekielek 1998). Here’s one thing that did not cause the divorce boom: the adoption of no-​fault divorce laws. California governor Ronald Reagan signed the first modern no-​fault law on January 1, 1970, precisely because divorce cases—​often involving perjurious allegations of nonexistent adultery—​were clogging the courts in his state (Wolfinger 2004, 2005; see also Vlosky and Monroe 2002; Wernick 1996). How do we know the move to no-​fault didn’t raise the divorce rate? The divorce rate was already rising in states that adopted no-​fault laws early, in the first few years of the 1970s. Afterward, divorce rates continued to rise at the same rate. In contrast, divorce rates were already falling in states that adopted no-​fault laws late, in the 1980s. After their adoption, divorce rates continued to fall. These trends were documented by the late sociologist Norval Glenn, who was no fan of easy divorce laws (Glenn 1997; see also Wolfers 2006; for a contrary finding, see Gruber 2004). Expressive individualism launched the divorce boom. For the first time, large numbers of people got divorced because they were unhappy in their relationships. In due time divorce came to beget more divorce. The presence of other divorced adults legitimized the decision to end a marriage. More broadly, divorce is contagious: people are more likely to divorce when they know more divorced people (Aberg 2009; McDermott, Fowler, and Christakis 2013). Your fellow divorcées may plant the seeds of marital doubt, provide practical advice about single life, and more broadly legitimatize divorce as a solution to a troubled or unfulfilling marriage. Perhaps this is why divorce rates continued to rise for about 15 years, up until about 1980. Over these same years Americans’ attitudes on divorce softened (Phillips 1991; Thornton and Young-​DeMarco 2001), and popular culture came to valorize divorce with an enthusiasm that seems bizarre in modern times (Frum 2008). Once the divorce boom started, it quickly picked up momentum. The boom was in full swing by the time the oil shocks and stagflation of the 1970s rolled around. Men’s real wages peaked in 1973, capping off decades of expansion. They’ve rebounded a bit since their nadir, but remain below the 1973 high (Desilver 2018). This broad trend conceals large and growing income polarization: wages for college-​educated workers have grown, while for everyone else they’ve declined (Donovan and Bradley 2019). This trend has had profound differences for the composition of the American family. The steady rise in women’s employment was nothing new—​it’s been increasing for well over a century—​but the 1970s added a new wrinkle: women with pre-​school-​age children

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started to work. In earlier years, mothers had worked less than childless women. Their labor force participation had increased over time, but at the same gradual rate that other women’s work rate increased. After the mid-​1970s, mothers’ employment increased faster than it had for childless women. Married mothers are now more likely to work than are either childless married women or unmarried women (Cohany and Sok 2007). Married women’s employment may have inched up in the 1960s for social reasons, as second-​wave feminism inspired them to seek their own careers (Collins 2009). Feminism had little to do with women’s mass migration to the workplace in subsequent decades: stagnant male wages meant it increasingly took two wages to make do when one would have previously sufficed. And therein lies another reason why divorce rates continued to skyrocket throughout the 1970s. Two theories are usually offered to explain why women’s entrance en masse to the workforce drove up divorce rates. First, work offered some women the newfound financial means to leave their husbands. Certainly this applied to some divorces, although it does raise a logical question: If earning potential obviates the need for a spouse, why did women with good jobs get married in the first place? What’s more, by the dawn of the 21st century a higher education—​and its potential for remunerative employment—​had become a valued commodity for single women aspiring to marriage (Sweeney 2002). This hadn’t been the case in previous decades. The second explanation is that women’s employment created conflict at home over domestic labor and traditional gender roles. The data indeed favor this explanation in a direct test against the economic independence theory conducted by the sociologist Hiromi Ono (1998). Past a certain fairly low earning threshold, divorce became more likely as a wife’s earnings rose. However, earning potential—​the education and work experience that might allow a divorcée to thrive on her own—​did not in itself increases the odds of divorce. Ono’s finding offers insight into how women’s mass migration to the workplace increased divorce rates. Women with higher incomes generally work more hours and have more compelling careers. It’s easy to see how this might conflict with the expectations of more traditional men. Women entering the workplace in large numbers had one other positive effect on the divorce rate. The sociologists Scott South and Kim Lloyd (1995) have shown that divorce rates are higher in areas with more single people (in other words, areas with more alternatives to your current spouse). This dynamic extends to employment: workplaces with more opposite-​sex coworkers have higher divorce rates (McKinnish 2007; Uggla and Andersson 2018). The 1965–​1980 divorce boom was unprecedented. So too was what came after it: the longest sustained decline in the divorce rate in recorded history. Divorce remains common by historical standards, but is substantially lower than its 1980 one-​out-​of-​two heights. What happened? One early study pointed to the rising age at marriage, and that’s surely part of the answer (Heaton 2002). But not all: the decline would have occurred even had

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Median age at 1st marriage

Median Age at First Marriage, 1890-2019 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1890

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Figure 4.3  Median age at first marriage, 1890–​2019 

marriage age remained constant (Goldstein 1999). The trend in marriage age is shown in Figure 4.3. Perhaps the most significant reason for the decline in divorce concerns the changing attributes of the people getting married in the first place (see Figure 4.4). Into the 1970s there was little difference in lifetime marriage rates by social class. The vast majority of Americans got married, irrespective of whether they had four-​year college degrees (the marriage rate for college graduates in the 1970s is artificially suppressed by the fact that they tended to marry after finishing school, and therefore a bit later than their contemporaries who didn’t complete four-​year degrees). This is no longer the case, as marriage has become the domain of the college-​educated, who have much lower divorce rates. College graduates marry at close to the same rate they always have, but those without four-​year degrees have married steadily less over time. By 2018, 44% of Americans without college degrees were currently married, compared to 61% of those with degrees. If you’re a college graduate, you’re likely to get married and stay married; if you’re not a college grad, you’re less likely to get married in the first place, and more likely to get divorced if you do.

% currently married

The Social Class Gap in Marriage 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1960

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% of births to unmarried parents

Like the divorce boom, the decline of marriage in working-​class America has its roots in 1960s-​era social changes and the long march to income inequality beginning in the 1970s. However, the trend in marriage must be evaluated together with another startling demographic transformation: the explosion of nonmarital fertility shown in Figure 4.5. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then assistant secretary of labor in the Johnson administration, published his famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) report The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Moynihan 1965), 7.7% of American births occurred outside the bonds of matrimony (for African Americans, the focus of the report, the figure was 25%) (Solomon-​Fears 2014). Since about 2010 it’s stood at about 40%. Nonmarital birth rates have recently plateaued and even declined a bit, most likely because of more effective and more widely available contraception (Schneider and Gemmill 2016). How did this happen? The most compelling explanation comes from the powerhouse economics couple of Janet Yellen and George Akerlof (respectively, the Biden administration treasury secretary and a Nobel Laureate): effective birth control and ready access to abortion killed the shotgun marriage. Once upon a time in America, when a man got a woman “in a family way,” he almost always “did the right thing” and married her, shotgun or no shotgun (Akerlof and Yellen 1996). Birth control and abortion killed off that covenant. Prior to the 1960s, sex out of wedlock wasn’t uncommon, but the expectation of marriage always provided a backstop in case of pregnancy. The stigma of nonmarital childbirth was too great for women to contemplate sex without the promise of marriage (recall the archaic practice of a pregnant teenager being “sent away” to preserve her family’s reputation in the community). And historically, the potential cost was greater still, as pregnancy in the absence of modern medicine was literally life-​threatening (indeed, the rate of maternal mortality has increased in the United States in the past 25 years [Villarosa 2018]). Reproductive technology effectively decoupled sex from marriage. Women could now hook up without risking an unwanted pregnancy or an unwanted marriage. Men no

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Figure 4.5  Sixty-​eight years of nonmarital births in the United States 

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longer felt the need to marry a woman when a pregnancy resulted from all that hooking up. The result was the end of the shotgun marriage. Premarital sex produced premarital pregnancies just as it always had, but without the compunction to get married. Consequently, the rate of nonmarital fertility started to climb in the 1960s. As it did, the feedback loop between behavior and attitudes kicked in: people became more accepting of unwed mothers (Thornton and Young-​DeMarco 2001), which presumably increased the number of women choosing to carry nonmarital pregnancies to term. Some conservative scholars have gone further, suggesting that the prospect of nongenerative sex compelled women’s participation in unwanted sexual liaisons, which in turn further boosted the rate of nonmarital childbirth (Caldwell 2020; Regnerus 2017). Doubtless this dynamic functioned at the margins, but the evidence ultimately doesn’t support it. The compelled-​ sex theory pays little heed to women’s bargaining power in the sexual contract, which has increased considerably since the 1960s as their educational attainment and earning power has increased (England 2018). The economic transformation that began in the 1970s contributed to the declining marriage rate and the consequent rise in out-​of-​wedlock childbearing (Wilson [1987] 2012). But money, as we have seen, wasn’t the most important explanation (Mare and Winship 1991; see also Wilcox and Wolfinger 2016; Wilcox, Wolfinger, and Stokes 2015; Lichter et al. 1992). The favored narrative among conservatives—​that generous welfare benefits undercut marriage by propping up single mothers (Murray [1984] 2008)—​ holds even less weight. Government transfers were declining in the 1970s and 1980s, the same years when nonmarital fertility was rising the most quickly (Ellwood and Summers 1985). When studies do show effects of welfare policy, those effects tend to be small. Irwin Garfinkel and his colleagues, for instance, showed that declining welfare between 1980 and 1996 produced at best a 6% decrease in the number of nonmarital births (Garfinkel et al. 2003). A detailed review by the economist Robert Moffitt (1992) arrived at a similar conclusion, as did a more recent study by Mark Rosenzweig (1999). The State of the 21st-​Century Family The foregoing pages describe what has happened to the family since the mid-​1960s. Where do things now stand? Americans will spend less of their adult lives married than they did prior to the divorce boom. Back in 1972, just a few years into the boom, almost three out of four American adults were married. By 2018, that number had dipped below half for the first time ever. Indeed, there has been more or less continuous decline since 1980, when the divorce rate peaked. Americans are marrying later than ever before, and divorce rates remain well above the historical average. This much is clear. It’s harder to know what percentage of Americans will ultimately marry in their lifetimes. The last authoritative estimate was produced by the demographer Joshua Goldstein almost 20 years ago. He and his coauthor concluded that almost 90% of

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adults would ultimately tie the knot (Goldstein and Kenney 2001). Since then, the crude marriage rate has continued to decline. More recent forecasts of marriage rate are much lower, all the way down to 65%, but are not as statistically sound as Goldstein’s estimates (Martin et al. 2014). Perhaps the best back-​of-​the-​napkin estimate starts with Goldstein and acknowledges the ongoing secular decline in marriage. The national advent of marriage equality in 2015 seems not to have affected the broader trend, probably because only about 2% of Americans identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (Gates 2011). Yet marriage remains a central part of American life. A 2013 Gallup poll found that 78% of Americans want to get married (Gallup n.d.). Another survey found that only 14% of never-​married adults hold no interest in getting married (Parker and Stepler 2017). Majorities of Americans believe marriage makes society better off, is needed in order to create strong families, and improves the financial lot of parents and children alike (Karpowitz and Pope 2018). Perhaps the ideal of marriage has taken a hit since the 1960s, but the data show little evidence of a steady decline in its popularity (Thornton and Young-​DeMarco 2001). Most young adults don’t want to get married right away. Fifty years ago, Americans generally married around the time they finished school, be it high school or college. It was a step in the march to adulthood. Nowadays, marriage has been reborn as a relational capstone of sorts that signifies that a couple is “set,” both financially and emotionally, at a certain level of middle-​class comfort and security (Cherlin 2009; Edin and Kefalas 2005). Marriage has changed from an essential step on the road to the American dream to being a sign that a couple has finally attained the American dream. The experience of marriage has also changed over the years. Marital happiness declined from the 1970s into the 1990s as couples grappled with the social and economic upheavals described in this chapter, but then stabilized and has even increased a bit in recent decades (see Figures 4.6 and 4.7). A voluminous and unruly scholarly literature has debated whether, broadly, tradition or modernity provides the superior basis for conjugal bliss (e.g. Wilcox and Nock 2006; Carlson et al. 2016). Little consensus has emerged, aside from common sense: a blend of the old and the new is the basis for a happy and lasting union. To be sure, expressive individualism is now reflected in marital dynamics. Irrespective of how happy spouses are, they now lead more individual lives within marriage (Amato et al. 2007). Traditionalists might decry the modern marriage as an abdication of its greater social functions, but this view ignores the good news: marriage is malleable, capable of adapting to prevailing conditions. It’s for this reason that the rumors of marriage’s death are greatly exaggerated. For most Americans with four-​year college degrees, childbearing only commences after the capstone of marriage has been attained. For Americans without college degrees, it begins much sooner. As we have seen, nonmarital childbearing soared in America because shotgun marriages became less common, not because of a huge jump in premarital fertility. Why do many Americans continue to place parenthood before matrimony?

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Women’s Marital Happiness since 1973

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The most convincing account has come from the sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas (2005). Over time, marriage became a luxury good of sorts for the poor. To be sure, it remains the ideal: irrespective of income, the vast majority of Americans continue to aspire to marriage. But for the less fortunate, the ideal seems unattainable under the capstone model. Stagnating male wages and unpredictable employment fail to provide adequate economic foundations for marriage. For a few, rising female wages obviate the need for marriage, and sometimes provokes discord in relationships that undermines the prospects for marriage. The ideal of the male wage earner dies hard, and some prosperous women deem their low-​earning boyfriends not marriage material simply because they earn less (Wilcox and Wolfinger 2016). This is by no means the only example of how cultural expectations work hand in hand with economic realities to depress marriage rates. Trust in prospective partners gets undermined in impoverished communities by infidelity, multi-​partner fertility and the ensuing “baby mama drama,” and mass incarceration. Marriage can come to seem

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like an unattainable dream under these circumstances, so why wait to have children? Parenthood remains an attainable dream, and an important sense of fulfillment for Americans who have dim hopes for their other prospects, be they financial, occupational, educational, or marital. Given the vanishing stigma against unwed motherhood, underprivileged Americans have good incentive to become parents before they become spouses. In turn, premarital parenthood itself reduces the odds of marriage, at least for the time being (Lichter and Graefe 2001; Lichter et al. 2003; Upchurch et al. 2001; Wilcox and Wolfinger 2007). Nonmarital childbearing doesn’t always mean single motherhood. About 60% of unwed mothers are living with their partners at the time of childbirth (Sassler and Lichter 2020), a number that’s notably higher than it was just a few years ago (Livingston 2018). This figure represents a sea change in nonmarital cohabitation over the past 60 years, from “living in sin” to something that precedes two-​thirds of all marriages (Manning 2015). As scholars have realized since the 1980s, it no longer makes sense to evaluate the American family landscape without taking cohabitation into account. This has kept academics busy (see Sassler and Lichter 2020 for a review). Cohabitation is difficult to get a handle on because it’s really many different kinds of relationships. It’s the most common family structure for children born out of wedlock. It’s now the default precursor to marriage. It’s a trial marriage. It’s a substitute for marriage. It’s integral to any evaluation of stepfamilies in contemporary America (Bumpass et al. 1995). It’s a way to save money. In some cases it’s not even clear-​cut who’s cohabiting and who’s not (Manning and Smock 2005; S. Brown and Manning 2009). To top it off, it’s the main way in which American family demography looks different than it does in many European countries: particularly in Northern Europe, large numbers of children are born out of wedlock to stable cohabiting parents (Perelli-​Harris 2014; Wilcox and DeRose 2017). That’s usually not the case in the United States, where most live-​in relationships don’t last long (Musick and Michelmore 2018). A full review of these trends is beyond the scope of this chapter, so we will suffice with two broad observations. First, we shouldn’t look too hard to explain the remarkable rise of cohabitation—​it was an inevitable outgrowth of the other social forces described in this chapter. Effective birth control and the deterioration of traditional social penalties associated with premarital sex made it to be expected that some couples would seek the escalation of dating by other means. At the same time, the headwinds against marriage—​economic insecurity, and the expectations of the capstone model—​ensured that other couples would move in together but stop short of tying the knot. Finally, the divorce boom made it more likely that some couples would hesitate before jumping feet first into marriage, especially if they’d already been married in the past or had divorced parents (Wolfinger 2005). All of this made the rise of cohabitation inevitable.

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Second, we should resist thinking of cohabitation as a substitute for marriage, even though it often resembles marriage in various ways. Thirty years ago, social scientists observed that declines in the marriage rate were fully offset by rises in the level of nonmarital cohabitation, leading to speculation that cohabitation might be emerging as a replacement for marriage (Bumpass et al. 1991). It isn’t, at least not for most people. Ten years down the road, just 6% of cohabiting couples are still living together outside the bonds of matrimony (Mernitz 2018). Thus, the number of people in long-​term cohabiting relationships is vanishingly small, and often seems limited to the participation of academics who say things like, “We don’t believe in the bourgeois institution of marriage,” even as they do their best to structure their relationships exactly like a bourgeois marriage. The broader point here is that cohabitation can be many different kinds of relationships. Some are distinctly more marriage-​like than others. To be sure, many cohabiters are in relationships that can’t be thought of as anything other than families. They’re raising children together, making homes and lives together, and sharing the division of all the labor this entails. At the same time, cohabiting relationships consistently score lower on all metrics of relationship quality (Wilcox and Wolfinger 2016). The exception is couples who move in with firm intentions of marriage (S. Brown and Booth 1996; Stanley et al. 2010). Radical Pronouncements about the Modern Family Are Wrong As I was completing this chapter, one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals offered a radical assessment of the contemporary family. David Brooks, the center-​right New York Times columnist and NPR commentator, published a long article in The Atlantic arguing that the nuclear family was ahistorical, an aberration that had become an unrealized and outmoded ideal (Brooks 2020). Instead, we should be looking toward extended families and the social networks that scholars call “created kinship.” What made Brooks’s polemic especially startling is the fact that the moderate conservative intelligentsia—​perhaps best represented by Brooks’s New York Times colleague Ross Douthat—​has long comprised the strongest advocates for marriage in contemporary America. Brooks’s manifesto quickly produced a broad roster of critics that included many of our foremost students of the family, including the sociologists Andrew Cherlin (2020) and W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang (2020), Richard Reeves (2020) of the Brookings Institute, and others. Cherlin’s take was most on the money: Still, Brooks is right to recognize that nuclear families today work best for adults who can find stable employment at decent wages—​a shrinking group that includes most college-​educated people but a decreasing proportion of those without college educations. And he is correct to note that the cultural tide of individualism has eroded the formation and maintenance of life-​long marital ties. He is to be commended for arguing to conservatively-​minded observers

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that a large-​scale return to the nuclear family is unlikely except among the privileged, while also maintaining that the alternative families defended by liberals have worked out poorly for the unprivileged.

Were things bound to turn this way? I’d argue that the answer is yes. It’s hard to dislodge 1950s nostalgia from the popular imagination. Liberals look fondly at an era of high unionization, low income inequality, and a surfeit of good-​paying jobs that didn’t require higher education. Conservatives in turn venerate the 1950s family: early and plentiful marriage with lots of kids, but low divorce rates. Everyone wants to know why we can’t have some version of this idyll back again. After all, it would just take a decade of ruinous worldwide depression, followed immediately by the most lethal war in human history. Both were required to create the economic and demographic conditions that produced the anomalous 1950s family. Nostalgia for the 1950s also tends to elide the losers. African Americans and other minorities were deprived of their constitutional rights and consigned to second-​class citizenship. Many women were content as housewives, but they had little say in the matter given prevailing norms and their lack of legal rights (into the 1970s, women were not guaranteed the right to own property or have credit cards on their own [Collins 2009]). The persecution of gays and lesbians hit its modern nadir in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries in the 1950s (Robb 2004). The civil rights movements finally started to put these injustices right. In retrospect, it’s hard to see how the American family wouldn’t be roiled in the process, especially given the other social and economic disruptions of the 1960s and 1970s. This includes the advent of modern birth control, which in itself remedied an even older inequity. Childrearing has always been uniquely fraught for women. Until fairly recently, it posed mortal peril. As late as the 1930s, more than one in two hundred American women died in childbirth (Singh 2010). The United States continues to have a maternal mortality rate several times as high as other countries in the developed world (Martin and Montagne 2017). Maternal mortality has plummeted since the Great Depression, here and abroad, but the historical memory persists. What hasn’t changed is the responsibility of carrying a child to term, and the care a newborn requires. So long as chastity was the only way a woman could control her own fertility, she couldn’t be an equal citizen. Her ability to pursue an education, develop a career, or run for elective office was compromised. Birth control was essential for full citizenship, a just society, and an economy that made optimal use of its human capital. Also essential, of course, was the civil rights legislation of the 1960s and the long march to equality for women, racial and ethnic minorities, and LGBT Americans. America couldn’t live up to its founding ideals without equal rights, full civic participation, and economic opportunity for all. The family was bound to change in the process, especially given the economic transformation that began in the 1970s. As Andrew Cherlin (2020)

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suggests, a modicum of acceptance would benefit public discourse going forward. This is an appeal to our values, not an abdication of them. This acceptance should be tempered by what social science tells us about the family. Conservatives should acknowledge that the modern welfare state didn’t cause the retreat from marriage. Liberals should accept that children do best in two-​parent families, gay or straight, and shouldn’t hesitate to say so. A vast scholarly literature has incontrovertibly demonstrated that unwed parenthood, single parenting, and divorce have adverse consequences for children (for overviews, see Clarke-​Stewart and Brentano 2006; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; Wolfinger 2005). Marriage is also good for adults (Waite and Gallagher 2001), although recent studies suggest that the benefits may not be as strong as was once believed (cf. Beam et al. 2017; Dinescu et al. 2016; Horn et al. 2013; Kalmijn 2017; Killewald and Lundberg 2017; Ludwig and Brüderl 2018). Family discourse—​and perhaps families themselves—​would be much improved if old dogmas fell by the wayside. Social Policies to Benefit Families One positive step that is eminently feasible is reducing unplanned pregnancies. Since 1994 the majority of single-​parent families have been the product of nonmarital fertility, not divorce (Rawlings and Saluter 1995). Never-​married mothers have consistently lower incomes than do divorced mothers (McKeever and Wolfinger 2011, 2012) and produce comparably adverse environments for offspring (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). The vast majority of unmarried pregnancies are unplanned (Finer and Zolna 2016), so expanding access to effective contraception would go a long way to turn “drifters” into “planners,” who delayed pregnancy until better prepared to care for children (Sawhill 2014). Expanded access to contraception is an easy fix, relatively inexpensive, and opposed principally by a waning rearguard of religious conservatives. The harder choices come with policy responses to the influx of women into the paid labor force, including single mothers. Western nations have adopted a variety of responses to the problems posed by working parents that broadly boil down to two choices: encouraging a parent to stay home, or promoting female labor force participation by underwriting the cost of childcare (Morgan 2006). Prior to the 1996 welfare reform act, federal policy in the United States effectively encouraged single mothers to stay out of the paid labor force (Edin and Lein 1997). Since 1996, the United States, virtually alone among developed nations, has chosen neither path to address the influx of women into the labor market. It is therefore not surprising that federal programs for pre-​school-​age children, both paid parental leave and federally subsidized childcare, were featured issues in the 2020 presidential campaign. President George W. Bush promised to spend over a billion dollars to promote marriage (Kowaleski-​Jones and Wolfinger 2005; Pear and Kirkpatrick 2004), an effort that came to naught, as the marriage rate continued to decline. Nonetheless, the federal government should ensure that it doesn’t discourage marriage, which means eliminating marriage

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penalties in the tax code and doubling the income thresholds in means-​tested programs so that people don’t lose their benefits if they tie the knot. Richard Nixon famously floated the idea of a “negative income tax,” functionally a basic income subsidy that would provide all Americans with a minimum income of about $15,000 in today’s dollars (Andersen 2020). His proposal went nowhere, and for decades it vanished from the national agenda. It’s now back in force, with a spate of recent books and articles (e.g., Lowrey 2018), the 2020 single-​issue presidential candidacy of Democrat Andrew Yang, and even its own peer-​reviewed journal, Basic Income Studies. More politically feasible (and more affordable) would be a universal basic income for children. In 2019 Senators Michael Bennet (D-​Colorado) and Mitt Romney (R-​Utah) unveiled bipartisan legislation to provide such subsidies. Short of direct cash transfers, there has long been bipartisan support for what Ronald Reagan called America’s most effective antipoverty program, the earned income tax credit (EITC). A beefed-​up EITC would benefit tens of millions of American families, as would a larger child tax credit. Both programs incentivize employment, ultimately a desirable objective. The downside is the families who fall through the gaps: childless adults and families headed by unemployed adults. In the best of worlds the safety net would be expanded to benefit these Americans. References Aberg, Y. 2009. “The Contagiousness of Divorce.” In The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology, edited by Peter Bearman and Peter Hedström, 342–​364. New York: Oxford University Press. Akerlof, G., and J. L. Yellen. 1996. “An Analysis of Out-​of-​Wedlock Births in the United States.” Brookings Policy Prief. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. https://​www.brooki​ngs.edu/​resea​rch/​an-​analy​sis-​of-​ out-​of-​wedl​ock-​bir​ths-​in-​the-​uni​ted-​sta​tes/​. Akers, D. S. 1967. “On Measuring the Marriage Squeeze.” Demography 4 (2): 907–​924. Amato, P. R., A. Booth, D. R. Johnson, and S. J. Rogers. 2007. Alone Together: How Marriage in America Is Changing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Amato, Paul R., Laura Spencer Loomis, and Alan Booth. 1995. “Parental Divorce, Marital Conflict, and Offspring Well-​Being during Early Adulthood.” Social Forces 73 (3): 895–​915. Andersen, K. 2017. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-​Year History. New York: Random House. Andersen, K. 2020. Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: a Recent History. New York: Random House. Beam, C. R., D. Dinescu, R. Emery, and E.Turkheimer. 2017. “A Twin Study on Perceived Stress, Depressive Symptoms, and Marriage.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 58 (1): 37–​53. Brooks, D. 2020. “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” The Atlantic, March 2020. https://​www.thea​tlan​tic. com/​magaz​ine/​arch​ive/​2020/​03/​the-​nucl​ear-​fam​ily-​was-​a-​mist​ake/​605​536/​ Brown, S. L., and A. Booth. 1996. “Cohabitation versus Marriage: A Comparison of Relationship Quality.” Journal of Marriage and the Family. 58 (3): 668–​678. Brown, S. L., and W. D. Manning. 2009. “Family Boundary Ambiguity and the Measurement of Family Structure: The Significance of Cohabitation.” Demography 46 (1): 85–​101. Brown, T. S. 2013. West Germany and the Global Sixties: The Anti-​Authoritarian Revolt, 1962–​1978. New York: Cambridge University Press. Brown, T. S. 2014. “1968 in West Germany: The Anti-​Authoritarian Revolt.” The Sixties 7 (2): 99–​116. Bumpass, L. I., R. K. Raley, and J.A. Sweet. 1995. “The Changing Character of Stepfamilies: Implications of Cohabitation and Nonmarital Childbearing.” Demography 32 (3): 425–​436. Bumpass, L. I., J. A. Sweet, and A. J. Cherlin. 1991. “The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (4): 913–​927.

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Caldwell, C. 2020. The Age of Entitlement: America since the Sixties. New York: Simon & Schuster. Carlson, D. L., S. Hanson, and A. Fitzroy. 2016. “The Division of Child Care, Sexual Intimacy, and Relationship Qality in Couples.” Gender & Society 30 (3): 442–​466. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Center for Health Statistics. 2003. “Live Births, Birth Rates, and Fertility Rates, by Race: United States, 1909–​2003.” Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://​www.cdc.gov/​nchs/​data/​sta​tab/​natfi​nal2​003.ann​vol1​_​01.pdf. Cherlin, A. J. 2009. The Marriage-​Go-​Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today. New York: Vintage. Cherlin, A. J. 2020. “David Brooks Is Urging Us to Go Forward, Not Backward. The Family Studies Blog, February 12, 2020. https://​ifstud​ies.org/​blog/​david-​bro​oks-​is-​urg​ing-​us-​to-​go-​forw​ard-​not-​ backw​ard. Clarke-​ Stewart, A., and C. Brentano. 2006. Divorce: Causes and Consequences. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cohany, S. R., and E. Sok, 2007. “Trends in Labor Force Participation of Married Mothers of Infants.” Monthly Labor Review, February 2007, 9–​16. https://​www.bls.gov/​opub/​mlr/​2007/​02/​art2f​ull.pdf. Collins, G. 2009. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. New York: Little, Brown. Desilver, D. 2018. “For Most U.S. Workers, Real Wages Have Barely Budged in Decades.” Pew Fact Tank. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. https://​www.pewr​esea​rch.org/​fact-​tank/​2018/​08/​07/​for-​most-​us-​ work​ers-​real-​wages-​have-​bar​ely-​bud​ged-​for-​deca​des/​. Dinescu, D., E. Turkheimer, C. R. Beam, E. E. Horn, G. Duncan, and R. E. Emery. 2016. “Is Marriage a Buzzkill? A Twin Study of Marital Status and Alcohol Consumption.” Journal of Family Psychology 30 (6): 698–​707. Donovan, S. A., and D. H. Bradley. 2019. “Real Wage Trends, 1979 to 2018.” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. https://​fas.org/​sgp/​crs/​misc/​R45​090.pdf. Edin, K., and M. Kefalas. 2005. Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Edin, K., and L. Lein. 1997. Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-​Wage Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Ellwood, D. T., and L. H. Summers, 1985. “Poverty in America: Is Welfare the Answer or the Problem?” Working Paper No. 1711. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. England, P. 2018. “Book Review: Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy.” Men and Masculinities 21 (1): 252–​154. Finer, L. B., and M. R. Zolna. 2016. “Declines in Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 2008–​2011.” New England Journal of Medicine 374 (9): 843–​852. Frum, D. 2008. How We Got Here: The 70’s: The Decade That Brought You Modern Life (for Better or Worse). New York: Basic Books. Gallup. n.d. “Marriage.” https://​news.gal​lup.com/​poll/​117​328/​Marri​age.aspx. Garfinkel, I., C-​C. Huang, S. S. McLanahan, and D. S. Gaylin. 2003. “The Roles of Child Support Enforcement and Welfare in Non-​marital Childbearing.” Journal of Population Economics 16 (1): 55–​70. Gates, G. J. 2011. “How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual andTtransgender?” Los Angeles: The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. https://​willia​msin​stit​ute.law.ucla.edu/​wp-​cont​ent/​uplo​ads/​ Gates-​How-​Many-​Peo​ple-​LGBT-​Apr-​2011.pdf. Glenn, N. D. 1997. “A Reconsideration of the Effect of No-​Fault Divorce on Divorce Rates.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 59 (4): 1026–​1030. Goldstein, J. R. 1999. “The Leveling of Divorce in the United States.” Demography 36 (3): 409–​414. Goldstein, J. R., and C. T. Kenney. 2001. “Marriage Delayed or Marriage Forgone? New Cohort Forecasts of First Marriage for U.S. Women.” American Sociological Review 66 (4): 506–​519. Gruber, J. 2004. “Is Making Divorce Easier Bad for Children? The Long-​Run Implications of Unilateral Divorce.” Journal of Labor Economics 22 (4): 799–​833. Heaton, T. B. 2002. “Factors Contributing to Increasing Marital Stability in the United States.” Journal of Family Issues 23 (3): 392–​409. Horn, E.E., Y. Xu, C. R. Beam, E. Turkheimer, and R. E. Emery. 2013. “Accounting for the Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Entry into Marriage: A Genetically Informed Study of Selection and Causation.” Journal of Family Psychology 27 (1): 30–​41.

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C H A P T E R

5

F amily Policies in Long-​Term Perspective

Thomas Bahle

Abstract Surveying the historical development of family policies from a cross-​national perspective, Thomas Bahle distinguishes three main stages during which various measures emerged in response to family-​related problems that arose in the process of modernization. Initially the main instrument of family policies involved family allowances supported by nationalist, pro-​natalist movements. The second stage emerged as women entered the industrial labor force in large numbers. Measures such as childcare and family leave aimed to harmonize work and family life, as the dual-​earner family model replaced the male breadwinner model. Bahle sees the third stage developing in response to the pluralization of family life and the changing patterns of the individual life course, which includes the timing of marriage, education, childbearing, and retirement. He suggests that as the third stage evolves, family policies will focus more on individuals in families than on specific types of families. Key Words: pro-​natalist, modernization, family allowances, dual-​earner family, pluralization

Introduction This chapter sketches the long-​term development of family policies in cross-​national perspective. Family policies started to develop later than other social policies and are still less institutionalized. Yet in many modern welfare states, they are an established policy field today. Historically, family policies pursued widely varying aims, but today the general focus is on children’s well-​being and parents’ reconciliation of work and childcare. Even though there was no main road in family policies’ historical development, one can discern common trends and features in different countries. This chapter emphasizes these commonalities, but it also looks at some of the main cross-​national variations. The main argument is that family policies developed in three main historical stages, in which general modernization processes led to typical family-​related problems and to the institutionalization of key family policy instruments. These key instruments characterize the different periods and reveal the main differences in family policies between countries at that time. The chapter’s first section defines family policies and argues that they have always had several aims. The subsequent three sections analyze the three main stages in the historical

development of family policies. The second section, “The Rise of Family Policies,” looks at the beginning of family policies from the late 19th century until the end of World War II. In this period, industrialization, the First Demographic Transition and the breakthrough of the modern welfare state were the main developments. The most important instrument in family policies at that time were family allowances. The third section, “The Second Wave of Family Policies,” analyzes the period from the 1960s to the 2000s, in which the second wave of family policies came. Tertiarization, the Second Demographic Transition and the crisis of the welfare state characterize this period, in which childcare and parental leave programs were the main new family policy instruments. Finally, the fourth section, “Toward Future Family Policies?,” deals with current challenges to family policies. It tries to identify ongoing social trends, which may bring about new family policy changes, and is, of course, a bit speculative. Definitions and Policy Objectives This section discusses different definitions of “family” and “family policy” and outlines some of the basic policy objectives associated with family policy. Family policy is an open concept, in both institutional and normative respects. There is no unanimously accepted definition of “family policy,” nor is its scope easily delimited by institutional frontiers. This is particularly the case for cross-​national studies over a longer period. The question of definition is indeed twofold: what is a family and what is policy for families? The first subquestion relates to cultural ideas and norms regarding human living arrangements. Today, most of us would agree to an inclusive concept of the family as including all small social units where children are living together with adults (Bertram and Kohl 2010). This definition embraces various forms of partnership or single-​parenthood. In former times, the family concept was more restrictive, often limited to a married couple (of opposite sexes) with children. The second part of the question, the policy aspect of the definition, is perhaps even more difficult to answer. Today, most of us would perhaps agree that we are talking about public policies (i.e., the welfare state). In the past, however, nonpublic actors were much more important. The church, for example, was a major actor in family law in many countries (Glendon 1989), particularly in the Catholic world, and employers were forerunners and innovators in the field of family allowances (Schultheis 1988; ILO 1924, 1936). Churches and local associations of bourgeois women were the first to establish kindergartens and preschools (Scheiwe and Willekens 2009). Finally, the combination of the two terms, families and policies, opens up further complications. Are family policies policies for families, explicitly focusing on families, or do they also include policies that, for example, compensate for a lack of “family” and do not explicitly focus on families? Are policies for children or implicit measures part of family policy? In the 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, public policies did often focus on orphans or abandoned children, or on single mothers. The idea in this case was certainly not to supporting a family. In the United States, such

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policies were indeed one of the first pillars of an emerging welfare state in the 19th century, together with policies for veterans (Skocpol 1995). In historical perspective, family policies have always had various aims and set up different intervention forms. Their scope is therefore open and cross-​sectional in character. The aims of family policies have varied over time and cross-​nationally. Kaufmann (1993) argues that combating poverty among families, increasing birth rates, and redistributing economic resources “horizontally” from childless persons to families with children had been the main aims in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These three classical aims characterized the first wave of family policies. In Britain, the emphasis was on poverty, in France on birth rates, and in Germany on horizontal redistribution. In addition, orphans and single mothers were major target groups, particularly in the United States and Sweden. During this formative period of family policies, the predominant normative image was the male-​breadwinner family. From the beginning of the 1960s, new aims gained ground in family policies: a reconciliation between work and family, the socialization of children and gender equality. These new aims were most prominent and began early in the Nordic countries (Bahle 1994; Gauthier 1996; Ferrarini 2006). In recent years, additional aims have become prominent, which may again shift the balance: investment in children (human capital formation), child well-​being, and social integration of children (Bertram 2018). Overall, it seems that today family policies are increasingly focusing on the individual child. The various aims can be in conflict with each other. The prevention of poverty, for example, may be at odds with the aims of horizontal redistribution or reconciliation of family and work. The two latter aims focus on middle-​class families, whereas poverty is an issue for underprivileged groups. Moreover, there have always been normative conflicts in family policies, for example between supporters of a traditional male-​breadwinner family type and proponents of plural family models (Pfau-​Effinger 2004). In an institutional perspective, family policies do not represent a clearly demarcated set of policy measures. Kaufmann (1993) distinguishes five different intervention forms: regulatory (law), monetary (transfers and tax reductions), services (e.g., counseling, childcare), infrastructure (e.g., playgrounds, parks for children), and social-​pedagogical interventions (e.g., social work, family aid). The historical development of family policies has broadly followed a specific sequence of these instruments: starting from money over services to infrastructure, with pedagogical interventions always being there. In addition, family policies have a cross-​sectional character. To be sure, some measures focus directly on the family, such as family allowances or childcare services. Yet beyond that, family-​related benefits exist in almost each other’s functional social policy area, for example in health and old-​age insurance from early on. In most social insurance countries, employment-​based health insurance has usually covered inactive family members without extra premiums, too. Implicitly, this has also been the case in public health systems like the British National Health Service. In most public old-​age insurance systems, survivors’

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pensions have existed and parents today benefit from extra pension credits. Furthermore, at the local level, families often benefit from lower public transport fees or ticket prices for parks, museums, or sports arenas. These cross-​sectional “implicit” family benefits can be as important for families as “explicit” direct benefits (Kamerman and Kahn 1978). In historical terms, implicit family policies have always existed in social policies as family policies “avant la lettre” (Fux 1994). A cross-​national and longitudinal analysis needs a broad definition of family policies. For the purpose of this chapter, I define family policies as any public policies that intervene into the relationship between families (or family members) and society or into the relationships between family members. A family in this respect is any form of small social unit in which adults share life with children. A policy in this respect is any form of intervention that explicitly or implicitly aims at families or at individuals in their property as family members. The intervention is public if means and modes are regulated by public agencies at any level of government (own definition; see also Bahle 1994). The Rise of Family Policies Industrialization and the First Demographic Transition marked the first stage in the long-​term development of family policies. The early beginnings were more often implicit rather than explicit, however. The family was an integral part in the take-​off and rise of the modern welfare state, which begun in the mid-​to late 19th century (Alber 1982; Flora 1986), but in different ways in different countries. Germany was the pioneer in social insurance for industrial workers. From early on, social benefits had a family component, too, such as survivors’ pensions in old age and invalidity insurance. Britain had a long poor law tradition and emphasized it during the early years of industrialization (Briggs 1961). The poor law had two strong implicit family components, too, first with respect to the obligation of family members to supporting each other in case of need, and second in setting the needs standards for benefits. Although early social policies in these two countries focused either on industrial workers or on the poor, family aspects were important elements from the start in both. In other countries, the early welfare state had a more explicit family dimension. The United States, for example, was a latecomer in welfare state development, but a forerunner in social policies for war veterans and mothers with children (Skocpol 1995). The US Civil War was the first industrialized warfare in modern history, with massive consequences for combatants and civilians alike. Veterans and the most vulnerable groups became the first for whom social benefits were introduced. More than 50 years later, World War I pushed social policies in Europe, too (Obinger and Schmitt 2020). In France, early social policies were explicitly oriented toward the family more than in any other country. The motives were twofold: first, in France the family was an integral part in the social question during industrialization and urbanization, and second, France was the first country experiencing massive birth decline during the First Demographic Transition (Coale and Watkins 1986). The combination of social and

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pro-​natalist motives triggered the early and explicit development in French family policies. Social Catholic and nationalist, pro-​natalist movements joined in pushing a strong family policy (Schultheis 1988). To be sure, population aims were a major motive for early family policies in most countries, before and after the Great War and well into the 1940s (Glass 1940; Gauthier 1996). France was the pioneer, but other countries followed suit, including the Fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, and Spain, but also countries like Belgium and Sweden. In Germany, the Nazi dictatorship established a racist family and pro-​natalist population policy (Schmidt 2005), but Swedish family policies at that time also included populationist elements (Carlson 1990). There were only a few exceptions from this general trend, foremost the United Kingdom and the United States. In these two countries, population-​oriented policies had no strong roots. One of the reasons was the exceptional, though different, global status of the two countries: The British Empire was the largest empire in human history, and the United States was a country with very high immigration until the 1920s. Hence, in both countries there was no fear of population decline. Of course, political and social factors played a role for this exception, too. The main instrument of early family policies were family allowances. During this stage, their main drivers were conservative political forces and national governments, including authoritarian and Fascist regimes supporting traditional family values and norms. In countries in which these movements predominated, family allowances developed early and more strongly than in the liberal and democratic societies. Liberal and leftist political forces were skeptical about the idea of family allowances, since they wanted to assist only the poor (liberal) or to increase general wage levels instead of supporting wage supplements for fathers (left). Particularly socialist and social-​democratic forces feared that employers could misuse family allowances as an instrument to keeping the general wage level low. The introduction of family allowances was a first milestone in the institutionalization of family policies (Obinger and Petersen 2019; Wennemo 1992, 1994). Until the end of World War II, most countries had indeed introduced such a program (Figure 5.1). The figure includes any regular payments to families on behalf of children institutionalized at the national level for larger parts of the population, including categorical and means-​ tested schemes outside general social assistance systems. Before the end of World War II, most schemes were either categorically limited, for example for workers and employees as in France, or restricted to poor families as in the United States. Truly universal payments for all children in a country began only after the war with UK and Swedish child benefits. The timing in the introduction of family allowances and the type of allowance differed between countries, however. In the early phase until 1945, one can distinguish two groups of countries. First, the “Beveridge” type systems in which family allowances were introduced for needy families. New Zealand was the pioneer among these countries and the first country overall to introduce family allowances, followed 10 years later by the

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Grey mark = systems for employed or economically actiive persons (”Bismarck” type) Black mark = systems for low-income families or universal (”Beveridge” type) Slovenia

20

Germany (West) Denmark

Finland+Austria Sweden, Poland UK+Czechoslovakia

15

Ireland+Romania Portugal+Bulgaria

10

Australia Netherlands Spain+Hungary Italy

Early birds

The war

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1960

France Belgium

1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939

0

New Zealand

USA

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

5

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944

Number of existing programmes

25

Post-war

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Figure 5.1  Introduction of family allowances in industrialized countries, 1925–​1960  Source: Obinger and Petersen (2019, 21); Neumann (2016, 66); Schmidt (2005, 182).

United States, which introduced AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) in 1935 as part of the Social Security legislation of the New Deal. Only poor families had access to these allowances, many of them single-​parent families. In the United States, the limited access to family allowances exclusively for poor families has remained a key feature of the system, whereas in all other “Beveridge” countries payments became universal for all children over time. Typically, all Anglophone and Nordic countries have followed this “Beveridge” trajectory of universal (in scope) and targeted (in terms of needs) family allowances. The other group of countries followed a “Bismarck” path. Starting with the early birds Belgium and France, these countries introduced family allowances for employed persons and (partly) for the self-​employed. Often these allowances were organized in different schemes for different groups, as had been the case in social insurance for work-​related risks, too. These countries are marked in red in Figure 5.1. In most of them, voluntary provisions for family allowances had existed in various sectors of the economy before the state intervened through legislation (ILO 1936). The early voluntary development was based on equalization funds established by employers in particular industries. These funds pursued two major aims: first, keeping the general wage level low while at the same time supporting fathers in earning a living for their families, and second, philanthropic motives stemming from Social-​Catholic doctrine. The pope had called for action in favor of families in his encyclical Rerum novarum in 1891. In these countries, family allowances

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were part of wage and labor market policies from the start. State legislation afterward tried to stabilize and save these provisions during and after the Great Depression through obligation. After World War II, there was a second wave in the introduction of family allowances. Now the European Anglophone and the Nordic countries took the lead, starting with Ireland in 1944, soon followed by the UK in 1945 and Sweden in 1947. These countries opted for universal family allowances from the start (i.e., universal in scope), but no longer targeted at the poor. In the UK, the debate on family allowances had been vivid and controversial during the 1920s and 1930s (Macnicol 1980), but legislation did not succeed until 1945. Liberals and conservatives alike had feared a negative impact on wage policies and the labor market. Social and pro-​natalist aims did not make it into law. After the war, family allowances begun as part of the new British welfare state. At that time, the Socialist countries introduced family allowances in a similar manner. Germany was the only country that introduced family allowances in Bismarck style after the war, limited to economically active persons. There are two main reasons for this German exception: first, the tradition of the employment-​based Bismarck welfare state was strong in all fields of social security, and second, the postwar democratic government wanted to distance itself clearly from the racist and pro-​natalist Nazi family policy. Over time, family allowances have become universal here as well, starting with the third child in 1964. Today the scheme is universal, too. Today, most industrialized countries have universal family allowances and a number of other family-​related transfers in their social security systems. However, there are still exceptions. In Italy and Greece, universal family allowances do not yet exist. The United States, too, has a very limited scheme for poor, mainly single-​parent families, the conditions of which became even more restrictive by the 1995 reform replacing AFDC with TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families), which limits benefits to five years in an individual’s lifetime. A further major institutional difference between countries concerned who should receive family allowances. In most conservative and authoritarian countries on the Bismarck path, the benefits went to fathers, because they were conceived as “wage supplements.” In these countries, family allowances were clearly an instrument to supporting the male-​breadwinner family. By contrast, in the liberal democracies of Britain, the United States, and the Nordic countries, mothers received the allowances. The idea behind this rule was that children should be the real beneficiaries, thereby preventing real or presumed misuse of these social benefits by fathers. The Second Wave of Family Policies After World War II, most industrialized countries had family allowances, both in the Western democratic-​capitalist and in the socialist sphere. In the socialist countries, the model of the working mother had replaced the male-​breadwinner family model. This idea

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was strongly favored for both ideological and economic reasons. However, from the beginning of the socialist period until its end in 1989, individual countries had established their own specific variant of this pattern. Some countries closely followed the socialist ideal-​ type, particularly the former GDR (East Germany), while others set up a different policy model during early childhood, particularly Hungary. In the GDR, the main policy instrument was public (enterprise-​based) childcare starting at very young ages, while Hungary introduced motherhood and parental leaves, allowing mothers to stay at home to care for a child for a longer period of time. The GDR therefore had one of the highest full-​time employment rates of women in the world, while other socialist countries like Hungary or Poland deviated from the ideal-​typical model. These variations continued to exist until the fall of the Iron Curtain. In the Western world, the Catholic countries remained the spearheads of family policies until the mid-​1960s. By then, family policies had entered into a new major stage of development. The structural and cultural background for this transformation had been the tertiarization of the economy and the great cultural shift in values and norms (Pfau-​Effinger 2004). The first led to a strong rise in female employment, the second to a pluralization in family forms. Of course, these trends are interrelated. Demographers therefore speak about a “Second Demographic Transition” (Van de Kaa 1987; Lesthaege 2010). Ironically, this major change set in when the ideas of universal marriage, universal parenthood, and a traditional male-​breadwinner family had been at their historical zenith. Never before in the history of Western societies had more people married, become parents, and lived to the ideal of a single-​earner family. In historical perspective, the 1960s were the heyday of the traditional nuclear family. The structural conditions and the rise in general living standards at that time had allowed the vast majority of the population to live according to this traditional normative model for the first time in history. Underneath, however, societies had already begun to change fundamentally, in both structural and cultural terms. The change therefore seemed rapid and fundamental to observers. This is true if one compares the early 1980s to the 1960s, but a big part of the explanation lies in the historical exception of the 1960s. The pluralization of family forms and the rise in female employment also had consequences for family policies (Daly and Ferragina 2018; Guo and Gilbert 2007). Childcare, parental leave, and support for single-​parent families were the new major instruments focusing on the reconciliation between family and work. As a result, the focus of family policies also shifted toward young families and children living in plural family forms. In most countries, these new family policy instruments supplemented the existing provisions, but the resulting mix has varied between countries. Today, the strongest and most significant differences in family policies between countries are in early childhood policies (Thévenon 2011). These differences are due to variations in the rise in female employment and in the shift to service economies. In addition, they are due to fundamental differences in cultural, political, and social structures and historical experiences.

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In the West, the pioneers in this development were the Nordic countries, soon followed by France and Belgium, and later, though hesitantly, by Continental European countries like Austria or Germany. The United States, Southern Europe, and Switzerland have remained outside this trend so far, while Britain and the Netherlands have found their own ways, emphasizing part-​time work for women in particular. The actors driving the new family policies are clearly different from the first stage of family policy development. While conservative elites, national governments and Catholic movements had supported the “old” policies, women’s organizations, left-​wing political forces, and employers demanded the “new” policies. The new policies did not emerge from the top—​as had been the case with the old policies—​but women in particular had to struggle for them from below (Leira 1992). Regarding the long-​term impact of structural factors, employment regimes and gender norms had a marked influence on early childhood policies (Daly 2010; Leitner 2003). Childcare and parental leave are the two typical instruments in the new family policies (Gilbert 2008). In this field, one should distinguish between services for children below the age of three and those between three and five years. For the older age group, day-​care services have a long history and are more frequent than services for younger children (Bahle 2009). In addition, variations between countries are smaller for this age group. Services for children above age three began primarily as agencies for socializing children. Starting in the late 19th century, these institutions were mainly set up by churches, religious groups, bourgeois women, the workers’ movement, and the (secular) nation-​state at the local level. The idea was to integrating children into national (local) society or into religious and other groups with a specific value orientation. The conflict between the liberal state and the church (mainly the Catholic Church) in particular spurred the establishment of kindergartens, preschools, and schools—​as part of the struggle and competition for citizens or followers. For this reason, childcare developed early and extensively in countries in which this conflict had been strong under the impact of modernization: Belgium and France were the forerunners in this development. Already in the early 20th century, the coverage rate in Belgium for public or religious day care for children between three and six years was almost one-​third (Bahle 2009; Willekens 2009). Still today, coverage rates for this age group are highest not in the Nordic countries, but in the modernized Catholic countries of Europe. Since the 1960s, these institutions spread in most other countries, too. The aim of socialization remained, but supplemented with the aim to preparing children for school and improving the reconciliation of work and family for parents. By contrast, day-​care services for children below the age of three developed later and in smaller numbers. In addition, variations among countries are stronger. In this area, the Nordic countries were forerunners, while the Catholic countries (except Belgium and France) still lag behind. Day-​care services for this age group have been linked to the issue of parents’ employment from the beginning, not to socialization. Services started to

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develop after female employment had begun to rise in the late 1960s. The major driving force in this case were organized women and, later, employers in the tertiary sector of the economy. Since women’s’ employment increased earlier and stronger in the Nordic countries, they were the first in which these services spread. Yet elites did not initiate their spread from “above” (as had been the case for the socialization services). Rather, women’s organizations had to fight for their case, and policymakers reacted to political pressures (Leira 1992). The reasons for the early rise in female employment in the Nordic countries were economic, social, and cultural. In economic terms, the shift from industrial to tertiary employment was rapid, but in contrast to Germany or Switzerland, labor immigration was limited. Women were therefore the major “reserve pool” for the labor market. In social terms, this shift took place in a relatively egalitarian society with a strong welfare state. In this context, the dual-​earner family model replaced the breadwinner model within a short time. The growing welfare state also needed women’s’ labor (particularly in health, education, and social care). At the same time, the state needed higher taxes, which families could afford only in a dual-​earner structure. However, this shift could not have taken place without a decisive cultural precondition: a relatively high gender equality, which is partly rooted in Protestantism, but mainly in the pre-​industrial Nordic economy, in which women’s’ work was indeed an inherent component. Day care for working parents was mainly a result of economic needs and political pressures from “below.” This is also the reason for why day care for children below age three is closely linked to parental leave policies. In fact, the two instruments can be complements or substitutes for families with young children. Variations between countries in the combination of these two instruments are a key indicator for different types of family policies (Thévenon 2011). Indeed, the country profiles in early childhood and family policies vary in typical ways (Figure 5.2). The Nordic countries, as well as France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, have a high supply of day-​care places for young children, combined with modest parental leave systems. Most characteristic for these countries is that the two policy instruments are not really alternatives, but instead complement each other. Widely available day-​care services at young ages go hand in hand with generous, but time-​limited parental leave. Young families therefore have a clear policy structure in which they can trust. They can prepare and plan the phase of family formation more easily. In addition, young mothers have a clear incentive to keep their jobs and have only short periods of employment interruption. At the opposite end of the spectrum, most Eastern European countries have extensive employment leave provisions and very limited childcare services for young children. In these countries, the clear incentive for mothers is to taking care of young children themselves and leaving employment for a longer time. Perhaps this conservative policy profile is surprising for the former socialist countries, in which the working mother had been the model, but after the breakdown of the old system, most of these countries have shifted

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toward a more conservative policy. They went partly back to their earlier traditions before socialism (Inglot 2008; Bahle 2008). Another reason, of course, was the lack of jobs and public resources during transition. While the policy profiles for these two country groups are relatively clear-​cut, this is different for the liberal welfare states and Southern Europe. In the United Kingdom, parental leave is less generous than in most other European countries, because British policy generally refrains from intervening into the labor market. Childcare for employment reasons was not a policy priority either. Public services are available for lower-​earning and single parents mainly, whereas the middle classes rely on an expensive private day-​care service market (Lewis and West 2017). Hence, family policies in this regard reflect the two overarching features of the British welfare state since the early 1980s: nonintervention into the labor market and targeting social policy on the lower classes. The United States advocates this type of policy even more. In Southern Europe, there is no explicit family policy orientation either. Rather, the state leaves young families alone in their struggle during the early childhood years (Naldini and Saraceno 2008). This passivity is also part of a larger institutional and structural context, which often overburdens families with social problems. The pattern here is similar in early childhood policies, long-​term care for the elderly and in supporting young unemployed adults. In all these cases, families have to shoulder the burden almost without assistance from the welfare state (Ferrera 1996).

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In the Continental European countries (excluding France and Benelux), particularly in Germany, the policy profile is ambivalent and offers no clear structure for action to young families. In contrast to the well-​integrated policies in the Nordic countries, young families in Germany are facing a situation in which they have to muddle through and find their own solution in combining childcare and work, very often with the support of grandparents. This ambivalence also exists in other family-​related policies here. Toward Future Family Policies? Modern societies are rapidly and fundamentally changing, perhaps more so than ever in human history. It would be quite surprising if families and family policies would be unaffected by these changes. Like industrialization and tertiarization, the transformation of modern societies to knowledge-​based digital economies will certainly also transform family policies. The questions involve how these changes will happen and whether they will happen in similar ways in all countries. The answers are speculative, of course, but some changes seem to be likely. One profound current change is the transformation to a knowledge-​based digital economy. The COVID-​19 pandemic spurred this change, which had been on its way for several years. “Knowledge-​based” means that economy and society need continuous skill formation and renewal of skills throughout the entire life of individuals. The clear-​cut separation of individual life courses into distinct phases with specific tasks has already begun to vanish (Bertram 2018). Of course, childhood and youth will remain the key stages for socialization and knowledge acquisition, but skills will need to be adapted as well during the main years of economic activity. This change will lead to an increasing “vertical” de-​differentiation in individual life courses. In historical perspective, the welfare state had strongly contributed to a differentiation of life courses into distinct periods (mainly through education and pension systems) and to a standardization between different social groups (Mayer and Müller 1986). Today, however, it seems that the welfare state already supports a de-​differentiation of life courses through flexible education and retirement systems. In addition, the digital revolution requires a “horizontal” pluralization of individual life courses, particularly in linked lives, since the timing of life events and the recombination of linked lives will become more flexible—​though not necessarily as foreseeable as they seem perhaps today. Welfare states will need to allow for a further pluralization in living forms. It seems that also, in this respect, one can already observe a reversal of historical trends (Möhring 2016). The consequences of these changes will be a big move toward flexibility in individual life courses and pluralism in family forms (Van Winkle 2020). Hence family policies will be less able to focusing on specific family types only, since this would be ineffective and illegitimate. In such a transformed context, a focus on individuals in families would be appropriate. Family policies will therefore very likely become policies for the individual child, whatever the actual life situation may be. Furthermore, growing flexibility

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in individual life courses and recombinations in linked lives require a new social security net for critical transitional stages such as the formation of families, the dissolution of partnerships or a return to full-​time work. Periods for skill formation or caring for family members—​whether children, partners, or parents—​will alternate with periods of work more often and in less standardized patterns. New forms of “individualized” social security schemes can make the increasing variety and flexibility in modern living arrangements safer. Family policies will probably become both wider in scope and more flexible in time—​and quite likely more individual-​oriented. Additional factors contribute to an increasing orientation on individuals, particularly children. First, the growing need for social integration in immigration societies. In most welfare states of the Western world, an increasing part of the population has origins in other areas of the world. Family policies will have to respond to this challenge. Since heterogeneity in cultural and family backgrounds is growing among children, family policies will have to assist all children in becoming full members of society. The focus will therefore shift toward socialization and providing children from different social backgrounds with the same basic life chances. In such a context, the significance of services and opportunity structures will outweigh monetary transfers by far. Child day care will be just one element in a series of services, including sports facilities, playgrounds, housing opportunities, and—​when children become older—​educational facilities and access to digital services. The emphasis will be on individual opportunities and social variety rather than the traditional same-​size-​for-​all supply. In addition, the transition to a knowledge-​ based economy and society requires massive investment in human capital, and children obviously are the future of our societies. The direction to which this change points is very similar to the growing need to secure flexibility: supporting individual children as members of society and guaranteeing them the fundamental life chances for the future well-​being of society as a whole. These arguments for renewed future family policies are functionalist. Functional explanations are not sufficient and satisfactory, however. Policies require the mobilization of interests and institutional openness for change. What are the driving forces for such a change in family policies, and will our societies and institutions be open to it? In the first two waves of family policies, the major driving forces, respectively, were national and conservative elites and, later, the women’s movement and employers (together with the welfare state as employer). Institutions certainly changed thereby—​in the first wave, family policies had developed as a corollary to the welfare state and the capitalist economy, and in the second one, they became a key element in the new division of labor in society. Today it seems that three main actors and population groups have a major interest in modernizing family policies in the outlined way. First (again), national and (what is new) European elites. International-​oriented and European-​minded elites are aware of the fact that modern societies need highly skilled, diverse individuals. Family and national background should not matter for individual life chances, since diversity and individuality

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are the best conditions for social creativity and innovation—​which are crucial resources in knowledge-​based economies. Yet these aims are not unanimously accepted. Rather, national-​oriented elites and population groups strongly contest them. In recent years, one can observe a growing resistance toward international cooperation and social diversity, although in most countries this is still a minority. In the US and the UK, however, such movements had a strong impact on Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as US president. All modern societies are facing a growing cleavage between openness and closure. The outcome of this conflict is uncertain, and it will strongly affect family policies, too. Second (again), large sections of employers have a strong interest in international openness, diversity, and human capital formation. Both production chains and consumption patterns have become international, and global-​oriented firms in particular regard diversity as a major social and economic resource. However, there are also parts of the economy that are less global-​minded and more national-​oriented, such as small enterprises, self-​ employed persons, and some sections of the personal social services and of other services for consumers. Their outlook is primarily local, not national. Therefore, also in the economic realm, aims and interests diverge between different groups, but it seems that with respect to this cleavage the modernizing forces have more power resources. A third group that strongly favors individual-​oriented and pluralist family policies is the urban middle class, whose members form the core of the workforce in the knowledge-​ based economy and live in plural family structures. In a way, they are therefore the potential clients of modern family policies and at the same time their most vigorous proponents. They will benefit most from flexible day care for children, effective long-​term care services for parents who often live elsewhere, and from generous, flexible parental leave arrangements. Moreover, they aim at high-​quality socialization and education opportunities for their children. Most couples live in dual-​earner families and benefit more from services and time rights than from monetary transfers. Investment in social infrastructure and a guarantee of individual opportunities are primary goals. Yet, also in this social arena, different interests and aims are contesting the modernizing view. In terms of value orientations and political opinions, one can indeed observe a growing cleavage between “modernizing” and traditional population groups. If the major proponents of the modernizing view are the urban middle classes, the working classes and the rural populations are the main supporters of the conservative view. Their work is less knowledge-​based, and money is still a highly important resource, since they usually have lower incomes. Therefore, also in the social arena, the outcome of the conflict between proponents and opponents of change is open. In the economic arena, the power resources speak strongly in favor of further modernization, but in the political and in the social arenas, the battle is ongoing. In any case, a new modernizing shift in family policies will need time and will not happen in all countries at the same time or to the same extent, since economic, political, and social conditions vary. If change happens, a new significant element will add existing family policies, ones oriented toward the middle classes, urban forms of living, and diverse

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lifestyles. Infrastructure, services and time-​rights will be major instruments in this new family policy package. Yet will the “old” problems and challenges of birth decline and child poverty disappear? The evidence clearly says no. Most modern countries are still struggling with low birth rates and high child poverty. The old “giants” are still alive and perhaps even more threatening than ever. Future-​oriented societies need children—​and indeed each individual child. Since poverty is a major threat to individual life chances, it is a major challenge particularly for modern societies. A look at the data on child poverty reveals that many countries have not yet solved this preeminent problem (see Figure 5.3). Figure 5.3 shows the typical problem constellations concerning birth rates (total fertility rate) and the child poverty rate in different countries in 2012. Poverty is defined as less than 50% of median equivalized net household income in each country. The graph does not assume any causal relationship between the two indicators. Nor is it assumed that the two indicators are only influenced by family policies. It is just a presentation of actual problem constellations related to two long-​standing major aims of family policies: higher birth rates and lower child poverty. Overall, the Nordic countries do well on both indicators, while the Southern European countries show the worst constellation. The liberal Anglophone countries do quite well with respect to birth rates, but also have relatively high child poverty. The Continental European countries do better in poverty prevention, but are less successful in achieving a high number of births. The situation is very similar in most Eastern European countries, 22.5 20.0

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Figure 5.3  Problem constellations in modern countries, 2012  Source: OECD Family Database, own calculation.

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while France, Belgium, and the Netherlands stand between the Continental European countries and the Nordic welfare states. What do these patterns tell us about family policies? First, it shows that child poverty is closely related to family policy efforts (see also Bradshaw 2015; Gornick and Nell 2017), whereas birth rates vary relatively independently from investment in family policies. Family policies can defeat poverty, but childbirth is a more complex issue depending on wider circumstances and individual decisions made by young couples (see Bujard 2016). Birth rates are also relatively high in the liberal Anglophone countries, although their family policies are only modest or—​as in the US—​rudimentary. One of the reasons is immigration, another, perhaps, the status of women in society. The latter aspect is what these countries have in common with the Nordic countries. Looking at the profile of family policies, poverty seems to be lower in countries that focus on services and infrastructure instead of monetary transfers—​thereby supporting work and education opportunities (Förster and Verbist 2012). This is a highly significant result, because it means that modernized family policies can also effectively fight against poverty, if integrated into universal welfare systems. Under these conditions, there is no trade-​off between the goal of poverty prevention and supporting individual opportunities for all members of society. The eminent precondition for this setting is that society assumes responsibility for the basic well-​being and life chances of all its members. This argument leads us back to normative and political issues. In the last instance, family policies need a strong social commitment of the state as well as a high level of trust in government and the state among the population. One cannot simply construct or transfer this fundamental condition to a different context, but one can easily destroy it. Conclusions This chapter has argued that the long-​term development of family policies has taken place in three stages, each marked by typical social transformations and policy challenges. Despite cross-​national variations, family policies have developed along similar lines in all countries. Differences between countries are mainly due to a different timing and speed of modernization processes and to various cultural, political, and economic circumstances. Yet the big line of change has been similar. Looking at current developments, the chapter has argued that family policies have entered into a new stage with new challenges and a significant new change in policy profiles—​the outcome of which is open, because it is a contested issue. The outline of future family policies is also open, but it seems that family policies will become both universal and more individual-​oriented: universal with respect to the guarantee of basic social rights and opportunities for all children in society, individual with respect to variability in life courses and pluralism in family forms. If one successfully combines both aspects, the result will be a family policy that suits all individuals and helps society as a whole.

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The chapter was written during the COVID-​19 crisis and the lockdown of social life. Corona has had a major impact on all our lives. The lockdown strongly affected families with children. Yet the crucial question is whether the crisis will have a long-​lasting impact on family policies. In my view, the answer is yes, but it will not lead to a reversal of ongoing trends. It will rather push current processes. In this respect, there is nothing new to say about Corona and family policies, except that the crisis will very likely spur modernizing trends. References Alber, Jens. 1982. Vom Armenhaus zum Wohlfahrtsstaat: Analysen zur Entwicklung der Sozialversicherung in Westeuropa. Frankfurt: Campus. Bahle, Thomas. 1994. Familienpolitik in Westeuropa: Ursprünge und Wandel im internationalen Vergleich. Frankfurt: Campus. Bahle, Thomas. 2008. “Family Policies in the Enlarged European Union.” In Handbook of Quality of Life in the Enlarged European Union, edited by Jens Alber, Tony Fahey, and Chiara Saraceno, 100–​125. London: Routledge. Bahle, Thomas. 2009. “Public Childcare in Europe: Historical Trajectories and New Directions.” In Childcare and Preschool Development in Europe, edited by Kirsten Scheiwe and Harry Willekens, 23–​42. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bertram, Hans. 2018. “Money, Time, and Infrastructure as Elements of a New German Family Policy.” In Parental Well-​Being: Satisfaction with Work, Family Life, and Family Policy in Germany and Japan, edited by Barbara Holthus and Hans Bertram, 253–​263. Munich: Iudicum. Bertram, Hans, and Steffen Kohl. 2010. Zur Lage der Kinder in Deutschland 2010—​Kinder stärken für eine ungewisse Zukunft. Cologne: Deutsches Komitee für UNICEF. Bradshaw, Jonathan. 2015. “Child Poverty and Child Well-​Being in International Perspective.” In Theoretical and Empirical Insights into Child and Family Poverty, edited by Elizabeth Fernandez, 59–​70. Heidelberg: Springer. Briggs, Asa. 1961. “The Welfare State in Historical Perspective.” European Journal of Sociology 2 (2): 221–​258. Bujard, Martin. 2016. “Wirkungen von Familienpolitik auf die Geburtenentwicklung.” In Handbuch Bevölkerungssoziologie, edited by Yasemin Niephaus, Michaela Kreyenfeld, and Reinhold Sackmann, 619–​646. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Carlson, Allan C. 1990. The Swedish Experiment in Family Policies: The Myrdals and the Interwar Population Crisis. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Coale, Ansley J., and Susan C. Watkins. 1986. The Decline of Fertility in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Daly, Mary. 2010. “Families versus State and Market.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, edited by Francis Castles, Stephan Leibfried, Jane Lewis, Herbert Obinger, and Christopher Pierson, 139–​151. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daly, Mary, and Emanuele Ferragina. 2018. “Family Policy in High-​Income Countries: Five Decades of Development.” Journal of European Social Policy 28 (3): 255–​270. Ferrarini, Tommy. 2006. Families, States and Labour Markets: Institutions, Causes and Consequences of Family Policy in Post-​war Welfare States. London: Edward Elgar. Ferrera, Maurizio. 1996. “The “Southern Model” of Welfare in Social Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy 6 (1): 17–​37. doi:10.1177/​095892879600600102. Flora, Peter, ed. 1986. Growth to Limits: The Western European Welfare States since World War II. Berlin: De Gruyter. Förster, Michael, and Gerlinde Verbist. 2012. “Money or Kindergarten? Distributive Effects of Cash versus In-​Kind Family Transfers for Young Children.” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper no. 135. Paris: OECD Publishing. Fux, Beat. 1994. Der familienpolitische Diskurs: Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse über das Zusammenwirken und den Wandel von Familienpolitik, Fertilität und Familie. Sozialpolitische Schriften Heft 64. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

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Gauthier, Anne H. 1996. The State and the Family: A Comparative Analysis of Family Policies in Industrialized Countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gilbert, Neil. 2008. A Mother’s Work: How Feminism, the Market, and Policy Shape Family Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Glass, David V. 1940. Population: Policies and Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Glendon, Mary A. 1989. The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law and Family in the United States and Western Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gornick, Janet, and Emily Nell. 2017. “Children, Poverty, and Public Policy: A Cross-​national Perspective.” LIS Working Paper Series No. 701. Esch-​Belval: Luxembourg Income Study. Guo, Jing, and Neil Gilbert. 2007. “Welfare State Regimes and Family Policy: a Longitudinal Analysis.” International Journal of Social Welfare 16: 307–​313. Inglot, Tomasz. 2008. Welfare States in East Central Europe, 1919–​2004. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ILO (International Labour Organization). 1924. Family Allowances: The Remuneration of Labour According to Need. Studies and Reports, Series D, No. 13. Geneva: ILO. ILO (International Labour Organization). 1936. International Survey of Social Services 1933. 2 vols. Studies and Reports, Series M, No. 13. Geneva: ILO. Kamerman, Sheila B., and Alfred J. Kahn, eds. 1978. Family Policy: Government and Families in Fourteen Countries. New York: Columbia University Press. Kaufmann, Franz-​Xaver. 1993. “Familienpolitik in Europa.” In 40 Jahre Familienpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Rückblick, Ausblick: Festschrift, edited by Bundesministerium für Familie und Senioren, 141–​ 167. Neuwied, Germany: Luchterhand. Leira, Arnlaug. 1992. Welfare States and Working Mothers: The Scandinavian Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leitner, Sigrid. 2003. “Varieties of Familialism: The Caring Function of the Family in Comparative Perspective.” European Societies 5 (4): 353–​375. Lesthaege, Ron. 2010. “The Unfolding Story of the Second Demographic Transition.” Population and Development Review 36 (2): 211–​251. Lewis, Jane, and Anne West. 2017. “Early Childhood Education and Care in England under Austerity: Continuity or Change in Political Ideas, Policy Goals, Availability, Affordability and Quality in a Childcare Market?” Journal of Social Policy 46 (2): 331–​348. doi:10.1017/​S0047279416000647. Macnicol, John. 1980. The Movement for Family Allowances, 1918–​1945: A Study in Social Policy Development. London: Heinemann. Mayer, Karl U., and Walter Müller. 1986. “The State and the Structure of the Life Course.” In Human Development and the Life Course: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Aage B. Sørensen, Franz E. Weinert, and Lonnie R. Sherrod, 217–​245. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Möhring, Katja. 2016. “Life Course Regimes in Europe: The Structure of Individual Life Courses in Comparative Perspective.” Journal of European Social Policy 26 (2): 124–​139. Naldini, Manuela, and Chiara Saraceno. 2008. “Social and Family Policies in Italy: Not Totally Frozen but Far from Structural Reforms.” Social Policy and Administration 42 (7): 733–​748. Obinger, Herbert, and Klaus Petersen. 2019. “Die historische Entwicklung des Wohlfahrtsstaates: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Goldenen Zeitalters.” In Handbuch Sozialpolitik, edited by Herbert Obinger and Manfred G. Schmidt, 9–​31. Heidelberg: Springer. Obinger, Herbert, and Carina Schmitt. 2020. “World War and Welfare Legislation in Western Countries.” Journal of European Social Policy 30 (3): 261–​274. doi:10.1177/​0958928719892852. Pfau-​ Effinger, Birgit. 2004. Development of Culture, Welfare States and Women’s Employment in Europe. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Scheiwe, Kirsten, and Harry Willekens, eds. 2009. Childcare and Preschool Development in Europe. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Schmidt, Manfred G. 2005. Sozialpolititk in Deutschland: Historische Entwicklung und internationaler Vergleich. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Schultheis, Franz. 1988. Sozialgeschichte der französischen Familienpolitik. Frankfurt: Campus. Skocpol, Theda. 1995. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thévenon, Olivier. 2011. “Family Policies in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis.” Population and Development Review 37 (1): 57–​87. Van De Kaa, Dirk J. 1987. “Europe’s Second Demographic Transition.” Population Bulletin 42 (1): 1–​59.

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Van Winkle, Zachary. 2020. “Family Policies and Family Life Course Complexity across 20th-​Century Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy 30 (3): 320–​338. Wennemo, Irene. 1992. “The Development of Family Allowances: A Comparison of Family Benefits and Tax Reductions for Families in 18 OECD Countries.” Acta Sociologica 35: 201–​217. Wennemo, Irene. 1994. Sharing the Costs of Children: Studies on the Development of Family Support in the OECD. Stockholm: Swedish Institute for Social Research. Willekens, Harry. 2009. “How and Why Belgium Became a Pioneer of Preschool Development.” In Childcare and Preschool Development in Europe, edited by Kirsten Scheiwe and Harry Willekens, 43–​56. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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INTRODUCTION TO SECTION 

2

Theoretical Issues Birgit Pfau-​Effinger

This section discusses key concepts and theoretical approaches regarding the ways in which family policies in developed industrial societies are mutually embedded in the institutional setting of the welfare state, the social and economic structures, and the cultural system. The chapters examine the ways in which the relationship between family, gender, and the welfare state can be theorized as well as how the relationship between the welfare state and the institutionalized life course, which is conceptualized as a social institution that frames the different periods of life and the transitions between them, can be theorized. The chapters also investigate the relationship between family policy and outcome in terms of social inequality. In this regard, the section discusses the utility of the intersectionality approach that theorizes the relationship between different dimensions of social inequality—​ gender, social class, and migration—​for analyses of women’s care-​related migration from poorer to more affluent societies. The authors also aim to understand, from a critical political economy perspective, how the impact of family policy transformation differs between women of various social classes. Finally, in this section, a complex multilevel approach to theorizing the role of culture and family policy in the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s employment behavior is introduced. The chapter by Mary Daly focuses on how the relationship between family, gender, and the welfare state can be and has been theorized and how different modes of this set of relationships are embedded in and realized by social policy. The author’s main

purpose is to identify the most useful concepts and lines of analysis that provide a basis for a theoretical and conceptual approach. Considerable attention is therefore devoted to defining key concepts and to reviewing the literature on how the relationships have been conceived. The chapter also examines outcomes, moving beyond the theoretical and conceptual to identify the key elements and emphases of policy that make a difference. In terms of policy, the chapter focuses especially on family policy, which is set within the broader parameters of the welfare state, since our overall approach posits that there is a nexus of relationships involved. The chapter also focuses on high-​income countries, especially the member countries of the European Union (EU), since it is in these countries that the most deeply rooted, diverse, and vibrant family policies exist. Martin Kohli introduces an approach to theorize the relationship between welfare state policy and the life course. He argues that the causal relationship can work in both directions: the life course as a social institution challenges the welfare state by creating age-​specific needs and risks, and, through them, potential or actual client groups of various sizes and compositions. The welfare state is thus shaped by the institutionalized life course with its tripartition of life into periods of preparation, active work, and retirement—​and the transitions between them. The welfare state also shapes the life course by differentially addressing the periods of life and by patterning the transitions between them. The chapter addresses both perspectives. It shows how the welfare state and the life course may be conceptualized as social institutions in their own right. It discusses the mediating step between the life course and the welfare state (needs, risks or vulnerabilities), and it theorizes the relationship between the differentiations at the level of life-​course regimes on the one hand and the concept of individual and linked lives on the other. The main focus of the chapter by Fiona Williams is on the multiple dimensions of social inequality related to the migration of women from poorer regions to perform care and domestic work in households and organizations in wealthier regions. The chapter argues that this development demands an analysis that can make connections across the forms, scales, and sites of social inequality and the policies that influence them. To this end, the author employs an intersectional and multi-​scalar perspective, arguing that it offers a useful way of understanding the multiple social relations of inequality at play in care work. Williams provides selected cross-​national examples of the intersections in migrant care work and concludes by examining the macro scale and the transnational personal and political agency of migrant care workers, their successes, and what the workers are yet to achieve. In his chapter, Emanuele Ferragina aims to address the ways by which family policy transformation relates to the political economy of welfare state change and the commodification of social reproduction. The chapter is based on the fact that childcare expansion in the context of family policy transformation is considered a key element in promoting female employment, gender equality, and the conciliation of paid and unpaid work, as well as in mitigating the social reproduction crisis. The author interprets this transformation

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critically, arguing that family policy transformation—​in conjunction with welfare state change—​is part of a bidirectional movement: toward commodification (especially for lower-​class women) and the liberalization of the labor market, as well as toward increasing freedom from care and domestic tasks for women (especially middle-​and upper-​ class women). The chapter illustrates these two movements by connecting the literature on comparative social policy and on critical political economy. Concerning empirical analyses of the relationship between family policy development, the political economy of welfare state change, and the commodification of social reproduction, the author observes the bidirectional movement logic in action across countries. The analysis moves on to implicate this policy change as part of the political economy of social reproduction. There are significant country-​specific differences in the degree of women’s labor market integration and working time patterns after the birth of a child. The chapter by Birgit Pfau-​Effinger discusses how it is possible to explain cross-​national differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior. She argues that common approaches to the role of family policy for women’s employment tend to neglect the role of cultural ideas and often do not sufficiently theorize the relationship between culture and family policy. The chapter introduces a complex multilevel approach to theorizing how the interrelation between culture and family policy in their role for women’s (and men’s) work-​ childcare behaviors operate. Main elements include a multilevel concept of culture, the concept of the relative autonomy of culture and family policy institutions, the theorization of women’s work-​childcare behavior in the context of culture and family policy institutions, and the role of informal and market-​based resources for childcare.

Theoretical Is sues

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C H A P T E R

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 heorizing the Relationship between T Family, Gender, and the Welfare State

Mary Daly

Abstract This chapter, written by Mary Daly, focuses on how the relationship between family, gender, and the welfare state can be and has been theorized and how different modes of this set of relationships are embedded in and realized by social policy. The author’s main purpose is to identify the most useful concepts and lines of analysis that provide a basis for a theoretical and conceptual approach. Considerable attention is therefore devoted to defining key concepts and to reviewing the literature on how the relationships have been conceived. The chapter also examines outcomes, moving beyond the theoretical and conceptual approach to identify the key elements and emphases of policy that make a difference. In terms of policy, the chapter focuses especially on family policy, which is set within the broader parameters of the welfare state, The chapter also focuses on high-income countries, especially the member countries of the European Union (EU). Key Words: theory, gender, family, welfare state, family policy

This chapter focuses on how the relationship between family, gender, and the welfare state can be and has been theorized and how different modes of this set of relationships are embedded in and realized by social policy. The chapter’s first and overarching purpose is to identify the most useful concepts and lines of analysis that provide a basis for a theoretical and conceptual approach. Considerable attention is therefore devoted to defining key concepts and to a review of what the literature tells us about how the relationships have been conceived. The chapter also looks at outcomes, moving beyond the theoretical and conceptual to identify the key elements and emphases of policy that make a difference. In terms of policy, the chapter focuses especially on family policy, but this is set within the broader parameters of the welfare state, as our overall approach underlines that there is a nexus of relationships involved. The chapter’s terrain is the high-​income countries, especially the member countries of the European Union (EU), since it is here that one finds the most deeply rooted, diverse, and vibrant family policy. The chapter is organized into three main parts. The first reviews and defines the main concepts. In its second part the chapter examines the key structures, mechanisms, and

processes that articulate the relationship between gender, family, and social policy, with a particular focus on the analytic frameworks that have been developed and applied and what these reveal about a policy’s intent and effects. The chapter’s third part considers the main conceptual and explanatory approaches that emerge from the literature. This is approached in two ways: identifying both the gender-​related outcomes that have been problematized or sought and the causality involved. A short overview closes the chapter. Defining Gender, Family, and Family Policy Conceptual clarification is essential at the outset to pin down the nexus of concepts that form the chapter’s field of inquiry: gender, family, the welfare state, and family policy.1 While gender is defined in different ways, it is a strongly relational term, conceiving of women and men as social categories and actors engaged in complex relations and exchanges (Scott 1986). Along with the relationality aspect, one of the key elements of gender as a lens for analysis is that it directs attention to particular domains of life. Bradley (2013, 16) guides us here, stating that “gender refers to the varied and complex arrangements between men and women, encompassing the organization of reproduction, the sexual divisions of labour and cultural definition of femininity and masculinity.” Connell and Pearse (2015, 11) are equally clear about focus when they claim gender as “the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of processes that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.” Scott (1986) and Ferree (2010) remind us of a further strong feature of gender: as a relationship of differential power connected to and realized through institutional, cultural, and economic processes. Taking the essence of these points into account and drawing also from Joan Acker’s (1992) work, gender is conceived of here to refer to constituent elements of social relations and social structures that are based on and lead to differences and inequalities between women and men as individuals and as social categories (Daly 2020c). What about gender in social policy analysis? This is a literature where gender has been prominent, especially in studies that use a critical perspective. Adopting such a lens, Shaver (2018, 2) defines gender in social policy or the welfare state as “the basis of complex, social inequalities, taking the forms of both material inequalities of income, assets and social status and social inequalities reflecting unequally valued social identities.” Orloff (1996, 52) elaborates her feminist approach to analyzing the welfare state as taking “gender relations into account as both causes and effects of various social, political, economic and cultural processes and institutions” that produce “gender differentiation, gender inequalities and gender hierarchy in a given society.” Key relevant activities of the welfare state are the resources it offers (both in terms of income and supportive services) and its broader impact on (and co-​production of ) norms, values, and ideologies, on the one hand and

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opportunities across the life course, on the other. As well as structural factors, the gender work has highlighted the importance of processes and relationships, even going so far as to think in terms of “women’s relationship with the welfare state” (Hernes 1987). In all of this, family and family policy have been one of the most significant conduits of the state’s construction of and impact on gender inequalities, and it is here that one can see especially (although not exclusively) the welfare state’s “gender face.” When it comes to clarifying family for the purpose of policy analysis, the existing literature makes a helpful differentiation between family as a set of individuals and as a collective structure or unit (Mätzke and Ostner 2010; Saraceno 2011). In the former, family is the setting for a nexus of roles and relationships between individuals who are connected to each other through kinship or co-​residence. The collective orientation emphasizes the social functions performed by the family and the patterns connecting it as a structure or mode of organization and a societal institution to state and society. Of the two, the individual orientation is more novel as a line of analysis. The need to disaggregate family to focus on the individual owes a special debt to the feminist literature that has sought to move beyond the conception of family as a unit(y) of common interests among members to highlight internal processes, often associated with power and resource imbalances between family members (Williams 2004). Disaggregation is important also from a generational perspective, especially from a child-​centered vantage point (Daly 2020a). Clarity is also needed on the third and fourth anchoring concepts: the welfare state and family policy. As used here (and conceived as applying mainly in a high-​income country context), the welfare state refers to a package of publicly organized and/​or funded benefits and services designed to achieve goals around public welfare and social protection (recognizing that these are contested terms). These usually take the form of interventions (income and services) in the distribution of income, earning, and opportunities and resources over the life course. What about family policy? How should we define it? The literature makes clear that this is not a clear-​cut matter. There are two main issues involved. The first centers on how we define family policy, and the second on how to conceive of the relationship between family and the state. Gauthier (1999, 32), for example, terms family policy a “wide umbrella of policies.” Some serious decisions are therefore required about what to include and exclude when defining and conceptualizing family policy. These decisions cohere around a few main sets of issues.2 They relate also to the second point—​how we conceive of the relationship between family and the state and the role of family policy here. In this regard it is important to emphasize the two-​way and dynamic relationship between family and state policy, in the sense that family policy both picks up on and reacts to family change. Hence we can see that while they can be criticized for holding a static,

2

See Daly (2020b) for a more profound consideration of definitional issues.

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often traditional view of family, welfare states have changed their understanding of family over time, broadening it to include a more diverse range of families. The first definitional issue is where to draw the boundary around family policy in the policy universe overall: Which areas and measures should be included or excluded? The most widespread consensus in existing scholarship is to define family policy by the policy designation; that is, as policies oriented to families with children. This has led to a general focus in the literature on family policy as comprising mainly income and service supports for families with children. Financial transfers to families for children loom large here, as these have a long history in Europe through either cash benefits or tax allowances or credits. The focus on aspects of childrearing also serves to spotlight provisions such as early childhood education and care (ECEC), which have grown exponentially in the high-​ income countries in the last two decades. If we were to think more in terms of functions, existing work indicates that the classic functions of family policy were centered on the financial support of families with children—​so as to avoid poverty and also enable some equity between families with and without children, for example—​and income and other protection for employed mothers and fathers. Fertility, too, is a long-​standing concern of family-​oriented policy. Over the course of time, family policy has expanded and taken on new aims and functions beyond these “traditional” core concerns. Gender equality and “work-​life balance” have especially been added, bringing in both the relative situation of women and men as well as lone parent families and, to a lesser extent, same-​sex couple families (Wennemo 1994; Saraceno 1997; Hantrais 2004). The policy content or function is hardly the end of the matter, though, especially when we think in terms of the relationship between gender, family, and social policy. A further clarification is the political economy associated with family policy. The differentiation between explicit and implicit family policy as developed by Kamerman and Kahn (1978) helps to capture some of the complexity and depth involved, both within and across countries. This framework plumbs the degree of policy’s focus on and intervention in the family (and by implication the identity and compass of family policy). Its easy descriptive application belies a more penetrating reach, especially calling attention to how countries’ objectives in relation to family are rooted in political economy and whether countries have the political and other resources to convene and realize a set of family-​related objectives in policy. In countries characterized as having explicit family policy, one finds policies and programs oriented to achieving explicit goals regarding family (as an institution especially). Implicit family policy is where governmental actions and policies may not be specifically or primarily addressed to the family but which have indirect effects on the situation of families and the relative well-​being of the individuals who comprise them. Explicit family policy could not exist without a strong sense of the family as a unit or institution of importance in society and political consensus to realize this position in policy. The core meaning of “implicit,” on the other hand, is that family as such is not targeted; the family is not established or accepted as a legitimate focus of state intervention (perhaps

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because it is accepted as a more “private” institution), although the implicit framework envisages families as being affected by policies nonetheless, in a more indirect manner and with less intentionality on the part of policy. The significance of this differentiation is three-​fold. First, it reminds us that policy does not have to have “family” in its label to have an impact on families (and in the present instance to be relevant to the interrelationship between gender, family and social policy). Second, it tells us that the package of measures labeled “family policy” (if it is possible to identify such a package) may be just one set of measures impacting relevant sets of relations and resources (Williams 2012). Third, we may extrapolate these two points as having resonance for gender as well—​that is, a policy does not have to explicitly target gender factors for it to have an impact on them, and while family policy arguably allows us to read core elements of a welfare state’s approach to gender, gender relations and relevant impacts also extend beyond them. We should therefore be open to extending the investigation to broader policy domains, and in this I suggest we hold in focus (aspects of ) employment policy and the connections between it and family policy. This is because we should not allow ourselves to be limited by policy “silos,” and also because the interface between employment and family policy has come more and more into focus in recent years. Think of the emergence of the policy rubric of “work-​family reconciliation” as European welfare states have sought to increase female employment and engaged in a range of family-​and gender-​relevant policies to do so (Lewis 2009). This has seen especially the expansion of measures to better align the timing and intersection of employment and family life (such as flexible hours of work). Also at the employment interface is the growth of a range of child-​and family-​related employment leaves, to include first parental and later paternity leaves, and also enhanced public engagement with ECEC (see Dobrotić, this volume). Both women and men as individuals and as members of couples and families (as well as children3) have been targeted by these measures. All of this invites—​even enjoins—​us to think about the broader goals and exigencies of the welfare state and social policy in relation to the family in order to pin down the underlying “gender order.” Now we turn to identifying how the different relationships involved have been conceived and researched by scholarship. Needless to say, perhaps, it is the gender-​oriented work that has led the field here. Tracing the Key Processes and Relationships There is a large tranche of writing and research on the subject of the relationship between gender and social policy. In this body of work the interweaving of state, family, and economy is the central theoretical underpinning (e.g., Showstack Sassoon 1987), a

3

See Daly (2020a) for an exposition of the nature and growth of child-​related policies.

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framing that predated Esping-​Andersen’s (1990) work on welfare regimes, which also used this theoretical tripod. Another point to note is that this scholarship has had a strong interest in the constituent elements of income support (Who received it? How much? Under what conditions?) as well as the experiential and more relational elements of claiming and receiving income and other forms of support through the welfare state. In the early years—​which we can date from the 1970s on—​the spur to scholarly inquiry was to unearth women’s situation as affected by the welfare state. Women’s position or situation was regarded as important in its own right as well as in comparison to that of men. In particular focus were poor outcomes for women in a range of areas, such as poverty and level of personal income, financial dependence, and lack of opportunities and equal status as regards employment and other domains of public life. The intent was to examine and explain the role played by social policy in such outcomes, with the focus often on how particular groups of women, such as lone parents for example, were situated vis-​à-​vis other population groups. The early work was especially concerned to uncover and explain the specificity, if not uniqueness, of women’s experience of claiming benefits and services. This line of investigation was especially prominent in the liberal welfare states, where social assistance benefits were widespread (Fraser 1989; Williams 1989). The many details of what it was like to approach the public authorities requesting help were researched and discussed—​ experiences formerly considered relatively mundane, uninteresting, and even self-​evident. Laid bare especially was the frequently humiliating nature of means tests and other assessments of “deservingness,” and the fact that a person’s moral probity was as much at issue as need. This was a more widespread experience for women because they were more likely than men to be claiming social assistance or benefits that were discretionary and not available as a right (McIntosh 1981). All of this is of course still relevant today as social assistance programs remain popular, and women continue to dominate the population of recipients. While still centering around women’s positioning and situation, later work oriented itself more to questions about how the welfare state contributes to creating and perpetuating gender differences and inequalities, with particular reference to unequal access to resources and opportunities. This continued and deepened the interest in structures and experiences, with the institutional structures of policy especially in focus. What we now call “family policy” did not figure specifically in the early scholarship, partly because it had not (yet) assumed the prominence it now has. The most prolific seam of relevant work turned the spotlight on the organization and generosity of the benefit system. In focus here were the design and operation of income support schemes and programs. Numerous analyses were undertaken of the fine detail of provision. Seemingly small details—​the fine print of entitlement conditions—​were married with broader structural elements to examine the way the system “positioned” women and their circumstances, and contributed to their welfare and gender inequality more broadly. When looking for broader institutional/​ political elements, there were two main lines of inquiry: one was focused on the “risks” or contingencies that women typically face or encounter and how the social policy system

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treated these; the second studied policy’s construction of entitlement, examining such factors as the unit of entitlement for eligibility purposes and the conditions attaching to benefits and services (and emphasizing these as “constructions” or choices on the part of the state). The resulting research has shown that how social risks are defined and covered is a foundational aspect of the structure and positioning associated with the welfare state from a gender perspective. Social insurance—​as a system of earning the right to benefits through making contributions through employment—​is very particular about the risks it recognizes and covers—​these are mainly risks associated with employment—​like unemployment, accident/​injury, and illness. The significance of this from a gender perspective will be obvious: while they share some risks in common, women and men also experience different risks of loss or insufficiency of income and resources. This work also drew attention to the risks experienced by women (in addition to those experienced by men), including; • loss of a male income (through widowhood, divorce and separation); • loss of own income through pregnancy and childrearing; and • loss of own income through the need to care for others (either adults and/​or children).4 Notice the focus on “own” income here—​its emphasis underlines the importance of independent access to income for women, which was a very important seam in research from the start (as will be outlined below). The second element examined in the search for the gender character of the welfare state was the unit of entitlement and other programmatic rules.5 One of the important lines of analysis and critique here was around how people accrued social rights and the degree to which they were constructed on an individual basis. In the most widespread form of social insurance, where benefits are typically organized on an individual, life-​course basis, many women obtained coverage by virtue of their relationship to a man (e.g., as a spouse or survivor) or through some recognition of their entitlement through their home duties (as in pension credits). A further form of gender imprinting was inscribed in the use of the male head of household as the conduit of benefits for the household (especially operational in means-​tested benefits). Feminist policy analysis identified numerous practices leading to such an eventuality. Furthermore, the choice of unit of entitlement was consequential

4 Another risk event for women, married and cohabiting women especially, is if men fail to share their usually larger income with their partners and children. However, this has never been taken up as a major risk by most welfare states. 5 In relation to the British welfare state, Roll (1991, 22) conceptualizes this interface in terms of the “benefit family” and problematizes the claiming process in the following four-​fold way: who is entitled to make the claim; who is taken into account by the various rules of entitlement; who is the payment intended to cover; who is entitled to receive the payment.

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Table 6.1  Capturing variation in the gender dimension of social policies Dimension

Male-​breadwinner model

Individual model

Familial ideology

Privileging of marriage Strict division of labor Husband =​earner Wife =​carer

No preferred family form shared roles Father =​ earner/​carer Mother =​ earner/​carer

Taxation

Joint taxation deduction for “dependants”

Separate taxation Equal tax relief

Employment and wage policies

Priority to men

Aimed at both sexes

Sphere of care

Primarily private

Strong state involvement

Caring work

Unpaid

Paid component

Source: Adapted from Table 2.1, Sainsbury (1996, 42).

in indirectly (and in some cases directly, such as through rules about other income as a threshold to benefit access) shaping the labor market role and choices of the female partner, either by specifying the permissible degree and form of economic activity or by making it a rational decision for only one partner to be employed. This too is all still relevant today. However, many of the more openly discriminatory rules have been eliminated, with EU legislative activity in the 1980s and 1990s especially significant in outlawing direct and indirect discrimination against women in regard to access to employment and some welfare benefits (Jacquot 2015). That said, mindful of the differences between implicit and explicit effects, many of the differentiating (if not directly discriminatory) provisions continue to exist today, and although they may be different in nature, they have the similar effect of circumscribing choice and patterning behavior for those subject to them.6 Diane Sainsbury’s (1996) analysis is in my view a very good exposition of an analytic frame that connects the pertinent factors linking gender, family, and the welfare state as espoused through income support policies. As can be seen from Table 6.1, she identifies as significant the underlying ideology in regard to family, the gender priorities embodied in employment and wage policies, and the appropriate division of labor between the sexes in regard to care and caring-​related work (in terms of both the distribution of responsibility and the activities involved). Moreover, the multidimensional and broad nature of her framework can be applied to a range of policy spheres and dimensions she considers. Sainsbury draws on and develops a very widely used theoretical framework in the gender and social policy field—​the type of household or breadwinner model that is supported. She differentiates between the male breadwinner and individual models. The former model promotes an employed male head and full-​time female homemaker, in

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See Millar and Bennett (2017) for analysis of recent UK reforms.

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contrast to the more individualized model, where both members of the couple are treated as workers. Other terms have been used for the latter, such as the “adult worker model” (Lewis 2001). Of the two ends of the continuum, the male breadwinner is the clearer in form and function and it is easier to pinpoint policies that actively support(ed) it. For example, in earlier times the male breadwinner model was promoted through social policy’s support for marriage. Montanari’s (2000) analysis of policy developments in 18 OECD countries between the 1930s and the 1990s is telling in this respect. She shows how the architecture of family benefits and services was underpinned by a parallel architecture supporting the married family arrangement. Such subsidies existed in practically every high-​income country for much of the 20th century. What she is especially referring to here are taxation-​related arrangements, such as tax splitting between members of couples, tax allowances, and tax credits, that have a long history. Then, of course, the benefit system was also stacked against female economic indepenence (Scheiwe 1994). Again, some of these still exist today (albeit in a less blatant framing). Rather than positing a dichotomy between male breadwinner and individualized arrangements, some work suggests an array of different types of arrangement. Looking at the field as a whole, the popularity of the household/​family model in gender research on the welfare state may be explained by its facility to link individual and collective behavior and to see the welfare state as shaping broad patterns and relationships in capitalistic societies. While the analysis of the benefit system has been a dominating concern in work examining the connection between the welfare state, gender, and family, other dimensions of welfare state activity apart from income support have also received research attention. There is a large scholarship now on parenting and other care-​related leaves, for example, and also on the significance of ECEC services (e.g., Moss 2012; Ciccia and Bleijenbergh 2014). Both of these are areas of major welfare state expansion in the EU, resulting in a diverse range of leaves available in most countries today (maternal, paternal, and parental), as well as a very rapid expansion of out-​of-​home childcare, especially for children aged three and under (Daly and Ferragina 2018). In key respects, this focus spotlights another resource that is potentially conferred by the welfare state—​time—​given that leaves typically guarantee the leave-​taker employment-​related rights while taking time out of employment for a period. In some ways child-​related services offer the same resource, essentially releasing or transferring some parental time from employment to family, or vice versa. There is a very large literature on parental leaves. The literature seems especially interested in their availability and relative generosity in terms of remuneration and duration and the employment and other conditions governing entitlement. Two prominent types of impacts are in behavior and role construction, including both fertility-​related and employment-​related behavior. From a gender perspective, the analysis focuses on the incentives and disincentives that leaves construct for mothers and/​or fathers to take them up (see Dobrotić, this volume). This is especially rich terrain as the employment leaves have become more and more targeted on the specifics of parental take-​up and engagement

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(most notably targeting father engagement and also greater sharing by parents, although some countries also target a more traditional take-​up by mothers). The research evidence is quite unequivocal about the impact of availability and design factors on women’s employment (Ferragina 2020). Although it is difficult to pin down a clear causal relationship between such policies and actual behavior, the research conveys a strong sense that the duration of leave matters for outcomes like women’s employment and the construction of gender roles more broadly. Leaves of about one year’s duration are generally considered to not disincentivize women’s participation in employment (Galtry and Callister 2005; Lambert 2008). Services are also the subject of research, especially childcare-​related services. Here, the gender significance and impact are generally conceptualized similarly to what is studied regarding the parenting-​related leaves. Time again is to the fore, especially that of mothers and women more broadly (see Duvander and Nyberg, this volume). In general, research on the impact of ECEC highlights the cost of childcare as a major factor affecting mothers’ labor supply (Akgunduz and Plantenga 2013). Other research spotlights the importance of the availability of ECEC rather than its costs (Hegewisch and Gornick 2011). And, more broadly, there is an important story in the growing role of the market in care-​ related service provision; current trends are seeing the desire for both profit-​taking and state disengagement in the field of both child and elder care, leading to a commodification of care and affective labor (see Palomera and Léon, this volume). The gender effects and implications of this are not yet fully clear, but the importance of the state in subsidizing costs for particular individuals and families is undoubted. All of this goes beyond material factors; welfare state and family policy provision also engages with culture and values (see Pfau-​Effinger, this volume). Even the male breadwinner and other models have an identity as cultural constructs. For example, parental leaves and childcare services serve to construct parenting and what is considered “good parenting” (Daly 2013). The practices of “being a mother” or “being a father” are drawn into focus, and policy has to be seen as having a role in normalizing particular assumptions and normative framings. Hence the relevance of a long-​standing theme in the analysis of gender and social policy: maternalism, conceived as the degree to which access to benefits and services for women is designed around their maternal role (Jenson 2015). Some analysts have read the policy changes in regard to parenting in the European welfare states as broadening conceptions of maternalism to encompass men in families (Ferree 2009)—​a similar model just extended to men. The significance of family-​related policies as a form of cultural construction should not be overlooked, and indeed the extent to which some of the provisions—​such as paternity leave, which tends to be short—​are symbolic. The existing scholarship has made clear that the details of welfare state and family policy provision are part of longer chains and are significant in terms of the resources they confer, and also what they embody in regard to norms and values. What outcomes are identified by the literature, and which are the prominent theorizations?

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Assessing and Theorizing Outcomes A central thread running through the critical social policy scholarship is women’s material conditions of life and their chances of being financially independent. This is probably the most widely theorized effect of income policies (both in a familial and nonfamilial context). Economic welfare and financial autonomy are two leading concepts in this lexicon (Betti et al. 2015, 5). The former directs attention to relative finance and wealth levels and associated inequality and also to related risks of poverty and low income. Thinking in terms of the second dimension—​financial autonomy—​is more complex. It draws on ideas of situated agency—​Htun et al. (2019) capture this notion when they define economic agency as the ability to make independent economic choices, based on both disposition and capacity to do so. This emphasizes the wider significance of access to resources—​ to enable choice and autonomy as per people’s preferences. Again, scholarship varies in terms of how broadly it extends the application and implications of autonomy: Hobson (1990) viewed possible end points in terms of exit (from a bad marriage or unsatisfactory relationship, for instance); Orloff (1993) thought in terms of the capacity to form and maintain an autonomous household, which was in turn interpreted as freedom from compulsion to enter into potentially oppressive relationships (to be able to survive and support one’s children without having to marry to gain access to a breadwinner’s income). A second outcome-​related focus is equality/​inequality in the distribution of paid and unpaid work. Employment participation is valued here, but not as an end in itself—​rather, there is a discourse about the choice to be employed and the conditions of employment (referring especially the skewed distribution of female employment in part-​time and low-​ paid work) (Rubery 2015). In the spotlight here also is the degree of sharing between partners of the tasks associated with family life—​especially those linked to childrearing. This has been identified as a major bellwether of progress toward gender equality, and there is a large literature on the connection between household labor and gender inequality (e.g., Hook 2010) as well as on the sociology and political economy of housework (e.g., Treas and Drobnič 2010). But the social policy literature has not devoted that much time to the connections between social policy and task execution (except perhaps for research on parental leave). Rather, the matter of unpaid work is conceived and investigated in two main ways: in terms of the prevailing economic arrangement of household or family (as in breadwinner or other models), and in terms of care. Both of these frames—​but especially the latter—​elevate services as a vital part of the state’s potential supportive policy package (Daly 2020c). They also serve to raise the question of whether equal participation in paid work is a sufficient form of “equality.” The concept of care has emerged as a way of encompassing and theorizing some of the causal processes involved. From a social policy perspective, the general field of care is demarcated by familiar terms such as social care, long-​term care, and childcare. The most widespread reference is to the labor and engagement associated with needing or providing care in familial, social or professional situations. The concept’s attention is not so

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much (or hardly at all) on medical need, but rather on what we might term “ongoing care need.” The scholarship carried out through this lens centers on both revealing the activities and commitments associated with providing care to those who require it and the validation and valuation of both the activities involved and those who carry out this work and engagement. In its most radical form it is a critique of capitalist societies and the unequal relations between production and social reproduction. The concept turns attention to the day-​to-​day reproductive work that goes on in households and families, including both the material activities involved and the ideological/​normative processes that confirm women as carers and confine them to a home or family setting (Finch and Groves 1983; Graham 1991). In a further elaboration, scholars have highlighted and developed the emotional investments in either caring for or about others (Tronto 1993). Both conceptions of care extend beyond the family. The theorization associated with care focuses on its undervaluing—​gender and other forms of inequality exist because this domain of life (which is primarily associated with women) is undervalued, and welfare state and family policies play a crucial role in endorsing (or changing) this situation. Policies on incomes and services contribute to this by virtue of whether they recognize care as a valuable set of activities and relations and hence are worthy of public support and regulation. In most countries of the EU, the story is of a slow move from privatization of care in informal, often familial, settings (especially care for ill and frail adults), with public support being forthcoming only in highly contingent circumstances or conditions (Ranci and Pavolini 2013). There is no indication yet that COVID-​19 has changed that situation—​although it magnifies care-​related needs and support (Daly 2021). A large element of the feminist critique was around the commodification of care, with significant feminist uncertainty about whether care should be paid for or not and what doing so does to the relationships involved (McLaughlin and Glendinning 1994; Ungerson 1997). There is another theorization of gender inequality here as well, for the care perspective is much larger than the classic conception of care as domestic labor or nurturance. There is also a critical international political economy approach that crafts a line of analysis centered upon power relations and contestations among nations for resources in globalized economies. These focus on the economic and political forces of global processes and imperialism and how these reproduce gender and other inequalities in various forms and at various levels (Parreñas 2001). A driving interest is to make linkages between the conditions under which care is carried out in different parts of the world and to see how an increasingly unstable care regime in the Global North is leading to new inequalities and new regimes and relations of care in the Global South (Yeates 2012). Analysis explores how welfare state and labor market processes position migrants as care providers in high-​ income countries and enable the creep of market processes into care. Here the focus is especially on care labor—​Who does it? For whom? And under what conditions? The (migrant) worker and the different family and care settings involved facilitate this kind

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of tracing (Baldassar and Merla 2013) in work that deepens knowledge about the working conditions but also the lives of care workers and those to whom they provide services. Among the trends identified more broadly are, first, an internationalization of care labor and a global care labor market that strongly influences migration patterns (Parreñas 2001). A second trend concerns growing inequalities, and how the increased outsourcing of care work is associated with the reproduction of gender, class, and racial inequalities. Thirdly, there is evidence of “the accelerated commodification of some parts of care and care work combined with the de-​and ex-​commodification of other parts” (Aulenbacher et al. 2018, 521). The links to capitalism have also been expounded in a different iteration: through the social reproduction theory, which, with roots in Marxist feminism, has sought to position the welfare state’s treatment of women and men and the family within capitalism and its exigencies (Williams 1989). The domestic division of labor and social reproduction are concepts developed to place gender relations in the context of economic and other forms of power. The social provisioning undertaken by the family, a crucial element of “the family under capitalism,” is characterized as a form of economy in its own right and as functional for what is considered the real economy (Dalla Costa and James 1975). A form of social reproduction—​which oppresses women as a class—​is enabled by undervalued and underpaid/​unpaid labor as part of the capitalist economy (Duffy 2005). Scholars made important arguments about the specificity of the domestic economy and its contribution to capitalism, locating the treatment of care-​related labor under economic and social policies as drawing lines of gender, class, and other forms of inequality. As a final word, and taking up the theme of multiple inequalities, let us note that the focus of much of the gender-​oriented work has been subjected to “internal” criticism for its “exclusivity,” especially in regard to how it conceptualizes (if at all) the relationship between gender and other inequalities. Of the different possible sources of inequality, the relationship between class and gender has been foremost in the gender and welfare state literature (e.g., Crompton 2006; Pettit and Hook 2009). This has been challenged and seen an “axis of inequality” framework developed further by feminists and others working within an intersectional perspective, which takes as its focal point complex inequalities with reference to the intersection of a range of structural and cultural factors. An originating set of insights in this framework lies in the work by feminists of color in the United States and elsewhere who showed how the forms of discrimination experienced by women of color were not reducible to either their gender or their race but were of a different order—​the product of multiple interlocking systems of oppression (Crenshaw 1989; Hill Collins 1990). The development of this perspective is closely bound up with work on identity of individuals and groups, especially those who are excluded because they are defined by the cross-​cutting of a number of intersections (e.g., age and ability and gender and/​or ethnic background, and so forth). Studying these helps to investigate the significance of identity

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markers, the importance of revealing the standpoints and giving voice to those who are so marginalized, questioning the utility of “identity categories” but also investigating how they function to spearhead processes of marginalization. At a macro level, the perspective opens up the notion that stratification extends beyond single institutions to produce complex and interacting inequalities and categories of identity, experience, and resource access. Ferree (2010, 428) helpfully summarizes the fundamental characteristics of the intersectionality approach, stating that “any perspective is today called intersectional if it takes multiple relations of inequality as the norm, sees them as processes that shape each other, and considers how they interactively define the identities and experiences—​and thus analytic standpoints—​of individuals and groups.” Work on this in a welfare state or family policy context is only at the beginning but we can already theorize links between sexuality and family policy and regard the treatment of particular groups (e.g., single mothers of non-​White background) as shaped by a number of lines of division. Conclusion This chapter has sought to elaborate the relationship between gender, family, and welfare state ( as articulated through family policy) as it has been conceptualized and theorized. Focusing on both developments in policy and scholarship, it proceeded in three main steps. The first undertook definition of the key concepts in their own right and in terms of how they form a nexus of relationships. The chapter’s second section reviewed the existing literature (especially that on gender and the welfare state) and developments in policy to identify the key elements of structures and processes in social policy that are associated with the reproduction of gender differences and inequalities. The article’s third section concentrated on drawing out causal interpretations of the structures and processes involved. We can summarize the main elements of a theorization as follows: The focus on the welfare state in the context of the relationship between gender, family, and social policy directs attention in the first place to the resources that the welfare state can confer directly or indirectly. The direct resources include material resources (such as income and assets) and immaterial resources (such as time). This is a redistributive function. More indirectly the welfare state enables or disables participation in employment and engagement in other domains of public life. We might think of this as its participation function. This in turn is related to another outcome or contribution of the welfare state—​its culturally constructive aspects. These potential effects are operationalized by the structure, processes, and compass of social policy as a form of intervention in family, economy, and society. The treatment of individual women and men matters here—​whether, for example, they are seen and treated as members of families (e.g., mothers or fathers) or receive benefits and services as individuals. There is a collective element to the treatment of families as well, in that sometimes

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the particular unit and organization of family is protected by the way in which benefits and services are organized. How the welfare state brings about outcomes depends hugely on its orientation toward the family as an institution (in economy and society) and as a set of roles and relationships. In using the family as a conduit for benefits and services, it is creating an indirect resource flow and set of power relations. Theoretically, of overarching significance in the context of gender and family—​and a major contribution of the literature—​is the valuation placed on care or reproductive labor. Such valuation can be read not just in terms of whether it is paid or unpaid, but also regarding the broader supportive architecture as influenced by how the state configures the family’s relationship (and what goes on within it) to capitalism. This plays out to affect gender inequality as well as intersections between gender and other lines of inequality, especially those of social class, age, and ethnic background. References Acker, Joan. 1992. “From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions.” Contemporary Sociology 21 (5): 565–​569. Akgunduz, Yusef Emre, and Janneke Plantenga. 2013. “Labour Market Effects of Parental Leave in Europe.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 37 (4): 845–​862. Aulenbacher, Brigitte, Helma Lutz, and Birgit Riegraf. 2018. “Introduction: Towards a Global Sociology of Care and Care Work.” Current Sociology 66 (4): 495–​502. Baldassar, Loretta, and Laura Merla, eds. 2013. Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. London: Routledge. Betti, Gianni, Francesca Bettio, Thomas Geordiadis, and Platon Tinios. 2015. Unequal Ageing in Europe Women’s Independence and Pensions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bradley, Harriet. 2013. Gender. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ciccia, Rossella, and Inge Bleijenbergh. 2014. “After the Male Breadwinner Model: Childcare Services and the Division of Labour in European Countries.” Social Politics 21 (1): 50–​79. Connell, Raewyn, and Rebecca Pearse. 2015. Gender: In World Perspective. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 140 (1): 139–​167. Crompton, Rosemary. 2006. Employment and the Family: The Reconfiguration of Work and Family Life in Contemporary Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dalla Costa, Mariosa, and Selma James. 1975. The Power of Women and the Subversion of Community. 3rd ed. Bristol, UK: Falling Wall Press. Daly, Mary. 2013. “Parenting Support Policies in Europe.” Families, Relationships and Societies 2 (2): 159–​174. Daly, Mary. 2020a. “Children and Their Rights and Entitlements in European Welfare States.” Journal of Social Policy 49 (2): 343–​360. Daly, Mary. 2020b. “Conceptualizing and Analyzing Family Policy and How It Is Changing.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy, edited by Rense Nieuwenhuis and Wim van Lancker, 25–​41. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Daly, Mary. 2020c. Gender Inequality and Welfare States in Europe. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Daly, Mary. 2021. “The Concept of Care: Insights, Challenges and Research Avenues in COVID-​19 Times.” Journal of European Social Policy 31 (1): 108–​118. Daly, Mary, and Emanuele Ferragina. 2018. “Family Policy in High-​Income Countries: Five Decades of Development.” Journal of European Social Policy 28 (3): 255–​270. Duffy, Mignon. 2005. “Reproducing Labor Inequalities: Challenges for Feminists Conceptualizing Care at the Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class.” Gender & Society 19 (1): 666–​682. Esping-​Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Ferragina, Emanuele. 2020. “Family Policy and Women’s Employment Outcomes in 45 High-​ Income Countries: A Systematic Qualitative Review of 238 Comparative and National Studies.” Social Policy and Administration 54 (7): 1016–​1066. Ferree, Myra Marx. 2009. “An American Roadmap? Framing Feminist Goals in a Liberal Landscape.” In Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor, edited by J. C. Gornick and M. K. Meyers, 283–​315 The Real Utopias Project, Volume VI. London: Verso. Ferree, Myra Marx. 2010. “Filling the Glass: Gender Perspectives on Families.” Journal of Marriage and Family 72 (June): 420–​439. Finch, Janet, and Dulcie Groves, eds. 1983. A Labour of Love: Women, Work and Caring. London: Routledge. Fraser, Nancy. 1989. Unruly Practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fraser, Nancy. 1994. “After the Family Wage: Gender Equity and the Welfare State.” Political Theory 22 (4): 591–​618. Galtry, Judith, and Paul Callister. 2005. “Assessing the Optimal Length of Parental Leave for Child and Parental Well-​Being: How Can Research Inform Policy?” Journal of Family Issues 26 (2): 219–​246. Gauthier, Anne Hélène. 1999. “The Sources and Methods of Comparative Family Policy Research.” Comparative Social Research 18: 31–​56. Graham, Hilary 1991. “The Concept of Caring in Feminist Research: The Case of Domestic Service.” Sociology 25 (1): 61–​78. Hegewisch, Ariane, and Janet C. Gornick. 2011. “The Impact of Work-​ Family Policies on Women’s Employment: A Review of Research from OECD Countries.” Community, Work & Family 14 (2): 119–​138. Hantrais, Linda. 2004. Family Policy Matters. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. Hernes, Helga. 1987. Welfare State and Women Power: Essays in State Feminism. Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Hill Collins, Patricia. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge. Hobson, Barbara. 1990. “No Exit, No Voice: Women’s Economic Dependency and the Welfare State.” Acta Sociologica 33 (3): 235–​250. Hook, Jennifer. 2010. “Gender Inequality in the Welfare State: Sex Segregation in Housework 1965–​2003.” American Journal of Sociology 115 (5): 1480–​1523. Htun, Mala, Francesca R. Jensenius, and Jama Nelson-​Nuñez. 2019. “Gender Discriminatory Laws and Women’s Economic Agency.” Social Politics 26 (2): 199–​223. Jacquot, Sophie. 2015. Transformations in EU Gender Equality: From Emergence to Dismantling. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. Jenson, Jane. 2015. “The Fading Goals of Gender Equality: Three Policy Directions That Underpin the Resilience of Gendered Socio-​economic Inequalities.” Social Politics 22 (4): 539–​560. Kamerman, Sheila B., and Alfred J. Kahn, (eds). 1978. Family Policy: Government and Families in Fourteen Countries. New York: Columbia University Press. Lambert, Priscilla A. 2008. “The Comparative Political Economy of Parental Leave and Child Care: Evidence from twenty OECD Countries.” Social Politics 15 (3): 315–​344. Lewis, Jane. 2001. “The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: Implications for Work and Care.” Social Politics 8 (2): 152–​169. Lewis, Jane. 2009. Work-​Family Balance, Gender and Policy. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Mätzke, Margitta, and Ilona Ostner. 2010. “Introduction: Change and Continuity in Recent Family Policies.” Journal of European Social Policy 20 (5): 387–​398. McIntosh, Mary. 1981. “Feminism and Social Policy.” Critical Social Policy 1 (1): 32–​42. McLaughlin, Eithne, and Caroline Glendinning. 1994. “Paying for Care in Europe: Is There a Feminist Approach?” In Family Policy and the Welfare of Women, edited by L. Hantrais and S. Mangan, 52–​69. Cross-​National Research Papers, Third Series. Loughborough: Cross-​National Research Group, European Research Centre. Millar, Jane, and Fran Bennett. 2017. “Universal Credit: Assumptions, Contradictions and Virtual Reality.” Social Policy and Society 16 (2): 169–​182. Montanari, Ingalill. 2000. “From Family Wage to Marriage Subsidy and Child Benefits: Controversy and Consensus in the Development of Family Policy.” Journal of European Social Policy 10 (4): 307–​333. Moss, Peter. 2012. “Parental Leaves and Early Childhood Education and Care: From Mapping the Terrain to Exploring the Environment.” Children and Youth Services Review 34 (3): 523–​531.

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Orloff, Ann Shola. 1993. “Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States.” American Sociological Review 58 (3): 303–​328. Orloff, Ann Shola. 1996. “Gender in the Welfare State.” Annual Review of Sociology 22: 51–​78. Parreñas, Rachel. 2001. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pettit, Becky, and Jennifer L. Hook. 2009. Gendered Tradeoffs. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Ranzi, Costanzo, and Emmanuele Pavolini, eds. 2013. Reforms in Long-​Term Care Policies in Europe. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Roll, Jo. 1991. What Is a Family? Benefit Models and Social Realities. Occasional Paper no. 13. London: Family Policy Studies Centre. Rubery, Jill. 2015. “Regulating for Gender Equality: A Policy Framework to Support the Universal Caregiver Vision.” Social Politics 22 (4): 513–​538. Sainsbury, Diane. 1996. Gender, Equality and Welfare States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saraceno, Chiara. 1997. “Family Change, Family Policies and the Restructuring of Welfare.” In Family, Market and Community: Equity and Efficiency in Social Policy, edited by OECD, 81–​100. Social Policy Studies no. 21. Paris: OECD. Saraceno, Chiara. 2011. Family Policies: Concepts, Goals and Instruments. Carlo Alberto Notebooks, no. 230. Torino: Collegio Carlo Alberto. Scheiwe, Kirsten. 1994. “EC Law’s Unequal Treatment of the Family: The Case Law of the European Court of Justice on Rules Prohibiting Discrimination on Grounds of Sex and Nationality.” Social and Legal Studies 3 (2): 243–​265. Scott, Joan. 1986. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review 91 (5): 1053–​1075. Shaver, Sheila. 2018. “Introduction to the Handbook on Gender and Social Policy.” In Handbook on Gender and Social Policy, edited by S. Shaver, 1–​18. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Showstack Sassoon, Anne, ed. 1987. Women and the State: The Shifting Boundaries of Public and Private. London: Hutchinson. Treas, Judith, and Sonja Drobnič, eds. 2010. Dividing the Domestic: Men, Women, and Household Work in Cross-​ National Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tronto, Joan. C. 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. London: Routledge. Ungerson, Clare. 1997. “Social Politics and the Commodification of Care.” Social Politics 4 (3): 362–​381. Wennemo, Irene. 1994. Sharing the Costs of Children Studies on the Development of Family Support in the OECD. Stockholm: Swedish Institute for Social Research. Williams, Fiona. 1989. Social Policy: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Williams, Fiona. 2004. Rethinking Families. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Williams, Fiona. 2012. “Care Relations and Public Policy: Social Justice Claims and Social Investment Frames.” Families, Relationships and Societies 1 (1): 103–​119. Yeates, Nicola. 2012. “Global Care Chains: A State-​ of-​ the-​ Art Review and Future Directions in Care Transationalization Research.” Global Networks 12 (2): 135–​154.

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C H A P T E R

7

 heorizing the Relationship between T the Welfare State and the Life Course

Martin Kohli

Abstract In this chapter, I argue that the causal relationship between the welfare state and the life course works in both directions: The life course as a social institution challenges the welfare state by creating age-​specific needs and risks, and through them, potential or actual client groups of various sizes and compositions. The welfare state is thus shaped by the institutionalized life course with its tripartition of life into periods of preparation, active work, and retirement. On the other hand, the welfare state shapes the life course by differentially addressing the periods of life and by patterning the transitions between them. The chapter first shows how the welfare state and the life course may be conceptualized as social institutions. It then discusses the mediating step between the two, the problems of constructing welfare and life course regimes, and their differentiations in terms of gender and social class. Key Words: theory, welfare state policy, life course, social institutions, linked lives

Introduction What is the relation between the welfare state and the life course? The most obvious is that the life course as a social institution—​and the societal age grading that is at its basis—​challenges the welfare state by creating age-​specific needs and risks, and through them, potential or actual client groups of various sizes and compositions. The welfare state is thus shaped by the institutionalized life course with its tripartition of life into periods of preparation, gainful work, and retirement. On the other hand, it is also obvious that the welfare state—​once in place—​shapes the life course by differentially addressing the periods of life and by patterning the transitions between them. The welfare state is especially salient for the transition from gainful work to retirement, where the hold of the labor market vanishes—​abruptly or gradually—​and the pension system steps in. Workers become welfare state recipients. The welfare state thus creates and maintains its groups of beneficiaries or clients. This means that there is no clearly set direction of causality between the welfare state and the life course; causality is reciprocal, with both institutions tending to reinforce each other. In a famous literary metaphor (borrowed from chemistry), we may say that the two institutions are in a relationship of “elective affinity.” Focusing on the

temporal dimension, we may say that the process of mutual reinforcement between the two institutions increases each other’s path dependency. It is, however, possible—​and may be necessary—​for concrete studies to focus on one or the other causal path. Scholarly analysis may focus on the needs and risks posed by life course changes for welfare states, such as the increasing proportion of non-​normative work and family life courses, or the increase in life expectancy and old age dependency rates. Or they may focus on how welfare state changes impact on life courses, such as increasing parental benefits or rising retirement age limits. In what follows, I will first show how the welfare state and the life course may be conceptualized as social institutions in their own right. In the next section, I will discuss the mediating step between the life course and the welfare state: needs, risks, or vulnerabilities. A short section will address the necessary distinction between age groups and generations or cohorts. The following sections will branch out into the differentiations at the level of life-​course regimes and of individual and linked lives. In a brief concluding section I will return to the causal relation between welfare state and life course. The Welfare State and the Life Course as Social Institutions The simplest way to think of the welfare state is as a set of public policies, which may include those of income security in old age or in periods of inability to earn, of covering the costs of healthcare or family care, of subsidies for acquiring basic goods such as housing, and (for some authors) of education.1 This may be performed by a variety of instruments: policies may be redistributive or oriented toward status maintenance; they may provide monetary or in-​kind benefits; they may be universal or group-​specific; they may be unconditional or means-​or wealth-​tested; they may be purely public or enlist market, voluntary, or family actors as well; and they may aim at repairing or preventing problems. However, there is more to it. Policies are just the tip of the iceberg; at their basis are cultural ideas, expectations, and norms that are activated and given shape as legitimate political claims through politics with its wide range of political actors, and result in the legal rules and administrative processes that constitute policies. The latter, in turn, create a feed-​back loop on the politics and their underlying ideas and expectations. It is in this sense that one can speak of the welfare state as a social institution. As such, the welfare state’s impact is much broader than its immediate policy goals. Contemporary public pension systems provide a good example (see Kohli and Arza

1 That education has been neglected as an aspect of social policy may in part be attributed to Wilensky’s (1975) argument that “education is special” (Busemeyer and Nikolai 2010, 494). Moreover, as Busemeyer and Nikolai note (referring to Allmendinger and Leibfried 2003), “the distinction between education and social policies is not just an analytical one. In some welfare state regimes, education is regarded as an integral part of the welfare state, whereas in others, the two spheres of policy making are much more separated in terms of politics and institutions.” In recent years, the shift from reparative to preventive or investive social policy (Hemerijck 2017) has pushed education toward the center of the welfare state.

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2011). From a policy perspective, these systems’ major purpose is to provide income security to retirees. In addition to such income smoothing over the individual life course (in a funded system) or redistribution between salaried workers and retirees (in a pay-​as-​you-​go system), they may also aim at other types of redistribution across population groups, such as lifting the low-​income elderly out of poverty or allowing retirees to participate in the increase of work incomes over time. But beyond these income goals, pensions are linked up with an extensive range of other issues: • They are typically the largest public transfer programs, and thus the source of major fiscal pressures (and sometimes opportunities). • They influence financial markets by favoring or impeding the accumulation of funds and of personal savings. • They regulate labor markets by facilitating an ordered transition out of employment. • They enable employers to manage their work force by offering instruments for the shedding or replacement of workers. • They contribute to the institutionalization of the life course by creating a predictable sequence and timing between gainful work and retirement. • They change the dynamics within couples and across family generations. • They provide workers with a legitimate claim to compensation for their “lifelong” work, and thus with a stake in the moral economy of work societies. • They attach citizens to a public community of solidarity, and thus play a part in nation-​building. • They produce new social and political cleavages by creating large groups of actual and potential contributors and beneficiaries. • They structure the agenda of corporatist conflict and negotiation. • They offer opportunities for administrative offices and jobs. • They weigh in on election outcomes. These are large issues, each of which has given rise to its own scholarship and would merit further discussion. The point here, however, is just to map the many ways by which pension systems, and by extension welfare states, have become a major part of the institutional worlds of current societies. The simplest way to think of the life course is in terms of individual movement through the ages and stages of life and their corresponding social positions. Here again, however, there is more to it. There is a systematic link between the individual positions along the whole life course, and there is an institutional pattern that shapes lives in terms of movement through these positions as well as of biographical perspectives and plans (see Kohli 2007).

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The life-​course approach has brought a fresh perspective to many classical domains of sociology (and of the other social sciences) by demonstrating the temporality and sequencing of what had long been conceptualized as separate positions and states (Wingens 2020). Research on work, families, health, welfare, political and civic participation, and inequality and exclusion, to name but a few important fields, now routinely relies on it. Glen H. Elder—​one of the pioneers of the life-​course approach—​and his colleagues have identified five paradigmatic principles in life course theory (Elder et al. 2003): • The principle of life-​span development: Human development and aging are lifelong processes. • The principle of agency: Individuals construct their own life course through the choices and actions they take with the opportunities and constraints of history and social circumstance. • The principle of time and place: The life course of individuals is embedded and shaped by the historical times and places they experience over their lifetime. • The principle of timing: The developmental antecedents and consequences of life transitions, events, and behavioral patterns vary according to their timing in a person’s life. • The principle of linked lives: Lives are lived interdependently and sociohistorical influences are expressed through this network of shared relationships. There is today a large number of studies of such life course processes, describing and explaining how individuals make the transition from one life stage to the next, how they change between statuses such as employment and unemployment, how they link their different life dimensions and career paths, how their earlier experiences condition their later actions, and how their resources and opportunities unfold in time, becoming broader or more constrained. Most of these research efforts concentrate on individual (or group-​specific) life courses. Many of them link individual outcomes to macro-​or meso-​level institutional conditions. However, this cannot be the final step. By taking the overall institutional patterns of the life course for granted, such studies run the risk of being locked into the proximate causes of the outcomes they strive to explain, and of mis-​specifying the contextual validity of their findings. Meso-​and micro-​level studies need to be anchored in the macro-​structure. This is where the concept of the life course as a social institution comes into play. It assumes that it is useful and necessary to view the life course as a unified whole—​not just an ensemble of individual life courses or an addition of domain-​specific institutions such as those of the family, gender, education, labor market, or retirement, but an articulated institutional complex with its own overarching logic.

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As set out in the mid-​1980s (Kohli 1986), the model of the institutionalization of the life course referred to the evolution, during the last two centuries, of an institutional program regulating one’s movement through life both in terms of a sequence of positions and in terms of a set of biographical orientations by which to organize one’s experiences and plans. In short, what this change has consisted of may be summarized in five propositions (Kohli 2007, 65–​66): • The relevance of the life course as a social institution has greatly increased. There has been a change from a regime in which age was only relevant as a categorical status to a regime in which life-​time is one of the core structural features (temporalization). • The temporalization of life has been largely keyed to chronological age as the basic criterion; this has resulted in a chronologically standardized “normative life course” (chronologization). • This evolution has been part of the more general process in which the individuals are set free from the bonds of status, locality, and family of origin—​ i.e., part of the new social programs that are focused on individuals as the basic units of social life (individualization). • The life course has been structured around the new system of work based on wage labor. This applies to the shape of the life course—​where its most obvious temporal ordering has become its tripartition into periods of preparation, “activity,” and retirement—​as well as to its organizing principle. • The pattern of rules constituting the life course operates at two different levels of social reality. One is the movement of individuals through life in terms of sequences of positions, the other is their biographical perspectives and actions. This brief summary may be enough to suggest how the institutionalized life course has come to achieve social order by processing people through the social structure and articulating their actions in a systematic way—​in other words, by providing the rules by which individuals unfold and conduct their lives. These rules may be given as informal norms and beliefs (such as the idea and claim of individual development and agency), or be formalized as legal norms (such as the rights that make up the legal status of adulthood), or be structurally implemented as organizational systems with their own age-​structured schedules (such as those of education and social security). In theoretical terms this can draw on the “new institutionalism” in the study of organizations, politics, and the economy that has developed over the last three decades (e.g., Powell and DiMaggio 1991). Although this approach often uses the concept of institution

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to refer to the large-​scale organizational systems of the state or the economy, other usages reinforce and extend the sociological meaning adopted in this chapter. As Jepperson (1991) reminded us, classical authors such as Weber and Durkheim saw this type of institutional analysis as one of their core tasks and even equated it with the practice of sociology as such. Institutions in this sense are social programs or rule systems: “stable designs for chronically repeated activity sequences” (Jepperson 1991, 145). They are stable insofar as they reproduce themselves through routine self-​activating processes and through positive or negative sanctions. Institutions may start as purposive social constructions but gradually become self-​ evident as they turn into second nature, be it in terms of a shared belief system or of a taken-​for-​granted structural reality (see already Berger and Luckmann 1966). However, this does not mean that their only inherent tendency is toward stability; there are also dynamic tendencies that produce change. For the institutionalized life course, the dynamics do not only originate from outside changes but are partly endogenous as well. One source of potential instability is the tension between the standardized life-​course program and the claims for individualization and biographization, which are increasingly institutionalized as a legitimate and even normatively required way of life. The model of the institutionalization of the life course provides some much-​needed historical depth to the claims about current structural changes. It reminds us that the 1950s and 1960s were by no means the full and ultimate realization of “modernity”—​as theorized, for example, by Talcott Parsons—​and thus the natural reference point for examining what is changing today but a very specific historical period: the 1960s, when many of its features culminated in what is often termed the “Fordist” model of social structure and the life course. In macrosociological terms, this model was based on rapid and seemingly stable economic growth, low unemployment, and expansion of the welfare state. In life-​course terms, the model consisted in a “normal work biography” of continuous full-​time employment and long job tenure for most of the male population—​with most women gravitating around a male breadwinner with various forms of limited engagement in paid work or none at all—​and in a “normal family biography” set in motion by early and almost universal marriage and childbearing. In drawing up this stylized account of the (more or less fully) institutionalized life course, I already noted the changes toward a new, less chronologically standardized and more individualized one that were unfolding before our eyes. Today, we are massively confronted with the question of how far these changes have already gone. What—​if anything—​still remains of the institutionalized life course, and what does this mean in terms of structural history? There is a competition among three interpretive schemes. The first is that of a new historical break—​the transition to a new epoch at the level of society that also engenders a new structure of the life course. With the term “post-​Fordism,” for example, it is often

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posited that the basic features of the Fordist model have given way to a diametrically opposed institutional pattern.2 The modernization debate offers similar terms, such as postmodernity or—​somewhat less apodictic—​late, reflexive, or second modernity.3 The second variant emphasizes the uniqueness of the 1960s as a historical outlier and views the changes since then as a regression to long-​term historical normalcy. This version has received support especially by family sociology in which the decrease in nuptiality and fertility and the increase in the age of first marriage and childbirth may be seen as a return to earlier historical levels of the (northwestern) European family. It should be kept in mind, however, that these similar quantitative levels have been produced by highly dissimilar modes of family decision-​making, which have changed from constrained adaptation to overwhelming material and social pressures—​sometimes legally codified, for example, as marriage prohibitions (still partly in vigor in the mid-​ 19th century) for those not able to be economically independent—​to biographical choice among multiple options. At this level of the decision mode, there is no return to the status quo ante. This would speak for the third variant, that of an irreversible process of modernization, whose basic characteristics have remained valid since the 1960s despite some surface changes. There is indeed a strong persistence of such characteristics in many fields, suggesting continuity of the structural conditions that produce them. That the mode of institutionalization of the life course may have been shifted from the external sequence of positions to its individual conduct—​in the sense of biographization, as outlined previously—​can be seen as an integral part of such continuity. This would by no means imply that current modernity is here to stay forever—​an “end of history” argument—​but neither would it posit the current social order as a new historical epoch. As to the life course, this variant predicts overall institutional continuity coupled with some de-​standardization (Wingens 2020, 152ff.). Chronological (de-​)standardization is not the only dimension of the model of the institutionalized life course, but it may be the one that has commanded most attention. Research on this issue shows the need for differentiation of the various operational meanings of the concept and of the domains that it applies to (Scherger 2007), but at a general level, its meaning is rather straightforward: tighter (or less tight) coupling of life-​course events and transitions and of their interrelationships to chronological age in terms of behavior and/​ or norms. The empirical case for increasing chronological standardization of the modern life course up to about the 1960s is well established, and so seems to be the case for some

See Myles (1992) for a discussion of post-​Fordism in life course terms. The latter terms have been coined by Beck (e.g., Beck and Lau 2004). They denote a partial break with modernity in the sense of a radicalization of its principles of reflexivity, individualization, and risk. 2 3

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measure of de-​standardization since then. The most obvious domain of the latter is the family, but it seems equally true for the domain of work. That the male “normal work biography” of continuous full-​time employment that had become the rule by the 1960s in most of the advanced capitalist economies is fast giving way to various forms of discontinuous careers interspersed with spells of part-​time paid work and unpaid activities has achieved the status of a truism. “Monogamous work”—​being attached to a lifelong workplace—​seems to have become as obsolete as lifelong monogamous partnerships (Gross 1994). On closer inspection, however, there is some doubt about these claims. As this chapter is focused on the theoretical relationship between the welfare state and the life course, I will not go into the empirical record here. Suffice it to say that many overviews of current changes show quite mixed results. For family relations, decreasing nuptiality and fertility and increasing rates of divorce and separation indeed result in an increasing proportion of “non-​normative” family biographies or are even creating new norms, such as (in some countries) a period of co-​residence expected to precede marriage. But what this means is less obvious; it also hinges on how change is conceptualized. As an example, for the 1990s a comparative study of Western countries based on the Fertility and Family Survey (Klein, Lengerer, and Uzelac 2002) concluded that the extent of partnership commitment—​as expressed by living together in a joint household—​had remained amazingly constant; there was a structural shift from marriage to cohabitation rather than a retreat of joint living. This shift is normatively linked to individualization (Perelli-​Harris and Bernardi 2015). A similar case of structural continuity despite a change of form may be seen in family support and multigenerational living. It is true that the proportion of elderly people living in a joint household with an adult child has decreased massively. But if the concept of living together is relaxed to also include children living in the immediate neighborhood or not far away, a wholly different picture of intergenerational closeness or distance emerges (Kohli et al. 2010, 231ff.; Szydlik 2016, 93ff.) For the world of employment, the evidence is again somewhat mixed. To sum up, both the changes of family and of work patterns have so far been less pronounced than expected (or hoped for) by those who have heralded the end of the life course as we knew it. There are some tendencies towards de-​standardization and pluralization in some of the transitions that make up the life course, especially in the domain of the family, but they are more limited than often claimed (Van Winkle and Fasang 2021). The final evidence is not yet in and will have to be composed of more detailed analyses. But for the time being, long-​ term career trajectories and the overall tripartite structure of the life course are still firmly in place for men, and female life courses converge to some extent on this structure as well. These findings contradict many theoretical assumptions as well as most of those put forth in public discourse. The main change may not be individual de-​standardization but the challenge for linked lives: the new work-​family nexus engendered by the individualization

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of women’s life courses (Orloff 2010). This is also where many scholars see the roots of the changes in couple relationships and fertility (McDonald 2000; Ehrhardt and Kohli 2011). Needs, Risks, Vulnerabilities The institutionalized life course turns welfare risks into a series of age-​specific challenges. Before the advent of modern welfare states, poverty was the main such risk. The pioneer of the life-​course approach to public welfare accordingly focused on poverty: Seebohm Rowntree with his studies in the northern England city of York. In the first of these studies (Rowntree 1901; see Leisering and Leibfried 1999, 15–​16), he showed that being poor was usually not a permanent state, but rather a temporally bounded one that was part of a predictable sequence—​that most people moved into and out of poverty several times during their lives, and that these transitions evolved in a regular trajectory that followed the typical temporal pattern of work participation and family formation. This dynamic concept of poverty was thus also a life-​course concept: “The life of a labourer is marked by five alternating periods of want and comparative plenty” (Rowntree 1901, 169). In the first stage, the child grows up in a family that becomes increasingly more strained as the number of children increases. This changes when the children start earning and contributing to the parental household income themselves, helping to lift the family out of poverty and then leaving and getting married. The third period comes in what was then called “early midlife,” when the married couple gets children of their own, creating new expenses and at the same time reducing the wife’s earning power, and is thus pushed back under the poverty line. In the fourth phase the children start earning in their turn and then leave for marriage, gradually relieving the parental couple of their financial burden and allowing it to get out of poverty again. In the fifth and final period, as the aging couple lose their working and earning power, they fall back under the poverty line for good. Rowntree’s discovery of the “life cycle of poverty” meant that poverty became the field where the relation between the life course and welfare policies was most conspicuous. While it may be true that the early origins of the welfare state were associated with the emergence and growth of social insurance (Kuhnle and Sander 2010), the case can also be made for its early origins in poor relief.4 In Great Britain, Rowntree’s findings helped to turn the attention of policymakers away from “the poor” as a clearly delimited population group thought to be responsible for their own plight to poverty as a temporally bounded state incurred for structural reasons of insufficient earnings and unfavorable household composition. This marked the beginning of the modern welfare state. As Dewilde (2009, 254) writes,

4 In recent years (not by accident), the attention for poverty has returned in the guise of “precarity” (Kalleberg 2018).

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[T]‌he notion of social policy as an instrument for compensating life-​cycle fluctuations of needs and resources became more generally accepted in the following decades, so that is was already firmly in place when Beveridge presented his ideas on social security during the war years. His conclusions were to a large extent inspired by the work of Rowntree: “Social surveys in a number of principal towns in Britain showed that want was due either to interruption or loss of earning power or to large families. The Plan for Social Security is a plan for dealing with these two causes of want, by a double redistribution of income—​ between times of earning and not earning (by social insurance) and between times of large and small family responsibilities (by family allowances).” (Cited in Glennerster 1995, 13)5

Since the advent of large-​scale representative panel studies—​initiated by national surveys such as the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) begun in 1968 and the German Socio-​Economic Panel (SOEP) begun in 1984, and extended to cross-​national comparative surveys such as the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) begun in 2004—​it has been consistently shown that aggregate poverty rates over time hide large numbers of transitions into and out of poverty at the individual level. Rowntree had gone a step further by demonstrating the regularity of these transitions as a function of institutionalized life-​course patterns. The life course thus creates a sequence of wants (or needs, as they tend to be called today), which the welfare state has been set up to address. Human needs and risks6 are indeed the most evident and intuitive drivers of welfare state development.7 Evoking needs or risks is an essential way of staking claims to the welfare state, and responding to them a key justification of its existence. Where material needs are not covered by either labor market transactions or family solidarity, welfare states are there to close the gap, or to mitigate the risk that a need arises. On closer sight, however, things turn out to be more complicated. As much as modern states have responded to certain needs, they have often proven unresponsive toward others. This means that the perspective on needs and risks, once the latter have been empirically identified, poses two further questions. The first is empirical: Which needs do welfare states effectively address and how well do they do it? The second is normative: Which needs must welfare states attend to in order to preserve their legitimacy? The answers to these questions demand a combination of empirical inquiry with an analysis of the values that give factual conditions normative force.

It should be noted that Rowntree’s goal with his studies was more to lay the groundwork for social reform than just to make a research contribution. 6 A risk can be defined as the likelihood that a need does or does not arise, where that likelihood can be calculated and influenced by human action (Olofsson and Zinn 2019). 7 I follow here our more extensive discussion and empirical tabulation of needs and risks in the welfare state (Zutavern and Kohli 2021), 5

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The same applies to the concept of vulnerability, which has become a new way to focus on the challenges posed by the life course (Spini et al 2017). It may be used to refer to the existential risks that we are exposed to during our life, or, more specifically, to the risks that should be addressed by social policy. The step from the former to the latter meaning leads us again into the territory of normative arguments. How life-​course challenges translate into social policies that address them thus requires a closer examination of needs and risks as mediators, both in empirical and normative terms. The main explanatory approaches to welfare state development tend to neglect these mediators. Most historiographies of postwar welfare state theorizing distinguish between functionalist, political, and institutionalist families of explanations (Myles and Quadagno 2002). In all three of them there is room for a more systematic conceptualization of needs. For functionalists, social policies are the unmediated response to social and economic pressures. Potentially intervening forces such as the political organization of social demands or governmental institutions are assumed to be either neutral toward or fully determined by socioeconomic change. Welfare states change whenever transformations of conditions for economic production and social reproduction cross a threshold beyond which existing forms of needs satisfaction lose their effectiveness. Functionalist explanations, then, stand or fall with their specification of the needs they assume to be within the purview of the welfare state. Wilensky’s classical argument that industrialization and demographic change caused welfare state expansion by creating new needs, especially among the elderly as they transition from the labor market into retirement, may serve as a case in point (Wilensky 1975). By failing to distinguish between an expansionary pull that is due to growing material needs of the elderly, and an expansionary push resulting from political demands for reducing age-​related inequalities by enabling the retired to participate more fully in social life or maintain their achieved status, Wilensky neglects the consequences of these different needs conceptions for policy development. Functionalists focus on the social and economic changes along the life course that give rise to needs and risks. However, these changes become intelligible only on the background of the norms, moral beliefs, and ethical ideals without which no “factual” condition could ever be perceived as human needing. Mindful of functionalist limitations, political and institutional approaches to welfare state theory have argued that “politics matters” by showing how political interests interact with institutionalized procedures for decision-​making and administrative practices to selectively channel and process social demands and grievances. Social policy outcomes become the result of institutionally mediated power struggles between organized interests (power resource approach, e.g., Huber and Stephens 2001). But for identifying the interests that actors are presumed to pursue, power-​based accounts tend to rely in part on the notion of needs. Different conceptions of needs create potential tensions for actors who try to satisfy conflicting needs. If basic needs are indeed absolute, tensions between their

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respective satisfaction will cut across socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics. By the same token, there is no principle that would allow us to unambiguously rank the potential needs of any given group. This means that to carry political force, needs must be articulated and defined as real and legitimate in a given historical context, which makes them inherently contestable. One powerful articulation of needs and risks can be found in welfare state institutions themselves. Institutionalist approaches recognize that any social policy entails a specific conception of needs and risks, to which it thereby gives public recognition and legitimacy. Such rule-​based legacies of needs satisfaction and risk protection are often successfully guarded by current beneficiaries to the disadvantage of new, still insufficiently articulated and poorly organized needs and risks (Pierson 2006; Emmenegger et al. 2012). However, policy instruments and practices can be criticized for no longer satisfying the need for which they were once designed. And even if socioeconomic conditions causing the need persist, dominant moralities may have shifted such that the respective need is recognized for a wider population, or its satisfaction is now tied to new behavioral conditions. The shift from concepts of social protection to those of social investment (Hemerijck 2017) reflects such a shift toward the inclusion of previously neglected groups as legitimate addressees of welfare state intervention, and toward the strengthening of individual responsibility for need satisfaction or risk avoidance. Functionalist and, especially, political and institutionalist approaches raise the question of welfare state regimes. As the next section will show, this also applies to the concept of needs itself: Different conceptions of needs are part of basic welfare regime variations. Before going into these variations, however, we need to briefly examine another set of normative problems: those posed by the difference between age and generation or cohort. Age, Age Groups, Generations Age is today the foremost basis for public entitlements and obligations.8 Public redistribution according to age is one of the key elements of the institutionalized life course as a sequence of clearly delimited periods of life, each with its own profile of social roles and positions, of cultural expectations, and of legal obligations and claims. As shown by life-​ course profiles of public benefits and contributions, the elderly have become the main beneficiaries of such redistribution, mostly through pensions and healthcare (Lee and Mason 2011). Children and adolescents are beneficiaries as well, but to a lesser extent, mostly through education and family benefits, while those of working age are net contributors. In the 1950s, large parts of the developed world still manifested a concentration of poverty among the elderly. Through the expansion of the welfare state, this has been gradually mitigated. The welfare state now supports the “dependent” periods of the life

8

See Kohli (2015) for a more extensive discussion of the following argument.

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course (childhood/​youth and old age) through the contributions and taxes of the “active” population. This is most obvious in the case of pay-​as-​you-​go pension systems where retirement pensions are financed through the simultaneous contributions of those in the labor market.9 Education and family benefits are today increasingly important, but overall public redistribution is still largely skewed in favor of the elderly. For the last three decades, the distribution of resources between young and old has usually been debated under the term generational equity (see Williamson et al. 1999). It refers to the claim that the elderly receive too high a share of public resources, and that this comes at the expense of the non-​aged population, especially children and youth. By subsidizing the elderly instead of the young, so the argument goes, societies compromise their future. Again, this is not a new idea. It takes up the fear of population decline and societal senescence that came into prominence in some European countries in the late 19th century, such as in France after it had lost the 1870–​1871 war with Prussia (Teitelbaum and Winter 1985). This fear is part of the undercurrent of geopolitical reasoning that has persisted up to today. The generational equity debate claims to derive from normative principles of distributional fairness, but these claims do not hold up to closer analysis. In terms of legitimacy and distributional justice, public redistribution among age groups is (relatively) unproblematic because we can expect everyone to live through the different stages of life. This is the main implication of the position known as “complete lives egalitarianism.”10 Unlike gender or ethnic groups, age groups do not typically have a fixed membership but rather a regularly changing one, where all individuals progress through the life course from one stage to the next according to an institutionalized schedule. Thus, differential public treatment of age groups is morally acceptable if justified by the different needs that age groups have, or by reasonable political goals such as investing in human capital among the young or providing income for retirement among the elderly. There is one major normative problem here, however: the fact that people do not all live equally long. This differential longevity is socially stratified (e.g., Olshansky et al. 2012), and thus constitutes a massive social inequality in terms of benefit receipt that is compounded by demographic aging. Intergenerational redistribution, on the other hand, is inherently problematic. “Generation” can be defined at the kinship level, in terms of position in the family lineage, or at the societal level, in terms of being born in a given time period and thus sharing the same historical experiences (and the same social obligations and benefits) at the

9 Interestingly, the first project commissioned by Chancellor Adenauer, for what was to become the big West German pension reform of 1957, the “Schreiber Plan,” provided for a three-​generation contract, with the contributions of the “active” population financing public benefits for both children/​youth and the elderly. Adenauer famously objected that this was not needed as “people will get children anyway,” and thus the project was reduced to a two-​generation format. 10 See Bidanadure (2014) for a critical discussion of this view and of other approaches to justice between (co-​existing) generations.

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same ages. Thus, societal generations—​or (birth) cohorts, as they are usually called in life course and population studies—​have a fixed membership, and there is no normative legitimization for an unequal treatment of them. One may “opt out” of one’s generation in terms of attitudes and behavior, but one cannot opt out in terms of public obligations and entitlements. The intergenerational sharing of burdens and rewards is just or fair to the extent that each generation can expect to receive the same treatment as the preceding and following ones while moving through the stages of life. Financing the elderly during one’s professional life through a pay-​as-​you-​go system is not problematic as long as one can expect to have one’s own retirement funded by the next generation in the same way. Unfortunately, though, this is rarely the case; generational differences are the rule rather than the exception. They are produced by historical watersheds as well as by incremental macro-​structural, cultural, and demographic change. The only normatively acceptable way to deal with generational differences seems to be to make all generations participate equally in the societal resources (and constraints) at any given historical period, such as by indexing pensions and educational and childcare benefits to the earnings and consumption levels of the “active” population. Life-​Course Unity and Life-Course Regimes Is it useful and appropriate to view the institutionalized life course as a unified whole, rather than as an addition of domain-​specific institutions (such as those of the family, the labor market, or retirement) that can be separately examined as contexts for life-​ course processes? This was long a controversial issue, but it now seems to have been positively resolved. There is wide agreement that it is, in principle, desirable to conceptualize the specific institutions as parts of an overarching pattern with a higher or lesser degree of complementarity among them. The various “regime” concepts provide examples of such overall patterning. It remains difficult, however, to spell out the patterns in substantive terms. The difficulty is also obvious at the micro level of empirical life course research. Most of this research still contents itself with single transitions and dimensions, or with a very limited number of them, and does not face up to the challenge of aggregating transitions and sequences to full life-​course patterns. Recent methodological advances, especially with sequence analysis and event history analysis, may help overcome these limitations (Piccarreta and Studer 2019; see Möhring 2016 for an empirical example). But studies that comprise not only the whole life course but also several life domains are still rare (as an example: Van Winkle and Fasang 2021). For substantive issues, a key question is which dimensions are the decisive determinants of the overall structure of the life course. My own answer had been that the life course revolves around the organization of work and employment—​in other words, that it is determined by labor markets and ultimately by the system of production—​while others had centered their answers on the state (e.g., Mayer and Müller 1986). Today,

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this controversy has turned out to be spurious. This is the result of the new expansion of political economy approaches (and of the neo-​institutionalist paradigms on which they are often based). They link the burgeoning comparative literature on the welfare state with that on the coordination of the economy (such as the Varieties of Capitalism approach). The comparative welfare state literature shows that the structural power of the employment system is still unbroken; the welfare state responds to its challenges even where it pursues other aims (such as decommodification or family support). The Varieties of Capitalism literature concurs in viewing the welfare state as an attempt for political and social control of economic modernization. It concludes that there is indeed space for political regulation, but that regulation is confronted by a dynamic that is for the most part economic and increasingly supra-​national. This economic dynamic creates a convergence of challenges. However, the particular institutional and cultural preconditions of political systems create different equilibria and logics of change (in the sense of path dependency). They also allow for more or less successful coping with the globalized challenges (Blossfeld et al. 2006). The comparative literature usually results in typologies of national welfare or coordination regimes. It also stresses institutional complementarity—​in other words, that the specific institutional features of a regime articulate with and reinforce each other. The next step then consists of identifying the corresponding life-​course regimes. Such regimes may be unified in the sense that they encompass all relevant institutional features in a given (national) society in a given historical period, but they need not be commonly shared among all such societies. To be sure, the possibility of a trend toward commonality should not be discarded—​within the “Western” world of which my original model speaks but also beyond, among other “developed” or “developing” societies. As to the latter, there is indeed some convergence; for example, Leisering (2002) shows that China has been witnessing the gradual emergence of an institutionalized life course akin to the Western variant. On the other hand, differences among national societies and groups of societies are obvious as well. Coming back to the issue of needs, it has arisen already in the pioneering attempt at differentiating welfare regimes proposed by Esping-​Andersen (1990). It is, however, not only liberal welfare states that are “needs-​based,” as Esping-​Andersen’s narrow notion of needs leads him to argue. Liberal welfare states do, indeed, target much of their social policy toward individuals who are unable to satisfy their minimal material needs, avoiding interventions that might curtail the fruits of individual achievement. Scandinavian welfare states, on the other hand, have gone furthest in meeting needs of participation in the national community and, thus, in inequality reduction across social groups, whereas welfare states on the European continent have traditionally placed more emphasis on needs for distinction based on seniority and occupational status. In other words, social policy variations are due to an important extent to the institutionalization of different forms of need satisfaction and risk protection. Such variations may persist even

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where the socioeconomic conditions responsible for the emergence of needs and risk profiles have converged and where new needs or risks are competing for political attention. Whether it makes sense to even try to aggregate all policy dimensions into overarching regimes is another matter. It may be overly ambitious in two respects. The first is finding unity within national societies. The long list of relevant policy areas—​from family and care support through education, housing, and labor market participation to health and old-​age pensions (see Castles et al. 2010, Part V)—​and of relevant inputs and actors (Castles et al. 2010, Part IV) shows how difficult this task is. It may be more realistic to aim for typologies in each major policy domain separately. Esping-​Andersen has rightly been criticized for making his life too easy by omitting education and health, and especially by neglecting gender differentiation (Lewis 1992) and family and care policies. The second difficulty is grouping national societies into multinational regime types (Arts and Gelissen 2010). The difficulty is compounded when one looks beyond the “Western” or OECD world (Castles et al. 2010, Part VII). But the power of the regime approach is documented not least by the fact that it is still incessantly tried and re-​criticized. Theoretically grounded simplifications are necessary and productive. Without them, we would end up, as in Jorge Luis Borges’s well-​known story, with a map as big as the world that it depicts. Even more daunting is the attempt to group the institutions of the life course into life-course regimes. Mayer (2001) has proposed an interesting typology, loosely oriented toward Esping-​Andersen’s typology of welfare regimes but by necessity much broader, as it includes also the domains of the family and of education, and specifically addresses women’s employment and careers. The four types are the “liberal market state” of the Anglo-​Saxon world, the “Continental conservative welfare state,” the “Scandinavian social democratic welfare state” and the “Southern European welfare state”—​in other words, the “three worlds of welfare capitalism” originally distinguished by Esping-​Andersen (1990) plus the Southern European type, which Esping-​Andersen prefers to incorporate into the Continental conservative one, but which other authors (e.g., Ferrera 1996) have clearly set apart. Blossfeld and colleagues (2006) have shown that nationally specific institutional regimes mediate the impact of globalization on the individual life course of women and men and have come up with a similar typology. Taking women’s life courses seriously may require drawing the types somewhat differently, such as with respect to the structure of female employment (Anxo et al. 2007) or to family policies (Leitner 2004; Daly 2010). These proposals show again how demanding it is to view all institutions that are relevant for life-course processes as features of an overarching life-course regime, but also how fruitful it is. Heterogeneity and Social Differentiation As the life course has become more complex, the assumption of a unified model may be less and less appropriate. Life has, of course, always been complex, and it is only in retrospect that we have been able to detect a (fairly) homogeneous evolutionary pattern.

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But in many respects there has indeed been a trend toward complexity since the 1960s, when the Fordist model was at its peak. Most observers would agree that the past decades have been marked by “increasing differentiation and heterogeneity across the population” (Mayer 2001, 95), so that differential approaches to the study of life transitions and aging have become more salient (Dannefer 1988). As stated above, however, the extent of this heterogeneity is still an open question, as is the extent to which it is structured along definable socio-​demographic groups. The main controversy in terms of socio-​demographic differentiation has been waged over the dimension of gender. Emphasizing the structuration of the life course through the system of work has been criticized as a bias for the male side. This criticism was mistaken insofar as the institutionalization argument described the logic of the malebreadwinner model in the Fordist regime without intending to explain either its evolution or its emerging transformation. Under the Fordist regime, the life courses of housewives were dependent on their husbands, not only in monetary terms, but also in the social criteria of full individuality and public participation. Women’s work in the household and in care did not enjoy the same economic and social valuation as paid work in the labor market (Folbre 2008). Now, as women have increasingly become autonomous actors in their own right in terms of education and labor force participation, their trajectories have also moved closer to the tripartite life-course regime formerly concentrated on the male side (see also Brückner and Mayer 2005). On the other hand, gender indeed makes for important differences in life-​course patterns (Brückner 2004; Möhring 2016). Gender requires a perspective on how employment is linked with (usually unpaid) family work and care work over the life course (Pfau-​ Effinger and Geissler 2005; Daly 2010). Female life courses are not of one type only; they follow different patterns between full-​time labor force participation, part-​time work, and family work, and these patterns are differentially distributed among national regimes (Anxo et al. 2007). Some women (still) opt for continuous household roles,11 while others prefer continuous full-​time employment, with various combinations in-​between (Hakim 2000). The gender pay gap may be the result of women’s discrimination in the labor market and/​or of their more frequent interruptions and periods of part-​time work. As a result, women have a less favorable lifetime welfare benefit structure and a different relation of returns on investment in the labor market, the marriage market, and parenthood than men (Allmendinger 1994; Frericks and Mayer 2007). Gender thus focuses attention on the relationship between state, family (or kinship), and market in the provision of social security (O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999; Daly 2010; Heady and Kohli 2010). 11 Economic theories of the family and household often view this specialization in terms of comparative advantage (e.g., Becker 1981); but such explanations assuming free preference formation need to be contrasted with those of socialization and/​or structural constraints. Moreover, rising divorce rates and decreasing welfare state provisions have shifted the economic rationale: They make it riskier for women to specialize in the household role.

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With regard to the linked lives of women and men (Moen 2003), there is thus a persistent inequality. As a result, the mutual harmonization of the life-course options of the two partners remains more important for women, and they more often adjust their options to those of their male partners than vice versa. But today this inequality is increasingly questioned. The occupational resources of women—​not only in terms of education, but also of institutional claims such as those of anti-​discrimination legislation—​grow, and their aspirations grow as well. Reconciliation of work and parenthood becomes paramount and is perceived also as an essential field of welfare policy, as most Western societies are challenged by the crisis of demographic reproduction. The gender cleavage turns out to be an integral part of the institutionalized life-course and one of its key dynamic factors (Lewis 2002). Another major dimension of differentiation is social class. There is an increasing empirical salience of and public and scholarly attention to class inequalities, especially in terms of income and wealth (or the lack of it). Curiously, this has so far been only sparingly extended to the most basic sources of well-​being: health and duration of life. One of the most hidden shortcomings of current welfare states is indeed their treatment of the class inequalities in morbidity and mortality. There is now good data on the socioeconomic gradient in health, and increasingly also in further life expectancy at the age of transition to retirement pensions, but pension reform debates—​true to their origin in insurance issues—​tend to be interested only in aggregate means of these demographic features. The research literature shows that socioeconomic status—​ income, occupation, or education—​strongly affects mortality for pensioners. It also strongly affects health limitations (healthy life expectancy). The effects are generally larger for men than for women, and they have increased over time. This is problematic for pension systems because the effects are regressive: Total pension wealth—​the lifetime value of pensions—​is lower for lower-​status people. Increasing the retirement age, as aimed for in many pension reform schemes, represents a higher wealth cut for those at the bottom of the longevity distribution. To the extent that public pensions are supposed to be socially progressive –​redistributing benefits toward the lower-​income groups –​or at least socially neutral, such a one-​size-​fits-​all increase means that they miss their goals. Life-​course features thus impact directly on the social class effects of welfare policies. Conclusion In conclusion, I briefly return to the question of the direction of causality. The more obvious causal direction is from the welfare state to the life course: the educational system and the pension system are important forces in shaping the two major transitions in the institutionalized life course, from childhood/​youth to adulthood and from active working life to retirement. Unemployment and disability schemes and family support contribute to normalizing the period of adulthood between these two transitions, as it is structured by labor market participation and family formation. The health system helps individuals

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to retain their capacity for agency and steps in especially in the later life periods when health restrictions increase. There are, however, also examples for the opposite causal direction, where the life course presents challenges that the welfare state must respond to. We have seen that a purely functionalist view of such challenges and responses is inadequate, but if linked to politics and the weight of welfare institutions themselves, the effects of life-​course challenges are unequivocal. At the beginning of welfare state development in the late 19th century, poverty (with its typical life-​course pattern) and the attendant risks of political conflict that it was believed to engender was such a life-course challenge. The Bismarckian social insurance programs were an answer to this challenge. They attempted to pacify the fast-​growing proletariat and turn them into loyal citizens by offering a normalized biography that assured some publicly provided income in periods of sickness and disability, with old-​age insurance holding out the prospect of some measure of status maintenance after a full work life. At present, the demographic features of the institutionalized life course are another example of its impact on the welfare state, even though its activation depends on welfare state politics. There is thus causality in both directions, but even more there is reciprocal causality with mutual reinforcement between both social institutions. References Allmendinger, Jutta. 1994. Lebensverlauf und Sozialpolitik: Die Ungleichheit von Mann und Frau und ihr öffentlicher Ertrag. Frankfurt: Campus. Allmendinger, Jutta, and Stephan Leibfried. 2003. “Education and the Welfare State: The Four Worlds of Competence Production.” European Journal of Social Policy 13 (1): 63–​81. Anxo, Dominique, Colette Fagan, Immaculata Cebrian, and Gloria Moreno. 2007. “Patterns of Labour Market Integration in Europe—​A Life Course Perspective on Time Policies.” Socio-​Economic Review 5: 233–​260. Arts, Wil A., and John Gelissen. 2010. “Models of the Welfare State.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, edited by Francis G. Castles, Stephan Leibfried, Jane Lewis, Herbert Obinger, and Christopher Pierson, 569–​583. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beck, Ulrich, and Christoph Lau, eds. 2004. Entgrenzung und Entscheidung: Was ist neu an der Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung? Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Becker, Gary S. 1981. A Treatise on the Family Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Berger, Peter L, and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Bidanadure, Juliane Uhuru. 2014. Treating Young People as Equals: Intergenerational Justice in Theory and Practice. PhD diss., University of York. Blossfeld, Hans-​Peter, Sandra Buchholz, and Dirk Hofäcker, eds. 2006. Globalization, Uncertainty and Late Careers in Society. London: Routledge. Brückner, Hannah. 2004. Gender Inequality in the Life Course: Social Change and Stability in West Germany 1975–​1995. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Brückner, Hannah, and Karl Ulrich Mayer. 2005. “De-​Standardization of the Life Course: What It Might Mean? And If It Means Anything, Whether It Actually Took Place?” In The Structure of the Life Course: Standardized? Individualized? Differentiated?, edited by Ross Macmillan, 27–​53. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Busemeyer, Marius R., and Rita Nikolai. 2010. “Education.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, edited by Francis G. Castles, Stephan Leibfried, Jane Lewis, Herbert Obinger, and Christopher Pierson, 494–​508. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castles, Francis G., Stephan Leibfried, Jane Lewis, Herbert Obinger, and Christopher Pierson, eds. 2010. The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Scherger, Simone. 2007. Destandardisierung, Differenzierung, Individualisierung: Westdeutsche Lebensläufe im Wandel. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Spini, Dario, Laura Bernardi, and Michel Oris. 2017. “Toward a Life Course Framework for Studying Vulnerability.” Research in Human Development 14: 5–​25. Szydlik, Marc. 2016. Sharing Lives: Adult Children and Parents. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Teitelbaum, Michael S., and Jay M. Winter. 1985. The Fear of Population Decline. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Wilensky, Harold. 1975. The Welfare State and Equality: Structural and Ideological Roots of Public Expenditures. Berkeley: University of California Press. Williamson, John B., Diane M. Watts-​Roy, and Eric R. Kingson, eds. 1999. The Generational Equity Debate. New York: Columbia University Press. Wingens, Matthias. 2020. Soziologische Lebenslaufforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Van Winkle, Zachary, and Anette Eva Fasang. 2021. “The Complexity of Employment and Family Life Courses across 20th Century Europe: More Evidence for Larger Cross-​National Differences but Little Change across 1916–​1966 Birth Cohorts.” Demographic Research 44 (32): 775–​810. Zutavern, Jan, and Martin Kohli. 2021. “Needs and Risks in the Welfare State.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, edited by Francis G. Castles, Stephan Leibfried, Jane Lewis, Herbert Obinger, and Christopher Pierson, 2nd revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 241–​258.

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C H A P T E R

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Intersectionality and Family Policy: The Transnational Political Economy of Care

Fiona Williams

Abstract The main focus of the chapter is on the multiple dimensions of social inequality related to the migration of women from poorer regions to perform care and domestic work in households and organizations in wealthier regions. The chapter argues that this development demands an analysis that can make connections across the forms, scales, and sites of social inequality and the policies that influence them. To this end, the author employs an intersectional and multi-​scalar perspective, arguing that it offers a useful way of understanding the multiple social relations of inequality at play in care work. Williams provides selected cross-​national examples of the intersections in migrant care work and concludes by examining the macro scale and the transnational personal and political agency of migrant care workers, their successes, and what they have yet to achieve. Key Words: intersectionality, social inequality, migration, care work, multi-​scalar perspective

Introduction The development of research around the practices and policies of care has been an important aspect in the study of family policy in a number of ways. In the 1980s, feminist research did much to bring care out into the open and reveal the invisible, unequal, and devalued work undertaken by women in the social reproduction of families—​caring for younger and frail older family members and everyday cleaning and feeding of the household. Policies that support care activities are therefore considered to be an important marker for the mitigation of gendered inequalities within families, as well as the recognition of the needs and rights of children, people with disabilities, and older people. However, how and why countries pursue such policies can vary considerably and have given rise to a broader study of care regimes that connect care policies to, among other things, cultures of care practices and paid care work within and outside families. In addition, the lens of care casts a particular perspective on the changes that shape and are shaped by family formations and family-​oriented state policies. One important aspect of

such changes has been the increase over the past two decades of the migration of women (in the main) from poorer regions to do care and domestic work in households and institutions of the richer regions of the world. This is the subject of this chapter.1 Not only does this development point to some of the most significant social, cultural, political, demographic, and economic changes in the 21st century, it also encapsulates multiple intersecting social, economic, and geopolitical inequalities. It also operates at multiple scales that are dynamically connected. These range from the micro (interpersonal relations of care), to the meso (national policy contexts around care, migration, and employment), to the macro scale of transnational movements of care labor and capital and of transnational political actors. These shape and are shaped by the global political economy, and especially, as this chapter argues, by a global crisis of care generated by neoliberal capitalism, the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, and increasing restrictions on low-​paid migrant workers’ transnational mobility. As such, the phenomenon of migrant care work demands an analysis that can make connections across these forms, scales, and sites, and the policies that influence them. To meet this, the chapter employs an intersectional and multi-​scalar analysis. The chapter is organized in the following way: first, as context, it draws out the significance of the different social, economic, and other changes that migrant care work represents. Second, it explains why an intersectional approach offers a useful way of understanding multiple social relations of inequality at play in care work around gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, disability, sexuality, and migrant status, but also in the geopolitical inequalities of migrant labor. It sets out the way in which the chapter employs the concept of intersectionality in combination with a multi-​scalar analysis. The aim is to allow for an analysis of the intersections of inequalities and differences at multiple scales. The chapter provides selected cross-​national examples of the intersections in migrant care work at different scales—​interpersonal and national. It concludes by focusing upon the macro scale and the transnational personal and political agency of migrant care workers, their successes, and what has yet to be achieved. Change and Continuity Migrant care work provides a lens through which to see connections between key social, cultural, political, demographic, and economic changes in the 21st century that have particularly affected familial interdependence. First is the global increase of women’s involvement in the labor market and the greater reliance in both the Global North and South on a woman’s wage because of the absence or decreased value of a male wage. Figures for OECD countries show an average rate of 63% for female labor force participation (OECD 2015). In developing countries, too, female participation in formal work

1

This is an amended version of Williams 2021, c­ hapter 6.

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(often as breadwinners) has increased, and by 2008 ranged from 24.7% in the Middle East to 62.9% in sub-​Saharan Africa for women over 25, both increases from the previous 10 years (ILO 2009, 9). In developed welfare states, this has been characterized by the move from a “male breadwinner” society to a new norm of the “adult worker” society, in which “hard-​working” men and women support themselves and their families through employment. Women’s employment also reflects improved access to education and higher aspirations, although in reality many women enter a segmented labor market where their pay is less than men’s and where child care support and social protection are absent or limited (Razavi and Staab 2012; ILO 2016). This shapes the second change: the growing need for care for older people, disabled people, and young children, intensified in the developed world by aging societies, declining fertility, and political imperatives toward social expenditure cuts. Such care deficits are no less significant in poorer regions, where unemployment, wars, ethnic conflict, natural disasters, and chronic illnesses place enormous responsibilities on women to maintain their families with little infrastructural support. In some cases, migration provides women with the opportunity to provide support to their families while simultaneously intensifying the caring responsibilities of those left behind (Withers 2018). This transnational movement from poorer to richer countries, which exacerbates the care needs of the countries of migrants’ origin, has been described as a “transfer of caretaking” (Parreñas 2001, 2005). Third, migration patterns too have changed. Almost half (48%) of the world’s 258 million international migrants are now women; they outnumber male migrants in North America, Oceania, Latin America, and the Caribbean (United Nations 2017). Many find work in low-​paid care and domestic work in private homes or institutions. In some countries, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, the export of qualified nurses is part of national policy and bilateral agreements (Guevarra 2010; Withers 2018). Fourth, care provision in many destination countries has also changed. Care policies have shifted over the past two decades from providing public services (or in some places, no services) to giving people cash payments or tax credits to buy in care or domestic help in their private homes. In addition, the reliance on third-​sector but especially for-​profit provision has led to care being treated as a commodity that is bought and sold in the care market (Williams and Brennan 2012). The contracting out of provision such as domiciliary care, nurseries, or residential homes to the private sector has in many places been accompanied by worsening of pay, worse working conditions, and labor shortages. It is in the junction of these four changes that migrant women workers, already often disadvantaged by their migrant and racialized status, are susceptible to the poor conditions that beset the low-​wage economy of care and domestic work. Their precariousness is exacerbated by migration policies in countries of destination that have become more restrictive in order to favor skilled workers (Boyd 2017), along with a reduction in the social rights of migrants (Yuval Davis et al. 2019). This has been accompanied by the

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contradictory dependence of richer countries on migrant care workers to cut their social expenditure costs combined with populist and political nationalist and anti-​immigration sentiment (Michel and Peng 2017), contributing to the insecurity of migrant care workers. However, the factors that deliver these connections between changes in migration and care are complex. To begin with, they are superimposed upon older, continuing inequalities. First are gendered divisions where women carry major responsibilities for care and domestic work—​work that is often hidden in national economic accounting and subordinated to the economy and productivism (UNRISD 2016; Esquivel and Kaufmann 2017). This is an enduring contradiction between capitalism and care: that while part of it—​keeping the current and future workforce socialized, healthy, and replenished—​is essential for economic production, at the same time this work is constituted as separate, part of the natural work carried out by women, both unpaid and paid, and devalued as low-​paid and “unskilled.” However, the present era of globalized financialized capitalism, and especially the global financial crisis, has heightened this contradiction to the point of a global crisis of care (Fraser 2016; Williams 2021). This expresses itself, as noted above, through demographic changes, social expenditure cuts, precarious working and living conditions, and natural disasters, which endanger women’s capacity in different regions of the world to sustain their households and enable human flourishing.2 Second are the conditions of imperialist and postcolonial hierarchies that have shaped the contemporary racially structured labor market. Significant here is the legacy of the racialization of servitude. In the United States, minority ethnic groups have historically carried out the care and domestic labor of dominant classes (Glenn 1992). In the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, the recruitment of health and care labor from the colonies provided both cheap labor for the new institutions of the welfare state and met a labor shortage that otherwise would have had to be filled by British married women in a period in which women were assumed to have primary responsibilities for the home and children (Williams 1989). By the 1990s, domestic service for professional dual-​earner families increasingly became the norm (Gregson and Lowe 1994). Today, especially where public provision is residual and gendered care responsibilities within the home relatively unchanged, the employment of migrant domestic and care labor serves to enable professional households to sustain paid employment. In other words, while family norms around care have changed, migrant workers still provide states with cost-​effective ways of securing these norms. In addition, the picture above, although global in its reach, contains significant variations and multiple layering across countries and regions. It is not just a Global

Elsewhere (Williams 2021) I frame this “crisis of care” as one of three concurrent global crises that are the outcome of the contradictions of the patriarchal, extractivist, and racializing dynamics of global capitalism, and which have been intensified by the 2008 global financial crisis. The other two are the environmental crisis, and the crisis of racializing restrictive borders. This chapter refers to these other crises. 2

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North-​South phenomenon: care and domestic workers migrate within North and South regions. Domestic workers from Indonesia go to Malaysia, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, which also recruits women from the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, more educated younger women migrants from Central and Eastern Europe worked in care and domestic work in Northern, Western, and Southern Europe. Germany receives eldercare workers from Poland while Poland receives domestic workers from the Ukraine. These trails are superimposed upon older colonial tracks, with Indian and African workers going to the United Kingdom and South American workers to Spain. Again, conditions of both work and migration vary widely. Some workers travel to and from their destinations of work for just weeks or months; others find that their conditions of work force them to move from one country of destination to another. Some settle; others return home. While it is a phenomenon that occurs in one way or another across most developed welfare states, the degree of dependence across countries varies, as do migration statuses, employment conditions, and the characteristics of care provision. It represents a situation of “converging variations” (Williams 2012). An Intersectional Approach to Care “Care” operates as relational practice, as policy, as an ethic, as the basis for making claims, as a commodity, as an economy, and as power. As noted in the introduction, early feminist research provided a critique of how patriarchal assumptions of women’s responsibility for the care of children and disabled or frail older family members, as well as able-​bodied men, reinforced women’s financial dependency and their marginalization from the public sphere. It also highlighted care’s ambiguity for women—​a “labor of love” (Finch and Groves 1983). “Care” became more widely used in feminist analysis to refer to both policy and to emotional, relational, and intimate practices and their constitution within patriarchal and heteronormative power. In its alignment with the ethics of care, it has become an important signifier for a prefigurative and transformative politics in which the principles of the interdependency of human beings are seen as the grounding for justice, for human flourishing, and for sustainability (Tronto 1993; Sevenhuijsen 1998; Williams 2021). The broader term social reproduction is also used to highlight the often unrecognized contribution of women’s unpaid and low-​paid cleaning and caring work for capitalist production, as described above (Kofman 2012; Bhattacharya 2017). All these approaches are important, and the analysis in this chapter synthesizes them as “care” in general and as the “transnational political economy of care” in particular. Most feminist social policy approaches to care importantly emphasize its gendered and classed dimensions (O’Connor et al. 1999; Daly and Rake 2003). Here it is understood as a shifting practice of provision and receipt involving further multiple and interconnected social relations of race, ethnicity, and migrant status, as well as disability, sexuality, childhood, and old age.

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It is in accounting for this complexity that an intersectional approach is particularly helpful. Intersectionality is an analytical approach in which social and economic inequalities are understood as complex, interlinked, shifting, and multifaceted, creating both penalties and privileges. The concept emerged out of Black feminist struggle and critical race studies and spoke to an experience in which the race and gender of women of color were decentered within both feminist and anti-​racist/​Black movements (Cohambahee River Collective [1977] 1995; Hull et al. 1982; Moraga and Anzaldúa 1983; Lewis and Parma 1983; Hill Collins 1990). Intersectionality emerged as the analytic concept in the 1980s to understand experiences constructed through a multiplicity of social relations of power, including gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and disability. It was identified as an intersectional dynamic by socio-​legal Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989). The concept became more widespread after the turn of the 21st century in a different political and intellectual context of growing multiple inequalities. Intersectionality has different interpretations and has been subject to much debate.3 This chapter engages with intersectionality as a way of connecting theory, method, and praxis—​as an approach that focuses on lived experience and links this to wider inequalities of power. As such it operates not as a grand and totalizing theory but as an “orientation” (May 2015, 3), a way of thinking about complexity, contingency, and connectedness, and a refusal to reduce phenomena to single causes or solutions. In addition, politically, it highlights the importance of alliances across difference as a way to transformative change. A contemporary example is the multiracial and global protests of Black Lives Matter in 2020. However, with multiple categories of inequality, how do we know which ones matter in any given context? This requires sensitivity to the contingent nature of political context and to the question of salience. In other words, in different contexts (over time and place), some social relations of power acquire greater significance. Thus, for migrant care workers, as subjects and agents, it is their gender combined with their ethnicity and/​or nationality, their migrant status, and their employment status that are generally salient. At the same time, it is also the social characteristics of those who are cared for and/​or who employ them that are also significant. In these terms, then, I set out in this chapter a way of looking at the ways different social inequalities of migrant care work are constituted at different scales—​combining intersectionality with a multi-​scalar approach. In doing so, this analysis extends the use of the intersectional method beyond a focus upon interpersonal relationships of care to the institutional forces that shape that relationship at national scale (here, the intersection of care regimes with migration regimes and employment regimes), and to the interconnections between different dynamics at transnational and global scales.

3 See McCall, 2005; Hancock 2007; Cho et al. 2013; Hankivsky and Jordan-​Zachary 2019; Irvine et al. 2019; Hill Collins and Bilge 2016; Carastathis 2016; Williams 2021.

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The method attempts therefore to examine the weft and weave of connections across and within these scales.4 Micro-​scale Intersecting Inequalities in Migrant Care Work The practices of care are steeped in complex interpersonal emotional and physical encounters between caregiver and recipient. When this is paid care work, the social relations are made more complex by, first, the social positionings of both parties attached to class, race/​ethnicity, religion, gender, age, sexuality, and disability; second, the employment and migrant status of the care worker; and third, the social relations of care. The first two can be extremely variable across countries. To begin with, not all care workers are female (Gallo and Scrinzi 2016). The worker may live in the home of the care recipient or work in an institution such as a nursing home; she may work a few hours a week, a few hours a day, or long hours; her work may involve caring and/​or cleaning for a baby or small child, an older, frail, or disabled person, or it may involve being their personal assistant. An employee may be self-​employed or receive cash-​in-​hand as part of the gray economy, or she may work for a private agency or a local authority. The employer may be, in the case of disabled people, the person for whom she is working, or it could be a parent of a child, or the children of an older person. The worker may have limited access to collective organization or representation, especially if she is isolated in her recipient’s/​ employer’s home. As a migrant care worker, she may be working under a special permit, a temporary visa, or she may be undocumented, and these insecurities may be exacerbated where her ethnicity, nationality, religion, or migrant status are racialized. At the same time, these different conditions and positionings are overlaid by the social relations of care, and these may construct multiple vulnerable dependencies of frailty in old age or assumed dependencies of disabled people on the part of the recipient, and of insecure employment and the indignities of racism and sexism or homophobia experienced by the worker, especially where care has little social or economic value. In a study of migrant care workers in the UK and Norway, young, educated women from Central and Eastern Europe in the UK found the low value of the work combined with being a “foreigner” rapidly downgraded their status, as this young Slovakian woman describes: [I]‌t was a bit of a shock for me . . . once I was abroad, to realise that I am treated differently. That suddenly nobody is interested in my background or my abilities or my skills, my education. That I’m just a pair of hands that should be used in the most effective way. And

4 A multi-​scalar analysis is used in Michel and Peng 2017. There is a criticism of the concept of scales that it may assume that different scales—​local, national, transnational, global, etc.—​stand in a “natural” or hierarchical “top-​down” relationship to each other (Isin 2007; Clarke 2019). Combining it with an intersectional analysis provides a more fluid understanding in which different scales “bleed” into each other, and in which the social relations within those scales are constituted through time and place.

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this society wants to take so much from you but is willing to give you so little back in return. (quoted in Christensen and Guldvih 2014, 75)

Another worker, a young woman from Hungary who had worked as a personal assistant for disabled people, attempted to overcome such feelings of subordination by asserting an ableism in the care relationship and downgrading the people she cared for to “patients” and “cases,” as objects of study for her professional qualification: That is my last patient, I can’t put up with anyone anymore. . . . I realised while working with disabled people that in healthy body there is healthy mind. And once the body is not healthy, the mind is broken, whatever they do, however hard they try, they will not be able to reach the healthy level, just the bottom. (quoted in Christensen and Guldvih 2014, 94)

These complexities attach not only to care work in employers’ homes (such as cleaning, child care, or looking after a frail person), but also to work in institutional care. In a study of migrant and minority ethnic workers in mainly institutional-​based care for older people in London, Paris, and Madrid, a feeling of a “hierarchy” of vulnerabilities made workers sense their own experiences of racism were ignored (Sahraoui 2019). That is to say, institutional regulations covering older people’s vulnerability were placed higher than vulnerability to racist abuse toward the worker by care recipients or managers. In this way, a worker in Paris complained that equality laws regarded homophobia and racism as offenses like age discrimination, but in his experience this was not the case: There are many residents who tell you: you’re here to take care of me, you’re paid to take care of me, you’re paid, you’re a domestic, you’re a slave, you’ve left your country, you were poor over there, you came to take care of me. . . . Racism is an offence, isn’t it? Racist remarks, homophobic remarks, all of that is punished by French law, it’s an offence. But we say it’s an elderly person, it’s not. . . . When you work 10 or 12 hours, you come, you sweat, you take care of the person, you wash him/​her, you wake him/​her up, you prepare him/​her for breakfast, sometimes you even feed the person, she/​he can’t eat alone, you turn, sometimes you’re alone, your back, you bend, you sweat, you’re called negro, domestic. (Bacar, Senegalese, Paris; quoted in Sahraoui 2019, 162)

In this study, workers in London expressed similar experiences: When you think about it, we don’t have any rights, we just have to bear abuse. Abuse is both side, it’s for us and for them also. . . . Why? Because they are vulnerable, because they are . . .

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but what about us, the staff? We are not human beings? (Sameera, 32, Mauritius, London; quoted in Sahraoui 2019, 163)

Managers in Sameera’s care home prioritized the regulatory framework (Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults) in favor of their customers (the older person and her or his family) which paradoxically had the effect of heightening the vulnerability of the care workers and leaving them powerless to challenge racist abuse. Old-​age residential care work carries all the objective indicators of precarious employment and commodification of care in which private care home owners transfer their economic costs on to their workers, The work is hard physically and emotionally, it involves the challenges of residents who can be aggressive or even violent; it requires careful communication, and yet it produces forms of reciprocity. Sahraoui found that being able to meet such relational needs was, for the workers, a source of pride in their work. She concludes that a rights framework, while essential, is just not enough to deal with the multiple forms of subordination experienced by these workers. Rather, she says, what is needed is an ethics of care that gives the workers (both men and women) their pride and dignity as part of social justice. Cranford and Chun (2017) provide a different example of this complexity in a case study in which care relations do not follow the assumed patterns of social or economic power—​where the employer is of a wealthier dominant ethnic group and the worker is poor, female, of minority ethnicity and a migrant. Both care workers and care recipients in their study were from the minority ethnic and racialized urban community of Oakland Chinatown in California. By virtue of California’s In-​Home Supportive Services, the recipients were older and disabled people, and many, like their workers, were poor. Recipients were allowed to employ family, friends, or agency staff as care workers, and they shared employment responsibilities with the state, which paid the employees directly as well as recognizing the union that represents care workers. The question here is whether these different features shift care away from traditional relations of coercive servitude toward a potentially more reciprocal model in which the dignity and conditions of both worker and recipient are recognized and respected. The researchers found elements of both continuity with the old model and changes to the new (as well as care recipients who can be kind or callous). However, what made for the continuities was underpinned by insufficient state funding that gave rise to precarious, low-​paid work as well as difficulties in regulating home-​based employment. What made for a better model of care had less to do with shared ethnic and racialized positioning of workers and recipients, and more with workers’ capacity for collective agency through both the unions and an advocacy organization for women immigrants. Importantly, too, alliances with disability movements ensured representation of the experiences of recipients. In a sense, these alliances represent a form of “intersectionality in action.”

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Such possibilities for collective local action are also reflected in institutional and cultural differences at national scale. Meso-​scale Institutional Intersections Different institutional, political, and cultural processes shape such interpersonal care relations. Here, too, it is useful to look at the ways these processes intersect, for this can provide an understanding of the diverse ways the migration-​care nexus operates in different countries, even where those countries are faced with similar pressures. This cross-​national diversity is shaped by the way a destination country’s care regime intersects with its migration regime and its employment regime (Williams and Gavanas 2008; Simonazzi 2009; Williams 2012, 2018). By “regime” I refer not only to clusters of state policies around care provision, migration rules, and employment policies, but, importantly, also to cultures, practices, and legacies in different countries as well as major forms of social relations of power and inequality in care, migration, and employment. These too are shaped by the forms of mobilization and contestation, such as the capacity of workers to join a union, or of advocacy for people with significant care needs (Williams 2012; see also Shutes and Chiatti 2012). So, for example, care and employment policies often reflect the balance of gender relations as to whether women are supported in their paid work commitments by care provision. Also, in some countries the care of older people is historically seen as a familial (or woman’s) responsibility, while in others it is one shared with state provision through domiciliary and institutional care. As the last section showed, the application of anti-​discrimination measures in both care and employment are also significant, and these vary across states. These three regimes are, arguably, the most salient to shape a country’s response to its care crisis.5 While the analysis here focuses on countries of destination, the framework can be applied to countries of migrant workers’ origin (Withers 2019 follows a similar analysis for Sri Lanka). The intersection of the three regimes allows an analysis of migrant care work that shows how welfare states’ responses to aspects of the crisis of care have both converged, but also how, at the same time, historical legacies, path dependencies, cultural practices, and political forces have shaped these responses in different ways. Take, for example, Europe, where Spain and Italy are both countries with a strong history of familial (female) care provision. The rise in women’s employment and aging has led to a move from a family model of care to a “migrant-​in-​the-​family” model of care (Bettio et al. 2006). In these countries, state allowances assist families in employing care workers to look after frail old family members 5 I use the word “arguably” above because there is a case for also considering the equality regime as a specific policy area rather than its cutting through all these other three as my analysis implies (Halvorsen et al 2017; Christensen and Guldvih 2014). By equality regime I mean the framework of anti-​discrimination policies, which have significance for both workers and services users in relation to disability, gender, racial, ethnic and religious discrimination, LGBTQI+​, and age.

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in their homes; 63% and 73%, respectively, are migrant workers (Leon 2010; van Hooren 2008). Furthermore, migration policies in these countries have in the past been relatively open, with domestic worker quotas and amnesties for irregular care worker migrants. In Italy in 2009, amid prevailing anti-​immigration mobilization, new immigration policies criminalized undocumented workers; however, an exception was made for badanti—​ home-​based domestic/​care workers—​allowing them to become regularized (di Martino et al. 2013), reflecting both the state’s and families’ reliance on this low-​cost care provision. This dependence on migrant care workers to provide familial care of older people is also evident in Spain. This was one of the European countries most hit by the global financial crisis and the demands of the EU/​IMF bailout in 2009, after which general unemployment rose to a peak rate of 27%. This has affected migrant care workers in a number of ways. The squeeze on household incomes led to a decrease in their hours, conditions, and pay (Hellgren and Serrano 2017). This was evident in remittances sent back home, which were halved in Spain between 2006 and 2016 (World Bank 2016, cited in Hellgren and Serrano 2017, 5). However, for many migrant care workers, return migration was not a viable option. Also, they are an essential source of care labor. Indeed, in spite of tightening immigration measures on non-​EU migrants, and an increase in non-​eligibility of migrants to social rights, general immigration since 2009 in Spain leveled off rather than dropped dramatically. In addition, in some Spanish cities there has also been significant mobilization in support of migrants’ rights (Barcelona en Comu 2019). By contrast, the care regime in the United Kingdom has a tradition of public provision for eldercare but not, until recently, for child care. The care economy has seen these areas of provision become dominated by the private sector so that migrant workers are much more likely to be employed by private sector residential and home care services (where 20% are migrant workers; Cangiano et al. 2009), which have seen worsening conditions. The migration regime has developed a restrictive points-​based system that favors skilled workers, and this shapes the care labor market. After the points system was introduced in 2008, nurses and senior care workers were removed from the skilled labor work permits allowed to migrants from outside the EU. These workers still continued to migrate to the UK, but they ended up in care jobs for which they are overqualified and for which they have to constantly renew their work permits. Brexit preparations combined with the pandemic have led to contradictory moves—​on the one hand, a rising demand for more nurses and care workers, and on the other, immigration policy that has restricted migration entry to workers earning below the average salary of nurses and care workers for the EU and outside the EU. In those European countries whose care policies have been more socialized and women-​ friendly, there have also been changes of a different kind that encourage the employment of migrant domestic workers. This is represented by the policy of offering tax credits to households to assist in buying home-​based domestic services. Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden have all actively promoted domestic work in

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this way (Carbonnier and Morel 2015). This has been justified in two ways: as a form of job creation and social inclusion for marginalized workers (many of whom are both migrants and resident minority ethnic women), and as a “productivity boost” that enables professional women in the labor market to maintain their productivity as highly skilled workers in the knowledge economy. However, it also intensifies divisions in the labor market between highly qualified and well-​paid workers and those without qualifications in precarious low-​paid work, as well as a trend towards the fiscalization of welfare that tends to favor better-​off households. It is a form of social policy that can be presented rhetorically as supporting gender equality in access to paid work and reconciling work and care responsibilities, but in reality it intensifies gendered, class, and race inequalities. Australia provides an example of two contrasting sets of employment conditions in care provision. While public provision for older people’s care has been marketized, there is a tradition of stronger standards in employment in the childcare sector, which means that this sector has far fewer problems with labor shortages than in care work with older people (Brennan et al. 2017). At the same time, Australia’s highly regulated migration regime, which traditionally has focused on skilled workers, results in turning a blind eye to the growing numbers of temporary migrant workers in low-​paid work, including care homes. Furthermore, in an early warning of the intersection of care and climate change crises, the Australian government in 2018 considered proposals to create migration pathways for young people from the Pacific Islands, a place vulnerable to rising sea levels, to go to Australia and New Zealand as care workers for older people (World Bank 2018). South Korea and Japan deal with common social and demographic problems faced by many OECD countries: increasing eldercare, child care, and care-​labor shortages. However, while many other countries have followed a market model with cash subsidies for home-​based and/​or live-​in care often provided by migrant workers, Japan and South Korea have increased their publicly funded services and subsidies (such as long-​term care insurance) to meet their eldercare and child-​care needs. Also, government policy resists the employment of migrant home-​based workers (Peng 2017). A highly selective migration regime allows migrants (often only those defined as “co-​ethnic”) only into institutional care work. What marks the care and migration regimes of Japan and Korea is a high degree of institutional regulation combined with a cultural aversion toward “foreigners” (especially in the private home) and a historical legacy of socialized care. Both of these emerged from the development of those countries’ welfare states as a form of nation-​ building constructed through the ideas and practices of an imagined cultural/​racial/​ethnic homogeneity (Peng 2017)—​a process also present in earlier 20th-​century welfare state foundations of Europe and North America (Kettunen et al. 2015). It is this, embodied in Japan by lack of social citizenship rights to minorities (Hirano 2020), that persists in the face of global empirical trends toward the acceptance of (some) mobile labor. However, these aspects are not reproduced in other East Asian countries. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China have pursued a market model that depends on low-​paid home-​based

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care carried out by migrant workers (Laliberté 2017). Here, Confucian values of filial piety are used to defend quasi-​family care in the home by migrants, even though in China, religious values have long been repudiated. Furthermore, in China, it is the administrative boundaries between provinces rather than between countries that construct the rural migrant as a low-​paid, insecure, and racialized migrant care worker (Hong 2017). This discussion has concentrated on how policies, practices, and cultures construct migrant care work in different ways across different countries. The chapter turns now to the question of the agency of migrant care workers. Personal and Political Agency in the Transnational Political Economy of Care The chapter referred earlier to the agency of migrant care workers in their interpersonal and local caring work. This section focuses on their transnational agency, looking at the dynamics of transnational care commitments and transnational political mobilization.6 The latter is in keeping with intersectionality’s promise to relate theory and method to praxis. Migrant workers often become part of transnational institutions and networks that connect across diasporic space as they migrate and leave family and home behind. In the United Kingdom, for example, Kanlungan serves the interests of Filipino migrants by enhancing training, employment, social, and welfare conditions, while the organization Kalayaan offers advice and support and campaigns for all migrant domestic and care workers. Kanlungan builds solidarity with other migrant transnational organizations. They are a member of the International Migrants’ Alliance, the first global alliance of migrants, refugees, displaced people, and their families. During the 2020 pandemic they campaigned for undocumented Filipina migrant workers (many of whom worked—​and died—​as care workers) to get legal status, without which they had no access to support or income of any kind if they were laid off (Kanlungan 2020). Migrant workers’ transnational care commitments involve the emotional and care work that migrant workers deliver for their families in their home country. Oliveira (2017) calls these “transnational care constellations.” She describes how Sara, an undocumented mother of two from Mexico, simultaneously cares for the child of her employer, one of her own children, whom she has with her in New York, as well as her other child, who has remained in Mexico but with whom she keeps in constant touch by phone. Holding these complex layers in place is constrained by the lack of social protection for family reunion; time off for care emergencies, weddings, and funerals; and the portability of allowances and benefits across national borders.

6 Elsewhere I have noted five key dynamics in the transnational political economy of care: the transnational the movement of care labor, care capital, care commitments, transnational political and governance organizations, and transnational mobilizations of migrant workers (Williams 2011, 2018).

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Remittances also carry diasporic commitments—​ “care abstracted in remittances” (Withers and Piper 2018, 591). These play an important role in maintaining households’ housing, education, and living costs. A number of states of migrants’ origin, such as Philippines, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and some Caribbean and Pacific Islands, encourage migration as a way of attracting foreign exchange. Orthodox development economics sees this as a form of development investment resulting in a “triple win” situation for the countries of origin, of destination, and for the migrant worker and her household (World Bank 2006). A more critical view suggests otherwise. In the Philippines the export of care labor is the largest source of foreign currency, but this developed as a response to the crippling effects of structural adjustment policies that increased foreign debt and reduced the capacities of the state to improve its infrastructure. (Parreñas 2005; Guevarra 2010). As Gueverra observes, Filipino migrant workers “are commodified as objects of the state that are offered to the globe as its comparative advantage in exchange for national survival” (2010, 49). At the same time they are encouraged to do this as “national heroes” supporting both their families and the nation. Similarly, Withers’s study of Sri Lanka shows how its fragile economy, history of ethnic conflict, and loan conditionalities from the IMF have thrown it onto a treadmill in which it is dependent on remittances but in which there is no guarantee that the state will use them to develop the sort of infrastructure that might enable people find better employment in their own country. The biggest “winners” are the countries of destination. The remittance economy, although huge—​in 2019 remittances amounted to $709 billion, three times overseas aid (World Bank 2020)—​is also fragile. During the COVID-​19 pandemic in 2020, the World Bank warned of a huge rise in poverty to the extent of famine in poorer regions of the world because migrant workers were unable to send remittances back to their families, mainly because of becoming unemployed in precarious work without social protection, and in part because the remittance agencies were closed. There have also been important successes at the transnational level by networks of care and domestic work activists. The International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 189, “Decent Work for Domestic Workers,” passed in 2011, is a significant marker of this activism. It set terms for rights to decent working conditions and collective organization to be ratified and implemented by its member states.7 In many ways the processes involved in determining this policy were as significant as the policy itself. Grassroots domestic worker organizations across the world were brought together in an International Domestic Workers Network. Jennifer Fish (2017) describes how the inclusion of this network in the negotiation of the Convention to give workers greater visibility, recognition, and dignity was a new departure in a number of ways for the ILO. It went beyond the usual tripartite social dialogue of states, unions, and employers by having “real” domestic workers who 7 Eight countries abstained from voting in favor of the Convention: the UK, Sudan, Malaysia, El Salvador, Panama, Singapore, the Czech Republic, and Thailand.

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could testify to their own experiences; and it was forced to consider the hitherto “invisible” informal economy—​“the work that makes all other work possible,” as their slogan read. It also set the terms for engagement at different scales. In the United States, where a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights was passed in New York State and California, the pressurizing for reform created a circular process of mobilizing. This generated demands from local organization to national NGOs and policymakers and on to international protocols, whose ordinance could then became the basis for further pressure for implementation at both national and local levels (Boris and Undén 2017). This Convention represents “a benchmark in the construction of a more egalitarian community” and “a ‘moral compass’ for the treatment of those most at risk within societies” (Fish 2017, 250). But there is still further to go. For example, in destination countries there are issues to do with not only regularization and representation but also career progression for migrant workers, prioritizing migrants’ right of citizenship, including family reunion, rights to contracts, social protection, training, language acquisition, and freedom from discrimination. It also requires much greater coordination across policy areas of migration, care, and employment. At the same time, Convention 189 reflects limitations in the thinking of international organizations being able see through the “fractured gaze” (Mahon 2018). In other words, the problems that attend contemporary domestic and care work belong not only to the conditions of workers in richer countries but also to the conditions arising from the history of colonial and postcolonial development and geopolitical inequalities affecting women in poorer countries. (This is also applicable to Central and Eastern European countries and the conditionalities imposed by the IMF since liberalization of their economies after 1989; Deacon and Stubbs 2007.) This might involve both local and national action in countries of migrants’ origin for representation for potential migrants, for social dialogue in the coordinated development of ethical emigration policies, as well as countering the understaffing and underfunding of public health and care infrastructure (see Pillinger 2011). At the global level, some of the developments in global health care strategy are pertinent. The World Health Organization’s 2010 “Global Code of Practice on the Recruitment of Health Personnel” (WHO 2010) recommended a more extensive application of bilateral ethical recruitment codes in healthcare, which have been implemented in a number of countries to prevent “poaching” healthcare workers from poorer countries, combined with the guarantee to provide free training and support for returning doctors and nurses. This is a human rights approach to global social justice, involving the right to health, individual autonomy, accountability, transnational reciprocity and mutualism, and fair workplace practices (Connell and Buchan 2011). It provides a route to think about material redistribution and reparation in the face of the geopolitical inequalities generated by migrant care work. However, putting these strategies into a longer-​term perspective would need care to be seen as central to human rights and global social justice. That is to say, that the everyday

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relations of care and human and global interdependence are embedded conceptually and strategically in the goals for global social justice. In the political discourses of national and global social policy, actors’ paid and unpaid care work is often hidden, subsumed under the requirements and duty of paid work for individuals and economic competitiveness for nation-​states. Yet care, unpaid and paid, is “the work that makes all other work possible,” as well as an ethic of mutuality and part of what it means to be a citizen. In policy terms this necessitates the recognition of care, the representation of its providers and receivers, and the rights and redistribution of care needs and responsibilities as central to global justice. Care constitutes the social reproduction activities that sustain society, as much as national and migrant labor sustain the economy, and ecological justice sustains the planet. Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated the use of intersectionality as an analytical method for understanding the transnational political economy of care. It draws attention to multiple social relations of power and inequality that attend paid and unpaid care practices and policies. In combination with a multi-​scalar approach, it has analyzed the intersections not only in (i) the micro-​scale interpersonal care relationship, but also across (ii) the nationally varied meso-​scale regimes that contain this relationship, and (iii) intersecting dynamics and contestations at transnational and global scales. Each scale reiterates how alterity is produced by these geopolitical inequalities that subordinate care workers as racialized migrants and how that subordination is compounded by a constant gendered devaluation of the paid and unpaid work of care. This has been contested by the transnational mobilization of migrant care and domestic workers to improve the rights of paid workers in destination countries. The equal recognition of both paid and unpaid care and the needs for redistributive geopolitical justice for countries of migrants’ origin would constitute further steps in making care central to global justice. References Barcelona en Comú, with Debbie Bookchin and Ada Coalu. 2019. Fearless Cities: A Guide to the Global Municipal Movement. Oxford: New Internationalist Publications. Bettio, Francesca, Annamaria Simonazzi, and Paola Villa. 2006. “Change in Care Regimes and Female Migration: The Care Drain in the Mediterranean.” Journal of European Social Policy 16 (3): 271–​285. Bhattacharya, T., ed. 2017. Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression. London: Pluto Press. Boris, Eileen, and Megan Undén. 2017. “From the Local to the Global: Circuits of Domestic Worker Organizing.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 245–​268. Boyd, Monica. 2017. “Assessing Canada’s Changing Policy for Migrant Caregivers.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 167–​189. Brennan, Deborah, Sara Charlesworth, Elizabeth Adamson, and Natasha Cortis. 2017. “Changing Patterns of Care, Migration and Employment Regulation in Australia: Assessing Canada’s Changing Policy for Migrant Caregivers.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 143–​165. Cangiano, Alessio, Isabel Shutes, Sarah Spencer, and George Leeson. 2009. Migrant Care Workers in Ageing Societies: Research Findings in the UK. Oxford: COMPAS.

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Carastathis, Anna. 2016. Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Carbonnier, Clément, and Nathalie Morel. 2015. The Political Economy of Household Services in Europe. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Cho, Sumi K., Kimberle W. Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall. 2013. “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Application and Praxis.” Signs 38: 785–​810. Christensen, Karen, and Ingrid Guldvih. 2014. Migrant Care Workers: Searching for New Horizons. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Clarke, John. 2019. “Forward.” In The Politics of Scale in Policy. Scalecraft and Education Governance, edited by Natalie Papnanastasiou. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. Cohambahee River Collective. 1977. The CRC Statement. https://​web.arch​ive.org/​web/​201​7022​4021​117/​ http://​cir​cuit​ous.org/​scr​aps/​comba​hee.html. Connell, John, and James Buchan. 2011. “The Impossible Dream? Codes of Practice and International Migration of Skilled Health Workers.” World Medical and Health Policy 3 (3): 1–​17. Cranford, Cynthia, and Jennifer Jihye Chun. 2017. “Immigrant Women and Home-​based Elder Care in Oakland, California’s Chinatown.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 41–​66. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-​discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 (1): 1241–​1299. Daly, Mary, and Katherine Rake. 2003. Gender and the Welfare State: Care, Work and Welfare in Europe and the USA. Cambridge: Polity Press. Deacon, Bob, and Paul Stubbs, eds. 2007 Social Policy and International Interventions in South East Europe. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. di Martino, Alberto, Francesco Biondo Dal Monte, Ilaria Boiasno, and Rosa Raffealli. 2013. The Criminalization of Irregular Immigration: Law and Practice in Italy. Pisa, Italy: University of Pisa Press. Esquivel, Valeria, and Andrea Kaufmann. 2017. Innovations in Care: New Concepts, New Actors, New Policies. A FES study commissioned to UNRISD. Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Finch, Janet, and Dulcie Groves. 1983. A Labour of Love: Women, Work, and Caring. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Fish, Jennifer N. 2017. Domestic Workers of the World Unite!: A Global Movement for Dignity and Human Rights. New York: NYU Press. Fraser, Nancy, 2013. “A Triple Movement? Parsing the Politics of Crisis after Polanyi.” New Left Review 81: 119–​132. Fraser, Nancy. 2016. “Contradictions of Capital and Care.” New Left Review 100: 99–​117. Gallo, Esther, and Francesca Scrinzi. 2016. Migration, Masculinities and Reproductive Labour. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Glenn, Evelyn Navako. 1992. “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Women’s Paid Reproductive Labour.” Signs 18 (1): 1–​44. Gregson, Nicky, and Michelle Lowe. 1994. Servicing the Middle Classes: Class, Gender and Waged Labour in Contemporary Britain. London: Routledge. Guevarra, Anna Romina. 2010. Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational Labour Brokering of Filipino Workers. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Halvorsen, Rune, Bjorn Hvinden, Jerome Bickenbach, Delia Ferri, and Anna Marta Guillén Rodriguez, eds. 2017. The Changing Disability Policy System: Active Citizenship and Disability in Europe. Vol. 1. London: Routledge. Hancock, Ange-​Marie. 2007. “When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (1): 63–​79. Hankivsky, Olena, and Julia Jordan-​Zachary, eds. 2019. The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hellgren, Zenia, and Inma Serrano. 2017. “Transnationalism and Financial Crisis: The Hampered Migration Projects of Female Domestic Workers in Spain.” Social Sciences 6 (8): 2–​18. Hill Collins, Patricia. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Hill Collins, Patricia, and Sirma Bilge. 2016. Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity. Hirano, Hiroya. 2020. “Social Citizenship Guarantee for Minorities in Japan: Present and Future.” International Journal of Japanese Sociology 29: 821.

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Hong, Liu. 2017. “Fractured Elder Care in China: Rural-​Urban Dualism among Workers in Shanghai.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 67–​90. Hull, Gloria, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith. 1982. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: But Some of Us Are Brave. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY. ILO (International Labour Organization). 2009. Global Employment Trends for Women. Geneva: ILO. ILO (International Labour Organization). 2016. Non-​Standard Employment around the World. Geneva: ILO. Irvine, Jill, Sabine Lang, and Celeste Montoya. 2019. Gendered Mobilizations and Intersectional Challenges. London: Rowman & Littlefield International. Isin, Engi. 2007. “City.State: Critique of Scalar Thought.” Citizenship Studies 11 (2): 211–​28. Kanlungan. 2020. A Chance to Feel Safe: Precarious Filipino Migrants amid the UK’s Coronavirus Outbreak. London: Kanlungan. https://​www.kanlun​gan.org.uk/​?page​_​id=​118. Kettunen, Pauli, Sonya Michel, and Klaus Pedersen, eds. 2015. Race, Ethnicity and Welfare States: An American Dilemma? Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Kofman, Elinor. 2012. “Rethinking Care through Social Reproduction: Articulating Circuits of Migration.” Social Politics 19 (1): 142–​157. Laliberté, André. 2017. “Responses to Abuse against Domestic Migrant Workers: A Multi-​Scalar Comparison of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 115–​142. Leon, Margarita. 2010. “Migration and Care Work in Spain: the Domestic Sector Revisited.” Social Policy and Society 9 (3): 409–​418. Lewis, Gail, and Pratibha Parmar. 1983. “Review Essay of American Black Feminist Literature.” Race and Class 25: 86–​91. Mahon, Rianne. 2018. “Through a Fractured Gaze: The OECD, the World Bank and Transnational Care Chains.” Current Sociology 66 (4): 562–​576. doi:10.1177/​0011392118765214. May, Vivian. 2015. Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. New York: Routledge. McCall, Leslie. 2005. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (3): 1771–​1800. Michel, Sonya, and Ito Peng, eds. 2017. Gender, Migration and the Work of Care: A Multi-​Scalar Approach to the Pacific Rim. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzaldúa, eds. 1983. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women Of Color. Watertown MA: Persephone Press. O’Connor, Julia S., Ann Shola Orloff, and, Sheila Shaver. 1999. States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development). 2015. Labor Force Survey 2015. Paris: OECD. Olafsson, Stefan, Mary Daly, and Joakim Palme. 2019. Welfare and the Great Recession: A Comparative Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oliveira, Gabrielle. 2017. “Caring for Your Children: How Mexican Immigrant Mothers Experience Care and the Ideals of Motherhood.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 91–​114. Parrenas, Rhacel. 2001. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Parreñas, Rhacel. 2005. Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Peng, Ito. 2017. “Explaining Exceptionality: Care and Migration Policies in Japan and South Korea.” In Michel and Peng, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, 191–​216. Pillinger, Jane. 2011. Quality Healthcare Workers on the Move. Ferney-​ Voltaire, France: Public Services International, International Migration and Women Health and Social Care Workers Programme. Rai, Shirin, Catherine Hoskyns, and Dania Thomas. 2014. “Depletion: The Social Cost of Reproduction.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (1): 86–​105. Razavi, Shahrashoub, and Silke Staab. 2012. Global Variations in the Political and Social Economy of Care: Worlds Apart. London: Routledge. Sahraoui, Nina. 2019. From Care Labour to Care Ethics: Exploring Racialised Workers’ Experiences in European Older-​Age Care. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Sevenhuijsen, Selma. 1998. Citizenship and the Ethics of Care. London: Routledge.

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Seymour, Richard. 2014. Against Austerity. London: Pluto Press. Shutes, Isabel, and Carlo Chiatti. 2012. “Migrant Labour and the Marketisation of Care for Older People: The Employment of Migrant Care Workers by Families and Service Providers.” Journal of European Social Policy 22 (4): 392–​405. Simonazzi, Annamaria. 2009. “Care Regimes and National Employment Models.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 33: 211–​232. Taylor-​Gooby, Peter. 2013. The Double Crisis of the Welfare State and What We Can Do about It. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Tronto, Joan. 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. London: Routledge. Tyler, Imogen. 2013. Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. London: Zed Books. United Nations. 2017. International Migration Report. Geneva: UN. https://​www.un.org/​en/​deve​lopm​ent/​ desa/​pop​ulat​ion/​migrat​ion/​publi​cati​ons/​migr​atio​nrep​ort/​docs/​Mig​rati​onRe​port​2017​_​Hig​hlig​hts.pdf. UNRISD (UN Research Institute for Sustainable Development). 2016. “Care Policies: Realizing Their Transformative Potential.” In Policy Innovations for Transformative Change, 87–​114. Geneva: UNRISD. http://​www.unr​isd.org/​flags​hip2​016-​chapt​er3. van Hooren, Franca. 2008. “Welfare Provision beyond National Boundaries: The Politics of Migration and Elderly Care in Italy.” Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche 3: 87–​113. WHO (World Health Organization). 2010. World Health Report. Geneva: WHO. Williams, Fiona. 1989. Social Policy: A Critical Introduction: Issues of Race, Gender and Class. Cambridge: Polity Press. Williams, Fiona. 2011. “The Transnational Political Economy of Care.” In The Global Political Economy of Care: Integrating Ethical and Social Politics, edited by Rianne Mahon and Fiona Robinson, 21–​38. Vancouver: UBC Press. Williams, Fiona. 2012. “Converging Variations in Migrant Care Work in Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy 22: 363–​375. doi:10.1177/​0958928712449771. Williams, Fiona. 2018. “Care: Intersections of Scales, Inequalities, and Crises.” Current Sociology 66 (4): 547–​ 561. doi:10.1177/​0011392118765206. Williams, Fiona. 2021. Social Policy: A Critical and Intersectional Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Williams, Fiona, and D. Brennan. 2012. “Care, Markets and Migration in a Globalising World: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Journal of European Social Policy 22 (4): 355–​362. doi:10.1177/​0958928712449777. Williams, Fiona, and Anna Gavanas. 2008. “The Intersection of Child Care Regimes and Migration Regimes: A Three-​Country Study.” In Migration and Domestic Work: A European Perspective on a Global Theme, edited by Helma Lutz, 13–​28. London: Routledge. Withers, Matt. 2018. “Decent Care for Migrant Households: Policy Alternatives to Sri Lanka’s Family Background Report.” Social Politics 26 (3): 325–​347. Withers, Matt. 2019. “Temporary Labour Migration and Underdevelopment in Sri Lanka: The Limits of Remittance Capital.”Migration and Development 8 (3): 418–​436. Withers, Matt, and Nicola Piper. 2018. “Uneven Development and Displaced Care in Sri Lanka.” Current Sociology 66 (4): 590–​601. doi:10.1177/​0011392118765240. World Bank. 2006. Global Economic Prospects: Economic Implications of Remittances and Migration. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. 2018. Expanded Pacific Labor Schemes Could Fill Looming Aged Care Gap. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://​www.worldb​ank.org/​en/​news/​press-​rele​ase/​2018/​09/​06/​expan​ded-​paci​fic-​labor-​sche​ mes-​could-​fill-​loom​ing-​aged-​care-​gap. World Bank. 2020. “Remittances in Times of the Coronavirus—​Keep Them Flowing.” Washington, DC: World Bank. https://​blogs.worldb​ank.org/​psd/​remi​ttan​ces-​times-​coro​navi​rus-​keep-​them-​flow​ing. Yuval-​Davis, Nira, Georgie Weymiss, and Katryn Cassidy. 2019. Bordering. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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C H A P T E R

9

 nderstanding Family Policy U Transformation in the Light of Critical Political Economy

Emanuele Ferragina

Abstract The chapter aims to address the ways by which family policy transformation relates to the political economy of welfare state change and the commodification of social reproduction. The chapter is based on the fact that childcare expansion in the context of family policy transformation is considered a key element in promoting female employment, gender equality, and the conciliation of paid and unpaid work, as well as in mitigating the social reproduction crisis. The author interprets this transformation critically, arguing that family policy transformation—​in conjunction with welfare state change—​is part of a bidirectional movement: toward commodification (especially for lower-​class women) and the liberalization of the labor market, as well as toward increasing freedom from care and domestic tasks for women (especially middle-​and upper-​class women). The chapter illustrates these two movements by connecting the literature on comparative social policy and on critical political economy. Key Words: family policy, critical political economy, welfare state, childcare, social reproduction

In a political economy context characterized by welfare state retrenchment and the austerity turn, family policy transformation constitutes a remarkable feature of social policy change in high-​income countries. In particular, childcare expansion is considered a key element to promote female employment, gender equality, and the conciliation of paid and unpaid work, as well as mitigating the social reproduction crisis. Policymakers also support this expansion as a policy tool to moderate “new social risks” and as a “social investment” into women’s economic potential and children’s human capital. This chapter interprets critically this transformation in terms of a retrenchment of compensatory income support policies for families (e.g., family allowances, unemployment, income maintenance), the expansion of services and active programs (e.g., childcare, active labor market programs) and the increasing commodification of social reproduction. We suggest that family policy transformation—​in conjunction with welfare state change—​is part of a double movement: on the one hand, toward commodification (especially for

lower-​class women) and liberalization of the labor market, and on the other, toward increasing freedom for women from care and domestic tasks (especially for middle-​and upper-​class women). We illustrate these two movements by connecting the literatures on comparative social policy (to describe family policy and welfare state change) and critical political economy (to characterize the role of the social reproduction crisis in this context). Family policy change, together with labor market and income maintenance policies, is situated at the meeting point of these two movements. On the one hand, it can be a factor in the expansion of women’s freedom and bargaining power in the labor market (acting as a tool in the struggle against patriarchy), and on the other hand, it can reinforce the segregation of lower-​class women in the labor market and the household. Our endeavor is driven by the following research question: How does family policy transformation relate to the political economy of welfare state change and the commodification of social reproduction? The chapter proceeds as follows: First, we position our contribution in the literature. Second, we examine empirically family policy transformation in relation to welfare state change, focusing on the evolution of compensatory and active policies. Data on family policy spending and some possible associated outcomes (gender differences in employment and childcare usage across the income distribution) help us to observe the double movement logic in action across countries. The analysis moves on to locate this policy change as part of the political economy of social reproduction. The Context Scholarship defines explicit family policy as a distinctive domain geared toward the support of families with young children. Classically, it includes child-​income support (allowances based on tax deductions and cash benefits), childcare, and employment-​ related leaves (Kamerman and Kahn 1978, 1994; Lewis 2006). Our analysis focuses on the relation between this policy package and other compensatory and active programs that characterize the welfare state more broadly; in particular, we explore the transformation of family income allowances and childcare as they fall within the realm of compensatory and active support, respectively.1 While the theoretical analysis embraces the long-​standing transition from Fordism to a service-​based economy, the empirical analysis uses spending data starting in the 1980s to punctually measure this transformation across high-​income countries. Family policy transformation is a core element of welfare state change, which, arguably, in its most recent iteration, stimulates the advent of a more active model of social protection and the transition from the male-​breadwinner to the dual-​earner model (Crompton 1999, 2006; Daly 2011; Gornick and Meyers 2003; Lewis 2001). Political economy 1 The transformation of leaves is analyzed as background information to describe the progressive family policy convergence across high-​income countries.

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scholarship has interpreted this transition in relation to the economic model, emphasizing the progressive end of the “Fordist sexual contract” and the shift to a new “post-​Fordist sexual contract” (Macdowell 1991; Pateman 1988). The male-​ breadwinner model—​ associated with the Fordist system of industrial relations—​relied on the split between informal household and care work (mostly performed by women) and formal labor (mostly performed by men). Under this model, the wage earned by men was in most cases sufficient to cover the basic needs of the household—​the “family wage.” Family policy supported this system and the rigid gender roles associated with it, granting families child benefits and progressively extending maternity leaves (Daly and Ferragina 2018). In this way, family policy contributed to reinforce the Fordist sexual contract and the widely assumed distinction between “productive” and “unproductive” social reproduction activities (Laslett and Brenner 1989; Picchio 1992). The decay of this model and the parallel rise of the service-​based economy heralded the advent of a dual-​earner model, conceptualized in family policy literature as a variety of adult worker models (Daly 2011; Lewis 2001). Moreover, the declining growth in productivity of the service-​based economy—​if compared to the Fordist system—​and the subsequent wage stagnation also fostered the advent of a new political economy context (Ferragina et al. 2022), where the male-​breadwinner wage was insufficient to assure the basic household needs. In this new context, women were called upon to help to compensate the earnings gap and joined the labor market in great numbers (McDowell 1991). The demise of the sexual Fordist contract was considered as a movement in the direction of women’s emancipation and liberation from the oppression of patriarchy. Nevertheless, within the post-​Fordist sexual contract, productive and reproductive activities continue to rest on a strong gender segregation that is intersectional to class (Einstein 2009). The degradation of labor market conditions in most high-​income countries and the existence of a double burden for women seem to hinder gender equality. Only a minority of women—​mostly upper and middle class—​can access the core of the workforce and have the economic means to reduce the time they devote to social reproduction responsibilities, and seem to make benefit of the post-​Fordist sexual contract. In contrast, lower-​class women seem to increasingly constitute a cheap reserve army available for the service-​based economy. Scholars argued that the neoliberal turn—​intrinsically related to the service-​based economy—​seized control of the new sexual contract and greatly reduced its potential emancipatory power (Fraser 2013, 2016). Scaling down “old” compensatory income support policies—​a hallmark of the Fordist and breadwinner model—​and externalizing social reproduction were deemed to be essential steps to achieve gender equality; this view was widely accepted in high-​income countries (Barker 2005; Fraser 2016). Accordingly, social reproduction activities came to be considered incompatible with gender equality, whereby gender equality can only be achieved through a stronger involvement of women in the labor market. In reality, the depreciation of women’s work in the market is intrinsically

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related to the devaluation of social reproduction activities (Federici 2004, 2012): care and domestic work are mostly looked upon as labor for unskilled and low-​paid workers (see the debate about care as “dirty work” for women and migrants: Duffy 2007; England 2005). This socially constructed belief serves to moderate women’s wages in care occupations and more broadly in low-​wage service-​sector jobs (Folbre 1994, 102). The shift to a new welfare and sexual contract in a service-​based economy did not liberate women from the Fordist patriarchy, as many foretold; rather, it strengthened the exploitation of women in the labor market and is in part responsible for the social reproduction crisis we currently observe in high-​income countries (Ferragina 2019b; Fraser 2013). This generates a paradox within the political economy of advanced capitalist societies. “Capital” cannot extend its capacity to continuously extract surplus value from “labor” without the support of unpaid social reproduction activities; but at the same time, the tendency of neoliberal capitalism to move toward the commodification of all human activities challenges fundamentally the societal conditions under which informal social reproduction activities are performed (Ferragina 2019b). As noted perceptively by Nancy Fraser (2016, 103), the “logic of economic production overrides that of social reproduction, destabilizing the very processes on which capital depends—​ compromising the social capacities, both domestic and public, that are needed to sustain accumulation over the long term. Destroying its own condition of possibility, capital’s accumulation dynamic effectively eats its own tail.” In other words, there is a marked contradiction between the necessity of capital to extract surplus value and the preservation (at least in the current social settings) of social reproduction activities (Bakker and Gill 2003, 4). Family policy transformation is rooted in this context, and for this reason it has assumed a new centrality in the political economy of the welfare state. We suggest that this centrality can be better understood if we integrate a classical comparative social policy approach with that of critical political economy. Scholarship in critical political economy suggests that capitalism continuously commodifies new aspects of social life, boosts parental labor market activity rates, and reduces the number of hours that can be devoted to social reproduction (Fraser 2013, 2016). Such changes contribute to develop new social demands; governments consequently are called to replace “damaged” informal and family ties with new services. From a Durkheimian perspective, it can be argued that while capital attempts to increase its capacity to extract surplus value from parents, social reproduction activities require measures to help preserve them. Hence the breakdown of a mechanical form of solidarity is (at least partially) replaced with state-​supported care services that enhance the development of organic solidarity (Ferragina 2009, 2017). But the creation of new forms of collective solidarity to counter the social reproduction crisis has a considerable cost that has to be financed in a political economy context, where the neoliberal logic dominates and demands lower taxation. This places the budget allocated to “old” compensatory forms of income support

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(those that support mechanic solidarity) under severe strain; these are considered out of step with the post-​Fordist sexual contract. These insights have been considered (at least partially) within institutional and comparative social policy literature, to unravel how the shift from Fordism to a service-​based economy has contributed to affect labor market reforms cumulatively (see, e.g., Streeck and Thelen 2005), but family policy change has not been examined in connection with this shift. We propose to fill this gap by examining family policy holistically;2 that is, we relate it to both compensatory and active support policies, as a key element of welfare state transformation influenced by the broader political economy context. This viewpoint provides elements also to reinterpret the relation between family policy transformation and both gender and class issues in Western countries and will show that the retrenchment and expansion of different policies is related to gender and class in a complex way (see Shalev 2008). In summary, family policy change is often taken uncritically as a beneficial policy transformation—​considering, on the one hand, the expansionary trend of childcare with its positive effects on women’s labor market participation, and on the other hand, the retrenchment of family allowances with their detrimental impact on labor supply (Ferragina 2020). We argue that to investigate more critically the role played by family policy in this context, one has to place it in a theoretical context and analyze how its transformation is related to the political economy of the welfare state and the growing commodification of social reproduction. Family Policy Transformation in the Context of Welfare State Change To capture the relative evolution of compensatory and active policies, we compare the over-​time evolution of childcare spending with three other types of social spending: on support for unemployment, family allowances, and income maintenance; on active labor market programs; and on employment leaves. This analysis evaluates and underlines the movement from compensatory to active support across 22 countries3 divided into four welfare regimes. To run this analysis we constructed an indicator subtracting every spending category from childcare spending (Figure 9.1) for the period 1980–​2015.4 We employ childcare as a benchmark to evaluate spending trends, as it is the domain where we observe the largest and more cross-​nationally widespread increase over the period analyzed. A

See Daly and Lewis (2000) for a holistic analysis of family policy under the rubric of care. For the comparison between the evolution of spending across different welfare regimes, we divided the countries in to the “Continental” (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), the “Mediterranean” (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain), the “liberal and radical” (Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States), and the “Scandinavian” (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) groups. 4 For the empirical analyses contained in this paper we employed the following data sources: European Commission (2016), the Social Expenditure Database (2020), the Family Database (OECD 2017), and ILOSTAT (2020). On the limits of these data—​the “dependent variable problem,” see Clasen and Siegel (2007). 2 3

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ECEC minus Family Allowances ECEC minus Maternity and Parental Leave

ECEC minus Active Labour Market Policy Spending

Figure 9.1  Catch up Spending in relation to ECEC: (a) Continental, (b) Mediterranean, (b) Liberal &

Radical, (d) Scandinavian 

Source: Author’s elaboration on the basis of OECD data (2020).

negative score indicates that spending for family allowances, income assistance, unemployment, active labor market programs, and leave is larger than spending for childcare in a given year; a positive score indicates a higher spending for childcare in comparison to the other categories of welfare state spending.

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E m a n uele Fe r r agin a

Liberal & Radical Countries

(c)

Catchup spending in relation to ECEC

.5

0

–.5

–1

–1.5 1980

1990

2000 Years

ECEC minus Unemployement

2010

2020

ECEC minus Family Allowances ECEC minus Maternity and Parental Leave

ECEC minus Income Maintenance

ECEC minus Active Labour Market Policy Spending

(d)

Scandinavian Countries

Catchup spending in relation to ECEC

1

.5

0

–.5

–1 1980

1990

ECEC minus Unemployement ECEC minus Income Maintenance

2000 Years

2010

2020

ECEC minus Family Allowances ECEC minus Maternity and Parental Leave

ECEC minus Active Labour Market Policy Spending

Figure 9.1 Continued

The evidence shows that since the 1980s, childcare spending has increased globally more than compensatory income support policies or active labor market programs spending. Within this overall trend, regime variation continues to persist (for family policy regime analyses, see Ferragina and Seeleib-​Kaiser 2015; Korpi 2000; Korpi et al. 2013; Thévenon 2011). In the Continental European countries (viz. Germany) (Figure 9.1a) childcare spending has caught up with family allowances and income support spending, but we do not

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observe a significant reduction of the gap with spending on unemployment support. Childcare spending has also increased more than spending for leaves and has also been catching up with spending on active labor market programs. Overall childcare spending went from 0.18% of GDP in 1980 to 0.76% in 2015. This is a remarkable transformation, given that countries like Austria and Germany have relied hitherto on a strong male-​ breadwinner model in family and labor market policy. We observe a similar trend across Mediterranean countries (Figure 9.1b), although the level of spending on family policy continues to remain lower than in the Continental group of countries. In the Mediterranean countries, spending on childcare went from 0.04% of GDP in 1980 to 0.38% at the last available data point. The general trend is for spending on childcare to be in the process of catching up with spending on family allowances, and to overtake income maintenance; but the gap with unemployment spending has remained similar to that in 1980. Spending on childcare has progressively overtaken spending on leaves, but the gap between childcare spending and that on active labor market programs has remained similar over time. In sum, despite a considerable increase of childcare spending, the “modernization” of family policy in Mediterranean countries is limited if compared to the Continental group of countries. In liberal and “radical” countries5 (Figure 9.1c), childcare spending has overtaken income maintenance support, has caught up with unemployment spending, but has not closed the gap with income support through family allowances. This is because in several countries belonging to this cluster, spending on child income support through tax breaks increased during the 1990s and 2000s (see Daly and Ferragina 2018). Moreover, childcare spending has overtaken spending on leaves and active labor market programs. Overall, we witness a strong increase in childcare spending in this part of the world, from 0.012% of GDP in 1980 to 0.50% of GDP at the latest available data point. Scandinavian countries (Figure 9.1d) have been outliers in their childcare spending practices (see Daly and Ferragina 2018; Ferragina 2019a, 2020). In the 1980s, spending on childcare was already higher than that on family allowances, income maintenance, unemployment, active labor market programs, and leaves. This gap has strengthened over time; childcare spending has increased from 0.98% of GDP in 1980 to 1.49% at the latest available data point. In summary, since 1980 we observe at the empirical level a high degree of convergence among countries, although important differences persist across different regimes or models. Moreover, from a spending allocation perspective, childcare expansion, on the one hand, and retrenchment in family allowances, on the other, are the most prominent

Castles and Mitchell (1992) suggested that Australia and New Zealand have some different characteristics from liberal countries and labeled them as “radical countries,” in contrast to Esping-​Andersen’s classification (1990). Some empirical welfare regime analyses confirm this distinction when considering labor market and family policy (see Ferragina et al. 2013). 5

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features of the family policy package transformation. This transformation has taken place in a context characterized also by a widespread retrenchment of compensatory income support policies, and the stagnation of active labor market programs. Moving forward with an eye toward theory, we interpret these elements to position family policy transformation within the political economy of the welfare state and social reproduction. Discussion Social policy scholarship has pointed out how welfare state expansion after World War II6 contributed heavily to mitigate the classic conflict between labor and capital, and to improve the economic condition of the lower classes (Esping-​Andersen 1985; Korpi 1983; Shalev 1983; Stephens 1979).7 However, this expansion also cemented the Fordist sexual contract and reinforced women’s subordination in the production and reproduction spheres (Abramowitz 2017). This expansionary phase came to an end toward the end of the 1970s with the demise of Fordism and the new context of “permanent austerity” (Pierson 2001), which favored welfare state retrenchment (Hay and Wincott 2012; Hemerijck 2013; Starke 2006). Childcare evolution seems an anomaly in this context, as a process of expansion has been taking place since the early 1980s (with the exception of Scandinavian countries, where this process began earlier). This period of transformation has been described in the literature as a phase during which a substantial institutional change was achieved by “layering” (Daly and Ferragina 2018), or the progressive addition of a new policy program without the elimination of older ones. This process accelerated further during the 1990s and 2000s, as childcare became an essential part of overall welfare state transformation (with parental leaves also considerably expanded). We suggest that two processes analyzed in the political economy literature can help to interpret critically the connection between family policy transformation, the political economy of welfare state change, and the growing commodification of social reproduction. The first process concerns the progressive disembedding of the social sphere and the economy. As suggested by Polanyi (1957), the expansion of the capitalist accumulation process to new spheres disarticulates old societal functions and subjugates them solely to the economic logic. The second is the increasing influence of capitalist imperatives on social reproduction. These imperatives heavily condition social relationships and social reproduction (LeBaron 2010, 893). In this respect, family policy transformation—​positioned at the focal point between markets, states, and private relations—​is part of a double movement:

6 Albeit with remarkable differences across welfare regimes (see Esping-​Andersen 1990; Ferragina and Seeleib-​Kaiser 2011). 7 Note that several parts of this section and the conclusion are an abridged version of Ferragina 2019b.

Un der stan din g Family Policy Trans formation

209

a movement toward commodification and liberalization, and, in opposition to this, a movement toward increasing freedom for women from care and domestic tasks. On the one hand, one can consider childcare expansion as an attempt by government to activate individuals in society in the context of a shift from the male-​breadwinner to the dual-​earner model. This process—​in an economy characterized by the exponential growth of precarious and low-​paid jobs—​also contributes to wage compression. But, as indicated by McDowell (1991), the emancipatory potential of the dual-​earner model and the post-​Fordist sexual contract might well have been exaggerated, and this arrangement appears to be advantageous mainly for middle-​and upper-​class women. At the macroeconomic level, women (and other marginal groups, such as migrants and young people) are often exploited to enhance the labor market flexibilization process, picking up the slack of reduced public service provision (Bakker 2007, 546). Alternatively, a countermovement interpretation might consider the expansion of childcare services and the parallel reduction of family allowances and other forms of compensatory income support as a way to foster an egalitarian family model along the lines of the Scandinavian blueprint. If the transformation of political economy has largely contributed to a crisis of social reproduction to perpetrate the current patterns of capital accumulation (Bakker 2007; Bakker and Gill 2003), then childcare expansion has a compensatory effect and can be considered anti-​cyclical to this trend. Following the first interpretation—​which considers family policy transformation as a movement toward commodification and liberalization—​one could read childcare expansion as complementary to the retrenchment of compensatory income support policies in accomplishing two objectives. The first is to increase the labor supply, with mothers accepting precarious positions and low salaries, and the second is to reduce the burden of social protection costs linked to unemployment, inactivity, and income maintenance. Childcare expansion, accordingly, seems a component of the shift from the Keynesian welfare state (KWS) to the Schumpeterian workfare state (SWS) (Jessop 1993; Peck 2001). The SWS replaces the distributive logic of the KWS with a productivist logic under which the investment in market-​making measures is mirrored by the progressive retrenchment of market-​breaking policies. In the SWS, social policy is subordinated to the demands of labor market flexibility and the necessity to compete in the international market. Jessop’s theoretical interpretation can be used to explain why compensatory income support policies are retrenched alongside an expansion of childcare, and why, even in countries historically dominated by the male-​breadwinner model, such as Germany, childcare has been expanded. It is almost as though the long-​lasting Fordist economies are finally catching up with those countries that based their competitive advantage historically on non-​Fordist niches. High-​income countries, as they move on from Fordism, tend to adopt a supply-​side approach and manage their welfare states with a greater emphasis on competiveness than Fordist economies (Jessop 1993). From this perspective, one could read the Scandinavian early move toward family policy expansion in a different light than is usually

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implied in comparative social policy literature; that is, rather than gender equality being the primary motivation, it might play an ancillary role to the competitive imperative. In other words, the expansion of childcare can be interpreted more as a way to expand labor force participation than as a tool to reduce gender inequality. It is also important to add nuance to this critical reading, as the expansion of childcare in a period of increasing spending also for compensatory policy support (as was the case in Scandinavian countries during the 1960s and 1970s) is, in terms of gender and labor market outcomes, qualitatively different from a similar expansion in a context of retrenchment and labor market deregulation (as is the case currently in Germany, for example). From a distributional perspective, we seem to observe a politics of social policy based on a small and unequally distributed carrot (the expansion of childcare) and a bigger stick (overall reduction of income support policies). This choice contributes to boost women’s employment rates but seems to generate concurrent negative distributional consequences for the lower classes (and stagnation in gender equality in pay across all classes). When looking at outcomes across the 22 countries considered, female labor market activity rates have increased since 2000, and also have become more similar across countries (Table 9.1). This is also the case for the percentage of women employed in the service sector: from 82% in 2000 to 88% in 2015. Countries are becoming more similar to each other as well, and the relative difference across them has been reduced from 8.3 to 4.9 standard deviations (Table 9.2). More importantly, and related to the suggested critical interpretation, the global earnings gap with men has constantly increased everywhere8 during the last two decades (Table 9.3). The persistence of this gender-​earning gap has deep roots and can be explained with reference to the worsening condition of employment and the precarization of the weakest segments of the workforce during the recent decades (for an extensive discussion in the literature, see, e.g., Afshar 1998; Bergeron 2001; Elson and Pearson 1981; Standing 1989). In a nutshell, women entered the labor market en masse at the worst possible time. At a broader welfare state level, it has been shown that social spending focused on the “old” social risks (e.g., family allowances, income maintenance, and unemployment) is more redistributive than spending on “new” social provisions designed to stimulate employment (e.g., childcare and active labor market programs) (Cantillon et al. 2014). Traditional compensatory social spending is more targeted to the lower classes and the more vulnerable in society, whereas employment-​oriented policy appears to disproportionally favor the upper middle classes (Pintelon et al. 2013). In a period of protracted austerity (Blyth 2013), countries are faced with a dilemma of choice: between policies that foster employment or policies that substantively reduce poverty (Vandenbroucke and Vleminckx 2011). Nieuwenhuis et al. (2016) demonstrated—​in

8

With the exception of Greece and Switzerland.

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211

Table 9.1  Over Time Variation Female Participation to the Labour Market (Full-​Time Equivalent), 2000-​2014 Measured as % of Women 2000

2014

Australia

54.73

58.65

3.93

Austria

48.48

54.67

6.19

Belgium

43.56

48.17

4.62

Canada

58.66

61.10

2.44

Denmark

60.02

58.07

−1.95

Finland

56.60

55.37

−1.22

France

48.44

50.91

2.48

Germany

49.41

54.50

5.09

Greece

40.29

44.05

3.76

Iceland

71.53

70.86

−​0.66

Ireland

47.65

52.70

5.05

Italy

35.47

39.37

3.90

Japan

49.28

49.34

0.07

Luxembourg

41.38

52.01

10.63

Netherlands

53.31

57.71

4.41

New Zealand

56.76

62.63

5.86

Norway

60.24

61.21

0.97

Portugal

52.81

53.74

0.94

Spain

40.87

52.53

11.66

Sweden

58.09

60.91

2.82

Switzerland

57.72

62.70

4.99

United Kingdom

54.02

56.89

2.87

United States

59.06

56.12

−2.94

Average

52.10

55.40

8.29

6.72

15.91

12.13

STD Relative STD

Var. 2000-​2014

Note: * Retrieved from: http://​www.ilo.org/​ilos​tat/​faces/​ora​cle/​webcen​ter/​portal​app/​pagehi​erar​chy/​Page3.jspx?MBI​ _​ID=​15 Source: ILO (ILOSTAT, 2020).

a sample of 15 OECD countries—​that a 10% increase in women’s labor participation between 1971 and 2013 corresponded to a reduction of poverty rates by only 1%. Therefore, the potential of an employment-​oriented strategy to reduce poverty within high-​income countries is low, and has been depleted by the large increase of women’s participation rates.

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Table 9.2  Employment in Service Sector Jobs, 2000-​2015 Measured as % of the Total Female

Male

2000

2015

2000

2015

Australia

86.0

89.7

63.3

63.5

Austria

79.5

82.8

51.9

57.8

Belgium

87.2

90.9

61.4

65.8

Canada

87.0

90.3

63.4

67.4

Denmark

84.6

90.0

59.3

67.8

Finland

81.9

89.0

51.6

59.4

France

83.2

88.5

58.8

65.5

Germany

79.7

85.0

51.7

58.4

Greece

68.3

80.2

55.2

66.1

Iceland

84.8

90.3

54.8

65.8

Ireland

82.6

88.8

50.8

62.3

Italy

75.1

84.0

55.9

58.6

Japan

72.4

81.0

56.8

60.7

Luxembourg

92.1

95.2

66.6

82.5

Netherlands

88.1

92.7

65.5

72.4

New Zealand

81.9

85.8

56.6

59.3

Norway

88.4

91.7

61.4

64.8

Portugal

63.4

79.1

44.6

57.0

Spain

80.8

89.3

52.0

65.4

Sweden

87.3

91.9

59.7

68.2

Switzerland

85.8

86.9

63.7

66.8

United Kingdom

87.3

91.6

61.6

70.0

United States

86.6

92.0

65.4

71.7

Average

82.3

88.1

57.9

65.1

STD

6.9

4.3

5.6

5.9

Relative STD

8.3

4.9

9.7

9.0

Note: * Retrieved from: http://​www.ilo.org/​ilos​tat/​faces/​ora​cle/​webcen​ter/​portal​app/​pagehi​erar​chy/​Page3. jspx?MBI​_​ID=​33 Source: ILO (ILOSTAT, 2020)

Looking at more specific mechanisms, generous policies that reconcile work and care have a positive effect on employment, primarily at the higher end of the gender wage distribution but not at its lower end (Christofides et al. 2013). Family-​friendly policies in conjunction with the retrenchment of compensatory policies stimulate access to employment at the lower end of the income distribution, and worsen the condition of lower-​class

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213

Table 9.3  Gender Yearly Earning Differentials, 2000-​2015 Measured as Annual Difference between Men and Women Country

Years Variation

Female

Male

Annual Gender Gap

Australia

NA

NA

NA

NA

Austria

2000-​2014

708

1090

25.47

Belgium

2009-​2015

452

567

16.43

Canada

NA

NA

NA

NA

Denmark

NA

NA

NA

NA

Finland

2009-​2014

34

138

17.33

France

2000-​2013

1947

2121

12.43

Germany

2009-​2016

877

1022

18.13

Greece

2007-​2016

89

83

−0.60

Iceland

2009-​2015

798

873

10.71

Ireland

NA

NA

NA

NA

Italy

NA

NA

NA

NA

Japan

2009-​2016

423

995

71.50

Luxembourg

NA

NA

NA

NA

Netherlands

NA

NA

NA

NA

New Zealand

2009-​2016

505

671

20.75

Norway

2009-​2015

606

643

5.29

Portugal

2008-​2016

244

275

3.44

Spain

2009-​2014

218

382

27.33

Sweden

NA

NA

NA

NA

Switzerland

2009-​2014

1012

845

−27.83

United Kingdom

2000-​2015

594

1246

40.75

United States

NA

NA

NA

NA

607.64

782.21

17.22

Average

Note: * Retrieved from: http://​www.ilo.org/​ilos​tat/​faces/​ora​cle/​webcen​ter/​portal​app/​pagehi​erar​chy/​Page3. jspx?MBI​_​ID=​435 Source: ILO (ILOSTAT 2020)

working mothers especially. This is because the job territory occupied by lower-​class women is meager, to a large extent as a result of the segregation strategies employers put into place (Bergman 2005; Folbre 1994, 2001). In addition, we observe that childcare usage is positively correlated with household income (Table 9.4) (OECD 2016; see also Van Lancker 2018). Following the retrenchment of compensatory policies, this unequal distribution of childcare use seems to further disadvantage lower-​class women. In Europe, for every 10 children belonging to the top income tertile, only 6 in the bottom income tertile are enrolled in childcare (Table

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E m a n uele Fe r r agin a

Table 9.4  Participation rates in early ECEC (0-​to 2-​year-​olds) by disposable income tertile, 2016 Measured as % of the total age-​cohort Overall

1st Tertile (lowest)

2nd Tertile

3rd Tertile (highest)

Lowest/​ Highest ratio

Denmark

70.55

63.59

73.98

74.12

85.80%

Iceland

59.40

53.91

58.45

66.38

81.22%

France

56.66

31.33

63.38

74.05

42.31%

Netherlands

55.27

37.33

59.72

70.36

53.06%

Luxembourg

53.05

48.89

54.24

57.71

84.73%

Norway

52.51

44.22

50.86

62.82

70.39%

Portugal

52.13

49.19

46.84

59.81

82.23%

Sweden

51.26

45.15

56.80

51.07

88.40%

Belgium

47.99

29.48

53.47

59.96

49.16%

Spain

40.19

24.18

38.25

54.38

44.46%

Ireland

39.39

20.44

33.15

66.09

30.93%

Switzerland

37.95

19.43

38.91

51.21

37.94%

Italy

35.54

26.46

34.61

42.25

62.64%

Finland

33.02

24.76

35.11

43.31

57.18%

United Kingdom

31.55

19.14

28.95

46.23

41.39%

Austria

22.35

20.00

17.05

30.31

66.00%

Greece

11.55

10.78

8.16

15.17

71.06%

Average

44.14

33.43

44.23

54.43

61.42%

Note: * Retrieved from: http://​www.oecd.org/​els/​fam​ily/​datab​ase.htm Missing cases: Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, United States. Source: OECD (2017) estimates on the base of EU-​Silc (2016)

9.4). Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal, Iceland (where the number goes up to 8), Greece, Norway (7), and Italy (6) are above or around this average. In all other countries—​Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Ireland—​the participation of lower-​class children in childcare is dramatically low. France, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are especially unequal, where only 3 or 4 children of the lower-​income sectors participate in formal childcare for every 10 of their high-​income peers (Table 9.5). Despite the strong increase in childcare spending we documented earlier, inequality in childcare use has not decreased over time (Van Lancker 2018). The second interpretation—​dominant in comparative social policy literature and public discourse—​is based on family policy’s liberating role for mothers, and in the manner that this policy package transforms the welfare state. Childcare expansion is seen as the “good face” of activation. It signals a paradigm shift in the welfare state,

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215

Table 9.5 Relative distance from the maximum and minimum spending value ever achieved for each country in comparison to 2015, compensatory vs. active policies A negative value indicates a spending level in 2015 closer to the minimum ever achieved by each country, while a positive value indicates a spending level in 2015 closer to the maximum level ever achieved by each country. Unemployment

Australia

Family Allowances

Income Maintenance

Total Compensatory

Total ECEC Compensatory Standardised

Active Labour Market

Total Active

Total active standardised

–​0.31

–​0.10

0.63

–​0.46

0.18

0.09

Net movement

–​0.78

0.30

0.16

Austria

0.44

–​0.62

0.25

0.07

0.02

0.29

0.39

0.69

0.34

0.37

Belgium

–​0.04

–​1.18

0.00

–​1.22

–​0.41

0.80

–​0.48

0.33

0.16

–​0.24

Canada

–​1.57

0.73

–​0.88

–​1.71

–​0.57

0.14

–​0.38

–​0.24

–​0.12

–​0.69

0.00

0.25

0.26

0.52

0.17

–​0.12

1.36

1.24

0.62

0.79

Finland

–​0.54

–​1.02

0.27

–​1.30

–​0.43

0.47

–​0.31

0.16

0.08

–​0.35

France

–​0.28

–​0.85

0.48

–​0.65

–​0.22

1.14

0.21

1.35

0.67

0.46

Germany

–​0.51

–​0.69

–​0.03

–​1.23

–​0.41

0.37

–​0.68

–​0.31

–​0.15

–​0.56

Greece

–​0.29

0.34

0.00

0.05

0.02

0.03

0.06

0.08

0.04

0.06

Ireland

–​1.04

–​0.55

–​0.31

–​1.90

–​0.63

0.15

–​0.74

–​0.58

–​0.29

–​0.92

Italy

0.31

–​0.47

0.02

–​0.15

–​0.05

0.50

0.06

0.56

0.28

0.23

Japan

Denmark

–​0.02

–​0.41

0.30

0.12

0.02

0.01

0.44

–​0.11

0.33

0.16

0.17

Luxembourg

1.00

–​0.07

0.23

1.17

0.39

0.68

0.18

0.86

0.43

0.82

Netherlands

–​1.66

–​0.89

0.31

–​2.24

–​0.75

0.01

–​0.41

–​0.40

–​0.20

–​0.95

New Zealand

–​1.40

–​0.23

–​0.14

–​1.78

–​0.59

0.94

0.24

1.18

0.59

0.00

Norway

–​0.68

–​0.89

–​0.06

–​1.64

–​0.55

1.33

–​0.58

0.74

0.37

–​0.17

Portugal

0.18

–​0.25

0.03

–​0.03

–​0.01

0.35

0.19

0.54

0.27

0.26

Spain

–​2.16

0.33

0.13

–​1.70

–​0.57

0.45

0.11

0.55

0.28

–​0.29

Sweden

–​2.28

–​0.45

–​0.25

–​2.98

–​0.99

0.29

–​1.01

–​0.72

–​0.36

–​1.35

0.18

0.02

–​0.04

0.15

0.05

0.34

0.25

0.59

0.29

0.35

United Kingdom

–​1.78

0.90

–​0.96

–​1.84

–​0.61

0.50

–​0.57

–​0.07

–​0.03

–​0.65

United States

–​0.89

–​0.38

0.28

–​0.99

–​0.33

0.24

–​0.15

0.10

0.05

–​0.28

Average

–​0.68

–​0.24

–​0.01

–​0.90

–​0.30

0.45

–​0.13

0.32

0.16

–​0.14

Switzerland

Source: Author’s elaboration on the basis of OECD data (2020)

from a focus on inequality of condition to a social protection model based on equality of opportunity (see, e.g., Moss 1988), and from an economic point of view as an investment into women’s economic potential and children’s human capital (Esping-​Andersen et al. 2002). According to this interpretation, in times of “permanent austerity” (Pierson 2001), childcare expansion appears to partially ease the pressure of social reproduction activities on women and families. Social reproduction in advanced capitalist economies generates escalating intra-​household conflicts and puts a strain particularly upon women with a lack of material resources (Spike Peterson 2011). As the welfare state has been retrenched, it has usually determined that women increasingly assume the role of “shock absorber of last resort” (Elson 2002). In this context, childcare expansion has been interpreted as a support for parents needing to reconcile the care of young children and their participation in the labor market (Jenson and Saint-​Martin 2006). It is important to note that the liberalization not only refers to economic and labor market aspects, but has also important ramifications at the social and cultural level. The flexibility of labor markets and the expansion of employment-​oriented family policy support the interests of employers and organized capital, but also intervene in gender relations; this offers women the possibility to acquire a freedom that had been greatly constrained under the Fordist family model. Continuing this argument, if social reproduction is regarded as a positional struggle for resources and increased control of time in a capitalist economy, the expansion of childcare appears to be an important aid for individuals who seek to reconcile complicated life balances (Bakker 2007, 548). Instead of being conceived of as a component of the SWS, family policy expansion might constitute a piece of the institutional puzzle put in place to reduce new social risks, and converge toward what Jenson and Saint-​Martin (2006), with reference to Scandinavian countries, have defined as the LEGO model. This model is conceived as future-​oriented policy to improve human capital and community activity, and to reduce care and time deficits. Childcare expansion reduces the space for informal work, supports the professionalization of care, and contributes to create new jobs in a regulated state service. This new emphasis on childcare also follows the social investment perspective: the conspicuous investment in high-​quality childcare has long-​term advantages for the whole of society, through increased maternal employment (Stier et al. 2001) and enhanced children’s human capital (Heckman 2006). The expansion of childcare is considered by governments, for reasons cited earlier, also to be an important tool to fight the social reproduction crisis precipitated by advanced capitalism (Dowling 2016). Childcare expansion is often seen, therefore, as a beneficial set of measures conducive to the assimilation of the dual-​earner model with dual care. The idea of a dual-​earner/​dual-​carer model has been theorized (Crompton 1999, 2006; Gornick and Meyers 2003) as the possibility to move to a new gender arrangement that maintains equilibrium between the couple’s paid and unpaid work. Care ought not to

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be delegated completely to external services; rather, family policy expansion should open windows of opportunity for couples to share equally social reproductive work.9 When looking empirically at a macro level, both movements appear to be at play here. Childcare expansion, in combination with welfare state retrenchment and liberalization, can be a tool to bolster maternal employment in low paid service sector jobs; simultaneously, it can help families partially to balance work and care, and to mitigate some of the negative effects generated by the continuous extension of the market logic to social life. To enrich this analysis, we calculated an indicator that evaluates the fluctuation of compensatory and active support spending for each country (Table 9.5). This indicator examines the spending level in 2015 to assess if it is closer to the maximum or minimum spending level that each country has ever attained. We follow three steps to construct this indicator across 22 countries: (1) we subtract the maximum and minimum values of spending ever attained from 2015 spending, (2) we add up the distances from the maximum and minimum values for each policy, and (3) we add up these distances for compensatory policies, on the one hand (unemployment, family allowances and income assistance), and for active policies, on the other (ECEC and active labor market programs). A negative score indicates that a country in 2015 is closer to its minimum rather than maximum level of spending ever attained (higher negative scores indicate a stronger proximity to the minimum value); a positive score indicates that the 2015 value is closer to the maximum rather than the minimum spending level ever recorded (higher positive values indicate a close proximity to the maximum value). A zero score indicates a value equidistant from the maximum and minimum values. The rationale for building this indicator is that countries historically have a variable level of spending and not all of them reached the maximum and minimum levels during the same year. We suggest this indicator provides a global outlook taking into account the specific evolution of national policy configurations. Hence, it allows us to avoid arbitrary cut-​off points to evaluate country movements and their relative spending position in 2015. Table 9.5 seems to show that the retrenchment of compensatory income support has been globally (in the 22 countries) stronger than the expansion of active policies. Overall, the movement away from compensatory income support seems almost twice as large as the movement in favor of active policies. However, it is important to note that the trend varies considerably across countries. While in 12 nations the first movement prevails over the second (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States), in nine nations the second movement is stronger than the first (Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy,

9 Saraceno and Keck (2011) formulated three critiques of the dual-​earner/​dual-​carer model, i.e., the fact that the theory takes for granted the availability of good jobs for everybody, the assumption of the heterosexual couple as the main mode of family organization, and the excessive focus on children.

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Japan, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Switzerland); only New Zealand displays movements of a similar size. Moreover, among the countries where the second movement is stronger than the first, childcare usage is almost equally spread across the income distribution in only three cases (Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal) (Table 9.4). Conclusion Family policy transformation is one of the main features of welfare state change over recent decades. This chapter proposed a critical approach to understanding this transformation in relation to the political economy of welfare state change and the commodification of social reproduction in high-​income countries. Mainstream parties across the political spectrum, such as Tony Blair’s Labour Party in the UK and Angela Merkel’s Christian Social Union in Germany, supported childcare expansion as a tool to pursue the transformation of the welfare state into an “enabling state” (Gilbert 1989). This gained considerable electoral traction (for the German case, see Fleckenstein 2011). According to these views, compensatory income support policies mostly geared toward the poorest families are looked upon as a relic of the “past,” a type of social protection connected to the patriarchal male-​breadwinner model; while childcare is considered to be the “future” of social protection and its expansion to be a necessary condition to both achieve greater gender equality and mitigate the social reproduction crisis in the context of the dual-​earner model. Few might disagree that we need to provide childcare services to “good” parents (those who take care of their children and also work), just as few might disagree that “good” working parents are more deserving than unemployed or poor people. However, in the high-​income countries considered here—​affected by a structural economic crisis and the increasing precarization of employment in the period considered here (up to 2015)—​this widespread discourse conceals a cruder reality for low-​income mothers and families. Accordingly, we suggest the existence of a double movement. Childcare expansion—​together with the retrenchment of compensatory income support policies—​ appears to provide further incentives for mothers to more readily accept low salaries in a service-​based economy. It serves also to liberate mothers partially from social reproduction tasks, and it fosters the overall shift toward a dual-​earner model. The first movement suggests family policy expansion to be another tool to foster neoliberal capitalism. The second movement, in contrast, indicates that family policy expansion is instrumental in supporting working parents with young children, and helps to meet increasing care costs in a more gender-​friendly context. On the basis of the empirical data considered in this chapter, the first movement or interpretation seems more robust than the second, and it prevails in a majority of high-​ income countries. Further, childcare usage is heavily influenced by household income level in most high-​income countries; this magnifies the negative distributional effects of cutting compensatory income support policies.

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If we relate these findings to critical feminist analyses (Hartmann 1979; McRobbie 2009; Spivak 1999), it might be wondered if family policy transformation (intended here as expansion of childcare spending and reduction of family allowances) has been (at least partially) instrumentalized within neoliberal discourses as yet another “faux feminist” tool (Einstein 2009). The positive effects of high-​quality childcare seem to overshadow the fact that expanding childcare, especially as it seems to be at the expense of compensatory programs, has negative distributional effects for low-​income families, and it contributes to higher pressures on wages at the bottom end of the income distribution. The increasing participation of women in the labor market remains strongly characterized by persistent occupational and industrial segregation, wage differentials, and gender precariousness (LeBaron 2010, 91). In this respect, family policy transformation in a context of welfare state retrenchment does not seem to significantly challenge long-​standing class and gender inequalities, and, in the transition from the Fordist to the post-​Fordist sexual contract, contributes in a majority of the countries analyzed to perpetrate these inequalities under new forms. The empirical findings assembled in this chapter do not deny the potential subversive role of family policy and the welfare state vis-​à-​vis neoliberal capitalism and patriarchy, at either an absolute or theoretical level. However, they seem to show that this potential role in a majority of high-​income countries during the last four decades has been held back by a context in which retrenchment of compensatory policies has prevailed over the expansion of activation measures. Besides the double movement interpretation and the empirical findings we have offered, it is hoped that, at a more abstract level, the chapter has made a case to connect the comparative analysis of family policy change to critical political economy. Policy expansion does not intrinsically carry positive or negative consequences for either the entire population or for any particular class or sector. Too often, studies that measure only the marginal effect of policy change have dominated scholarship (Ferragina 2020). However, they ignore the source of finance and how a policy is positioned within the political economy of welfare state change and the social structure more broadly. Comparative social policy and political economy scholars should join forces to challenge simplistic narratives of the effect of policy change that pervade the public domain. Studies of this kind can help to further dialogue between two areas of study that, even though they share common ground, frequently remain isolated from each other. References Abramowitz, Mimi. 2017. Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. London: Routledge. Afshar, Haleh. 1998. Women and Empowerment: Illustrations from the Third World. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. Amin, Ash. 1994. Post-​Fordism: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Bakker, Isabella. 2007. “Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy.” New Political Economy 12 (4): 541–​556. Bakker, Isabella, and Stephen Gill, eds. 2003. Power, Production and Social Reproduction. London: Palgrave.

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Barker, Drucialla K. 2005. “Beyond Women and Economics: Rereading ‘Women’s Work.’ ” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (4): 2198–​2209. Bergeron, Suzanne. 2001. “Political Economy Discourses of Globalization and Feminist Politics.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26 (4): 983–​1006. Bergman, Barbara R. 2005. The Economic Emergence of Women. London: Palgrave. Bleses, Peter, and Martin Seeleib-​ Kaiser. 2004. The Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Blyth, Mark. 2013. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cantillon, Bea, Natascha Van Mechelen, Olivier Pintelon, and Aaron Van den Heede. 2014. “Social Redistribution, Poverty and the Adequacy of Social Protection.” In Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction: How Successful are European Welfare States?, edited by Bea Cantillon and Frank Vandenbrouke, 157–​184. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castles, Francis G., and Deborah Mitchell. 1992. “Identifying Welfare State Regimes: The Links between Politics, Instruments and Outcomes.” Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 5 (1): 1–​26. Christofides, Louis N., Alexandros Polycarpou, and Konstantinos Vrachimis. 2013. “Gender Wage Gaps, ‘Sticky Floors’ and ‘Glass Ceilings’ in Europe.” Labor Economics 21 (April): 86–​102. Clasen, Jochen, and Nico Sigel. 2007. Investigating Welfare State Change: The “Dependent Variable Problem” in Comparative Analysis. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Crompton, Rosemary. 1999. Restructuring Gender Relations and Employment: The Decline of the Male Breadwinner. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crompton, Rosemary. 2006. Employment and the Family. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Daly, Mary. 2011. “What Adult Worker Model? A Critical Look at Recent Social Policy Reform in Europe from a Gender and Family Perspective.” Social Politics 18 (1): 1–​23. Daly, Mary, and Emanuele Ferragina. 2018. “Family Policy in High-​Income Countries: Five Decades of Development.” Journal of European Social Policy 28 (3): 255–​270. Daly, Mary, and Jane Lewis. 2000. “The Concept of Social Care and the Analysis of Contemporary Welfare State.” British Journal of Sociology 51 (2): 281–​298. Dowling, Emma. 2016. “Valorised but Not Valued? Affective Remuneration, Social Reproduction and Feminist Politics beyond the Crisis.” British Politics 11 (4): 452–​468. Duffy, Mignon. 2007. “Doing the Dirty Work: Gender, Race, and Reproductive Labor in Historical Perspective.” Gender & Society 21 (3): 313–​336. Einstein, Hester. 2009. Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women’s Labor and Ideas to Exploit the World. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Elson, Diane. 2002. “Gender Justice, Human Rights, and Neo-​liberal Economic Policies.” In Gender Justice, Development and Rights, edited by Maxine Molyneux and Shahra Razavi, 78–​114. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elson, Diane, and Ruth Pearson. 1981. “Nimble Fingers Make Cheap Workers: An Analysis of Women’s Employment in Third World Export Manufacturing?” Feminist Review 8 (7): 87–​107. England, Paula. 2005. “Emerging Theories of Care Work.” Annual Review of Sociology 31: 381–​399. Esping-​Andersen, Gøsta. 1985. Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Esping-​Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Esping-​Andersen, Gøsta, Duncan Gallie, Anton Hemerijck, and John Myles. 2002. Why We Need a New Welfare State? Oxford: Oxford University Press. European Commission. 2016. “EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions.” Brussels: European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-​SILC). Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the Witch. New York: Autonomedia. Federici, Silvia. 2012. Revolution at Point Zero. New York: PM Press. Ferragina, Emanuele. 2009. “Social Capital and Equality: Tocqueville’s legacy.” LIS Working Paper Series, no. 515. Luxembourg: Luxembourg Income Study. Ferragina, Emanuele. 2017. “The Welfare State and Social Capital in Europe: Reassessing a Complex Relationship.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 58 (1): 55–​90. Ferragina, Emanuele. 2019a. “Does Family Policy Influence Women’s Employment? Reviewing the Evidence in the Field.” Political Studies Review 17 (1): 65–​80.

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Ferragina, Emanuele. 2019b. “The Political Economy of Family Policy Expansion.” Review of International Political Economy 26 (6): 1238–​1265. Ferragina, Emanuele. 2020. “Family Policy and Women’s Employment Outcomes in 45 High-​ Income Countries: A Systematic Qualitative Review of 238 Comparative and National Studies.” Social Policy & Administration 54 (7): 1016–​1066. Ferragina, Emanuele, Alessandro Arrigoni, and Thees Spreckelsen. 2022. “The Rising Invisible Majority: Bringing Society Back into International Political Economy.” Review of International Political Economy 29 (1): 114–​151. Ferragina, Emanuele, and Martin Seeleib-​Kaiser. 2011. “Thematic Review: Welfare Regime Debate: Past, Present, Futures?” Policy & Politics 39 (4): 583–​611. Ferragina, Emanuele, and Martin Seeleib-​Kaiser. 2015. “Determinants of a Silent (R)evolution: Understanding the Expansion of Family Policy in Rich OECD Countries.” Social Politics 22 (1): 1–​37. Ferragina, Emanuele, Martin Seeleib-​Kaiser, and Mark Tomlinson. 2013. “Unemployment Protection and Family Policy at the Turn of the 21st Century: A Dynamic Approach to Welfare Regime Theory.” Social Policy & Administration 47 (7): 783–​805. Fleckenstein, Timo. 2011. “The Politics of Ideas in Welfare State Transformations: Christian Democracy and the Reform of Family Policy in Germany.” Social Politics 18 (4): 543–​571. Folbre, Nancy. 1994. Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structure of Constraints. London: Routledge. Folbre, Nancy. 2001. The Invisible Heart. New York: The New Press. Fraser, Nancy. 2013. Fortunes of Feminism: From State-​Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis. London: Verso. Fraser, Nancy. 2016. “Contradictions of Capital and Care.” New Left Review 100: 99–​117. Gilbert, Neil. 1989. The Enabling State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gornick, Janet C., and Marcia K. Meyers. 2003. Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment. New York: SAGE. Hay, Colin, and Daniel Wincott. 2012. The Political Economy of European Welfare. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Hartmann, Heidi I. 1979. “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union.” Capital & Class 3 (2): 1–​33. Heckman, James J. 2006. “Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children.” Science 312 (5782): 1900–​1922. Hemerijk, Anton. 2013. Changing Welfare States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenson, Jane, and Denis Saint-​Martin. 2006. “Building Blocks for a New Social Architecture: The LEGO Paradigm of an Active Society.” Policy & Politics 34 (3): 429–​451. Jessop, Bob. 1993. “Toward a Schumpeterian Workfare State? Preliminary Remarks on Post-​Fordist Political Economy.” Studies in Political Economy 40 (1): 7–​39. Kamerman, Sheila B., and Alfred J. Kahn. 1978. Family Policy: Government and Families in Fourteen Countries. New York: Columbia University Press. Kamerman, Sheila B., and Alfred J. Kahn. 1994. “Family Policy and the Under-​3s: Money, Services, and Time in a Policy Package.” International Social Security Review 47 (3–​4): 31–​43. Korpi, Walter. 1983. The Democratic Class Struggle. London: Routledge. Korpi, Walter. 2000. “Faces of Inequality: Gender, Class, and Patterns of Inequalities in Different Types of Welfare States.” Social Politics 7 (2): 127–​191. Korpi, Walter, Tommy Ferrarini, and Stefan Englund. 2013. “Women’s Opportunities under Different Family Policy Constellations.” Social Politics 20 (1): 1–​40. ILOSTAT. 2020. Statistics on the Working Age Population and Labour Force. https://​ilos​tat.ilo.org/​?MBI​_​ ID=​435. Laslett, Barbara, and Johanna Brenner. 1989. “Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives.” Annual Review of Sociology 15: 381–​404. LeBaron, Genevieve. 2010. “The Political Economy of the Household: Neoliberal Restructuring, Enclosures, and Daily Life.” Review of International Political Economy 17 (5): 889–​912. Lewis, Jane. 2001. “The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: Implications for Work and Care.” Social Politics 8 (2): 152–​169. Lewis, Jane. 2006. Children, Changing Families and Welfare States. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. McDowell, Linda. 1991. “Life without Father and Ford: The New Gender Order of Post-​Fordism.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16 (4): 400–​421. McRobbie, Angela. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. New York: SAGE.

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C H A P T E R

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 heorizing the Role of Culture T and Family Policy for Women’s Employment Behavior

Birgit Pfau-​Effinger

Abstract There are significant country-​specific differences in the degree of women’s labor market integration and working time patterns after the birth of a child. Birgit Pfau-​Effinger discusses how it is possible to explain cross-​national differences in women’s work-​ childcare behavior. She argues that common approaches to the role of family policy for women’s employment tend to neglect the role of cultural ideas and often do not sufficiently theorize the relationship between culture and family policy. The chapter introduces a complex multilevel approach to theorizing how the interrelation between culture and family policy in their role for women’s (and men’s) work-​childcare behaviors operate. This approach also theorizes which causal mechanisms and processes in the multilevel system it is based on. Main elements include a multilevel concept of culture, the concept of the relative autonomy of culture and family policy institutions, the theorization of women’s work-​childcare behavior in the context of culture and family policy institutions and the role of informal and market-​based resources for childcare. Key Words: theory, culture, family policy, childcare, women’s employment behavior

Introduction The development toward a higher integration of women into the labor markets of advanced industrial societies can be described as one of the most important social changes in recent decades. This has been an expression of a general shift from traditional to modern forms of female work—​that is, from unpaid family or voluntary social work to paid employment, or from work in the agrarian and craft family business or in the informal sector of the economy to gainful employment in the modern sectors of the economy. The change in the way women are integrated into society especially concerned the phase of active motherhood in the female biography—​the gainfully employed mother has more and more become the standard. The development is connected to other trends like individuation tendencies, the transition from industrial to service society, the extension of educational systems, and a trend toward more gender-​egalitarian cultures. The extension of social rights and public or publicly financed services for extrafamilial childcare in the

context of family policies has contributed to this development, as it facilitated women’s integration into the employment system when they have care-​dependent children (Jensen 2017; Thévenon 2013). However, in many countries, women’s employment patterns still differ from men’s in that women stay at home and work part-​time after the birth of a child. As in modern Western societies, gainful employment is generally the main basis for the financing of livelihood and for social security, and these gender differences in employment patterns are a main factor explaining the persistence of gender inequality in the employment system (see also Daly, this volume). The development has not been uniform, though. While men’s labor market integration follows a similar pattern in many countries, there are significant country-​specific differences in the degree of women’s labor market integration and working time patterns (Budig, Misra, and Boeckmann 2012; Chou et al. 2017). The explanation of these differences is a much-​debated issue in comparative social sciences (see also Ferragina 2019; Brady, Blome, and Kmec 2019). It is frequently argued that family policy plays a primary role in the explanation of cross-​national differences in the employment behavior of women with care-​dependent children. According to the argument, welfare state policies that generously support public day care for children guarantee that women stay in the labor market after childbirth, whereas a lack of public day-​ care provision would be responsible when women are temporarily not engaged in gainful employment or only work part-​time. However, cross-​national comparative research does not fully support this assumption. It has been argued that, besides differences in family policy, cultural differences also contribute to the explanation (e.g., Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig 2014; Mandel 2009; Pfau-​Effinger 1993, 1998). The primary aim of this chapter is to discuss how it is possible to theorize the role of culture and family policy regarding the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s work-​childcare. Comparative empirical research has often not systematically theorized this complex relationship (see also Ollier-​Malaterre and Foucreault 2017). I define “women’s work-​childcare behavior” as the labor market behavior of women who are mothers of children under school age in a society. It comprises the share of women with children under school age who are active in the labor market (which is indicated by the labor force participation rate of women with children under school age) and the working time patterns of employed women with children under school age (indicated by the share of employed women of this group who work full-​time/​part-​time compared to all employed women).1 The focus is on women, since women’s work-​childcare behavior differs much more strongly between countries than men’s. Women with children under school age are in the center, since family policies are mainly designed to facilitate the employment of this group of mothers (Meyers and Gornick 2003). 1 For a discussion of adequate indicators for women’s work-​childcare behavior, see Pfau-​Effinger and Schwindt 2015.

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This chapter introduces an updated version of the complex theoretical approach of the “gender arrangement” (Pfau-​Effinger 1998, 2004a), which the author has introduced into the international discussion. It can be used as a theoretical framework for the explanation of cross-​national differences and historical change in the gendered structures and social practices related to employment, childcare, and the work-​childcare relationship. It also theorizes the causal mechanisms and processes in the multilevel system on which the explanation is based. The theoretical approach goes beyond existing theoretical frameworks in the field in that it offers a systematic theoretical approach to the role of culture and family policy institutions as well as the wider socioeconomic context for women’s work-​childcare behavior, in that it systematically distinguishes between the role of coherent and incoherent culture–​family policy contexts for the explanation, and in that it is based on a multilevel concept of culture and the theoretical assumption about the relative autonomy of culture and institutions. The chapter demonstrates how this theoretical approach can be utilized to explore the role of culture and family policies for the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior. I define culture as a system of collective ideas related to the idea of a good society and morally good behavior. Cultural ideas comprise cultural values and models and belief systems. Cultural ideas can be coherent or contradictory, contested between social groups and actors, and they are changeable (Archer 1996; Pfau-​Effinger 2005a). I define institutions as sets of rules that provide incentives and restrictions for action.2 The chapter is structured in the following way: it begins with a theoretical discussion of the possibility and limitations of existing approaches to the explanation of women’s work-​childcare behavior with culture and family policy. The next section introduces the main elements of the complex multilevel theoretical approach. The final section includes a discussion and a conclusion. The Role of Family Policy for Women’s Employment— ​Empirical Findings and Theoretical Debate It has frequently been argued in the theoretical debate of comparative welfare state research that family policies regarding the provision of public or publicly financed extrafamilial care for children are the main factors explaining the cross-​national differences in women’s work-​family behavior. It is also common to distinguish different family policy regimes that differ in their impact on women’s labor market outcomes (Misra et al. 2011). Several comparative studies about the role of policies toward public childcare found that differences in childcare policies explain cross-​national differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior (e.g., Bünning and Pollmann-​Schult 2016; Duvander and Ellingsæter 2016; Hegewisch and Gornick 2011; Saraceno and Keck 2011; Misra, Budig, 2 For an elaborated version of the definitions of “culture” and “institution” see sections on the “Multilevel Concept of Culture” and “The Relative Autonomy of Culture and Family Policy Institutions”.

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and Boeckman 2011; Thévenon 2013), whereas others did not find a clear connection (Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig 2014; Chou et al. 2017; Crompton and Harris 1998; Duncan 2005; Jensen et al. 2017; Pfau-​Effinger 2004a; 2014). The existing studies also do not agree on the role of other instruments of family policy, such as parental leave systems, in women’s work-​childcare behavior. Several studies found that parental leave programs only increase women’s chances of returning to employment if they are relatively short, whereas longer parental leave programs reduce them (Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig 2014; Morgan and Zippel 2003; Keck and Saraceno 2013). According to other studies, the same type of family leave policy can, in part, have different effects on women’s employment in different societies. Since the effects of childcare policies on one the hand and parental leave policies on the other do not go into the same direction, a growing number of authors have concluded that the effects of single instruments of family policies should be analyzed separately (Brady, Blome, and Kmec 2019). There is no doubt that it is plausible to assume that differences in family policies toward childcare contribute to the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s work-​ childcare behavior. However, I have shown that empirical research does not clearly support this assumption. Also, in the field of comparative research, there is often a lack of in-​depth theorizing of the role of family policy in women’s employment. Based on a review of theorizing and research in the field, Ollier-​Malaterre and Foucreault (2017, 15) concluded that empirical studies often investigate relationships by “using piecemeal theories.” Also, the theoretical assumptions are not always convincing. Sometimes the argument could be interpreted as a deterministic approach, since it seems that the extent of generosity of childcare policy determines the extent to which women are active in the labor market. Accordingly, a generous provision of public day care for children leads to high employment rates of women with children under school age, whereas lower employment rates and a relatively high female part-​time rate are the consequence of a lack of welfare state support of public day care (e.g., Esping-​Andersen 1999). This argument neglects to consider that people in advanced industrial societies act in a complex societal context of cultural, social, and economic factors. Another problem closely connected with the first problem is that comparative analyses often do not distinguish between childcare policies and their outcomes; if family policies have a de-​familizing nature, following this argument, they have the effect that parents indeed outsource care for their children, and women are employed (with familizing policies having the opposite effect). It is therefore common to analyze childcare policies by the share of children of under three (or under school age) in publicly subsidized extrafamilial childcare. However, it is important to consider that people’s actual work-​family behavior can differ from the behavior that is supported by the respective childcare policy (Crompton and Harris 1998; Duncan 2005). The share of children in public or publicly subsidized childcare is therefore not an adequate indicator of the childcare policy of the welfare state. It would be more adequate to analyze childcare policy based on its

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institutional regulation, as it is also common in studies about the impact of family policies toward parental leave (Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig 2014). This chapter argues that besides family policy, cultural ideas also contribute to the explanation of cross-​ national differences in women’s work-​ childcare behavior (Pfau-​ Effinger 1993, 1998; Jensen 1996). Such cultural ideas include, for example, the cultural ideal of the “good mother” who cares at home for her preschool children, or it may be more based on a cultural ideal of mothers who work as full-​time employed standard workers pursuing masculinist careers. It is also possible that it is based on intermediate types of cultural ideals like the combination of women’s parental leave followed by part-​time work (Niemistö et al. 2021; Pfau-​Effinger 2012). Cultural ideals about men’s work-​childcare relationship may vary to some extent as well (Eydal and Rostgaard, this volume). The comparison between West and East Germany is a good example of how women’s work-​ childcare behavior can differ in different cultural contexts. Though the family policies of the central welfare state were the same for (East) and (West) Germany following German unification in 1990, women with young children in (East) Germany in their behavior regarding employment vis-​à-​vis childcare still used their options differently from mothers in (West) Germany three decades later. The main reason is that there are substantial differences in the main cultural ideal of the family between the parts of Germany. These developed during the German division into a state socialist country and a capitalist country until 1990, and they have survived since the unification (Pfau-​Effinger and Smidt 2011; Sprengholz, Wieber, and Holst 2020). There is a well-​established tradition of research regarding how culture can contribute to change in people’s family-​related behavior, such as marriage, fertility, and divorce (Jayakody, Thornton, and Axinn 2008; Lesthaeghe 2002; Thornton et al. 2001). The role of culture in the explanation of women’s work-​childcare behavior has also been explored. The number of authors has increased who agree that analyzing cultural ideals and family policies together leads to a more satisfactory explanation of the societal organization of the relationship between employment and childcare (Aboim 2010; Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig 2014; Budig, Misra, and Boeckmann 2012; Chou et al. 2017; Hummelsheim and Hirschle 2010; Jensen et al. 2017; Mandel 2009; Pfau-​Effinger 1993, 1998, 2012; Saxonberg and Szelewa 2007; Yerkes 2013) (for an overview, see Ferragina 2017; Ollier-​ Malaterre and Foucreault 2017). I argue that research about the role of culture and family policy in women’s work-​family behavior should be based on an elaborated theoretical framework that theorizes the complex relationship between culture and family policy and the ways in which they together can influence women’s work-​childcare behavior. In her approach to preference theory, Hakim (2000) has argued that differences in women’s cultural orientations toward family and occupation between different groups of women exist within societies and lead to differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior toward working time patterns between these groups. I think that a scientific strength of this approach is that it treats women as competent actors who pursue their life plans

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with respect to the way they combine waged work and motherhood. On the other hand, the approach also has some shortcomings. It is not clear why the differences between the groups of women have developed and why an individual woman opts for one or the other. The approach also does not clarify why women’s preferences differ while men’s preferences do not. It was also criticized for neglecting the constraints women may face in terms of inadequate public childcare provision and the gendered division of labor in society (Kangas and Rostgaard 2007; Crompton and Harris 1998; Leahy and Doughney 2006; Schober and Scott 2012). In general, the approach is restricted to the micro level and does not theorize how women’s preferences and behavior at the micro level are linked with cultural ideals and family policies at the macro level. Therefore, it does not offer an adequate theoretical framework for cross-​national comparative analyses. Duncan and Edwards (1999) have stressed the central role of culture for individual action in their cross-​regional research on how single mothers combine employment and unpaid work. They have developed a more open and complex approach to the explanation of variations in women’s work-​childcare behavior. They argued that mainly “gendered moral rationalities”—​that is, cultural ideas about the proper thing to do to be a good mother—​are relevant for the explanation of regional differences, more than institutional or economic factors are. They found that most single mothers in Britain in the 1990s saw their moral and practical responsibility for their children as their primary duty, and many of them saw this responsibility to be a good mother as largely incompatible with significant paid work. Also, this approach is limited in its explanatory strength for cross-​national comparative research, since its main focus is on differences within a society. A theoretical framework for cross-​national comparative research would have to account for how women’s cultural ideas and work-​childcare behavior are connected with the general cultural framework at the macro level, which may differ between societies, and with differences regarding family policies. A Multilevel Theoretical Approach to the Explanation of Women’s Work-​Childcare Behavior in the Context of Culture and Family Policies This section introduces a complex multilevel approach to the explanation of cross-​ national differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior, or the theoretical approach of the “gender arrangement” (Pfau-​Effinger 1998, 2004a).3 According to this approach, the particular gender arrangement in a society comprises the specific and potentially incoherent configuration of culture, institutions, social and economic structures, and constellations of actors that frame the gender structures and the gendered social practices in this

3 I have also developed other variants of the theoretical approach of the “societal arrangement,” which include the approaches of the “welfare arrangement” (Pfau-​Effinger 2005a) the “care arrangement” (2005b) and of the “arrangement of work and welfare” (2009).

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society. This approach offers a theoretical framework for research that aims to explain cross-​national differences, and to theorize the complex causal mechanisms and processes in the multilevel system on which the influence of the causal factors is based. The main elements include: •​ a multilevel concept of culture •​ the assumption of the relative autonomy of culture and family policy institutions •​ theorizing the interrelation between culture and family policy institutions in their role for women’s (and men’s) work-​childcare behavior •​ theoretical assumptions about the role of coherent and incoherent culture-​ family policy contexts for the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s work-​family behavior The following sections introduce these theoretical elements in more depth. Multilevel Concept of Culture This subsection introduces the concept of culture on which the theoretical approach is based. In the anthropological thinking of the early 19th century, it was common to use a broad approach to culture that included the whole complex of habits, language, and artifacts of a society, meaning the society’s tradition (e.g., Smelser 1962). This concept of culture was rather static and so broad that it overlapped with the concept of society. Therefore, it was substituted by narrower concepts that are restricted to the ideational basis of societies. Nevertheless, within this framework, there is still a broad variety of theoretical concepts about culture in contemporary sociological theorizing (see also Lamont, Beljean, and Clair 2014). The main criterion for the selection of a concept of culture for the theoretical framework of the “gender arrangement” was that it should be based on a multilevel approach, in that it relates to culture at the macro level and theorizes its role in the macro-​meso-​micro level system, and that it should be possible to make a clear distinction between culture and institutions. The theoretical tradition in sociological theorizing that goes to Max Weber (1976), Walter Lepsius (1990), Jeffey Alexander (1995), and Margaret Archer (1996) offers an adequate approach. I define culture as a system of collective ideas related to the idea of a good society and morally good behavior. Cultural ideas comprise cultural values, cultural models, and belief systems. Cultural ideas can be coherent or contradictory, contested between social actors, and they are changeable. Cultural ideas at the macro level offer action orientations to actors on the micro and meso levels, but do not determine them (Pfau-​Effinger 2004a, 2005a). I argue that in every advanced industrial society at the macro level, certain cultural ideas exist that frame women’s work-​childcare behavior and which are a part of the “gender

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culture” (Pfau-​Effinger 1998). Within the cultural framework of women’s work-​childcare behavior, it is necessary to distinguish between (at least) two different cultural dimensions, which can vary relatively independent of each other. These include cultural ideas relating to how children should “ideally” be cared for (e.g., parental care, care provided by the extended family, or extrafamilial care), and cultural ideas about the “ideal” relationship of each parent toward employment and childcare (e.g., parents in general acting as full-​time employed breadwinners, or men serving as primary breadwinners while women remain full-​or part-​time at home to care for young children, or both parents sharing the care for young children on the basis of part-​time work). Due to power relations and negotiation processes between social actors, certain of these cultural ideas reach greater societal significance than other competing cultural ideas. The cultural ideas that are most relevant in the respective society may differ in a comparative perspective between countries. Such differences are normally due to deep-​rooted differences in the developmental paths of these countries toward modernity. The influence of these ideas can be noticed on various social levels: on the level of social structures, in social institutions and organizations, in discourses, and in the cultural ideas of individuals. However, as individuals have reflexive and creative abilities, and they act in a complex societal context, the influence of culture on their behavior should not be seen as a deterministic relationship (Pfau-​Effinger 1998, 2004a, 2004b, 2012). A long-​established discussion in sociology concerns how far cultural ideas of a society that are framing the family, childcare, and the gendered relationship between family and employment are the direct result of the prevailing form of production in that society. If there would be such a close link, we would assume that the cultural basis of the family in traditional agrarian societies always was what I call the “family economy model,” according to which all family members, including school-​age children, ideally provided productive work at the family farm or in the small craft business, whereas the cultural ideal of the “male breadwinner/​female housewife family” everywhere prevailed in developing industrial capitalist societies. However, my historical research shows that there is not such a close connection between a specific type of production and the main cultural work-​family ideal (Pfau-​Effinger 2004b).4 It should be considered that not only the contents, but also the degree of integration of the cultural framework at the macro level, which is indicated by the coherence and social scope of the main cultural ideas, can vary in the context of time and space. The main cultural ideas can gain comprehensive support in the population, but it is also possible that their social scope is limited to some extent, since certain social groups orient at different cultural ideas than the dominant part of the population (e.g., members of a certain social class, or milieu, or ethnic minorities). Dale and Holdsworth (1998) found at the end of 4 See Pfau-​Effinger (2004b) for a theoretical approach to the explanation of the uneven historical diffusion of the cultural family model of the “male breadwinner/​female housewife family” in Europe.

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the 1990s that there were significant disparities in the United Kingdom between mothers from different ethnic groups with respect to their orientations and preferences regarding part-​time or full-​time employment, although the institutional framework of family policies was the same for all groups. The application of cultural ideas may also vary to a certain extent between the different regions of a country; this has been shown by Duncan (2005) in the United Kingdom, by Forsberg (1998) in Sweden, and by Buehler (1998) in Switzerland. Such regional distinctions may lead to differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior between disparate regions, which should be considered in the explanation of the differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior between countries. However, empirical research shows that in most advanced industrial societies, specific cultural ideas related to childcare and parents’ work-​childcare behavior are particularly popular in the population (Aboim 2010). The Relative Autonomy of Culture and Family Policy Institutions This section introduces the way in which this approach theorizes the relationship between culture and institutions, particularly family policy institutions. I define an institution—​with reference to the debate within historical institutionalism—​as a set of rules that frame the actions of social actors based on incentives and restrictions. The rules must be implemented (institutionalized) and legitimate. Compliance with the rules is reinforced with sanctions (Hall and Taylor 1996). Institutions rest on norms that determine what kinds of behaviors are expected within the boundaries set by the institution; they formulate the expectations of normality (Archer 1996; Hall 1993; Frericks 2012). For example, the norms on which institutional regulation of paid parental leave are based on what kind of work-​childcare behavior after childbirth secures them the full parental leave benefits. The contents of such norms are influenced by main cultural ideas in the society about “ideal” or “morally good” behavior. On this basis, family policy institutions frame people’s gendered work-​childcare behavior. It is important to consider that family policy is based on a set of institutions that frame different dimensions of the relationship between parents and their children. The focus here is on the institutional basis of direct family policies, according to Kamerman and Kahn (1979) (see also Frericks, this volume), which include institutional regulations toward publicly subsidized extrafamilial childcare, leave programs for parents of care-​dependent children, and income support for caring parents based on leave benefits or childcare allowance. The relationship between culture and institutions is a contested issue in welfare-​state research. Social scientists often neglect the role of culture in the analyses of social policy and its role in directing people’s behavior. Such authors argue that it is not possible to distinguish analytically between culture and institutions, because culture does not exist independently of institutions (for an overview, see Pfau-​Effinger 2005a). A main assumption of the theoretical approach introduced here is that culture is not simply an element of institutions, but may have an independent existence even though it generally

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interrelates with institutions. This approach draws on the theories of Max Weber (1976), David Lockwood (1964), and Margaret Archer (1996). It argues that cultural ideas about childcare and parents’ work-​childcare relationship on one hand and the restrictions and incentives of family policies on the other may vary relatively independently from each other, and therefore each of them can exert an autonomous influence on women’s work-​ childcare behavior as well (Pfau-​Effinger 1998, 2005a, 2021). The reason is that cultural ideas that are valued in the population of a specific country and family policy institutions differ in the time framework in which they develop. Cultural conflicts may lead to cultural change while welfare state institutions themselves remain stable. This is possible because institutions are not permanently harmonized with cultural change in the population. Instead, new cultural ideas can usually only enter into the norms of an institution when the institution is newly established or undergoes some fundamental change (based on paradigm change) (see Hall 1993). Therefore, cultural ideas can change, while the institutions remaining are based on the old ideas. Or else, it is also possible that political actors change an institution based on new ideas that they may have—​for example, adapted from the international level—​whereas the traditional cultural ideas in the population persist. Especially in times of apparent change in the gender arrangement, considerable discrepancies and contradictions may develop between the cultural and institutional levels. Therefore, instead of assuming uniform cultural and institutional conditions, the ways in which they are interrelated must be analyzed.5 The Role of the Relationship between Culture and Family Policy in Women’s Work-​Childcare Behavior This section introduces an approach to the relationship between women’s work-​ childcare behavior at the micro level and the aggregated behavior of women at the macro level, and it theorizes the ways in which culture and family policy institutions together can influence women’s work-​childcare behavior. Women are conceptualized here as actors who make their decisions in the complex societal context of culture, on one hand, and family policy institutions, on the other. A basic assumption here is that, as argued by Max Weber (1976), the prevailing cultural ideas in a society restrict how social actors perceive socioeconomic incentives and restrictions (see also Pfau-​Effinger 2005a; Thornton et al. 2001). Accordingly, I argue that individual women relate in their “cultural orientation” to specific cultural ideas about childcare and parents’ work-​childcare relationship. Women perceive the incentives and restrictions of family policies on the basis of their cultural orientation; these policies are mainly relevant

The relationship between culture and family policy can work in both directions; under certain conditions, cultural change can contribute to changes in family policy, and family policy reforms can contribute to cultural change. Both processes can be analyzed separately in the respective historical sequence and context in which they were embedded (Pfau-​Effinger 2004a, 2017). 5

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for them with regard to the resources that are offered to them to realize their cultural orientation. Since most women’s cultural orientations are influenced (but not determined) by those cultural ideas that are particularly relevant at the macro level of society, it can be assumed that women’s predominant work-​childcare behavior in a society is influenced by the main cultural ideas about childcare and parents’ work-​childcare relationship in this society and the degree to which family policy offers affordable resources to realize this cultural orientation. I have argued that culture and family policy institutions can vary relatively independently in the societal context for women’s work-​childcare behavior. Therefore, it is plausible to assume that they can interrelate in coherent or incoherent ways. This section therefore also includes theoretical reflections about the potential effects of coherent and incoherent interrelations between culture and family policy institutions on women’s work-​childcare behavior. In order to discuss in more detail how coherent and incoherent relations between culture and family policy institutions can affect women’s work-​childcare behavior, I will use two examples of cultural ideas about childcare and the work-​childcare of mothers of children under three. The first cultural framework supports the idea that these mothers are ideally fully employed, and the second one is based on the cultural idea that they ideally care for their children at home either full-​ or part-​time. The Role of a Coherent Context of Culture and Family Policy Institutions The relationship between culture and family policy at the macro level may be relatively coherent, since both support a similar type of women’s work-​childcare behavior. Family policy that generously supports public or publicly paid and affordable extrafamilial childcare offers the best conditions for the realization of a main cultural model based on the ideal of the fully employed mother. It is therefore plausible to assume that the share of mothers with children under three who are fully employed would be relatively high in the context of such a generous childcare policy. Another possibility is that the main cultural ideal at the macro level is based on the idea that mainly childcare at home with the child’s mother is the best form of care for children under three, and mothers therefore ideally would stay at home or work part-​ time. Women who share this cultural orientation would need financial resources to be able to afford the break in employment and the related loss of employment income. Family policies would support this work-​childcare behavior if they provided the necessary financial resources. Typical instruments include a generous childcare allowance, or generous pay for parental leave, a long duration of paid leave, and the option to combine the leave benefits with part-​time employment. It would be plausible to assume that in case there is such a coherent interrelation between culture and family policy, a relatively large percentage of women with children under three would stay at home in order to care for their children.

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The Role of an Incoherent Context of Culture and Family Policy Institutions Culture and family policy institutions together form a coherent unity only under particular conditions of time and space. Since culture is a factor that varies relatively independently from family policies, dissonances may arise between the cultural values to which a relevant share of women with children under three orient their work-​childcare behavior and the work-​childcare behavior that is supported by family policies. Especially in times of apparent change in the gender arrangement, considerable discrepancies and contradictions may develop between the cultural and institutional levels. As a consequence of such incoherent societal context, women’s work-​childcare behavior and employment biographies may deviate from their original orientations because external restrictions prevent the realization of their own ideas. It is also possible that the chances to realize cultural ideas differ between women on the basis of specific characteristics, such as differing educational levels, which may lead to differences in the work-​childcare behavior between women with lower and higher levels of education. However, I argue that it would be misleading to assume that resources that facilitate a specific work-​childcare behavior of women with care-​dependent children are only available due to family policies. Clearly, generous childcare policies of the welfare state that offer social rights and infrastructure for public or publicly paid childcare may offer the most reliable and highest-​quality childcare (Meyers and Gornick 2003). However, societies can also provide other sources that increase women’s options to realize the preferred work-​ childcare behavior in the socioeconomic environment beyond the welfare state. Empirical studies show, for example, that in many countries, childcare by grandparents covers substantial parts of the care for their grandchildren during the working week (Bordone et al., this volume). I argue that it is possible that under certain conditions a relatively large percentage of women realize the main cultural ideals about childcare and the work-​childcare relationship in using such informal family-​based or market-​based resources. Even if such resources may be less reliable and less supportive than public care provisions, and their use may support traditional structures of gender inequality, it is plausible to assume that many women use them to realize the main cultural ideals about childcare and the work-​ childcare relationship, if the family policy leaves substantial gaps in the provision, and if their use is generally culturally accepted. It is even possible that welfare state policies offer a low generosity of family policy just because such alternative socioeconomic resources are broadly available. Therefore, informal family-​based and market-​based resources that provide affordable childcare should be systematically included in the explanatory framework for women’s work-​childcare behavior. In the following section, I illustrate the role of such informal family-​based or market-​ based resources, again using the two examples of cultural ideas that can form the cultural basis of the work-​family behavior of women with children under three. In the first example, the cultural idea prevails in a society according to which mothers of children under three would ideally be fully integrated into formal employment.

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If family policies do not support women in realizing it, women may use family-​based resources like care by the children’s fathers or by members of the extended family in order to realize their cultural orientation. While the contribution of fathers to the care of their children during the working week is relatively low in most countries (Eydal and Rosgaard 2014), grandmothers provide substantial parts of the daily childcare for their grandchildren in many countries, with the consequence that the mothers can participate in the labor market. Usually, the caring role of grandparents is also widely culturally accepted in those countries (Jappens and Von Bavel 2012; Bordone et al., this volume). Childcare by paid childminders is a market-​based resource that women may use to realize their employment orientation if family policy is insufficient. It is usually only affordable for people of the upper and upper-​middle classes. However, many studies show that in countries in which the government has tolerated or even supported the development of a gray sector of low-​wage labor of female migrants, the share of families who hire a female migrant childminder as a substitute for maternal care at home is relatively high (Lutz 2018). These forms of informal family-​based and market-​based childcare are connected with specific problems and are, in part, precarious. Care by grandmothers during the working week is dependent on factors such as their health status and their motivation to care, and that they live close by. Also, if older women give up their employment to provide care for their grandchildren, this may cause financial problems for them. The employment of female migrant childminders, on the other hand, is often connected with precarious jobs and a high insecurity in the employment relationship for the care workers, and it re-​enforces social inequality among women (Williams, this volume). The second example relates to societies in which the main cultural ideas about childcare and parents’ work-​family relationship are based on the ideal of the caring mother who stays at home full-​time or part-​time in order to care for her child. If family policies are not sufficient to support women with financial resources that they need in order to finance their living during this period, it is possible that many women will use the male-​ breadwinner income of their partners as the main financial resource. However, this is only possible on a broad basis, wherein the traditional construction of the male-​breadwinner family is still available and culturally accepted, and it is possible for an average male wage earner to act as breadwinner. This construction can offer women in societies in which the main cultural ideas support the “caring mother” option to realize this cultural idea. However, this is a rather problematic form of financing for women, since it constitutes a form of personal dependency and contributes to the persistence of traditional forms of gender inequality. Summary and Discussion The theoretical approach argues that differences in the main cultural ideas related to childcare and the work-​childcare relationship in a society can contribute to the explanation of cross-​national differences in the work-​childcare behavior of women with care-​dependent

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children. If family policies support the realization of women’s cultural ideals, the chance is high that a relatively large percentage of women participate in employment on this cultural basis. The work-​childcare behavior of a relevant share of women may deviate from these cultural ideals if family policy does not offer sufficient resources. However, it is often neglected that advanced industrial societies may offer informal family-​based or market-​ based resources, which women may, to a certain extent, use as a functional equivalent if family policies do not cover their demand. It is therefore possible that a relevant share of women act in their work-​childcare behavior on the basis of the main cultural ideas about childcare and parents’ work-​childcare relationship, even if this is not supported by family policy. This chapter argues that the broad availability and cultural acceptance of informal family-​or market-​based resources therefore are another factor that should be included in the theoretical framework for the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior. I have evaluated the theoretical assumptions of a comparative case study, which aimed to explain cross-​national differences in the behavior patterns through which women combine employment and care of children under three. The study included six European countries in different regions (Denmark, Finland, [West] Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain) (Pfau-​Effinger 2014). The findings indicate that in Denmark, Italy, and Spain, a relatively high share of the population supports the cultural idea according to which formal day care is the best form of childcare for children under three, and that mothers of children under three are ideally fully employed. However, only the family policy of the Danish welfare state offers generous rights and infrastructure for affordable extrafamilial childcare, whereas the generosity of childcare policy is relatively low in Italy and Spain. Nevertheless, in all three countries a relatively high share of women with children under three act as fully employed mothers. In Italy and Spain, this is mainly possible with the childcare help of relatives and, to a lesser extent, low-​wage female migrant labor. (West) Germany, Poland, and Finland, on the other hand, demonstrate that a majority of people think that care within the family is the best basis for a good childhood for children under three, and that mothers of children ideally care for their own children at home. This cultural orientation plays an important role in explaining why, in these countries, a relatively large share of women stay at home or work part-​time when they have children under three. This is the case even in countries with a generous family policy that offers generous social rights to public or publicly financed childcare, such as Finland and Germany (Pfau-​Effinger 2014). Conclusion This chapter has argued that common approaches to the role of family policy for women’s work-​childcare behavior are sometimes problematic, since they tend to neglect the role of cultural ideas and do not sufficiently theorize the relationship between culture and family policy. It introduced a consistent and complex multilevel approach to theorize

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interrelations and tensions between culture and family policy institutions and how they combine to influence women’s work-​childcare behavior, and to theorize the causal mechanisms and processes in the multilevel system on which the joint effects of culture and family policy on women’s work-​childcare behavior are based. The theoretical basis of this approach is rooted in a tradition of sociological theorizing that goes back to Max Weber, David Lockwood, Walter Lepsius, and Margaret Archer. The main elements include a multilevel concept of culture that conceptualizes culture as potentially incoherent, contested, and changeable; a theoretical approach that conceptualizes both culture and institutions as relatively autonomous in their relationship; an approach that theorizes the role of family policy institutions together for the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s work-​childcare behavior; and theoretical assumptions about the role of informal family-​based and market-​based socioeconomic resources for women’s work-​childcare behavior in incoherent culture-​family policy contexts. This chapter has argued that the combination of these different theoretical elements is fruitful for a theoretical framework for the explanation of cross-​national differences in women’s employment. This approach can be applied in the analysis of dependent variables related to the gender division of labor, care, work-​childcare behavior, and social inequality. It would also be useful if future research would elaborate on the theoretical role of the meso level, which is also relevant because it plays a particular role in fathers’ decisions to care. Also, more comprehensive cross-​national comparative and historical studies would be needed to evaluate the theoretical assumptions and develop the theoretical approach further. It would also be useful to connect the theoretical approach with an intersectional perspective that combines a gender, social class, and ethnicity dimension of social inequality. References Aboim, S. 2010. “Gender Cultures and the Division of Labour in Contemporary Europe: A Cross-​National Perspective.” Sociological Review 50 (2): 171–​192. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1995. “Analytical Debates: Understanding the Relative Autonomy of Culture.” ProtoSociology 7: 35–​53. Archer, Margaret S. 1996. Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boeckmann, I., J. Misra, and M. Budig. 2014. “Cultural and Institutional Factors Shaping Mothers’ Employment and Working Hours in Postindustrial Countries.” Social Forces 93 (4): 1301–​1333. Brady, David, Agnes Blome, and Julie A. Kmec. 2019. “Work-​Family Reconciliation Policies and Women’s and Mothers’ Labor Market Outcomes in Rich Democracies.” Socio-​Economic Review 18 (1): 125–​161. Budig, Michelle, Joay Misra, and Irene Boeckmann. 2012. “The Motherhood Penalty in Cross-​National Perspective: The Importance of Work-​Family Policies and Cultural Attitudes.” Social Politics 19: 163–​193. Buehler, Elisabeth. 1998. “Economy, state or culture? Explanations for the regional variations in gender inequality in Swiss employment.” European Urban and Regional Studies 1: 27–​39. Buenning, Mareike, and Matthias Pollmann-​Schult. 2016. “Family Policies and Fathers’ Working Hours: Cross-​National Differences in the Paternal Labour Supply.” Work, Employment and Society 30 (2): 256–​274. Chou, Yueh-​ Ching, Birgit Pfau-​ Effinger, Teppo Kröger, and Costanzo Ranci. 2017. “Impact of Care Responsibilities on Women’s Employment: A Comparison between European and East Asian Welfare States.” European Societies 19 (2): 157–​177.

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Lesthaeghe, Ron and Karel Neels. 2002. “From the First to the Second Demographic Transition: An Interpretation of the Spatial Continuity of Demographic Innovation in France, Belgium and Switzerland.” European Journal of Population 18 (4): 325–​360. Lockwood, David. 1964. “Social integration and system integration.” In G.K. Zollschan and W. Hirsch (eds) Explorations in Social Change, 224–​257. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Lutz, Helma. 2018. “Care Migration: The Connectivity between Care Chains, Care Circulation and Transnational Social Inequality.” Current Sociology 20 (5): 387–​398. Mandel, H. 2009. “Configurations of Gender Inequality: The Consequences of Ideology and Public Policy.” British Journal of Sociology 60 (4): 693–​719. Marshall, Thomas H. 1964. Class, Citizenship and Social Development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meyers, Marcia and Janet C. Gornick. 2003. “Public or Private Responsibility? Early Childhood Education and Care, Inequality, and the Welfare State.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 34 (3): 379–​411. Misra, Joya, Michelle Budig, Irene Boeckmann. 2011. “Work-​Family Policies and the Effects of Children on Women’s Employment Hours and Wages.” Community, Work & Family 14 (2): 139–​157. Morgan, Kimberly J., and Kathrin Zippel. 2003. “Paid to Care: The Origins and Effects of Care Leave Policies in Western Europe.” Social Politics 10 (1): 49–​85. Niemistö C., J. Hearn, Carolyn Kehn, Annamari Tuori. 2021. “Motherhood 2.0: Slow Progress for Career Women and Motherhood within the ‘Finnish Dream.” Work, Employment and Society 35 (4): 696–​715. Ollier-​Malaterre, Ariane, and Annie Foucreault. 2017. “Cross-​National Work-​Life Research: Cultural and Structural Impacts for Individuals and Organizations.” Journal of Management 43 (1): 111–​136. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 1993. “Modernisation, Culture and Part-​Time Employment—​The Example of Finland and Germany.” Work, Employment and Society 7 (3): 383–​410. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 1998. “Gender Cultures and the Gender Arrangement—​A Theoretical Framework for Cross-​National Comparisons on Gender.” Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences 11 (2): 147–​166. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2004a. Development of Culture, Welfare States and Women’s Employment in Europe. (e-​book version 2017.) New York: Taylor & Francis. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2004b. “Historical Paths of the Male Breadwinner Family Model—​Explanation for Cross-​National Differences.” British Journal of Sociology 55 (3): 377–​399. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2005a. “Culture and Welfare State Policies: Reflections on a Complex Interrelation.” Journal of Social Policy 34 (1): 1–​18. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2005b. “Welfare State Policies and the Development of Care Arrangements.” European Societies 7 (2): 321–​347. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2009. “The approach of the ‘arrangement of work and welfare’ to the cross-​national analyses of formal and informal work.” In Formal and Informal Work in Europe: The Hidden Work Regime, edited by Birgit Pfau-​Effinger, Luis Flaquer, and Per H. Jensen, 193–​214. New York: Routledge. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2012. “Women’s Employment in Institutional and Cultural Context.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 32 (9): 530–​543. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2014. “Explaining differences in childcare and women’s employment across six European “gender arrangements.” In The Transformation of Care in European Societies, edited by M. Leon, 83–​103. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2020. “Culture as Variable in the Analysis of Welfare State Institutions.” In Leading Social Policy Analysis from the Front. Essays in Honour of Wim van Oorschot, Laenen, edited by T. Laenen, B. Meulemann, A. Otto, F. Roosma, W. van Lancker, 181–​191. Leuven: KU Leuven. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit, and Nicola Schwindt. 2015. “Measuring Women’s Labour Market Integration—​The Issue of Adequate Indicators.” In Local Welfare Policy Making in European Cities, edited by Dagmar Kutsar and Mirjo Kuronen, 17–​33. New York: Springer. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit, and Meike Smidt. 2011. “Differences in Women’s Employment Patterns and Family Policies: Eastern and Western Germany.” Community, Work & Family 14 (2): 217–​232. Saxonberg, S., and D. Szelewa. 2007. “The Continuing Legacy of the Communist Legacy.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 14 (3): 351–​379. Saraceno, Chiara, and Wolfgang Keck. 2011. “Towards an Integrated Approach for the Analysis of Gender Equity in Policies Supporting Paid Work and Care Responsibilities.” Demographic Research 25 (11): 371–​406.

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Schober, P., and J. Scott. 2012. “Maternal Employment and Gender Role Attitudes: Dissonance among British Men and Women in the Transition to Parenthood.” Work, Employment & Society 26 (3): 514–​530. Smelser, Neil J. 1962. Theory of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Press. Sprengholz, Maximilian, Anna Wieber, and Elke Holst. 2020. “Gender Identity and Wives’ Labor Market Outcomes in West and East Germany between 1983 and 2016.” Socio-​Economic Review, December 21, 2020 (published ahead of print). https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​ser/​mwaa​048. Thévenon, O. (2013). “Drivers of Female Labour Force Participation in the OECD.” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, no. 145. Paris: OECD Publishing. http://​doi.org/​10.1787/​ 5k46c​vrgn​ms6-​en. Thornton, Arland, William G. Axinn, T. Fricke, and D. F. Alwin. 2001. “Values and Beliefs in the Lives of Children and Families.” In The Well-​Being of Children and Families, edited by Arland Thornton, 215–​243. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Yerkes, M.A. 2013. “Choice or Constraint? Women’s Weekly Working Hours in Comparative Perspective.” Sociologica: Problemas e Praticas 72: 9–​30 Weber, Max. 1976. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft [Economy and society]. 5th ed.Tübingen: Mohr.

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INTRODUCTION TO SECTION 

3

The Role of Ideas and Politics in the Development of Family Policy Birgit Pfau-​Effinger

According to theorizing in comparative welfare state research, ideas frame the ways in which political actors define and perceive problems and possible solutions (Béland 2009; Campbell 1998). In the politics of family policies, the roles of ideas and ideational change are particularly relevant. A main reason for this relevancy is that the cultural basis of family policy is often contested, since more traditional and innovative cultural ideas about the “ideal” gender division of labor and “ideal” ways to organize care provision compete and are renegotiated (Pfau-​Effinger 2005). The aim of this section is to understand the role of the ideational basis of politics for family policy development and for cross-​national differences in its development. The section also analyzes the complex mechanisms and processes on which politics and ideas interact in their role in policy development’s explanation. In addition, the section addresses the role of cultural values and attitudes for idea development in the political process. The first chapter of the section, written by Patricia Boling, notes that many comparative studies about family polices found that Nordic, social-​democratic countries have developed the most effective, generous family support policies in the world. The chapter

aims to answer the question of why most other welfare states in advanced industrial countries do not have such generous family policies. Boling argues that we can better understand cross-​national differences in family policy development by paying attention to politics and cultural ideas that limit the family political innovation space. The chapter uses the evolution of US work-​family policies since the Great Depression, which is characterized by a low level of generosity in work-​family policies, as a case study to illustrate the utility of such an approach. Based on her case study, Boling concludes that an approach that aims to explain cross-​national differences in family policies with politics and ideas helps us understand specific US family policy developments. Timo Fleckenstein and Samuel Mohun Himmelweit argue that a focus on cross-​ national explanations for family policy change may obscure the variation in that revision, which requires examination of the political dynamics of ideational modification and the change’s content. This chapter addresses this gap, providing an overview of the politics of family policy ideas, with a particular focus on recent change variations. The authors introduce a comparative study’s findings that include welfare states in Scandinavian countries, Continental Europe, liberal countries, East Asia, and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The study highlights how the relatively homogenous “old” politics of ideas has given way to a variety of “new” politics, which vary regarding the policy change’s extent and direction. Based on the findings, the authors conclude that a focus on the politics of ideas can help us understand cross-​national differences in family policy reform and provide a perspective for further research. Ito Peng and Alex Payette focus on the role of Confucianism for cross-​national differences in contemporary work-​family policies in East and Southeast Asian countries. The policies of these states, which represent the “Confucian” welfare regime, are traditionally characterized by family policies that are strongly based on family obligations for care and a weak welfare state. However, more recently, many of these countries have begun to strengthen the role of welfare states to support families’ care needs. To answer their research question, the authors compare current work-​family policies in China, Singapore, and Japan, using a similar system design (MSSD). They find that these countries are charting distinct family policy paths by “handling” Confucian ideas differently. According to their findings, the variances can be explained by these countries’ policy legacies and social and institutional contexts. Chiara Saraceno’s chapter focuses on how welfare states have used the social investment concept to reframe the family and gender arrangements that are supported and expected by family policies, as well as examining the role of family policies within the social policy package. Saraceno’s analytical framework relates to the approach of Beland (2009), according to which ideas are important in the identification and construction of social problems that enter the policy agenda. The author concludes that the diversity of functions and policy instruments envisaged by the social investment approach offers both policy advocacy actors and policymakers the possibility to selectively adapt the social

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investment discourse. Regarding gender equality and childcare outcomes, the chapter argues that possible tensions between the expectations concerning good mothering and the “adult worker” model are likely to be strengthened. Jing Guo and Neil Gilbert’s chapter examines the extent to which individuals’ attitudes toward government responsibility for childcare provisions are influenced by personal characteristics and the social contexts in which these attitudes are formed. Their analysis draws on data from a random sample of 24,240 respondents in 12 countries that are included in the European Social Survey (ESS) round 4 (2008–​2009). The analytic framework focuses on individual-​level factors related to self-​interest, perceptions of the current care available, and egalitarian ideology, as well as on the societal context reflected in the alternative institutional arrangements for social welfare represented by the countries clustered into different welfare state regimes. The findings indicated that among the individual-​level variables, although self-​interest factors were significant, egalitarian ideology had the relatively strongest impact on respondents’ support levels for government childcare provisions. At the institutional level, the introduction of welfare regimes increased the proportion of explained variance well beyond that accounted for by individual-​level factors. References Béland, Daniel. 2009. “Gender, Ideational Analysis and Social Policy.” Social Politics 16 (4): 558–​581. Campbell, John L. 1998. “Institutional Analyses and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy.” Theory and Society 27 (3): 377–​409. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2005. “Welfare State Policies and the Development of Care Arrangements.” European Societies 7 (2): 321–​347.

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C H A P T E R

11

The Politics of Work-​Family Policies

Patricia Boling

Abstract Many comparative studies about family polices have found that the Nordic socialdemocratic countries have developed the most effective, generous family support policies in the world. The chapter asks why most other welfare states in the advanced industrial countries do not have such generous family policy. It argues that we can better understand cross-national differences in the development of family policies if we pay attention to politics and cultural ideas that limit the space for family political innovation. On the basis of a case study on the evolution of work-family policies in the United States since the Great Depression, which is characterized by a low level of generosity in work-family policies, the chapter illustrates the utility of such an approach. The author concludes that an approach that aims to explain cross-national differences in family policies with politics and ideas helps us understand the specific development in the United States. Key Words: American family policy, work-family policies, social policies in socialdemocratic countries, cross-national differences in welfare states, childcare, path dependency, political analysis of work-family policies,

This chapter argues that we can better understand policy outcomes if we pay attention to politics. If we simply look for the countries that have adopted well-​designed and generous early childhood education and childcare policies, paid maternity, paternity and parental leaves, flexible hours, job protections, and fiscal support for families with babies and small children, then we are likely to take some of the countries of Northern Europe as our role models. Indeed, much of the comparative work on work-​family policies has taken the approach that “we should be more like Sweden.”1 But identifying countries with excellent policies is just a starting point. A realistic consideration of how best to support working families must consider the criteria by which one judges policies, and what policies are politically feasible in different countries, given

For examples of work in this vein, see Mahon 2002; Crittenden 2001; Gornick and Meyers 2003, 2009; Bettio and Plantenga 2004; Stone 2007; Sleebos 2003; Yamaguchi and Higuchi 2008; Sato and Takeishi 2008; Yamaguchi 2009; Gerson 2010. 1

their respective political organizations, histories, and political economies. Even if all scholars agreed that the social-​democratic countries have developed the most effective, generous family support policies in the world, that doesn’t mean that other countries can simply take a cutting off their plants, graft it to native stock, and expect it to flourish in quite different political soils. No doubt other wealthy countries do a better job of supporting working parents than the United States, but those examples are not very helpful. Policy approaches that rely on universal benefits funded by high-​taxing welfare states that have substantial middle-​class support through dominant left-​leaning parties and powerful labor unions are unlikely to be supported in a fragmented state with strongly pro-​business interests, weak organized labor, and a middle-​of-​the-​road party regularly trading office with a staunchly small-​state, fiscally conservative right-​wing one. Instead of asking which countries have the best work-​family policies, I ask, “What do we need to know about the state’s political and policymaking processes that set the horizons for what policies can be imagined, introduced to its policy agenda, passed into law, and enforced with reasonable vigilance?” I argue that politics matters: passing generous work-​family policies requires political support, including strategic alliances among left-​wing political parties, organized labor, women’s groups, pro-​child and anti-​poverty groups—​and these are not easy to accomplish everywhere. Political institutions, policymaking regimes, veto players, and historical factors that political scientists consider under the heading “path dependency” matter for what can be accomplished. If one thread of work-​family policy work urges laggards to emulate the social-​ democratic countries, another common pattern in comparative work is the tendency to focus on one or two variables that seem to explain policy variation, and choose cases to test or illustrate such variation. For example, many scholars focus on the role of women’s movements to explain variation in policies of interest to women, like abortion, work-​family, domestic violence, and anti-​discrimination policies (for examples, see Weldon 2002, 2011). Others focus on religious values to explain the existence of familialistic policy regimes (see Esping-​Andersen 1997, 1999; Castles 2003; Brewster and Rindfuss 2000; Caldwell and Schindlmayr 2003; Newman 2008), or focus on skills regimes and the varieties of capitalism literature to explain how labor market practices undercut official work-​family policies (Soskice 2005, Estévez-​Abe 2006, 2008; Rosenbluth 2006). Of course, a lot of excellent research on work-​family issues takes note of variations in institutional arrangements (e.g., federal vs. unitary, presidential vs. parliamentary, rules related to elections and campaign finance), power resources (the relative power of business, organized labor, women’s groups, other powerful interest groups, the configuration of political parties, and multi-​vs. two-​party systems, see Esping-​Andersen 1990, 2009; O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999; Palley and Shdaimah 2014), the role of values and

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ideology in the policymaking context or process, and the importance of historical starting points and timing (Hacker 2002, 2005; Pierson 2004; Streek and Thelen 2005). My aim here is to build on and contribute to this rich and nuanced literature by arguing that one must pay attention to politics if one wants to understand the patterns that have emerged and the problems that some countries have with enacting and supporting generous work-​family policies. My hope is to encourage colleagues in political science and cognate disciplines like sociology and history to attend to the interplay between political, economic, cultural, and social explanations of policy adoption and change. Having made the case for why we need a political explanation for why different countries pursue the work-​family policies they do, I summarize several literatures that are relevant to comparing work-​family policies across several states.2 After this brief literature review, I examine the evolution of American work-​family support policies since the 1930s and provide a politically attuned analysis of them. Basic Approaches Many policies relevant to working parents are in the realm of industrial relations or workplace governance. We cannot understand how advanced industrialized countries develop family support policies without thinking about the organization of labor markets. Labor markets cover a wide range of features: skills regimes, hiring practices, standard work hours, minimum wages, paid vacations, maternity, paternity and parental leaves, unemployment rates and compensation, anti-​discrimination laws, and even receipt of fringe benefits like health insurance (for recent data on standard work weeks, vacation days, and paid leaves, see OECD 2020). Mobile liberal labor markets (abbreviated by many as LME, for “liberal market economies”) that value general skills are more welcoming to mothers than coordinated market economies that prize firm-​specific skills. In the former, workers have more portable skills (like college degrees or vocational licenses), which makes the costs of interrupting their careers cheaper both for them and for their employers. Such labor markets can also provide a functional equivalent to publicly supported childcare systems, since affordable childcare is readily available in laxly regulated economies where there are lots of people who will do care work for low wages (Estévez-​Abe 2006, 82; Esping-​Andersen 1999, 56–​57). In firm-​specific skills regimes like Japan, on the other hand, workers who interrupt their careers (like women who take time off to raise children) create expenses and problems for their employers, and are often sidelined from—​or never hired for—​career track jobs (Estévez-​Abe 2006; Rosenbluth 2010).

2 Interested readers can pursue a fuller treatment of this in my book, The Politics of Work-​Family Policies: Comparing Japan, France, Germany and the United States (Boling 2015).

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We also need to think about political economy from the point of view of powerful political interests. Both big business and organized labor are major voices in political decision-​making in most countries, and figure into any approach that takes power resources seriously (Esping-​Andersen 1990, 1999, 2009; O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999; Palley and Shdaimah 2014). Other voices include major political parties and well-​ organized groups with a stake in work-​family policies, including service providers, feminists and anti-​feminists, religious groups, children’s rights advocates, groups that advocate for family-​friendly policies, experts, think tanks, and relevant bureaucrats and policy specialists. The institutional structures that govern policymaking, such as electoral rules, parliamentary vs. presidential systems, majoritarian winner-​take-​all electoral competitions vs. proportional representation ones, or federal vs. unitary governments, are important too. How many veto points there are in the legislative process has a lot to do with the institutional competence of the government—​that is, its ability to pass and enforce new policies. In federal systems, one must attend to the interaction between the national and subnational governments, the ambit of power and authority of each, the role of local experimentation and innovation (or stonewalling and resistance), and so on. Where and how countries start down the road of supporting families limits their range of motion further down the road. Policy choices have consequences, both in terms of those who stand to benefit or lose from a policy change and the committees, advisers, ministries, and agencies that have developed expertise and budgetary control over the policy area. Path dependency is crucial for understanding how policymaking choices are constrained by paths already taken. Attending to the path-​dependent character of work-​ family policy development can help us understand why market solutions and tax payments have dominated policy discourse in the United States.3 I propose that a nuanced approach to understanding why different states adopt differing policies to support working families should take into account half a dozen lines of analysis, all of which I have found valuable. I outline these below, then move to an examination of American work-​family policies that employs these approaches: 1. Political economy (the organization of the labor market, sometimes typified as liberal market economies vs. coordinated market economies) 2. Power resources (the powerful interest group players and major political parties that influence elections and policymaking) 3. Political institutions and electoral systems 4. Path dependency

3 For good work in this vein, see Skocpol 1992; Steinmo 1993; Immergut 1992; Hacker 2002; Thelen 2004; and Pierson 2004.

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In addition, though it does not appear in my discussion above, most comparative policy scholars attend to arguments about political and religious values: 5. Political ideology (a preference for particular political values or outcomes) 6. Cultural and religious values, such as Catholicism, Confucianism, or the assumption that intensive mothering is critical for child development With this set of approaches in mind, let me turn to an examination of core work-​family support policies in the United States. The Evolution of Work-​Family Policies in the United States US policies are premised on the notion that childrearing and work-​family conflicts are the responsibility of families and individuals, best left to the private realm of familial choice and responsibility and market-​provided services, with little or no assistance from the state. American family support policies draw on deep-​rooted values and policy repertoires that include a strong presumption of personal responsibility; notions of deservingness that are tied to class, race, and gender; and a preference for modest and indirect government spending, often by using the tax code. Means-​Tested Approaches to Work-​Family Support It is apparent from Table 11.1 that American work-​family support policies are quite modest. The major policy areas are divided into two main tracks, means-​tested vs. universal policies, or ones based on tax expenditures. Only families that fall below an income threshold qualify for means-​tested policies, which often are regarded with suspicion by the public, especially when media framing fosters such attitudes. The conventional wisdom is: “If you are poor enough to need help raising your kids, you must be lazy and improvident, either because you didn’t get the skills you need or you aren’t working hard enough.” Poor people are blamed for being dependent on the state. Crystallized here are values like independence, merit, hard work and choice, and ultimately respect for the market system in which people make choices and accept consequences (Gilens 1999; Fraser and Gordon 1997). Universal Approaches and Tax Expenditures The other track includes policies that apply to all, and those that provide benefits by using tax credits and deductions. Usually, tax expenditures are set up to benefit those who earn enough that they owe the federal government income taxes. The credit or deduction allows the taxpayer to keep some of the money owed to the government for a specific purpose, like helping pay for childcare services. Except in cases where the government refunds the credit to taxpayers with no tax liabilities, they are less redistributive than outright payments or subsidies. The United States often uses tax expenditures to accomplish

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Table 11.1  Summary of US work-​family reconciliation policies; () =​adoption date Means-​tested policies

Universal or tax expenditures

Family allowances Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF, 1996). Benefits are means-​tested, with amounts determined by the states. Preceded by Aid to Dependent Families (ADC, 1935), which was renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1962. Work hours/​paid vacation Forty-​hour standard work week, no OT for multiple jobs. Ten days paid vacation (public holidays only) per year. Family leaves Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA, 1993), guarantees 12 weeks unpaid job-​protected leave. Eight states and District of Columbia have since adopted brief paid parental leaves, as have some employers. Childcare and early childhood education Head Start (1965)

Child Tax Credit (1997); Child & Dependent Care Tax Credit (1954).

Child Care Development Fund (1991)

Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (similar to the above, FSAs offer modest tax savings on care-​related expenses, but only for those who owe taxes).

social policy goals, as it is congenial to the widespread preference for limited government welfare spending. The official maximum hours in the United States is 40 hours a week. Many people cannot find jobs that pay them enough to support their families, or that will offer them full-​time hours, and resort to working multiple jobs, sometimes piecing together multiple part-​time jobs that do not offer fringe benefits, like health insurance. So long as workers do not exceed 40 hours work per week in a given job, they do not receive overtime pay. The United States is practically unique among wealthy countries in not requiring paid vacation time over the two weeks of national holidays that everyone is granted. This is also true of its 12-​week family leave policy: almost all other nations provide some kind of paid parenting leave. Since the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 does not grant American workers any pay, it is difficult for many low-​paid workers to take more than a few days off when a baby is born or adopted. So how did the United States arrive at these policy approaches?

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Racialized Opposition to Welfare Policies: Social Security and Aid to Dependent Children In response to the Great Depression, the United States enacted the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program as part of the Social Security Act (SSA) of 1935. The SSA gave working men and women a pension upon retirement, though many jobs done primarily by women (particularly Black women) were excluded from coverage, including clerical and sales work, teaching and nursing, agricultural work, and domestic and personal service (Mink 1995; Glenn 2012). It also paid a lump-​sum death benefit to survivors of insured workers, and offered public assistance to children under age 16 who did not have “breadwinning parental support and who continued to live with a relative engaged in their full-​time care” (Mink 1995, 130). But Social Security provisions treated women differently depending on their reasons for being single mothers: widows received pension support as an entitlement, without having to show a need to be paid, whereas the ADC program benefitted poor children whose mothers were staying home to raise them only if they could prove need and demonstrate that they were providing their children a wholesome home environment (Mink 1995, 137). Indeed, in order to ensure that southern states would back the Social Security Act, administering the ADC was left up to the states, allowing them to exercise discretion in implementing the policies. They often did this in ways that discriminated against or excluded African Americans. The pattern of passing national legislation premised on half-​ hearted or nonexistent funding and implementation at the state level reflects the importance of courting state support in the decentralized American federal system, as well as the fact that race was a sticking point for southern legislators. They wanted policies like ADC to be administered at the state level so they could make rules that would insure that Black mothers would have to work at low-​paid jobs as domestics or agricultural workers to support themselves and their children. As part of this discretion over how to administer the ADC, many states treated illegitimacy as evidence of mothers’ (especially African American mothers’) failure to provide an adequate moral environment for their children (Mink 1995, 144–​145; Gilens 1999, 105). Further, state discretion over funding and eligibility rules allowed many southern states to spend far less than the national average of $13 per child per month in 1940: payments to Black children in Arkansas were only $3.52, and in South Carolina just over $4 per child (Gilens 1999, 105). In addition, ADC and other New Deal programs institutionalized distinctions between male earners and female dependents. Unemployment insurance and old age pensions were funded through payroll taxes and paid out as a matter of established right, with no requirement to demonstrate need. In contrast, programs like ADC were viewed as helping women in their capacity as wives of deceased workers or mothers of children living in poverty without the support of a wage-​earning father. Claims brought under the

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means-​tested, feminized tier of welfare benefits were more likely to be scrutinized and claimants viewed as less deserving than those who “earned” their pensions by paying into the system, even though pensions were also redistributive welfare payments aimed at helping people avoid poverty and preserve their dignity. The consequence is that funds to pay for pensions have largely been immune from political attack and budget cuts, while funds for programs that benefit women—​ADC and its policy heirs, AFDC and TANF (Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Temporary Aid to Needy Families, respectively)—​ have often been eviscerated by opponents and subjected to budget cuts. In particular, ADC/​AFDC has long been a lightning rod for public disapproval. The program grew slowly from the late 1930s through the mid-​1960s, then nearly tripled in size between 1965 and 1975, from a program that benefitted 2.2% to one that served 6.4% of all American families. Its budget also mushroomed, growing from $10 billion in 1965 to $27 billion in 1975, although average payments declined significantly over this period, with assistance spread more thinly to cover more people (Gilens 1999, 19). As AFDC increased in size, it also began to serve a larger percentage of African Americans.4 The civil rights movement and urban riots of the mid-​1960s made apparent the poverty and discrimination faced by Blacks. It also led to the racialization of poverty in news media depictions. Martin Gilens argues that opposition to welfare (understood as cash payments to able-​bodied adults) among Americans is related to media coverage in the mid-​1960s that depicted undeserving poor people as mostly Black and unwilling to work to support themselves and their children. Even though African Americans have never been a majority of AFDC recipients, the media began to publish and broadcast stories that portrayed poverty and problems with anti-​poverty programs as issues particularly affecting Blacks in America’s inner cities. Largely because of the construction of Blacks as lazy and undeserving in media portrayals and public discourse, many Whites began to reject the story that welfare payments are temporary assistance that allows people who have hit a rough patch to get back on their feet, instead seeing welfare as a trap that keeps people down by undercutting their desire to work hard (Gilens 1999, 172). Depictions of welfare recipients as Black, lazy, not working, and partaking of a “culture of welfare” related to sexual promiscuity, drug use, teenage and out-​of-​wedlock births, and welfare scamming were underscored by a handful of influential books that argued that welfare sets up perverse incentives for recipients to avoid marriage and keep having children in order to increase welfare payments (Murray 1984; Mead 1986; also see Fraser and Gordon 1997, who critique this literature).

4 In the 1930s, about 12% of recipients of ADC assistance were Black. The largest proportion of Black families receiving AFDC was 42% in 1973, falling to about 35% in 1995 (Gilens 1999, 106).

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By the 1990s, the notion that the state should support mothers to stay home and raise their own children was no longer taken for granted, as working mothers became a staple of middle-​and working-​class America. When AFDC was replaced by Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) in 1996, the notion that children deserve to be cared for by their mothers was abandoned altogether: the new law required all mothers to work to support their children. There is now a lifetime limit of five years of cash assistance, and after that mothers are expected to earn enough to support their families. The passage of TANF was the origin of state-​level “welfare-​to-​work” programs. In addition to the cash payments provided by AFDC and TANF, other core work-​ family policies—​childcare, tax payments and parental leaves—​were also shaped by concerns about race, class, and gender. We turn next to the development of childcare. Childcare Responses to Emergencies: The Great Depression and World War II The first national-​level childcare policies were developed in response to the Great Depression in the 1930s. In response to widespread poverty and unemployment, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA, which later became the Works Progress Administration, WPA) set up some 1,900 Emergency Nursery Schools (ENS) as a job creation program. At their peak, the schools served about 75,000 children (Michel 1999, 119). Their number had shrunk to 944 schools by 1942, just as the need to develop childcare services for the children of defense workers was becoming urgent with the onset of American involvement in World War II. The 1941 Lanham Act provided federal funds for community needs in war-​boom areas, including childcare centers. Congress appropriated extra funds to build childcare centers in 1943, citing their crucial role in recruiting and retaining women for industrial jobs. By spring of 1944, day-​care center enrollments were rising rapidly, reaching a peak in July 1944 with 129,357 children enrolled in 3,102 centers (Tuttle 1995, 96–​99). The need for childcare to enable women to work in wartime industries was also met by several private corporations that set up nursery facilities near factories, demonstrating the ability of private employers to provide quality center-​based childcare services when faced with the need to accommodate large numbers of essential workers (Tuttle 1995; Michel 1999). In 1942 the federal government offered $400,000 in seed money to the US Office of Education and the Children’s Bureau to establish Extended School Services (ESS) for school-​age children of working mothers.5 ESS programs operated from roughly 6:30 am until 6:30 pm, covering summer vacations and in some cases Saturdays. In mid-​1943

5 In addition to the initial seed money from the federal government, which expired in 1943, the ESS program was financed from parents’ fees, contributions from community foundations, school districts, state school boards, and Lanham Act money.

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the Office of Education estimated that 320,000 children were being served (Tuttle 1995, 104). The ESS programs were well-​publicized, conducted in an innovative, do-​it-​yourself spirit, and offered extended-​hours care and wrap-​around services (meals, healthcare) for children from ages six to twelve. The varied programs established to address the need to care for children so their mothers could work in defense industries during World War II demonstrates that when women’s work is deemed essential, state and private actors can be mobilized to meet childcare needs. Mid-​20th-​Century Developments in Childcare Middle-​class women did not take an active interest in pushing for better childcare policies in the postwar period, making it seem as though childcare was primarily an issue for working-​class and low-​income women. Indeed, hardly anyone articulated childcare as an enriching experience for “normal” children from “functional” families, even among advocates for early childhood education (Michel 1999, 190). The main rationale the federal agencies interested in childcare found for pursuing childcare policies was “as a support for working-​class and low-​income mothers,” a move that drowned out the notion that childcare should be “a universal provision linked to women’s right to work” and reinforced the class-​and race-​based divisions among wage-​earning mothers (Michel 1999, 191). As childcare came to be defended as a solution for juvenile delinquency, child neglect and inadequate mothering among working-​class and poor families, it became harder to argue that childcare and early childhood education should be services that everyone needs and uses, like public schools, hobbling political support for childcare in the United States. In terms of designing childcare policy for the middle class, a more promising development was the change in the US tax code in 1954 to allow working adults to deduct up to $600 for childcare so long as its purpose was to permit the taxpayer to be employed, a move Sonya Michel (1999, 205–​206) deems the most significant breakthrough in childcare policy in the 1950s. It also represented the single largest federal expenditure for childcare. The proportion of mothers with children under age six in the paid labor force rose from 30% in 1960 to nearly 60% in 1991. Although the number of childcare slots also grew, they did not keep up with demand: in 1990, only 38% of children under age five whose mothers worked for pay were attending childcare centers. Another 20% were cared for by home day-​care providers, and a third were cared for by relatives or unrelated caregivers at home. The quality of care in centers and family day-​care homes was often poor, due in part to the fact that without government subsidies, families were left to find care that they could afford on their salaries. Wages for childcare providers were low, and few home-​ based care providers included the social costs of employment (e.g., contributions to Social Security, health insurance, or paid vacation days) in their hourly fees. Weak or nonexistent

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regulation and credentialing from the states and federal government did not help the situation (Michel 1999, 229, 236–​237). Struggling over Universal Childcare and the Growing Dominance of Means-​Tested Public Care In 1965 the federal government initiated the Head Start program, a preschool program that was intended to help three-​to five-​year-​old children from poor families develop skills that would prepare them for kindergarten and school. Early Head Start extended the coverage of the Head Start program to children from birth to age three in 1995, when it was proposed and passed under the Clinton administration. Both programs were and have remained small: Head Start served 628,262 children in 2020–​2021, and Early Head Start had an enrollment of 184,962 for that year (Office of Head Start 2022a, 2022b). In contrast to the part-​day schedule and educational mission of Head Start in its early years, both Head Start and Early Head Start now provide longer hours of care that enable mothers to work. On one notable occasion, the United States managed to mobilize organized interests and congressional sponsors to pass comprehensive childcare legislation that would have offered universal childcare services and transcended the anti-​poverty, means-​tested approach of much legislation in this area. This exceptional law was the Comprehensive Child Development Act (CCDA) of 1971, a bill that would have provided childcare services to a broad range of families. Under the CCDA, low-​income families would have received free childcare, and others would have been charged on a sliding scale. A broad group of supporters, including feminists, labor leaders, civil rights and welfare activists, and early childhood educators argued that it would have a positive effect on racism and child development, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. This was a striking accomplishment, given that debate over the measure was polarized between feminists and progressives, who demanded 24-​hour day-​care centers and argued that childcare facilities should be seen as fundamental public services like libraries and public schools, and conservatives who argued that universal childcare would “Sovietize” American youth. In the context of bitter struggles at the time over the use of busing to racially integrate the public schools, anxiety about creating a public service that would mix young children of different races was a subtext in the debate about the CCDA. Then-​president Richard Nixon vetoed the bill. In his veto message he did not openly discuss race, relying instead on more acceptable rhetoric about preserving the American family and opposing increased government services (Michel 1999, 248, 250–​251). But clearly racial bias, stereotyping, and anxiety about racial mixing among young children thread through debates about family policy in the United States. The issue took on particular salience in 2020 as protests and discussions insisted that Americans must recognize its systemic racism in the aftermath of several egregious acts of police brutality toward African Americans.

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Dismay about the “childcare crisis” stemming from the burgeoning number of working mothers and lack of high-​quality childcare pushed childcare onto the national agenda again in 1987, when the “Act for Better Child Care” (ABC) was introduced in Congress to address three critical issues: availability, affordability, and quality of services. The ABC would have set up a federally funded infrastructure for childcare delivery across the nation and required states to comply with minimum standards (Klein 1992, 41). But it did not pass, and the law that did eventually pass in 1990, the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (commonly known as the Child Care and Development Fund, CCDF) accomplished much less than the ABC set out to do. Funding levels were lower than initially called for, and “choice” with respect to childcare providers soon became a mantra: childcare providers of all kinds—​religious, voluntary, for-​profit, and home care—​could receive CCDF money to subsidize childcare services (Klein 1992, 53–​55). National standards for quality were abandoned, and states were given the discretion to set their own standards so long as they covered prescribed health and safety issues. The groups that lobbied for this law (the Alliance for Better Child Care, a broad coalition consisting of child welfare groups, labor unions, early childhood professionals, and the Children’s Defense Fund) had to make deep compromises over principles and financial support in order to pass it (Michel 1999; Klein 1992). Since 2000, CCDF has supported care for between 1.32 million (2017) and 1.75 million (2000) children, with numbers decreasing in recent years. Most CCDF users must pay part of their children’s childcare fees, with co-​payments on average about 6% of their monthly income. They receive vouchers from the government to pay for the rest, which must be redeemed at licensed centers (attended by 75% of recipient children) or home day cares (21% of children). The rest are cared for in the child’s home or group homes (CLASP 2011; Office of Child Care 2019). The program has never been well funded, and only covers about 15% of all children who are eligible under federal income standards (Office of Child Care 2017). In line with the erosion of public support for AFDC that began in the 1960s, the public and members of Congress favored job training and workfare programs as ways to keep unmarried Black mothers from receiving AFDC benefits (Michel 1999, 244). But such programs depended on the availability of childcare. The need to provide more childcare for poor women on AFDC (and then Temporary Aid to Needy Families, TANF) helped erode attempts to design a universal childcare program aimed at providing high-​quality childcare for all working parents, as the Comprehensive Child Development Act and the Act for Better Child Care proposed to do. Indeed, over time federal support for childcare gradually came to be seen as a linchpin of the country’s anti-​welfare policy. The move in this direction accelerated with the decision to replace AFDC with TANF in 1996. TANF eliminated entitlements for poor mothers and their children, established a lifetime cap of five years for payments, and expected the states to encourage single mothers to enter the labor force. Central to TANF’s welfare-​to-​work orientation was the

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expectation that mothers would work to support themselves and their children. As women transitioned off of welfare and into the workforce, savings in monthly TANF assistance payments were available for states to use to provide subsidies to help pay for childcare services. As a result, funding for TANF has moved fluidly between cash assistance and support for childcare since the late 1990s (Lynch 2016). Tax Expenditures for the Middle Class At the same time that AFDC, TANF, and CCDF were moving the United States to consider childcare a strategy for encouraging women to leave welfare and find jobs to support themselves and their children, middle-​class parents were increasingly left to rely on private alternatives, leading to a widening gap between publicly supported childcare services for the poor and reliance on private, market-​based care for the middle class and wealthy. Increased use of tax credits played a key role in fostering the privatization of childcare, with the “broadening of tax relief to individual parents through the child care credit” from the mid-​1970s through the mid-​1980s widening “the gap between public and private provisions and their constituencies” (Michel 1999, 237). Expansions of tax expenditures to support childcare have often occurred under Republican presidents. The Reagan administration enacted the 1981 Dependent Care Assistance Plan, which allowed individuals to exclude the value of employer-​provided childcare services from their gross income and used tax incentives to encourage employers to provide on-​site or nearby childcare facilities. The Child and Dependent Care tax credit was increased in the early 1980s (again under Reagan), and taxpayers were allowed to shelter some pretax dollars in Flexible Spending Accounts for dependent care services. Michel points out that “the total value of these foregone taxes more than tripled between 1980 and 1986, constituting by far the greatest single expenditure for child care in both of those years” (Michel 1999, 256). That said, per-​family expenditures have not been particularly generous. Families earning between $30,000 and $40,000 in practice get somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500 in tax credit to help pay for the annual cost of childcare under the Child and Dependent Care tax credit, for most a bare sliver of their overall childcare expenses (Tax Policy Institute 2010). Using tax expenditures to reduce the cost of purchasing childcare services in the private market is appealing for a number of reasons. First, money a taxpayer would otherwise pay the government is not collected, but stays in the taxpayer’s bank account, increasing her or his spending power. This is easier to defend politically than increased government expenditures to help pay for childcare services, even though the net budgetary impact is identical to spending more through a government program. Second, because Republicans often bristle at the idea of “tax and spend” big government, they are more likely to favor ways of accomplishing social policy outcomes through manipulating the tax code. This makes tax cuts easier to pass and maintain than direct spending, and harder to keep track of. Third, since tax deductions and credits are often offset against taxes the taxpayer owes

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the government, they have a middle-​or upper-​class skew, because the more the taxpayer owes, the more tax expenditures are likely to benefit her or him. For example, dependent care tax credits are not refundable, so if filers do not owe the government very much tax, they may not benefit from such a credit (Hacker 2002; Abramovitz and Morgen 2006). The development and expansion of tax breaks in the 1980s fostered a vibrant private market in childcare options to meet every taste and pocketbook.6 As childcare chains proliferated, so did the National Association of Child Care Management (NACCM), whose members were owners and managers of proprietary centers. NACCM members were opposed to federal standards that would require them to increase staffing levels or salaries, so they were pleased when the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (a measure passed soon after Ronald Reagan took office that drastically cut domestic spending) converted Title XX childcare funding into block grants controlled by the states, and effectively stripped Washington of its power to regulate childcare (Michel 1999, 261). The path-​dependent effect of private modes of provision is evident in US childcare policy: the inability to build broad support for public services that would be pitched toward the tastes and needs of middle-​class families, “coupled with strategic tax incentives to both individuals and corporations . . . had the effect of building up the supply of childcare in the private sector, creating a constituency for this type of provision and deflecting demands upon the state for universal services” (Michel 1999, 279). Not all family-​related tax expenditures are intended to benefit working families. A huge form of tax relief for families with children under age 17 is the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which was established in 1997. The amount of the credit was increased to a maximum of $1,000 per child in 2001 as a Republican response to Democratic proposals to increase funding for childcare, and to $2,000 per child in 2017 (National Conference of State Legislatures 2022).7 The CTC supports parents raising children without tying the support to childcare: families with a stay-​at-​home parent get the payment along with those where all parents are working. In terms of attracting Republican support, the CTC was cast as a “put money back in the pockets of hard-​working taxpayers” measure that would not give working parents anything that stay-​at-​home parents didn’t also receive. In addition to being more politically palatable than direct spending measures, tax expenditures are less likely to be discussed, analyzed, and criticized than similar magnitude spending that is funded through direct spending provisions (Hacker 2002). Private for-​profit childcare chains mushroomed in numbers and in terms of the number of children served between the late 1970s and the mid-​1980s, leading “child care [to become] big business, as the chains and franchisers took over the industry.” Nonprofit centers simultaneously proliferated at YWCAs, churches, synagogues, etc. These increases led to a fourfold increase in the number of families using new center-​based services between 1958 and 1982 (Michel 1999, 256–​267). 7 In response to the Covid crisis, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 temporarily expanded the child tax credit for tax year 2021 from $2,000 to $3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 per child up to age 17, and made all such credits fully refundable. It was not extended, and did not cover tax year 2022. National Conference of State Legislatures 2022. 6

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Putting this in comparative perspective, American social policy typically relies on tax expenditures to support certain forms of spending rather than directly funding childcare programs or providing services, as countries like Japan, Germany, and France commonly do. The preference for tax spending over direct spending is consonant with neoliberal preferences for private provision, markets, and the rhetoric of choice, which have long characterized American approaches to providing social welfare benefits. Relying on tax forgiveness rather than direct expenditures is emblematic of Americans’ deeply engrained opposition to the intervention of the state into private life, and of their evident reluctance or inability to make powerful public claims for state intervention to address work-​family tensions. Parental Leaves: The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) After a long battle, the United States adopted the FMLA, its national-​level leave law, in 1993. It requires employers to give employees an unpaid 12-​week job-​protected leave, and only applies to large businesses. The United States stands out among wealthy nations for having no national paid maternity, paternity, or parental leave, and no mandatory paid vacation time beyond two weeks of national holidays scattered through the year.8 Why was passing a leave law so difficult in the United States, and why hasn’t the law been expanded since it was adopted? The difficulty stems from the fact that business is a well-​organized, attentive interest group with plenty of money to contribute to campaigns, and it lobbies strongly to oppose regulations it deems too costly or intrusive. Their view is that everyone benefits when the economy flourishes, and since burdening business with costly regulations threatens economic growth, such burdens must be minimized. On the other side, the groups that one might expect to argue vigorously for paid family leaves—​organized labor, women’s groups, parents of young children, and children’s rights groups—​have not been able to create a powerful social movement to demand generous paid leaves. Many believed that accepting a short, unpaid leave, even though it is unusable for workers who cannot afford to take 12 weeks off without pay, was an important first step toward legitimizing family leaves, and that future fights would aim to extend the leave to more workers and make it a paid leave. To a degree, this has occurred: as of 2022, eleven states (California, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Colorado) plus the District of Columbia provide paid leaves, and several have extended the reach of the employees covered under the FMLA.9 Most EU countries, in contrast, mandate four or five weeks of paid vacation per year, in addition to paid maternity, parental, and paternity leaves of differing lengths (OECD 2020). 9 The length of these state leaves varies; five of the nine jurisdictions provide 12 weeks of paid leave, one gives four weeks, two give eight, and one gives 10. Likewise, states vary with respect to the percentage of usual salary they mandate for the leave period, with several limiting reimbursement to a percentage of the state’s median salary (A Better Balance, 2022). 8

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The last decade has also seen a significant increase in the percentage of private firms that offer paid parental leaves. Labor economists Goldin, Kerr, and Olivetti (2020, 18) note that “PPL and PFL [paid parental leave and paid family leave] provided by private-​sector firms have been increasing. Using a cross-​tabulated version of the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] Employment Benefit Survey (EBS) data, we find that PFL increased from 2010 to 2018 across US firms from 11% to 17% of the total employment in firms.”10 Including state paid family leaves along with employer-​provided paid parental leaves, they estimate that 42% of all new mothers accessed some paid leave by 2018 (19). However, such paid leave programs do not meet the standards of national-​level paid parental leave policies in EU countries. Goldin et al. write that “PPL across the firms in our sample is not very generous relative to that provided by many social insurance programs in other countries. The mean firm in our analysis sample . . . gives 46 days to new moms,” and firms in the top quarter for generosity of PPLs “offer at least 60 days or 12 weeks” (20). But despite the fact that firms offer leaves of different lengths, the mean length of the leave taken by all employees eligible to take paid leaves was only eight weeks, regardless of whether they had college degrees or had only graduated from high school. Education does matter for leave uptake: almost twice as many (65%) of the college-​educated group took paid leaves, compared to only 36% of the mothers with a high school degree (19–​20). So while private sector and state support for paid leaves are moving in promising directions, the United States still has a ways to go to reach prevailing OECD standards. In sum, the United States took a long time to develop an extraordinarily meager family leave policy for three reasons. First, business interests are powerful in a dispersed federal system where capital is mobile and companies can threaten to move elsewhere if they object to costly regulations. Second, the American political system has multiple veto points and institutions that favor conservative states (the Senate and the Electoral College are premised on each state having two senators, regardless of population, which favors conservative rural states), both of which help business block reforms (Pierson 1995, paraphrased in Bernstein 2001, 7–​8). Third, enough well-​off Americans accept the idea that parents should plan for childbirth and be financially prepared to support their families to make it difficult to build broad political support or a social movement to push for treating childbirth, adoption, and childrearing as public goods that deserve state support.

10 These authors note that these figures may over-​represent the generosity of paid parental leave programs, as such programs don’t necessarily cover all women in a given firm. The cited coverage rates apparently assume that they do.

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Discussion I began this chapter by arguing for an approach to understanding how countries develop work-​family support policies that would take into account the organization of labor markets, political institutions, powerful groups, values, and historical starting points, and how these create path-​dependent policy repertoires and outcomes. I then discussed the evolution of work-​family policies in the United States since the Great Depression to illustrate the utility of such an approach. I conclude by showing how attending to political explanations helps us understand the approaches the United States has taken to work-​ family policies, which are distinctive in many ways. For one thing, it has not developed many work-​family policies, and the ones that exist are poorly funded and offer little or no coverage to those who most need affordable, high-​quality childcare, more money to support their families, or paid parenting leaves. These approaches make the United States exceptional among wealthy industrialized countries. Political Economy and Power Resources Why? One reason is the organization of the labor market, which is lightly regulated and dominated by business. There is no labor-​based party, and organized labor has become much weaker as union representation of workers has declined from 35% in 1954 to just above 10% in 2020. Both major political parties represent business interests, though the Republicans favor fewer regulations and prioritize economic and job growth over mitigating climate change, family-​friendly policies, universal healthcare coverage, and the like. American politics favors those with deep pockets who can donate to campaigns, which gives business interests extraordinary clout when it comes to influencing policy. Alas, pro-​family policy advocacy groups like the Children’s Defense Fund, the National Partnership for Women and Families, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and Legal Momentum do not have much funding, nor do they have broad social movements to back them, so they have a hard time influencing policy. Lobbyists on the other side include pro-​business groups like the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, and the US Chamber of Commerce, which lobby hard against flexible scheduling, paid leaves, child allowances, and publicly subsidized childcare on the ground that they will hurt the corporate bottom line and economic productivity (see Palley and Shdaimah 2014 for a good discussion of the powerful interest groups in this policy area). As a liberal market economy, the United States has a general skills regime, which benefits women’s mobility should they decide to interrupt their careers for a few years to raise children. Their opportunity costs for such interruptions are not as steep as their sisters in firm specific-​skills regimes like Japan. Lower opportunity costs and more emphasis on anti-​discrimination laws has led to more women breaking through the glass ceiling in the United States than in most of its peer OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development) countries.

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Confidence in market solutions to providing care has been a hallmark of American social policy. The burgeoning supply of private childcare options that began in the 1980s by proprietary chains, churches, synagogues, and YWCAs (not to mention women who run day cares out of their homes, or various nanny and babysitter services) offer American consumers lots of choices, and lots of competition for price and quality. The federal and state governments touted this proliferation of varied, affordable services, seeing it as an affirmation of the validity of lightly regulated market competition (see also Castles 2003). Policymaking Processes and Actors A second reason why the United States is a family policy laggard relates to the difficulty of pushing comprehensive social welfare legislation through the US Congress and executive branch (the president and his cabinet). A short digression into political structure: there are two houses in the US Congress. The hundred-​member upper house, the Senate, has two senators from each state, regardless of population, and the 435-​member lower house, the House of Representatives, has representatives elected from districts based on population, although each state gets at least one representative. The Senate over-​ represents scantly populated (generally more rural and conservative) states, as does the Electoral College, which elects the president.11 The United States is a two-​party system with winner-​take-​all elections. Third parties are rare, and unlike parliamentary systems, there is no proportional representation or coalition governments. Presidents are elected independently of the Congress, and it is common for the president and one or both houses of the US Congress to be under the control of different parties. Divided governments often result in deadlock and an inability to pass much legislation, which requires that both houses of Congress pass laws cast in identical terms, and that the laws must be signed by the president and enforced by necessary guidelines and interpretations from the federal departments, their agencies, and the federal courts. In a system with multiple veto points, it is easy for powerful groups to defeat policy initiatives and difficult to pass reforms, especially sweeping ones. In the American federal system, a variety of policy matters are left to the states, including most issues related to public education, childcare, and early childhood education, as well as family formation and dissolution. The federal government rarely takes the initiative to pass major policies to support working parents on the grounds that this is properly the states’ prerogative. While states are free to be creative and innovative in devising family-​friendly policies, only a handful of them have done so, generally liberal states on the East or West coast. Even a social welfare emergency like the Great Depression, with massive unemployment, poverty, and hunger, the Roosevelt administration still had to cut deals with 11 The Electoral College has 535 votes, based on the number of representatives and senators in each state. It tends to favor smaller, more conservative states for the same reason the Senate does.

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southern states to garner their support for New Deal legislation. Recall the compromises that gave southern states discretion to set their own eligibility standards and payment levels for the Aid to Dependent Children program in order to enlist their support to pass the Social Security Act in 1935. They used this discretion to reinforce Jim Crow racial segregation and discrimination that pushed Black women to work for low wages rather than being able to rely on ADC for support to stay home and raise their own children. Institutionally speaking, federalism has often led to revenue sharing and joint administration of major federal programs, which gives states power to push for their preferences against national political majorities whose will has been reflected in federal legislation. Path Dependency and Policy Repertoires Even though large numbers of women entered the workforce between 1970 and 1990, broad-​scale support for universal childcare never materialized in post–​ World War II America. Without strong unified support from across the spectrum of users, childcare policies evolved along two tracks: public programs that targeted the poor through poorly funded programs like AFDC, Head Start, the Child Care Development Fund, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families, and modest tax benefits that help middle-​and higher-​income families pay for childcare in the private market. These early choices have had a huge impact on subsequent programs and decisions. One consequence of the bifurcated American approach to childcare policy is that quality has suffered: regulations are rudimentary and poorly enforced. Regulatory efforts, having been largely left to the states, are somewhat piecemeal. Many states lack the personnel and funding to enforce what standards they have. Despite the fact that about two-​thirds of American women work for pay outside the home, childcare is not treated like a part of the national infrastructure that supports workers, such as public transportation or roads. The American women’s movement has not been very successful in pushing for generous work-​family policies, especially compared to women’s movements in Europe. One of the reasons for this is that the women’s movement has always been divided along class and race lines. Women in the United States have rarely fought together for universal, generous childcare benefits and parental leaves. In part, this is related to path-​dependent policy evolution: policy strategies that gave poor women publicly supported childcare and middle-​class and wealthy women the choice to purchase private, market-​based care with a bit of tax support made it difficult to develop a united front. But without the mobilization of middle-​class women, the fight for high-​quality universal childcare is bound to fail, and the women’s movement did not mobilize a cross-​class, cross-​race movement for childcare. Sonya Michel (1999, 279–​280) puts the argument nicely: “Without focused feminist leadership and propelled by a policy that persistently linked public provisions to welfare-​ related goals, wage-​earning mothers divided along class and racial lines instead of joining

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together . . . it is precisely because the discourses surrounding childcare have become so fractured by race and class that this deeply flawed policy [was] allowed to develop in the first place. By unifying the constituency for childcare, it may be possible to change the terms of provision” and insist on excellent services that are available to all. I will not press the point about attending to values, as I am confident that other authors in this collection have done so. Suffice it to say that decisions to rely on market provision of care services, and to interfere minimally with the labor market, come with values that we have discussed here: choice, individual responsibility, and blame for those who fare poorly. Conclusion My goal here has been to propose a political approach to understanding why welfare states develop quite different responses and approaches to supporting working mothers. An adequate answer does not simply exhort the United States or other work-​family laggards to adopt a set of policies like Sweden’s, but attends to the policy repertoires that have gained currency and been workable, and to the conditions that might maximize activists’ chances to have an impact on policy. Identifying best practices and recommending policy reforms that will help all countries better support working mothers and children is an optimistic enterprise. It assumes countries aspire to be more just and generous by supporting young parents as they raise their babies and ensuring that all children get a good start in life. I share this hopeful impulse, but I caution that states are not blank slates. They come with their own policy histories and political institutions that make it more or less difficult to adopt particular policy approaches. No matter how much scholars and policymakers might admire the approach taken by Sweden in supporting working parents, they need to grapple with the political, historical, and institutional inheritances that shape how particular countries approach policymaking in this area. We live in a less than ideal world where inefficient and biased policies are adopted because powerful interests stand to gain from them, and where there are deep and abiding disagreements about which values ought to be pursued. Countries have well-​established constellations of political power, political rules and institutions, policy repertoires, ways of governing their markets, and value systems. These shape the policy approaches they adopt to deal with particular problems, and indeed, what they recognize as problems in need of solution in the first place. They rely on a variety of strategies to help parents manage work-​life issues, strategies they develop due to deeply engrained political constraints and opportunities. Every country has a political logic that guides its approach to work-​ family policymaking. While it is important to think about which policies work best, there are also crucial lessons to draw from a comparative study of the political and historical constraints on policy change.

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C H A P T E R

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 he Politics of Ideas in Family Policy: T Parties, Electoral Competition, and Shifting Norms

Timo Fleckenstein and Samuel Mohun Himmelweit

Abstract The chapter argues that a focus on cross-​national explanations for change in family policies requires an examination not only of the political dynamics of ideational change but of the content of that change as well. The chapter addresses this gap, providing an overview of the politics of ideas in family policy, with a particular focus on variation in recent changes, based on a comparative study that includes welfare states in the Scandinavian countries, Continental Europe, the liberal countries, East Asia, and the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. It highlights how a relatively homogenous “old” politics of ideas has given way to a variety of “new” politics, which vary in terms of the extent and direction of policy change. On the basis of the findings, the authors conclude that a focus on the politics of ideas can help to understand cross-​national differences in family policy reform. Key Words: ideas, politics, family policy, comparative research, welfare states

Introduction The last two decades have seen a dramatic change in the breadth and scope of family policies across the OECD. Family policy has moved to the center of how welfare states attempt to deal with the multiple challenges of post-​industrialization and associated changes in employment patterns and family structures, which have led to the development of “new social risks” (Bonoli 2007). In many welfare states, this has involved path-​shifting change away from policies that supported and reproduced male-​breadwinner model families, replacing them with policies that attempt to ease work-​family reconciliation through the defamilialization of care and through gender-​neutral parental leave policies, which provide opportunities and incentives for fathers to take on more caring responsibilities (Daly and Ferragina 2018). This has involved new ideas about the role of the state with regard to the family, the gendered division of paid and unpaid labor, and early childhood education and care (ECEC) entering the political agenda and competing with older

ideas about the male-​breadwinner model family as a private institution free from state interference. Contemporaneous to this change has been a shift in the comparative welfare state literature toward theoretical approaches which take the role of ideas seriously (Béland 2016). This has seen the processes of agenda-​setting, framing, and discourse become increasingly recognized as important in the politics of policy change, with a particular focus on how new ideas can challenge and overcome seemingly entrenched “background” ideas (Campbell 2004). This focus on ideas has contributed to the new institutionalist literature through its ability to help explain how change comes about, but also to illuminate the content and direction of that change, which is rather underdetermined in a sole focus on institutions (Béland 2016). Family policy is a domain in which the politics of ideas and ideational change are particularly pronounced, as they relate to competing values about the social order of society, in terms of public and private responsibilities, gender roles, and the appropriate way to raise children (Pfau-​ Effinger 2005; Lewis 2008). Indeed, much of the comparative literature that seeks to explain recent changes in family policy in various countries locates the driving force of change in the political dynamics of ideational change (e.g., Morgan 2013; Blome 2016; Fleckenstein and Lee 2017b). Yet a focus on cross-​national explanations for change obscures variation in that change, which requires an examination not only of the political dynamics of ideational change but of the content of that change as well. This chapter addresses this gap, providing an overview of the politics of ideas in family policy, with a particular focus on variation in recent changes. It highlights how a relatively homogenous “old” politics of ideas has given way to a variety of “new” politics, which vary in terms of the extent and direction of policy change. To illustrate this variation, we discuss five distinct “worlds” of new politics. First we examine the Scandinavian cases, which represent the “early birds” of changing ideas, where the idea of gender equality, left-​wing parties, and women’s political agency were crucial features. Second, we address changes in Continental Europe, perhaps the most dramatic of the “latecomer” reformers, highlighting the role of shifting social norms leading to electoral competition and political agency from both left-​and right-​wing parties. Third, changes in liberal welfare regimes demonstrate a more limited role of party competition and highlight the continued relevance of liberal ideas, despite unprecedented expansions of state interest in families and preschool children. Fourth, dramatic changes in East Asia are examined, where the low birth rate has dominated political discourse but where South Korea and Japan appear to have taken different paths. The fifth “world” outlines a very different story, highlighting a re-​emerging familialism in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The chapter begins with a summary of the “old” politics of ideas across these diverse cases, before focusing in more detail on the “new” politics of ideas in each “world.”

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The “Old” Politics of Ideas in Family Policy Feminist contributors to the comparative literature on welfare states have highlighted the patriarchal ideology that underpinned the foundation and development of modern welfare states (e.g., Lewis 1992; Orloff 1993; although see Pfau-​Effinger (2004) for variation in this trend). Daly and Rake (2003, 15) conceptualize the welfare state “as part of, and party to, a broader set of power structures in society which act, primarily but not exclusively, to perpetuate male power.” These power structures are evident in the postwar welfare settlement, which was designed around the male industrial worker, with women and children treated primarily as dependents (Lewis 1992). The feminist literature has highlighted how this dominance of the male-​breadwinner model affected gender relations, the welfare-​work nexus, and the relationship between the state, the market, and the family. Moreover, the male-​breadwinner model also functioned as a fundamental idea in the development of welfare states, which was “widely accepted at the level of normative prescription by policy-​makers and by people” (Lewis 2002, 332). Broadly, this led to development of familialistic welfare states, in which “public policy assumes—​indeed insists—​that households must carry the principle responsibility for their members’ welfare” (Esping-​Andersen 1999, 51). In this context, variation between countries reflected the ways in which states both enforced this obligation on the institution of the family to provide welfare and supported it in this function. Kaufmann highlights that a key difference cross-​nationally was the extent to which family policy was considered a legitimate area of policy intervention: where this was the case, countries developed explicit support for the male-​breadwinner family; where it was not the case, support for the family remained “implicit” (Kaufmann 2002). On the basis of these differences, it is possible to identify two family policy trajectories. Explicit family policy was undertaken through a model of “general-​family-​support,” which “give[s]‌support to the nuclear family, while having institutional characteristics presuming that or being neutral to whether or not wives have the primary responsibility for caring and reproductive work within the family and only enter paid work on a temporary basis as secondary earners” (Korpi 2000, 143–​ 144). Implicit family policy led to a “market-​oriented” model, which “provide[s] citizens with relatively few claim rights in this area . . . leaving individuals to find private solutions within the context of their market resources and/​or family relations” (144). West Germany, the archetype of the conservative world of welfare, presents an example of “general-​family-​support” policies reinforcing the gendered division of labor, whereas liberal countries, such as the United Kingdom, produce gendered behaviors through a “market-​oriented” approach to family support (Korpi 2000). Christian democracy was the main architect of the West German welfare state, which aimed at protecting and supporting the institution of the family, conceived of as the fundamental social unit. Families, based on the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, were perceived as the main provider of care, and it was the state’s responsibility to support families so that they could perform their function. Minimal service provision, social insurance schemes, and child

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allowances, complemented by a marriage-​based system of joint taxation, reinforced the gendered division of labor, with a woman’s social protection deriving from her status as wife and maternal caregiver. Employment of women, especially that of mothers of young children, was strongly discouraged (Ostner 1993). Political debate reflected these dominant ideas, focusing on the level and form of family support, while the left’s attention to gender equality related primarily to the public sphere of employment, rather than within the family (Bleses and Seeleib-​Kaiser 2004). By contrast, liberal welfare states such as the United Kingdom did not produce male-​ breadwinner outcomes by proactively promoting a gendered division of labor but indirectly through government “disinterest” in the family, which was considered a private realm that should remain free from state intervention, with policy attention focused on those in need (Lewis 2009). While traditional gender norms gave way to a more “liberal” attitude toward maternal employment in the 1970s, the state remained opposed to explicit family policy on the grounds that decisions about employment and care were private choices for families; both left-​and right-​wing governments displayed this disinclination toward explicit family policy. Yet, as feminist critics noted, “liberal non-​intervention” was not neutral to family form but rather constituted a reinforcement of male-​breadwinner gender roles (e.g. Land 1980). Thus, while conservative and liberal ideologies promoted very different family policies, they produced rather similar social outcomes. Historically, East Asian social policy combines features from the conservative and liberal welfare regimes. In terms of the ideas of family policy, Confucianism and Buddhism can be considered the functional equivalent to Catholicism in Continental Europe (Fleckenstein and Lee 2017a; see also Peng and Payette, this volume). In particular, the ideals of filial piety and family obligations provided a template for unpaid care work by women and social protection through the family (Pascall and Sung 2007). However, East Asian countries are latecomers in the development of welfare states with rather limited social welfare provision. Built by conservative elites prioritizing economic development, early social policy in the region focused on male industrial workers in strategic sectors (to promote labor productivity), whereas labor market outsiders (especially women) were excluded from welfare efforts and relied on the family (Deyo 1992). Similar to liberal welfare regimes, the state did not perceive any responsibility for supporting the family, which left this form of welfare provision largely to the market (especially large companies providing family benefits) (Fleckenstein and Lee 2017b). As such, the “old” politics of ideas of East Asian family policy represent a mixture of the explicit promotion of male-​ breadwinner families of Continental Europe with the liberal noninterventionism of liberal welfare states. The CEE countries present a distinct case, with a different set of political dynamics. In the context of the imposition of state socialism in CEE countries in the postwar period, this region was dominated by an approach to the family that emphasized employment as the key to women’s emancipation. As such, official policy aimed at fostering an

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adult-​worker model, in which full-​time work was the norm for both parents (Heitlinger 1979). However, the institutional structures of most CEE countries did not reflect this commitment to an adult-​worker model, and adverse economic circumstances in the 1970s and 1980s saw the re-​emergence of older ideas that reflected earlier norms based on male-​breadwinner model families (Szelewa 2019). Long periods of maternity leave were introduced in this period to encourage mothers to withdraw from employment as a reaction to labor market oversupply and as a pro-​natalist response to concern about falling birth rates. Further, the poor conditions of childcare institutions for under-​threes in some CEE countries meant that, unlike in Scandinavia (see below), they did not become popular or widely used by parents (Hašková and Saxonberg 2016). Traditional norms about gender roles, employment, and the care of young children were a feature of the “old” politics of family policy across these different contexts, mediated by ideas about the role of the state and its relationship to the family. In each of these examples, these ideas remained dominant for many decades, keeping family policy on a path-​dependent trajectory with little political contestation in this area. However, a series of social, economic, and political challenges would upend this situation and lead to new ideas emerging onto the political agenda. The pioneers of this “new” politics were Scandinavian welfare states, although as the next section will show, “latecomer” reformers only borrowed certain elements from these “early birds,” and in fact several different ideas and political processes characterize the “new” politics of family policy. The “New” Politics of Ideas in Nordic Countries: Social-​Democratic Pioneers Starting in the 1960s, Nordic countries saw the emergence of a gender equality discourse, which challenged the postwar welfare state settlement, and the following decade has been described as a “watershed” (Leira 2006) in Scandinavia, where welfare states departed from the traditional family model with the development of family policies explicitly promoting female employment participation. This defamilialization was framed in terms of social rights with the explicit political commitment to gender equality (Leira 2006). In light of this development and subsequent further expansion of employment-​promoting family policies, Nordic countries have been widely labelled as “women-​friendly” welfare states (cf. Hernes 1987). Sweden is typically considered the “pioneer” of work-​family reconciliation policies and the promotion of female employment participation. The country first introduced individual taxation in the early 1970s, removing a subsidy for female homemaking. In 1974, Sweden became the first country to transform its maternity leave into a gender-​neutral parental leave scheme, with a generous wage replacement rate of up to 90%. This allowed men to temporarily withdraw from the labor market for childrearing. A parental leave benefit for the care of sick children and a ten-​day paternity leave were also introduced, in addition to the right to work part-​time. Last but not least, Sweden saw a massive increase

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in childcare provision, which grew fivefold in the 1970s and continued to expand in the 1980s despite considerable fiscal constraint. Childcare provision was not only considered a means to promote gender equality, but also a guarantor of equal life chances for children regardless of their socioeconomic background. The parental leave benefit of 1974 was extended three times in six years, and doubled in length to 12 months in 1980 (Earles 2011). The 1990s saw the introduction of “daddy months” in Sweden and the wider region, with the objective of promoting “equal parenthood” and greater gender equality (Ellingsæter 2014). The rise of “women-​friendly” family policy in Sweden is most commonly associated with a strong organized women’s movement and social democrats in government. In the face of rather low yet slowly rising female labor market participation, women activists started to push successfully for gender-​egalitarian policies in the 1960s. As in other countries, postwar Sweden experienced serious labor shortages; while Continental European countries pursued a strategy of foreign labor migration, this approach was fiercely opposed by Swedish trade unions, which feared this would undermine their solidaristic wage policy. This political-​economic environment therefore provided a window of opportunity for women in organized labor and social democracy to champion family policies promoting labor market mobilization of women and women activists were rather successful in putting female employment participation and, more generally, a debate on gender roles on the political agenda. Eventually, in 1969, the social-​democratic party and trade unions adopted gender equality as a central policy objective. This translated into policies supporting work-​family reconciliation and female employment promotion (in particular, public childcare provision); crucially, employers supported this turn toward employment-​promoting family policies, which provided them with much-​needed skilled labor. Notably, despite a lack of popular demand from fathers, the gender-​neutral parental leave scheme was thought to promote gender equality through encouraging father’s care-​work. The new policy trajectory was reinforced by rising female employment and corresponding demands for more childcare provision, as well as policy feedback fueled by the rise of women’s employment in the social service state (Huber and Stephens 2001; Fleckenstein and Lee 2014). Sweden’s Nordic neighbors, to different extents and at different speeds, have also departed from their previous male-​breadwinner trajectories. By the 1970s, all Scandinavian countries acknowledged the state’s responsibility for childcare provision, with Denmark a notable “early bird,” having universalized childcare provision in 1964 (Abrahamson 2010). Finland deviated the most from the Nordic ideal of greater equality with the introduction of the Child Home Care Allowance in 1985. This “cash-​for-​care” policy, advocated by the center-​right as promoting “parental choice,” challenged the idea of “equal parenthood” and gender equality. These developments in Finland reflect the relative weakness of social democracy in the country, but center-​right parties across Scandinavia adopted and legislated cash-​for-​care benefits in the 1990s and 2000s as a political strategy to undermine

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“social-​democratic” family policy in the absence of power resources to dismantle the employment-​promoting policies. The benefits remain a great source of political conflict along the traditional left-​right divide (Ellingsæter 2014). The “New” Politics of Ideas in Continental Europe: Electoral Competition in “Late” Path Shifters Path departure from the male-​breadwinner model has only occurred relatively recently in Continental Europe. In the late 1990s and early 2000s these welfare states, characterized as incapable of adapting to the economic and social pressures of postindustrialization and globalization, began a dramatic shift away from the male-​breadwinner model, which had previously underpinned the structure of social provision. Explanations for this change in family policy highlight how new ideas about the state, the family, and young children came onto the political agenda due to shifting preferences among younger voters, particularly women, and of competition for these voters between both social-​democratic and Christian-​ democratic parties (Leitner 2010; Fleckenstein 2011; Morgan 2013; Blome 2016). Germany, the archetypical conservative-​corporatist welfare regime (Esping-​Andersen 1990), presents the clearest case of this shift. With laws to expand childcare for under-​ threes in 2004 and 2008 and the introduction of a new 12-​month earnings-​related parental leave benefit in 2007, with an additional two months reserved for partners, Germany underwent a significant path departure toward policies that not only enable women’s labor market participation but also attempt to rebalance the gender division of unpaid labor within the home (Ostner 2010). Other conservative-​corporatist welfare states, such as Austria and the Netherlands, have undertaken similar shifts, albeit limited to leave provision in Austria and ECEC in the Netherlands (Blum 2012; Morgan 2013). New policy ideas came onto the agenda in Germany through the social-​democratic party, the SPD. However, unlike in Nordic countries, women’s agency and gender equality did not play a significant role in the political framing of reform. Within the SPD, the electoral potential of policies to assist work-​family reconciliation had been identified as crucial to the party’s future appeal to younger voters (Ristau 2005). From 2002, the family ministry set about creating an agenda for change by introducing the concept of “sustainable family policy,” an approach that highlighted the importance, primarily in economic terms, of easing work-​family reconciliation tensions. These benefits included enabling women to have more successful careers, but also to permit young families to have more children. In the context of a persistently low birth rate and an aging population, this chimed with an ongoing media debate about the financial sustainability of Germany’s social insurance–​based welfare state (Gerlach 2010; Klinkhammer 2014). “Sustainable family policy” also highlighted the social investment benefits of comprehensive childcare provision, including tax receipts from mothers able to re-​enter the labor market, and also the longer-​term educational benefits for preschool children, which had also become a

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focus of national concern in the aftermath of the “PISA shock,” the outcry that greeted Germany’s poor performance in the OECD’s comparison of student learning outcomes (Klinkhammer 2014). While “sustainable family policy” was brought onto the agenda by the SPD, aside from a 2004 expansion of childcare for under-​threes, the most significant reforms were undertaken by a grand coalition headed by the center-​right Christian-​democratic party, the CDU. Like the SPD, CDU leaders had identified work-​family policies as important for future electoral success, as part of an attempt to “modernize” the party (Fleckenstein 2011; Morgan 2013), which explains why a party with a traditional attachment to the male-​breadwinner model family would make such a shift. Unsurprisingly, the key reforms provoked intense opposition from within the party, and from the CDU’s more conservative sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), whose leaders argued that policy innovations such as the “partner months” curtailed families’ ability to choose traditional gender roles. The 2008 expansion of childcare for under-​threes and introduction of a right to a childcare place for all children on their first birthday from 2013 provoked further controversy on the right, and passing the law required the promise to introduce a care allowance, available to families that did not take up a public childcare place and justified by its conservative supporters on the basis of providing “parental choice” (Blum 2012). This care allowance, introduced in 2013, was struck down in 2015 as unconstitutional as a federal-​level policy, and now exists in only 2 of Germany’s 16 federal states (Koslowski et al. 2020). While the political compromises necessitated by this situation were relatively insignificant in terms of the magnitude of the overall shift in German family policy, key aspects of the male-​breadwinner model, most notably the system of spousal tax splitting, remain in place; the fundamental reforms have been limited to the more politically beneficial domain of work-​family policy. Comparative research in other Continental European countries has also highlighted the importance of large shifts in social attitudes among the electorate in catalyzing ideas about work-​family policy moving onto the agenda of both left-​and right-​wing parties. Research highlights that in Italy such a shift has not taken place, meaning that ideas about family policy have not become the subject of electoral competition, which can explain the relative lack of change in Italian family policy (Blome 2016). Austria’s relatively modest reforms, in comparison to Germany, can be similarly explained (Leitner 2010). By contrast, Spain appears to be in the midst of a path shift with parties on both the left and right embracing new ideas about work-​family policy, reflecting changing norms in the electorate (León et al. 2021). The “New” Politics of Ideas in Liberal Welfare States: A Bounded Shift? As in Germany, concerns about socioeconomic shifts led to a new interest in family policy in the United Kingdom, although the catalyst was concern about the costs of welfare support for lone mothers. A conservative government in the early 1990s made some limited

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inroads into the noninterventionist tradition by introducing very minimal support for the childcare costs of lone parents and a nursery voucher scheme for four-​year-​olds. However, as in Germany, it was the center-​left, the Labour Party, that, coming into power in 1997, acted as the catalyst for significant reform. Despite being a party associated with industrial workers, and having historically shown little interest in family policies, strategists within Labour identified women as a key electoral group that could help them return to power after four consecutive electoral defeats. The agency of women politicians within the party, in the context of reforms to improve women’s representation within party structures, has been seen as an important promoter of work-​family policy (Fleckenstein 2010; Morgan 2013). Work-​family policy reform under Labour was noted for its fragmented approach, with different departments responsible for ECEC and leave policy, and with the Treasury’s influence growing as time went on (Larsen, Taylor-​Gooby, and Kananen 2006; Wincott 2006). Initially, childcare policy was distinct from early education policy, continuing a long-​standing division of the two policy domains (Lewis 2013). The latter involved a universal entitlement to part-​time early education for three-​and four-​year-​olds and was justified in social investment terms that highlighted the importance of preschool education and long-​term human capital development (Randall 2000). By contrast, childcare expansion involved attempts to stimulate market provision through start-​up funds for private and voluntary childcare providers in deprived areas and demand-​side funding to aid parents with childcare costs—​support that was means-​tested and limited to those in employment. Childcare formed part of Labour’s “welfare-​to-​work” policy strategy and was therefore primarily justified in terms of its beneficial effects for women’s employment, families’ income, and poverty rates (Lewis 2009). After 2001 there was a rhetorical shift, with an attempt to bring the different policy areas together into a more coherent work-​family reconciliation agenda with a focus both on employment and the benefits for child development of ECEC. The period 2002–​2006 saw increased investment in ECEC: greater resources were directed into start-​up funding and into demand-​side support for childcare costs, with a loosening of the means-​test and the introduction of childcare vouchers for those on higher incomes. ECEC was also combined with the Sure Start program to create a national network of Children’s Centres, which expanded provision of ECEC in disadvantaged areas (Lewis 2009). Despite these changes, the fundamental model remained: universal provision of state-​funded, part-​time early education and targeted support for the costs of market provision of childcare, linked to employment (Lewis 2009). ECEC policy since the center-​right returned to power in 2010 has seen a shift away from this focus on child development back toward employment and on growing the childcare market. It is notable, for example, that the introduction of a further 15 free hours per week in 2018 for three-​and four-​year-​olds was, unlike the original provision, labeled “childcare” rather than “early education” and is dependent on parental employment. Politically, these extra free hours have been discussed in terms of helping parents with the “cost of living” (Lewis and West 2017).

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Leave policy was also initially seen as a way of promoting employment and was developed separately from ECEC policy. Incremental lengthening of the maternity leave period and raising the flat-​rate benefit payment were undertaken after extensive consultation with employers; great care was taken to present the “business case” of longer provision of maternity leave by a government whose stated aim was to minimize regulation of the labor market (Hay 1999). The relative weakness of the 2003 right to request flexible working is another sign of the pro-​business agenda, which conflicted with elements of work-​family policy development. While two weeks of paid paternity leave had been introduced in 2003, opposition from employers and a reluctance from Labour to be accused of “nanny state” interference in families prevented progress toward more gender neutral leave (Lewis 2009). Instead, in the name of promoting “choice,” the option for mothers to transfer part of their leave to fathers was introduced, although research suggests that the low level of pay, relatively high eligibility criteria, and administrative complexity will restrict take-​up (Twamley and Schober 2019). Like many countries, the UK has undergone a significant shift in work-​family policies; however, the reforms reflect the continued dominance of liberal, market-​based priorities (Daly 2010). Further, momentum for reform has been inconsistent under the center-​right governments since 2010 (Lewis and West 2017). Reticence to state intervention in the “private” sphere of the family can still be seen in leave policies that provide nominal choice for men to take leave, but little practical support for them to do so. And while the state involving itself in the funding of childcare should be recognized as a major shift, there is a clear preference for market provision, with little room for publicly provided ECEC. The contours of long-​standing liberal approaches, therefore, continue to shape policy reform in the UK. These patterns of development involving increased political interest in work-​family policy but an overall adherence to liberal traditions in the aims and shape of reforms are also evident in other liberal welfare regimes, notably Australia and Canada (with the exception of Francophone Quebec) (Baird and O’Brien 2015; Mahon, Bergqvist, and Brennan 2016). The “New” Politics of Ideas in East Asia: Different Responses to Fertility Shocks In Japan we observe childcare and, more generally, work-​family reconciliation emerge as a pressing issue when the country was “hit” by the “1.57 fertility shock” of 1989. This moved the issue of low fertility and its causes to center-​stage on the political agenda (Boling 2015; An and Peng 2016). With the “Angel Plan” (1994–​1999), childcare expansion was first, complying with partisan theory, driven by center-​left forces after they ousted the conservative party, the LDP, from government office in 1993. However, rather than gender equality and children’s rights, defamilialization was driven by a strong pro-​natalist rationale, and Seeleib-​Kaiser and Toivonen (2011, 348) argue work-​family reforms were underpinned by “significant discursive shifts” emphasizing the economic and human capital rewards from employment-​oriented family policies. In this environment, childcare

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expansion continued, counterintuitively from a partisan point of view, under LDP leadership with the “New Angel Plan” (2000–​2004). These initiatives allowed, for instance, more than doubling childcare provision for the under-​threes from 10% in 1995 to 24% in 2010. Still, despite bold pledges, successive governments failed to achieve their targets, and waiting lists for childcare places remained long (especially in urban area). This continues to force many families to use low-​quality yet expensive unlicensed childcare providers. Even though the pro-​natalist framing for work-​family policy was initially shared across the political spectrum, the political right turned its back on childcare provision and prioritized child allowances. This policy U-​turn toward general-​family-​support policies was continued when the center-​left returned into government in the late 2000s (Boling 2015). Apparently, in Japan, the departure from the male-​breadwinner trajectory failed to consolidate, and the return to general-​family-​support policies suggests that childcare provision failed to produce policy feedback. Neither political parties nor government bureaucracy—​the latter enjoyed considerable policy autonomy in the past (Goodman and Peng 1996; Holliday 2000)—​developed a sustained interest in work-​family policy. Peng (2008) notes ideational battles between fiscally conservative bureaucrats in the ministry of finance and welfare bureaucrats with a more positive attitude toward childcare. Boling (2015), though, argues that welfare bureaucrats continued to perceive childcare primarily as a child welfare issue, and she observes the persistence of the belief that the under-​ threes should be looked after by their mothers. Also, it has been argued that bureaucrats viewed waiting lists as a temporary problem in the face of demographic aging, and were therefore reluctant to make significant investments into childcare infrastructure (Boling 2015). At the same time, one cannot observe strong political pressure for work-​family policy expansion. Certainly, LDP leaders are thought to display conservative family and gender values (Ochiai and Joshita 2014), suggesting little pressure “from the top” for policy modernization. Also, political leaders did not face any meaningful pressure “from below”: the Japanese electorate, including young voters, continues to demonstrate a rather traditional value orientation with regard to family and female employment. In the face of social conservatism, political parties on both the right and left do not face any significant pressure to offer progressive family policies, and instead understandably perceive child benefits as a “winning platform” (Fleckenstein and Lee 2017b). Since 2015 there has been an upsurge of political attention to family policy in Japan due to women’s employment having become a key theme of “Abenomics,” the signature economic policy of then prime minister Shinzo Abe. While Abe himself had a history of conservative statements about gender roles (Ochiai and Johshita, 2014), it is possible that the new interest heralds an ideational shift and a more sustained policy expansion, although it remains to be seen if either will be maintained after Abe’s retirement in 2020 (Dalton 2017). In South Korea, it was also the political left that put work-​family policies onto the political agenda. Starting in the late 1990s, two center-​left presidencies (1998–​2008) expanded childcare provision, in addition to improving parental leave benefits for both

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mothers and fathers (An and Peng 2016; Lee 2018). Rather than “daddy months,” each parent was given an individual leave entitlement of 12 months. While major efforts were made to improve the childcare infrastructure (mainly by promoting market provision), childcare support was at first geared toward low-​income families and later also parts of the middle class. Critically, the left party disregarded child allowances as a policy to support families, instead concentrating its effort on childcare provision as a means promoting work-​family reconciliation in a country where young women were typically expected to resign from their jobs before childbirth. While civil society organizations and especially the feminist women’s movement were often associated with progressive social policies in Korea (including women activists turning into “femocrats” with the creation of the ministry of gender equality) (Peng 2008), it has been questioned as to whether these progressive forces had the capacity to drive the work-​family reforms observed in Korea. Indeed, when the presidency returned to the conservatives (2008–​2017), work-​family policy continued to expand even though the ministry of gender equality was marginalized in government (Won 2007; Lee 2018). Moreover, comparing the political right in Japan and Korea, we observe significant divergence between the two East Asian neighbors. In Korea, the conservative party, similar to the German experience, not only continued with family policy expansion but accelerated the path departure. Most importantly, they universalized free childcare provision from the age of one, which could be read as a “Nordic turn” in Korean childcare policy (c.f. Erler, 2009). This policy shift was underpinned by social attitudes that called for greater public childcare support, especially from young people. This is not to argue that social conservatism had disappeared in Korea; indeed, the conservatives also established a childcare allowance for stay-​at-​home parents as a general-​family-​support policy for their more conservative base. However, in the fashion of a “catch-​all party,” childcare as a defamilialization policy was offered alongside more traditional family policy, albeit with considerably greater resources committed to the former. Both the left and the right in Korea recognized the electoral importance of ideational changes in the electorate and modernized their policy portfolio accordingly (Fleckenstein and Lee 2017b). The “New” Politics of Ideas in Central and Eastern Europe: Back to Familialism? Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the prevalence of apparent critical junctures in the history of CEE countries, this region is often characterized as undergoing dramatic shifts in family policy, most recently in the aftermath of the collapse of state socialism (e.g., Glass and Fodor 2007). The first wave of literature on family policy in CEE countries highlighted the refamilializing tendency of conservative governments in the 1990s, moving away from the adult-​worker model of state socialism (e.g., Pascall and Lewis 2004). This literature highlighted the withdrawal of CEE governments from funding and organizing childcare for under-​threes as emblematic of this tendency, which was often justified by

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slogans emphasizing women’s maternal role (Szelewa and Polakowski 2008). Indeed, these changes can be seen as part of a reaction against the legacy of state socialist ideas, a “return to normality” that included sending women “back home” (Szelewa and Polakowski 2020). More recent literature has pointed out institutional and ideational continuity from the state socialist period and even earlier (Szelewa and Polakowski 2008; Hašková and Saxonberg 2016). The state socialist period was not unambiguous in its promotion of an adult worker model. As well as a shared history of state socialism, therefore, ideational legacies in different CEE countries also include pro-​natalism, an exclusionary form of nationalism, and the influence of Catholicism (Hašková and Saxonberg 2016; Raț and Szikra 2018). Indeed, this focus on policy legacies has meant that recent research has focused on diversity between CEE countries, rather than on similarities among them. For example, in a comparison of the family policy models of the first eight countries from the region to join the EU, Javornik (2014) found significant variation. While the majority are shaped by familialism, they are differentiated by the extent to which this is explicitly fostered through government spending, as in the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Hungary, or is the implicit result of a lack of support for families, as in Latvia, Slovakia, and Poland. By contrast two countries, Slovenia and Lithuania, were adjudged to have defamilializing family policy regimes. However, a broad similarity in the family policy structures of many CEE countries is evident, and recent political trends also appear to be shifting these structures in a similar direction. The majority of CEE countries can be characterized by a family policy model that comprises well-​remunerated periods of maternity leave (of approximately five or six months), followed by long periods of parental leave (up to three years), which is often paid at a flat rate; an emphasis on family allowances; and high levels of childcare attendance for over-​threes but relatively low attendance among the under-​threes (Koslowski et al. 2020). This model was not created after the fall of state socialism but emerged during it. In particular, Hašková and Saxonberg (2016) argue that a norm of  “threeness,” that mothers should look after children for their first three years, became state policy in the 1970s and 1980s in a number of CEE countries, and that this represents both the survival of pre–​state socialist norms and a confluence of pressures on CEE governments. The reforms in the 1990s that reduced state support for institutional childcare for under-​threes should also be placed in the context both of this norm of “threeness” and the particular history of poor quality and unpopular childcare for under-​threes in many CEE countries. The recent rise of populist right-​wing governments in a number of CEE countries, most notably those of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary since 2010 and the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland since 2015, has had significant implications for the politics of family policy in the region. These governments have instigated a politics that “involves a radical conservative social engineering as both an ideological project as well as a radical redistribution of public resources toward privileged social groups” (Lendvai‐Bainton and Szelewa 2021, 2). This has included a strongly familialist discourse that places great emphasis on the importance of families and women’s maternal role. This agenda is strongly linked

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to the Catholic Church and is positioned in opposition to the European Union and to what Orbán describes as “Western European dogmas” of feminism and women’s employment, as well as women’s reproductive rights and the rights of LGBTQ people (Orenstein and Bugarič 2022; Szelewa and Polakowski 2020). Pro-​natalism has been an explicit aim of family policy in both Hungary and Poland, and has been framed as part of an anti-​migrant agenda. In policy terms, this has mainly been seen an expansion of general-​ family-​support policies, such as Poland’s generous family allowance program, which was initially limited to families with at least two children before being made universal before the 2019 elections. In Hungary, a range of tax allowances incentivize larger families, as does a “childbearing loan” for married couples, in which repayments are deferred at the birth of children and forgiven entirely at the birth of a third child. The scale of spending on these programs is significant: Poland spends roughly €5.54 billion per year on its family allowances, while Hungary is estimated to be spending 5% of GDP on its pro-​natalist policies (Szelewa and Polakowski 2020; Walker 2020). This agenda has seen the adoption of some of the social investment rhetoric which has dominated reforms in Western Europe, particularly around the importance of “human capital development.” Yet this has been a particularly exclusionary form of social investment that focuses on demographic renewal through “desirable” families: white, heterosexual, Christian, middle-​class families with multiple children (Szelewa and Polakowski 2020). It remains to be seen whether such policies represent a permanent modification of the CEE model of family policy, but it is certainly notable that in some CEE countries, one can observe a rapid shift in the politics of family policy toward a pro-​natalism-​infused model of general-​family-​support built on exclusionary notions of ethno-​nationalism. Conclusions This chapter has demonstrated the variation in family policy reforms across OECD welfare states. It has shown that while some countries have in recent decades undertaken a “Nordic shift” and adopted policies that promote women’s employment and the defamilialization of childcare, in others this shift toward work-​family policies has been less comprehensive and more inconsistent. Further, in some cases, particularly in CEE countries, there has been a refamilializing tendency. The introduction made the case that an examination of the politics of ideas can help us understand this variation and proposed a division between “old” and “new” politics. In particular, it is argued that while the “old” politics of family policy is relatively uniform, with its focus on male-​breadwinner families, the “new” politics displays much cross-​national variation. This concluding section posits that both political and ideational factors can help explain these different trajectories. First, it is necessary to draw out the contrasts between the “old” politics of ideas of family policies and the different trajectories of “new” politics. Most fundamental is the shift in ideas about what policies aimed at families can achieve, and therefore in the role of the state in relation to the family. As discussed, the “old” politics of ideas focused on

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the institution of the male-​breadwinner model family as a foundational underpinning of society and the bedrock of the development of welfare states. Political ideas reflected this, casting the family as an institution in need of protection to ensure that it was able to discharge its societal roles as welfare provider and as the site of social reproduction. This led to general-​family-​support policies in countries that emphasized the welfare role of the family, and to market-​oriented approaches in countries that emphasized the family’s private role. Nevertheless, the focus on the institution of the family and the entrenching of male-​breadwinner model norms was intrinsic to both approaches. The “new” politics of ideas developed first in Scandinavia, where concern about labor market supply led to an opportunity for women activists to integrate the goal of gender equality with family policy. This led to a fundamental break with the past: policies that had hitherto been aimed at the institution of the family now sought to achieve wider societal goals. Crucial to this development was the political dominance of the center-​left, which was less attached to the traditional family than the political right or confessional parties. This “new” politics of ideas led to the development of a new type of family policy: work-​family policies, which focused on individuals within families as much as the institution itself and sought to abandon male-​breadwinner norms (Mätzke and Ostner 2010). This “new” politics of family policy did not spread beyond the social-​democratic enclave of Scandinavia until the 1990s, when reconceptualization of family policy began in “latecomer” countries. The “new” politics in these countries has not simply mirrored the Scandinavian example. Indeed, it is notable that the ideas about gender equality that underpinned the Scandinavian expansion of work-​ family policies have not been replicated elsewhere. While left-​wing parties and women’s agency are important drivers of reform in “latecomer” countries, this has involved reframing work-​family policies to fit with economic, social, and demographic goals rather than as a means of achieving gender equality. This reflects the weakness of social democracy outside Scandinavia, especially the constrained electoral opportunities that left-​wing parties face in the context of postindustrialization and the changing composition of the electorate, in which they must appeal to a broad coalition that may hold a range of views about traditional families and gender roles. As such, while the catalyst for reform across “latecomer” countries has been a realization from left-​wing parties of the electoral benefits that work-​family policies can bring, this has often been articulated as providing families with “choice” in how to balance employment and care, a discourse that appeals to both the left and right. If the starting point for the “new” politics in “latecomer” countries has been this discovery of family policy as a source of electoral competition by left-​wing parties, the different trajectories of “new” politics can be seen as a function of political choices made by the right. In countries that have undertaken the most complete “Nordic turns,” most markedly Germany and Korea, right-​wing parties have not only continued the new policy direction but accelerated it. Political compromise with more conservative elements within these

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countries has led to complementary reforms in a refamilializing direction, often justified by increasing “choice” for parents, but these are relatively insignificant in terms of overall policy effort. A second path has been taken most notably in liberal welfare states, where parties on the right have continued elements of the “new” politics that fit with their ideological preferences, such as market-​based childcare as a welfare-​to-​work policy, but change has been limited in other areas, such as gender-​neutral leave. In these countries, it is not so much traditional norms about gender roles but long-​standing liberal ideas that have been invoked, both by left-​and right-​wing parties, and this prevented more dramatic change. A third path can be identified in countries in which electoral competition fails to take hold, such as Italy or Japan, where right-​wing parties in particular display no inclination to abandon their traditional support of male-​breadwinner, female-​caregiver gender roles. The fourth path of “new” politics has been a shift in a refamilializing direction, where right parties have highlighted low birth rates in their pursuit of general-​family-​support policies that incentivize male-​breadwinner, female-​caregiving gender roles. It is notable that concern over low birth rates have prompted this response in many CEE countries and yet have also underpinned public justifications for defamilializing reforms in Germany and Korea. Given the importance of the agency of political parties and the role of electoral competition motives in “latecomer” family politics, it may be assumed that these different trajectories are related to the electoral salience of work-​family reconciliation, which in turn depends on changes in social attitudes providing constituencies that reward electoral competition over defamilializing policy (Morgan 2013; Fleckenstein and Lee 2014). Indeed, examination of social attitudes has demonstrated that progressive changes in norms about gender roles and how children are best raised has preceded reform in a number of countries (Morgan 2013; Fleckenstein and Lee 2014; Blome 2016). More specifically, research has highlighted the importance of attitudinal change in right-​wing parties’ electoral constituencies, which can help explain why Spain has embarked on more significant reform than Italy, for example (León et al. 2021). Further, evidence from international surveys suggests that the electorates of CEE countries hold more traditional attitudes than their Western European neighbors (ISSP Research Group 2016). However, changes in social attitudes alone cannot explain the variation: on average, social attitudes in Korea are broadly comparable to those in Japan, while Germany has undergone a more significant set of reforms than European neighbors with electorates that hold less conservative values (ISSP Research Group 2016). This necessitates, as suggested at the outset of this chapter, a closer examination of the role of ideas in political processes. In particular, greater comprehensiveness in reform can be observed in countries in which the ideas involved in the framing of family policy reform permitted cross-​class coalition building (Béland and Cox 2016). Germany and South Korea, for example, posed work-​family policy as the solution to a broad set of policy problems, including low birth rates, labor market changes, and human capital development, which led to agreement on reform from

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a range of political actors. By contrast, more limited reform can be seen in countries in which the justifications of reform were narrower and did not attract broad-​based political support, for example in Japan, where the overwhelming focus of policy ideas was on the birth rate (Mohun Himmelweit and Lee Forthcoming). Moreover, the liberal cases, where long-​standing liberal ideas served to set boundaries on the extent of reform, particularly in leave policy, illustrates the constraining role that “background ideas” can play in politics (Schmidt 2016). A focus on the politics of ideas, therefore, both in terms of social attitudes and electoral competition, but also in terms of agenda-​setting and coalition building, can help illuminate variation in family policy reform and provide a fruitful perspective for further research. References Abrahamson, Peter. 2010. “Continuity and Consensus: Governing Families in Denmark.” Journal of European Social Policy 20 (5): 399–​409. An, Mi-​Young, and Ito Peng. 2016. “Diverging Paths? A Comparative Look at Childcare Policies in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.” Social Policy & Administration 50 (5): 540–​558. Baird, Marian, and Margaret O’Brien. 2015. “Dynamics of Parental Leave in Anglophone Countries: The Paradox of State Expansion in Liberal Welfare Regimes.” Community, Work & Family 18 (2): 198–​217. Béland, Daniel. 2016. “Ideas and Institutions in Social Policy Research.” Social Policy & Administration 50 (6): 734–​750. Béland, Daniel, and Robert H. Cox. 2016. “Ideas as Coalition Magnets: Coalition Building, Policy Entrepreneurs, and Power Relations.” Journal of European Public Policy 23 (3): 428–​445. Bleses, Peter, and Martin Seeleib-​Kaiser. 2004. The Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Blome, Agnes. 2016. “Normative Beliefs, Party Competition, and Work-​Family Policy Reforms in Germany and Italy.” Comparative Politics 48 (4): 479–​503. Blum, Sonja. 2012. Familienpolitik als Reformprozess: Deutschland und Österreich im Vergleich. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Boling, Patricia. 2015. The Politics of Work-​Family Policies: Comparing Japan, France, Germany and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bonoli, Giuliano. 2007. “Time Matters: Postindustrialization, New Social Risks, and Welfare State Adaptation in Advanced Industrial Democracies.” Comparative Political Studies 40 (5): 495–​520. Campbell, John L. 2004. Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dalton, Emma. 2017. “Womenomics, ‘Equality’ and Abe’s Neo-​liberal Strategy to Make Japanese Women Shine.” Social Science Japan Journal 20 (1): 95–​105. Daly, Mary. 2010. “Shifts in Family Policy in the UK under New Labour.” Journal of European Social Policy 20 (5): 433–​443. Daly, Mary, and Emanuele Ferragina. 2018. “Family Policy in High-​Income Countries: Five Decades of Development.” Journal of European Social Policy 28 (3): 255–​270. Daly, Mary, and Katherine Rake. 2003. Gender and the Welfare State: Care, Work and welfare in Europe and the USA. Cambridge: Polity Press. Deyo, Frederic C. 1992. “The Political Economy of Social Policy Formation: East Asia’s Newly Industrialized Countries.” In States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim, edited by Richard P. Appelbaum and Jeffrey Henderson, 289–​306. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Earles, Kimberly. 2011. “Swedish Family Policy: Continuity and Change in the Nordic Welfare State Model.” Social Policy & Administration 45 (2): 180–​193. Ellingsæter, Anne Lise. 2014. “Nordic Earner-​Carer Models—​Why Stability and Instability?” Journal of Social Policy 43 (3): 555–​574.

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C H A P T E R

13

 he Role of Religion for the T Development of Work-​Family Policies: The Example of Confucianism

Ito Peng and Alex Payette

Abstract The main focus of the chapter is on the role of Confucianism for cross-​national differences in the contemporary work-​family policies in East and Southeast Asian countries. The policies of these welfare states, which represent the “Confucian” welfare regime, are characterized by family policies that traditionally are strongly based on family obligations for care and a weak welfare state. However, more recently, many of these countries have begun to strengthen the role of welfare states in order to support families’ care needs. In order to answer their research question, the authors compare current work-​family policies in China, Singapore, and Japan, using a Most Similar System Design (MSSD) method. They find that these countries are charting distinct family policy paths by “handling” Confucian ideas differently. The differences can be explained, according to the findings, by these countries’ policy legacies and social and institutional contexts. Key Words: religion, Confucianism, work-​family policies, China, Singapore, Japan

Introduction Confucian-​based Asian countries are often assumed to have a very similar welfare mix, with governments relying on the family to provide care and other types of social assistance and the state playing a smaller role. However, the accelerated economic development and rapid demographic shifts across the region in recent decades have led to noticeable changes: remnants of “Confucian” values are still visible, but many countries have begun to implement new work-​family policies to support families’ care needs. To test the influence of Confucianism today, we compare current work-​family policies in China, Singapore, and Japan. We find that despite their shared Confucian cultural/​religious orientation, these countries are charting distinct family policy paths by “handling” Confucian ideas differently.1 China, Singapore, and Japan are ideal cases for a comparative study because

1 Confucianism is often depicted as a religion. In this chapter, we consider Confucianism as a culture and a statecraft. We consider Confucian values and principles, such as filial piety and respect for intergenerational

of their shared sociocultural attributes and contexts, and recent evidence of state attempts to advance and reform work-​family policies, and yet noticeably different policy directions and outcomes. These three countries share a Confucian cultural/​religious underpinning that has traditionally emphasized filial piety as the core principle of the intergenerational care relationship. In addition, these countries are also similar in that they are modern, capitalistic Asian economies that are experiencing low fertility and rapidly aging population, and that these country governments have made work-​family policies one of their policy priorities and have been actively adjusting and innovating them in effort to address their demographic concerns. Yet, despite these similarities, the three countries’ approaches to work-​family policies have diverged noticeably over the last couple of decades. This raises a question about factors that may have contributed to the different policy directions. A Most Similar System Design (MSSD), therefore, is a logical and useful comparative method to answer this question because it allows us to analyze more closely key variables that account for the different approaches to the use of Confucian ideas in work-​family policies in the three countries (Landman 2008). Table 13.1 and Figure 13.1 summarize characteristics and emerging family and care policy models in the three countries. We begin this chapter with an overview of the Confucian welfare regime, a category frequently attributed to East and Southeast Asian countries sharing a similar Confucian cultural background. We then compare Singapore, China, and Japan to assess how and to what extent each of these country’s work-​family policies, specifically those targeted at the care of young children and older people, are influenced (or not) by Confucianism. We show that China and Singapore, despite their hitherto diametrically opposite stands vis-​à-​ vis Confucianism, have tried to respectively re-​culturate (in the case of China) and further institutionalize (Singapore) Confucian values, while Japan has adopted a more secular approach. We argue that the distinct use or nonuse of Confucian culture can be explained by these countries’ policy legacies and social and institutional contexts. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and their implications. Care of children is the core of work-​family policies everywhere, and as such is an obvious choice for discussion. We add eldercare—​not a conventional target of work-​family policies—​in this discussion for two reasons. First, in the Confucian context, the care of the elderly is equally important because of the notion of filial piety, whereby children owe a duty of care to their parents and other older family members. Consequently, eldercare hierarchy and order within the family and society, as a form of cultural and ideational vehicle through which social and institutional behaviors are learned and practiced, and legal measures are anchored. At the same time, we also consider Confucianism as an effective cultural “tool kit” from which a state could draw appropriate and desired value principles to regulate and institutionalize certain citizen behaviors and practices to achieve the state’s policy objectives. We argue that many “Confucian” states, such as the ones discussed in this chapter, use Confucianism as a normative and instrumental cultural and policy tool to advance their policy objectives. As such, we see Confucianism as both grounded and mutable. For more discussions on culture, institution, and social and welfare state interactions, see Pfau-​Effinger (2004, 2005), Van Oorschot et al. (2008), and Swidler (1986).

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Table 13.1  Work-​Family regime and Confucian culture in China, Japan and Singapore Singapore

Japan

China

Status of “Confucianism”

State-​led institutionalization of cultural values (high). Moral/​Cultural education.

De-​“Confucianization” (progressive withdrawals of “traditional” cultural values; acceptance of “modern” culture).

Swing between de-​ institutionalization and re-​institutionalization. Ambiguous status of Confucianism inside the Party-State apparatus.

Type of society

Highly urbanized. Highly modernized.

Highly urbanized. Highly modernized.

Quite urbanized. Moderate modernization.

Scope of work-​ family “regime”

Constant expansion of social policy aimed at expanding social security since the 1980s. Low level of direct service provision; high level of service sponsoring through fiscal and tax measures (i.e., subsidies and tax incentives). Extensive use of private care market. Extensive use of foreign migrant care workers.

Implementation and steady expansion of work-​families polices since the 1990s, encompasing childcare and early child education. High level of service provision. Mixed (quasi-​) care market. Limited use of foreign migrant care workers.

Progressive dismantling of the “iron rice bowl,” 1993–​1999. Return to family-​centered care provision since 1978. More attention paid to poverty alleviation. High urban and rural discrepancies. Progressive return of more encompassing programs since the early-​2010s. Mixed public-​private care market. Extensive use of domestic migrant care workers.

Family status

Main structure of care provision. State-​led incentive to promote family care. State-​led incentives for families (financial and legal). State-​led universal programs.

Primarily the main structure of care provision, with public/​state support. Social insurance based care and welfare provision. Relies on universal state-​led programs. State program to defamilialize care provision.

Main structure of care and welfare provision. Means tested programs (restricted). State-​led incentives for families to provide care (legal punishment). Labor-​led programs in some state-​owned/​government sectors.

Status of legal provision

Legal mandate for Used to rely on children to support their Confucian ethics for parents (bound to parents care provision. obligation). No filial piety laws.

Legal mandate for children to support their parents (bound to parents obligation).

Additional observations

Strong support (state-​ led incentives) to support the role of the family as prime care providing unit. Strong state-​led programs (pensions, housing).

Stuck between modernity and tradition, between rural and urban China. Aim to achieve “Chinese-​style Care system”. Social goods provision as a way to address public grievances (high volatility). Policies that forces family to remain the main care provider.

Learning from global trends vs. emphasizing culture. State-​led care provision acknowledging the reality of “defamilialization.” Policies that support both families and individuals.

7.00

Total Fertility Rate

6.00 5.00 4.00 3.00 2.00 1.00 0.00

1965–1975–1985–1995–2005–2015–2025–2035–2045–2055–2060– 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2065 Years Eastern Asia

China

Republic of Korea

Taiwan

China, Hong Kong SAR South-Eastern Asia

Japan Singapore

Figure 13.1  Total fertility rates in selected Asian countries (1960–​2060) 

is a core component of family and work-​family policies in countries with a Confucian tradition. Second, eldercare also is a pressing policy concern in many Asian countries, particularly these three, because of the rapidly aging population. Indeed, much of current family policy debates and reforms in the three countries are focused on eldercare. Confucian Welfare Regime The notion of the Confucian welfare regime first emerged in the early 1990s in comparative welfare state scholarship (Jones 1993). In an effort to understand East Asian welfare state models, researchers attributed certain features, such as strong familialism, state reliance on family-​based care provisions, low social spending, and high levels of gender inequality, to Confucian values of social harmony, loyalty, family, filial piety, hierarchy, and strict division of gender roles (Jones 1993; Goodman and Peng 1996; Holliday 2000; De Barry 1998; Barr 2002).2 Confucian values, particularly in relation to family-​based care and welfare, thus became a defining element of the East Asian welfare model. Confucianism is based on the idea of family as the core unit of society, underpinned by the principle of filial piety (which combines loyalty, obedience, and hierarchy). Accordingly, parents and children have a mutually binding obligation whereby parents must provide for and raise their children, and in return, children must provide

2 This notion constituted a cultural counterargument to Western universalism and individualism. It also created a narrative justifying the existence of “harder” democracies or “softer” authoritarian regimes in East and Southeast Asia.

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and care for their parents in their old age3 (Payette 2015; Glinskaya and Feng 2018; Zuo 2016). This partially explains why, in many Asian countries, individual welfare has traditionally been considered a family matter, not a state responsibility. Unsurprisingly, public welfare spending in Confucian countries remained very low until the end of the 1990s. As regional economies slowed down in the wake of the Asian financial crisis (1997–​1998), the earlier productivist welfare state approach, which focused on export-​led economic growth and welfare through the protection of male employment and support for export-​intensive industries(Holliday 2000; Kim 2015), gave way to more pro-​family, pro-​women social investment policies (Peng 2014; Peng and Wong 2008). In all cases, the new social investments—​mostly in the form of work-​family policies related to childcare and eldercare and mobilization of women’s human capital—​were also informed by rapid population aging and very low fertility. Although some critics argue “Confucian values” are irrelevant to policy, with a few even finding the values groundless (Kim 2010a, 2010b) or less influential (Chau and Yu 2013), there has been a renewed interest in the Confucian welfare state, particularly when the Chinese Communist Party began using the Confucian idioms (e.g., “harmonious society,” etc.) in its infamous eleventh Five-​Year Plan (2006–​2010). While it is commonly understood that the construction of a harmonious society in China refers to an attempt to mitigate the undesirable effects of the Jiang Zemin–​Zhu Rongji “development at all costs” era,4 this “new” discourse led to burgeoning studies highlighting the family’s leading role in welfare provision in China (e.g., Izuhuara and Ray 2013). Comparative studies of other Asian countries have emerged as well, for example, with Philips and Jung (2013) demonstrating Confucian traditions are institutionalized in some of South Korea’s social policies and suggesting Confucian cultural elements might influence the structure of other East Asian welfare states. Yu, Chau, and Lee (2015) have made the same suggestion. Sociological studies, specifically those by feminist scholars (Sung and Pascall 2014), have pointed out that Confucian culture is alive and well, especially in the understanding of filial piety in East Asian countries (Philips and Jung 2013; Yeh et al. 2013). Considering that more encompassing care and social policies in the region tend to consolidate traditional gender roles and familial ideology, and these values are found in very different political regimes, Confucianism seems to have a pervasive influence on the structuring of care and welfare policies in East and South East Asia.

This is captured by the idiom “raising children to provide for old age” (yang er fanglao, 养儿防老). The idiom “a benevolent father; a filial son” (fu ci zi xiao, 父慈子孝) emphasizes the gendered aspect of traditional care. 4 The documents prepared for the 11th Five Year Plan mention social harmony, but no clear decisions have been made inside the party when it comes to Confucius, let alone Confucianism. 3

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Work-​Family Policies in China, Singapore, and Japan: Divergent Trajectories Singapore: Institutionalized Confucian Filial Piety–​Based Work-​Family Policies Singapore stands out as an explicit case of institutionalized Confucian values. Moral education (also called “national education” or “civic and moral education”) has been used to forge national unity since the country’s political independence in 1965 (Wei 1994; Wei and Chin 2004). A required course in both elementary and high school, moral education is premised on five national values emphasizing the Confucian principles of social harmony, family, and hierarchy: “nation before community and society before self; community support and respect for the individual; the family as the basic unit of society; consensus in place of conflict; and racial and religious harmony” (Singapore-​Ministry of Education, quoted in Wei and Chin 2004, 597–​598). Since the 1980s, the People’s Action Party has been gradually expanding work-​family policies by offering more public support for working mothers, on the one hand, and on the other, continuing to emphasize—​and in some cases re-​emphasizing—​families’ roles and responsibilities in care and welfare provision. The Singaporean government’s decision to expand work-​family policy was largely based on socio-​demographic imperatives. In the late-​1980s, concerned by the rapid fertility decline (from 3.0 in 1970 to 1.4 in 1986) and low female labor force participation rate (45.6% in 1986), and anxious about social and political implications of increasing immigrant intake, the government unrolled a series of work-​family policies focused on encouraging maternal employment through childcare support. These led to the expansion of childcare centers and kindergartens, the introduction of government subsidies for childcare and preschool education, and the opening of the childcare and early education sector to private for-​profit and not-​ for-​profit operators (Choo 2010). The number of childcare centers, mostly privately operated, increased from 48 in 1984 to 397 in 1995, and then to 1,538 in 2020, while the number of children enrolled rose from 2,974 to 26,790, and then to 119,945, respectively (Choo 2010; Singapore-​ECDA 2020). Yet the government was also firm that work-​family policy should not be understood as the state replacing the family’s primary care responsibility. To this end, it reinforced the family’s (Confucian) care obligations. For example, the 1995 Maintenance of Parents Act legally obliged adult children to support parents over the age of 60. In 1996 the Maintenance of Child/​Parental Responsibility Act enshrined in the Women’s Charter was revised to emphasize parents’ obligations to care for their children. The Singaporean government’s efforts to encourage women’s labor force participation and to raise the fertility rate saw further work-​family policy extensions after 2000. These included the creation of early infant care centers for children up to age two, increased subsidies for infants and childcare, subsidies for kindergarten and afterschool care for school-​ aged children, and a push to harmonize and increase the quality of early childcare and education through improved and standardized education and training for care workers

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and teachers. A three-​day fully paid marriage leave was introduced in 2000 to encourage marriage and childbirth (Yap 2009). Maternity and childcare leave provisions for working parents steadily expanded as well, including the extension of an eight-​week paid maternity leave to 16 weeks in 2008, a four-​week paid maternity leave for child adoption, the extension of paid childcare leave from two to six days per year, an additional six days of unpaid infant care leave, and the introduction of a three-​day paternity leave for men working in the civil service (Sun 2012). Again, all this extended state support for working women did not preclude the Confucian principle of a family’s filial piety obligations, for both parents and children. To address the care of the elderly, the Singaporean government has structured welfare around a compulsory state-​managed savings account, the Central Provident Fund (CPF), and implemented a series of measures aimed to incentivize citizens to provide care to their older family members. ElderShield—​a part of the CPF—​is the main government-​sponsored private disability insurance plan available for elderly people with long-​term care (LTC) needs. The plan provides cash support for out-​of-​pocket expenses incurred for LTC services for up to 72 months. But the cash support is time-​limited and often inadequate. Many older people thus rely on their children for care and support. The Singaporean government strongly encourages intergenerational family support through co-​residence. For example, it provides tax relief for adult children with elderly parents: SG$9,000 per year if they are co-​residing with a healthy parent (SG$14,000 per year if a parent is disabled), and SG$5,500 if not co-​residing but providing some form of care and assistance (SG$9,000 if the parent is disabled) (Singapore Inland Revenue Authority 2020). This seems to have slowed the rate of family distanciation. In 2017, 51.7% of Singaporeans aged 65+​were living with their children, a decline from 69% in 2000, but still much higher than China (59.4% in 2000) or Japan (38.4% in 2016) (Singapore Ministry of Social and Family Development 2020; Japan-​NIPSS, n.d.; UNDESA 2019). Although the Singaporean government has significantly expanded its work-​family policies vis-​à-​vis childcare and eldercare and has offered increasing state support for the family, these policies are firmly undergirded by the Confucian principle of filial piety and are heavily reliant on the family and the private market for service delivery. Unlike other OECD countries that have bolstered their support for the family through both financial and service provisions, Singaporean work-​family policies build on an institutionalized Confucian principle of filial piety and are largely centered on financial support and incentives to facilitate families’ ability to undertake their filial obligations. To be sure, the idea of filial piety in Singapore is so prevalent and normalized that a recent survey found that 86% of respondents aged 65+​claiming that they would turn to their family if they needed care, and 98% of respondents aged 15 to 64 agreeing that it was their responsibility to take care of their parents (Singapore-​MSF 2020, 7).

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China: Resurrecting, Redesigning, and Re-​establishing Confucian Culture In the People’s Republic of China, the party-​state, after more than 30 years of disregard, and sometimes open suppression, recently began to reclaim the Confucian discourse in an effort to reinstate a more traditional care structure to support the state’s “filial” legal provisions. Unlike Singapore, however, China’s attempt to re-​establish filial culture comes with little evident policy or financial incentives. In China, state-​sponsored provision of public goods was established in 1949 alongside the commune system in rural areas and the industrial State-​Owned Enterprises (SOE) in urban areas, in a cradle-​to-​grave system. As part of the planned economy, the party-​state established insurance programs (maternity leaves, pensions, etc.) provided funding for officials’ dependents, PLA veterans, teachers, and others, and provided facilities such as hospitals, schools, and nurseries for urban workers and residents. Rural areas were covered mainly by brigades and communes, but at their own expense and only if surplus allowed it. In general, rural welfare provision was well below the standards enjoyed by urban dwellers. Following the disruptions of the Great Leap Forward (1958–​1962) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–​1976), the party-​state partially resumed welfare provision. However, state coverage soon lost out to market-​oriented reforms under the Deng Xiaoping regime (1978–​1989). By the mid-​1980s, the party-​state had already begun to withdraw from welfare provision, divesting itself from SOEs and Town-​Village Enterprises (TVEs), although it continued to invest in and subsidize education and training programs to bolster employment. As China progressively embarked on the path to export-​led industrialization in the mid-​1990s, it steadily abandoned state-​provided social benefits to maintain its competitiveness in the global market and to show its good faith in its process to join the World Trade Organization. The public sector was drastically restructured, and key welfare programs, such as public and workplace childcare and public eldercare services, were gutted. The welfare retrenchment was followed by important legal provisions, such as Article 183,5 the 1980 Marriage Law, and the 1996 Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, all aimed at laying a new basis for eldercare and childcare. These legislations clarify who the caregivers are (family members), as well as their responsibilities and the legal ramifications for noncompliance. A close examination of these provisions suggests an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to institutionalize the Confucian principle of filial piety as the main eldercare framework. The privatization left families with little or no public eldercare or childcare service provisions and facilities. In addition, after the 1989 Regulation for Kindergartens (Hu and Szente

5 The latter states: “Those who have the obligation but refuse to support those who are aged, young, sick, or do not have the ability to live independently, if the case is serious, are to be sentenced to five years or less in prison or put under criminal detention or surveillance.”

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2008), publicly funded day care for the 0–​2 age group became almost nonexistent. This regulation was also adopted by SOEs. As the private childcare sector began to expand in the late-1990s, childcare center and kindergarten fees increased, forcing parents to rely on family support (Hu 2013).6 At the same time, elders also became increasingly reliant on their adult children for care. Some pensioners (e.g., retired from state working units, institutions, or organizations) receive a monthly pension of 4,000 RMB (US$576) to 10,000 RMB (US$1,440) in addition to medical insurance, etc. In contrast, the basic average urban pension was 1,721 RMB (US$247) per month in 2012 (Zhang and Yan 2015). With the estimated cost of eldercare ranging from 12,000 RMB (US$1,728) to 25,000 RMB (US$3,600) per year (Du and Liu 2014), the average basic urban pension is inadequate to support the elderly. The party-​state has remained firm in its policy decision to maintain a “means tested” approach to eldercare and LTC provision (Chen 2016). This means the government covers only elderly people with the “Three Nos”—​ no family, no work, and no means of support (Hong 2017). All others are expected to be taken in by their families. Despite a strong will to establish a more comprehensive insurance system in both rural and urban China since 2013, the overall structure operates under the “90+​7+​3 model” (90% home-​care, 7% community, 3% institutional).7 Even for new community and local programs, provision of public eldercare remains targeted and “means tested” (e.g., for disabled or severely ill elderly people, etc.) (Glinskaya and Feng 2018). Moreover, the government’s progressive push for market reform has made the private sector the sole alternative8 to eldercare for the foreseeable future (State Council 2017). In sum, as laid out in the 2000 legislation Decisions Regarding Strengthening Aging Work, the Chinese party-​state’s eldercare reform puts the responsibilities of eldercare squarely back to the family: “family providing primary care; community-​based care as a back-​up, and institutional care as a supplement” (Luo and Zhan 2018, 449). It is worth mentioning that the pension predicament created an urgent demand for family (home) care, while the state has been slow to develop public and accessible care structure. It has however increased the supply of early childhood education and care since the early 2000s. Today, most pre-​school age children attend kindergarten from the age of three, however, retired grandparents (many of whom need care themselves) are expected

6 Cost of childcare can range from 3,000 RMB (US$430) to 20,000 RMB (US$2,872) per month in tier-​one cities, although similar fees can be found in some tier-​two cities, especially for “international” kindergartens. 7 In 2018, Liu Yuanli, president of the China Association of Elderly Care, said this model is the future of eldercare in China. Community support is provided only to elders who are unattended or unable to take care of themselves. 8 Other actors providing eldercare in China include local welfare and charity groups, religious groups, and others.

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to provide childcare for infants and toddlers and those who are not in kindergartens while parents are working. Since the mid-​1980s progressive economic liberalization, combined with the new legal provisions, directly influenced the overall care structure and the development of social policies in China. The market pressure on both male and female breadwinners created new markets for domestic services. As a consequence, in richer provinces, such as Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang, parents sometimes hire domestic care workers privately. Changes in family policies and care provision in China have relied heavily on the concept of filial piety. This shift is reflected in the current situation: low state expenditure, means-​tested provisions for specific cases, and overemphasis on family-​based care. Needless to say, the complex changes in Chinese households, such as the rise in two-​generation households since 2010 (Hu and Peng 2015), are putting an increasing strain on this idea. Through its recent programs and legal provisions, the party-​state has structured welfare provision around family-​based care. The overall Chinese approach to welfare provision is based on “large” government programs and insurance schemes. However, more often than not, they cannot realistically accommodate the needs of the elderly; as a result they must rely on their children or extended family for care provision. Unlike Singaporeans, Chinese families do not benefit from financial support and incentives to care from their elderly family members. Instead, the state has codified what is expected from children through filial piety laws.9 In short, the Chinese government’s approach to family and work-​family policy is based on an instrumental “Confucian ethos,” which emphasizes filial piety, obedience, loyalty and conflict avoidance, a return to the traditional care roles without much in way of the state support, and a significant reversal from the earlier Communist-​planned economic model. In reality, the Chinese party-​ state does not have the means to implement all-​ encompassing and universal welfare programs like the ones in Japan or Singapore. At this point, it is simply cheaper to focus on filial piety legislation and “publicity campaigns” rather than to set up a public or state-​funded care system. Hence the current “Confucian approach” to welfare is based as much on the post-​Mao cultural revival as it is on the needs of the party. The party-​state has been using filial piety in eldercare policies, and this seems unlikely to change anytime soon. In conclusion, China is stuck between the progressive marketization of care and the overreliance on “Confucian” legal provisions. Again, unlike Singapore, China has done so by re-​establishing and institutionalizing Confucian cultural elements without developing a “positive” framework (financial incentives, subsidies, state-​ sponsored programs) to help families.

9 Singapore also has similar legislation that makes it punishable by law for children to refuse to support their parents.

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Japan: Leaving Confucian Values Behind Of the three countries discussed here, Japan has moved in the most secular direction in its approach to work-​family policies. Studies show that the Japanese public has become much less “Confucian” in its thinking, particularly with respect to the notion of filial piety obligations, compared to other East Asian countries such as China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (Tsai and Wang 2019; Yasuda et al. 2011; Taniguchi and Kaufman 2017; Tan and Tambyah 2011). While most Confucian countries have seen a steady decline in intergenerational co-​residence since the 1970s, the decline has been significantly more rapid in Japan than in China and Singapore. For example, the proportion of people aged 65 years and over who are living with their children declined precipitously, from 69.0% (52.5% with married, 16.5% with unmarried children) in 1980 to 38.4% (11.4% with married, 27.0% with unmarried children) in 2016 (Japan-​NIPSSR, n.d.). The reason for the decline is both structural (e.g., increased urbanization and out-​migration of young people and families to cities, and increased real estate prices) and ideational/​cultural (e.g., greater acceptance of the nuclear family idea and decline in adult children’s expectations of eldercare, particularly through co-​residence). Similar ideational change is also apparent amongst older people. A 2012 Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare survey found only 15.7% Japanese adults wanted to live with their children in their old age, a huge decline from 46.1% in 1983 (Japan-​MOHLW 2014). Wakabayashi and Horioka (2009) attribute modernization and urbanization as explanatory factors for the decline. Recent studies have found that in Japan, elderly and adult children co-​residence today is more likely motivated by practical socioeconomic interests and imperatives, such as the adult children’s need for material and nonmaterial support (e.g., childcare) from their parents, than by beliefs in Confucian filial piety (Yasuda et al. 2011; Taniguchi and Kaufman, 2017; Tsai and Wang 2019). The Japanese government began implementing work-​family policies in the early 1990s, largely to address its very low and declining fertility. Motivated by the success of pro-​ family policies in staving off fertility decline in such countries as Sweden, Denmark, and France, the government instituted a series of work-​family policies. Beginning with the introduction of maternity and parental leave legislations in 1992, the government has gradually increased the length of the leave and the amount of income support, now up to 14 months with income replacement of 60%. Childcare and family-​care leaves for working parents and adults were added to the work-​family policy package in the 2000s, allowing workers to take paid-​time leave and to arrange more flexible working hours (Peng and Chien 2018). As in many other OECD countries, a growing interest in and concern about the quality of early childcare and education (ECEC) in Japan since the early 2000s has led to the development of hybrid childcare/​early child education services through the merger of public childcare services (jurisdiction of the Health and Welfare Ministry) and kindergartens (Ministry of Education).

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While public and private investments in children and early childcare may be interpreted as an expression of Confucian filial piety, in Japan, policies are more influenced by global policy learning than by Confucian teaching (Peng 2014). Although Singapore has also introduced generous public support for working parents, what differentiates Japan is its continuing support for both publicly funded and publicly provided childcare services. Whereas the Singaporean approach to childcare support takes the form of financial and tax incentives to families to purchase care in the private market, the Japanese childcare system employs a mixed economy model. True, the proportion of public childcare centers and spaces has declined in relation to private childcare centers and spaces since the 1970s, due to increased marketization, but they still constitute about 40%. Since the establishment of the national plan (the “Angel Plan”) for universal childcare in 1994, the numbers and proportions of children in ECEC in Japan have risen markedly. Total childcare space increased from 1.9 million in 1995 to 2.8 million in 2018 (even though childbirths are declining). Public spending on ECEC as percent of GDP has risen from 0.19% in 1990 to 0.69% in 2017. Similarly, the proportion of children aged 0–​2 enrolled in ECEC rose from 11.1% in 1998 to 32.6% in 2018, and the ECEC enrollment rates of those aged 3–​5 increased from 83.9% in 2002 to 91.8% in 2018 (OECD, n.d.; Japan-​MOHLW 2019). The most recent childcare policy reform, implemented in 2015, shows the government’s effort to guarantee childcare space for all families wanting childcare, with a continuous emphasis on reducing the waiting list. To address eldercare, Japan implemented a universal long-​term care insurance (LTCI) for people over the age of 65 (and those over the age of 40 with age-​related disabilities such as dementia) in 2000. The LTCI is mandatory national public social insurance that provides services ranging from light home-​based care to residential and institutional care. The number of people certified to receive LTCI has more than doubled, jumping from about 2.2 million in 2000 (12.2% of population aged 65+​) to 6.4 million in 2018 (17.5%) (Japan-​MHLW, 2018). Unlike China and Singapore, where governments have sought to re-​enforce or re-​establish the Confucian principle of filial piety, Japan seems to have accepted the reality of family distanciation and the necessity of public eldercare. Indeed, the Japanese government has been advancing public and policy debates on the “aged society” (Korei Shakai)—​as opposed to the “aging society”—​since the early 2000s in an effort to prepare its citizens for the new demographic reality. The latest Policy Guidelines for the Aged Society (Korei Shakai Taisaku Taiko) emphasize three key principles, suggesting an increasing focus on independent and active living: (1) aim for an ageless society in which everyone can pursue their interests and abilities to achieve active lives, (2) create infrastructures and active local communities in which people can live throughout their old age, and (3) develop policies to actualize the aged society through technological innovations. These principles are a clear departure from a traditional Confucian ethos of family obligations and filial piety.

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While the family remains an important institution for childcare and eldercare, the Japanese work-​family policy has become much less dependent on the family for care and more reliant on the redistribution of care and care responsibilities among the family, state, community, and market. A possible reason for the decline of Confucian influence in Japanese policy is global policy learning and transfer resulting from Japan’s close engagement with global policy communities. Japan is a member of a number of powerful global policy bodies, including the UN, OECD, WHO, and G7. Thus, Japanese policymakers and researchers are regularly in contact with policy experts across the world and are informed about social policy best practices, particularly in Europe. Moreover, as a member of the OECD and G7 nations, Japan’s social policy performance is regularly compared to other OECD and G7 countries in global league tables. Studies suggest an important influence of epistemic policy communities in policy learning and transfer (Haas 1992; Dunlop 2009; Evans 2009; Mahon 2010) and note the increased engagement of industrialized East Asian countries in global policy debates and dialogues, especially around work-​family policy reforms (Yoo and Oh 2017; Peng 2014). Japan’s less Confucian approach to work-​family policy can also be attributed to its history of institutionalized public childcare dating back to the end of World War II. In the 1960s, as Japan entered a period of rapid economic growth, public childcare became a national policy priority. Women’s groups mobilized socially and politically to demand public childcare (Peng 2002). The implementation of a public childcare policy in the 1960s, albeit one targeting low-​income and single-​parent families, established the institutional framework for a public childcare system and created a path-​dependent trajectory for the government to expand the public childcare system in the 1990s. The two main childcare systems created during the postwar era—​one providing full-​day center-​based daycare for children 0–​5 years old, and the other in the form of half-​day kindergartens providing early child education for children 3–​5 years old—​laid out and institutionalized the government’s roles in public childcare/​ECEC. They also became the template for social care system reform in the 21st century. In a similar vein, during the 1990s, when the Japanese government began to tackle the issue of LTC for the elderly, the pre-​existence of functioning institutionalized and publicly funded childcare systems served as an important institutional policy framework for eldercare. The policy learning from Germany’s then newly established LTCI was another important policy model for the development of Japan’s LTCI system. Conclusion This chapter discussed the roles and influence of Confucianism in work-​family policies in Singapore, China, and Japan. It suggests that while the three countries share common Confucian religious and cultural roots, each country has developed differently. In recent decades, each has applied, reapplied, or withdrawn from Confucian precepts to formulate work-​family policies to address urgent socioeconomic and demographic imperatives,

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such as low fertility and an aging population, the postindustrial service economy, and progressive modernization. In Singapore, the government has re-​enforced and further institutionalized Confucian ideas through public education and legislation, counseling its citizens to attend to family obligations, and at the same time it has enhanced its tax and financial incentive offers to help support families to carry out their filial piety obligations. In China, the government has cut back state welfare support for workers and families, including childcare and eldercare, and resurrected and reinstituted Confucian teachings as guidelines for the family to manage the care of its members. And in Japan, the government has moved away from the use of Confucian teachings to instruct intergenerational care obligations; instead, it has accepted the increased state role in the provision and/​or support of childcare and eldercare by expanding social care. This comparison of the distinct uses and nonuse of Confucianism in Singapore, China, and Japan reveals three insights. First, it makes explicit the roles of religion and culture such as Confucianism in shaping welfare states in East Asian countries. All three countries share a common legacy of Confucian ethos about filial piety and intergenerational familial care responsibilities and obligations, and notwithstanding the changes in the state applications of this Confucian ethos in their policies, it has continued to shape the practice and forms of childcare and eldercare. In Singapore, where Confucian ideas about filial piety are most institutionalized, families are less reliant on or expectant of the state to provide care, and a huge majority of people believe in and expect children to care for their aging parents. In China, where Confucianism was openly suppressed during the early Communist era, the practice of filial piety remains strong today, albeit with cuts in public childcare and eldercare. In Japan, where Confucian ideas are beginning to diminish, families nevertheless play a central role in both childcare and eldercare. In short, regardless of the strengths of the Confucian ethos, it continues to play a role in underpinning the basic thinking about family and care, and thus directly or indirectly informs policies and practices, in these countries. Second, this comparative study shows how Confucianism as both culture and statecraft provides a set of tools for the state to draw on for its policy and program ideas, rationales, and directions, and to construct the narrative of a national “welfare culture” to advance and/​or maintain state policy objectives (also see Pfau-​Effinger 2005; Van Oorschot et al. 2008). Our comparison of recent developments in family-​work policies in the three countries reveals that the Confucian cultural trope of filial piety and intergenerational familial care responsibilities and obligations can be emphasized, rejected, rehabilitated, or downplayed in social policy formulations at different time in history depending on the social and structural contexts. In the case of Singapore, the government has managed to maintain a consistent narrative of five national values premised on the Confucian principles of social harmony, family, and hierarchy. In China, after years of suppression, the government resurrected the Confucian ethos of family care as a part of the social care and welfare retrenchment, and in Japan, the notion of filial piety has been gradually put aside as the

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government increasingly shifts its aged society narrative to “independent and active living” and expands social care in response to the aging population and family distanciation. Finally, by using a comparative lens to illustrate the interactions between Confucian ideas and family-​work policy reforms, we also show the mutable and instrumental potentials of Confucian culture. While some core of Confucianism (such as the idea of social harmony, gender and age hierarchy, and importance of family) is foundational and will likely continue to be a grounding force in many Asian societies, it does not mean that it is completely fixed. As this chapter shows, Confucianism can be reinforced, rejected, and resurrected at different points in history as social and political contexts change. This suggests possibilities for ongoing changes and potentials for the advancement as well as the return of ideas. While the Confucian influence on work-​family policies in the three Asian countries compared here is far from uniform, it is important to emphasize that certain expectations of the family’s caring role remain firmly in place, and families, especially women, continue to play an important role in the care of both young and old.10 To be sure, in all three countries, welfare and care provision are still based on some form of familialism—​even in Japan, where the idea of Confucian filial piety is no longer stressed. Hence, these variations are still within the boundaries of what is generally known as the “East Asian welfare model” (Goodman, Kwon, and White 2006; Kim 2015). We conclude this chapter with a reflection on the implications of our comparative analysis of the role of Confucianism in the development of family-​work policies in Singapore, China, and Japan. At a fundamental level, our study shows the importance of culture and religion in shaping and substantiating social policies. Our analysis adds to the previous and growing body of research on the roles of culture and religion in the development of welfare states, showing the power of culture and values in informing and shaping states’ and citizens’ understandings of society and the appropriate roles of the state, market, and the family (Van Kersbergen and Manow 2009; Kahl 2005; Pfau-​Effinger 2004, 2005; Van Oorschot et al. 2008). In a similar vein, we argue that Confucianism as a culture/​religion also provides an important ideational underpinning for the state and individuals to imagine ideal family and gender relations and forms of care. In addition, we show that—​as in the case of other countries in the West and the East—​states continue to closely interact with culture and religion to formulate, shape, and implement social policies. References Barr, Michael D. 2002. Cultural Politics and Asian Values: The Tepid War. London: Routledge. Bary, Wiliam T. 1998. Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chau, Ruby C. M., and Sam W. K. Yu. 2013. “Defamilisation of Twenty-​Two Countries: Its Implications for the Study of East Asian Welfare Regime.” Social Policy & Society 12 (3): 355–​367. 10 However, we argue that this is not just Confucianism per se. It appears that the notion of family’s and, in particular, women’s caring role and obligations is remarkably universal across the globe.

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Landman, Todd. 2008. Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics: An Introduction. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. Luo, Baozhan, and Shaohua Zhan. 2018. “Crossing the Rivers by Feeling the Stones: Contesting Models of Marketization and the Development of China’s Long-​Term Care Services.” Journal of Chinese Governance 3 (4): 438–​460. Mahon, Rianne. 2010. “After Neo-​Liberalism?: The OECD, the World Bank and the Child.” Global Social Policy 10 (2): 172–​192. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development. n.d. OECD Family Database. Paris: OECD. http://​www.oecd.org/​soc​ial/​fam​ily/​datab​ase.htm. Payette, Alex. 2015. “Renouveau Confucéen et Care: Tension entre l’obligation et le besoin.” Monde Chinois 41: 64–​71. Peng, Ito. 2002. “Social Care in Crisis: Gender, Demography and Welfare State Restructuring in Japan.” Social Politics 9 (3): 411–​443. Peng, Ito. 2014. “The Social Protection Floor and the ‘New’ Social Investment Policies in Japan and South Korea.” Global Social Policy 14 (3): 389–​405. Peng, Ito, and Yi-​Chun Chien. 2018. “Not All in the Same Family: Diverging Approaches to Family Policy in East Asia.” In Handbook of Family Policy, edited by Guðný Björk Eydal and Tine Rostgaard, 236–​249. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Peng, Ito, and Joseph Wong. 2008. “Institutions and Institutional Purpose: Continuity and Change in East Asian Social Policy.” Politics and Society 36 (1): 61–​88. Pfau-​ Effinger, Birgit. 2004. Development of Culture, Welfare States and Women’s Employment in Europe. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Pfau-​Effinger, Birgit. 2005. “Culture and Welfare State Policies: Reflections on a Complex Interrelation.” Journal of Social Policy 34 (1): 3–​20.Phillips, Ruth, and Yong-​Moon Jung. 2013. “The Clash between Social Policy and Traditional Values: Unmet Welfare Needs Sustained by the Culture of Familism in South Korea.” Asian Social Work and Policy Review 7 (1): 18–​27. Singapore-​ECDA (Early Child Development Agency). 2020. Biannual Report Statistics on ECDC Services. ECDA Factsheet. https://​www.ecda.gov.sg/​Docume​nts/​Resour​ces/​ECDA%20Fa​ctsh​eet.pdf. Singapore Inland Revenue Authority (IRAS). 2020. Parent Relief/​Handicapped Parent Relief. https://​www.iras. gov.sg/​taxes/​ind​ivid​ual-​inc​ome-​tax/​bas​ics-​of-​ind​ivid​ual-​inc​ome-​tax/​tax-​reli​efs-​reba​tes-​and-​ded​ucti​ons/​ tax-​reli​efs/​par​ent-​rel​ief-​hand​icap​ped-​par​ent-​rel​ief. Singapore Ministry of Social and Family Development. 2020. Ageing Families in Singapore, 2000–​2017. Ageing Families in Singapore—​Insight Series 2019. State Council of the PRC. 2017. “Guowuyuan guanyu yinfa ‘shisanwu’ guojia laoling shiye fazhan he yanglao tixi jianshe guihua de tongzhi.” Beijing: State Council of the PRC. http://​www.gov.cn/​zhen​gce/​cont​ent/​ 2017-​03/​06/​cont​ent_​5173​930.htm. Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological Review 51 (2): 273–​286. Sun, Shirley H-​L., ed. 2012. Population Policy and Reproduction in Singapore: Making Future Citizens. London: Routledge. Sung, Sirin, and Gillian Pascall, eds. 2014. Gender and Welfare States in East Asia: Confucianism or Gender Equality. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Tan, Soo J., and Siok K. Tambyah. 2011. “Generalized Trust and Trust in Institutions in Confucian Asia.” Social Indicators Research 103 (3): 357–​377. Taniguchi, Hiromi, and Gayle Kaufman. 2017. “Filial Norms, Co-​residence, and Intergenerational Exchange in Japan.” Social Science Quarterly 98 (5): 1518–​1535. Tsai, Ming-​Chang, and Ying-​Ting Wang. 2019. “Intergenerational Exchanges in East Asia: A New Look at Financial Transfers.” Comparative Sociology 2019 (2): 173–​203. UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs). 2019. Database on the Household and Living Arrangements of Older Persons, 2019. New York: UNDESA. https://www.un.org/development/ desa/pd/data/living-arrangements-older-persons. Van Kersbergen, Kees, and Manow Philip, eds. 2009. Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Oorschot, Wim, Michael Opielka, and Birgit Pfau-​Effinger, eds. 2008. Culture and the Welfare State: Values and Social Policy in Comparative Perspective. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Wakabayashi, Midori, and CharlesY. Horioka. 2009. “Is the Eldest Son Different? Residential Choice of Siblings in Japan.” Japan and the World Economy 21: 337–​348.

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 he Role of the “Social Investment” T Concept for the Development of Family Policy

Chiara Saraceno

Abstract The chapter has its main focus on the ways in which the welfare states have used the social investment concept to reframe the family and gender arrangements that are supported and expected by family policies, and of the role of family policies within the social policies package. The analytical framework of the paper relates to the approach of Béland (2009), according to which ideas are an important component in the identification and construction of social problems that enter the policy agenda. The author concludes from the analysis that the diversity of functions and policy instruments envisaged by the social investment approach offers policy advocacy and policymakers the possibility to adapt selectively the social investment discourse. The chapter also argues that the possible tensions between the expectations concerning good mothering and those concerning the “adult worker” model are likely to be strengthened. Key Words: social investment, family policy, gender, ideas, politics, adult worker model

It has been noted (Knijn and Ostner 2008; Daly 2004, 2011, Saraceno 2022) that family policies are the only social policies that have witnessed an expansion in the era of “permanent austerity” in most, if not in all, developed countries, and also in some of the developing ones, although following distinctive patterns (Kang and Meyers 2018). The social investment discourse has offered a strong motivational basis toward this end. In the process, however, in line with the overall social investment orientation, the focus and instruments of family policies have shifted from “traditional” income support (child-​ linked transfers, survivor pensions) to “activating” measures, such as work-​family conciliating and early childcare and education policies (e.g., Mätzke and Ostner 2010). Also, ideas and expectations concerning family organization and gender arrangements that are implicitly or explicitly embodied in family policies have accordingly changed. In the following, I will focus on how the social investment concept has been used in this ideational reframing both of the “family” and its gender arrangements that are supported and expected by family policies and of the role of family policies within the social

policies package. In so doing, I draw on Beland’s (2009; see also Schmidt 2008) argument that ideas are an important component in the identification and construction of social problems that enter the policy agenda. The Social Investment Ideational Framework The social investment approach aims at radically recalibrating the overall conceptual and practical framework of the welfare state. Social investment conceptualizes the welfare state, in fact, neither as a redistributive nor as a status maintenance instrument, but rather as investment in human capital. Well-​developed and efficiently deployed human capital, in fact, is considered by the social investment proponents as a crucial asset in competitive and knowledge-​based economies (Esping-​Andersen et al. 2002). Inheriting much of the neoliberal vocabulary, this “new” welfare state is conceptualized as radically different from the “traditional” one in that it favors “active” rather than “passive” policies, and enabling rather than protecting policies. In the most recent versions, however, some kind of balance is pursued between activation/​empowerment and protection. This broader view has been systematized by Hemerijck (2014, 2017), who has conceptualized three different functions of social investment policies, namely (1) strengthening the stock/​human capital, (2) easing the “flow” of labor market and life course transitions, and (3) maintaining strong minimum income universal safety nets as economic stabilization buffers. Whether the social investment approach is actually new is an open question. One may point out that, at the theoretical level, Sen’s capability theory (e.g., Sen 1985) offers a much earlier, thorough, and social justice–​based approach to human empowering than the narrower focus on human capital that is the basis of the social investment approach as developed by its main proponents (Esping-​Andersen et al. 2002; Hemerijck 2014, 2017). Morel et al. (2012, 3; see also Lee and Baek 2018, 113) point out that the concept of social investment may itself be traced back to Gunnard Myrdal, who in the 1930s in Sweden developed “a new conception of social policy oriented toward the efficient organization of production and reproduction . . . which viewed social policy as an investment rather than a cost.” Toward this end, he supported public funding of childcare, education, and healthcare. The social democratic Swedish welfare state developed in the post-​WWII years included many of the policies advocated by the social investment approach in all the three dimensions outlined by Hemerijck. It might be added that, contrary to the image offered by present-​day welfare state critics, including social investment proponents, the postwar European Keynesian welfare states, whatever their differences, also aimed at economic efficiency. In addition, reducing poverty and combating social exclusion and supporting the income stability of individuals and households in times of crisis were perceived as means for supporting the demand side of the economy (e.g., Lee and Baek 2018; Morel at al. 2012; Saraceno 2015, 2017). Public social expenditure and redistribution were therefore perceived as necessary for the stability of the economy.

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It may be argued, therefore, that from the start the welfare state had social investment as a core dimension. The opposition of “active” versus “passive” social policies that is the flagship by which the social investment approach distinguishes itself from the “traditional” welfare state is therefore largely misleading. The distinction rather lies in the strong focus of the social investment discourse on the activation and quality of human capital as potential and actual labor force. Inheriting the neoliberal supply-​side approach, and its “activation mandate” (Deeming and Smyth 2015; Morel et al. 2012), it shifts the focus of the role of social policies from income maintenance in order to support consumption (thus the demand side) to support for human capital development, and thus for the supply side. It is, therefore, more interested in actions concerning “stock” and “flow” than in “buffers,” in Hemerijck’s vocabulary. The post-​neoliberal social investment approach shares with Myrdal’s and Keynesianism the idea that social policies are a productive factor. But it shares with the neoliberal approach the idea that policies should first and foremost support the participation of individuals in the labor market. Whether this goal is best achieved through universal generous benefits, or strongly means-​tested and conditional ones, is an open and debated question, the practical answer to which distinguishes between what Lee and Baek (2018, 114–​115) define a social democratic and a liberal social investment approach. Another important point of distinction of the social investment approach compared with the Keynesian discourse is its critique of the male-​breadwinner model that underpinned the Keynesian welfare state. The social investment approach is, in fact, explicitly indebted to and influenced by feminist scholarship (Orloff and Palier 2009) and its critiques of the male-​breadwinner/​female-​carer model as one of the founding assumptions of traditional welfare states, informing not only labor market and social security policies, but also explicit family policies (e.g., Eräranta 2015, 68–​70; Jenson 2015; Lewis 1992). It is also influenced by the “new risks” analyses and literature (e.g., Bonoli 2005; Taylor-​Gooby 2004), which suggest that many of the perceived “new social risks” involve the weakening of the very family and gender arrangements that had underpinned the traditional welfare state—​a stable marriage, a clear gender division of labor in both paid and unpaid work, and a balanced demographic turnover granted by a fertility rate at the substitution level. It might be observed that, somewhat paradoxically, the success feminist scholarship and women’s movements achieved both in exposing the risks for women of the “traditional” welfare state and of the family and gender arrangements that underpinned it, and in supporting changes both at the policy and at the behavioral level, was soon translated in the policy discourse into the “new social risks” caused by those very changes. Having a child presents risks for mothers in the labor market, while having a working mother opens a care deficit for her children. The breaking up of marriages in societies where traditional gender responsibilities are weakened may be as financially dangerous for women and children as job loss is for men.

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The cultural underpinning that this double heritage—​feminist scholarship and “new social risks” literature—​offers to the social investment approach to family policies is radically different from that operating with regard to the “traditional” welfare state. This reasoning, however, holds for the social investment approach as it developed, and is being implemented discursively and practically (although to very different degrees and pathways) in the developed countries. To the distinction suggested here between social democratic and liberal social investment approaches, another, possibly more important, one should be added: that between how social investment is argued for in developed and developing countries. In the former, it represents an attempt, in the name of the preparation and valorization of human capital, to square the circle of encouraging women, and particularly mothers, to remain in the labor market without discouraging fertility while also investing in children. In the latter, it is not concerned with supporting women’s, and even less mothers’, employment, but only with stressing the responsibility of mothers for their children’s welfare, making support for children, and thus also investing in children, conditional on “good mothering.” That these distinctions are not made explicit, nor addressed at the theoretical level, by social investment proponents, who rather adapt the social investment discourse arguments to their current goals, offers some ground to those (e.g., Nolan 2017) who argue that the social investment approach, rather than a fully developed, theoretically refined, and empirically grounded theory, is a matter of political advocacy. What Kind of Family Is Envisaged by the Social Investment Approach? The signature policies of the social investment welfare state in the developed countries are (a) early childcare and education—​covering the dual role of investing in children and facilitating the employment of mothers; (b) active labor market policies; and (c) lifelong learning policies. In the social investment discourse, therefore, family policies are no longer seen as marginal within the overall social policy package. They are rather redefined largely as labor market policies in that they are focused on improving the future labor force and in supporting the labor force participation of women, with a specific focus on mothers, through the provision of childcare services and family-​friendly employment patterns (Morel et al. 2012). No specific attention is given to (child and/​or spouse-​linked) direct or indirect (through taxation) family transfers, which are an important item in the traditional family policy package and which are used not only (in the case of spouse-linked transfers) to support the male-​breadwinner model, but also (in the case of child-​linked transfers) both to support fertility and to contrast poverty in households with children. Also, no specific attention is given to the regulation of family-​linked leaves. Only the proponents of the transitional labor market approach (Schmid 2006, 2018; see also Supiot 2001), which developed independently from the social investment one, but recently has taken up the social investment language and perspective, explicitly introduce the need of a “time policy” as a means of granting flexibility over the life course, in order to manage

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the interferences between (paid) work and family life demands. Policies concerning care for the disabled or frail elderly, which have been increasingly conceptualized as (also) family policies, insofar as they impact on the caring needs and obligations arising within family networks, are also not focused upon in the social investment approach. They are, however, now (partly) integrated in the new EU leave directive, which is informed by a social investment perspective. In this case, the targets of social investment are not the frail elderly, but the (mostly female) family caregivers, whose attachment to the labor market the directive aims to support. In the social investment perspective, in fact, older people may be the object of social investment only insofar as they are able to work and in order to keep them “fit for work,” health-​and training-​wise, as long as possible. Otherwise, they fall into the group who needs “buffers” without expectation that they may return to the “stock” category. The family model envisaged and supported by social investment policies in the developed countries is the dual (or at least one-​and-​a-​half ) breadwinner one, with underage children, followed by the single earner/​single mother one. “Dual breadwinner” does not mean also “dual carer,” however. The social investment approach embraces what Fraser (1997) called the “universal breadwinner,” or “adult worker,” model of social citizenship—​ a far cry not only from her “care parity” model (where care-​giving grants access as such to social rights and some income), but also from a dual-​carer/​dual-​breadwinner model. Concerning gender roles, the main aim of this approach is, in fact, to support women both to enter (and remain) in the labor market and to have children, without an analogous stress on supporting a change in men’s roles within the family. The “adult worker” norm is applied both to lone mother households and to women living with a partner. Under the dual pressure of the “adult worker” model and the “activation” principle implemented in social assistance, in countries—​such as the UK, the Netherlands, Germany—​ where (poor) lone mothers of very young children were previously exempted from the requirement to be available for paid work in order to be able to attend to their caring duties, these exemptions were strongly reduced. The new normative model became not the full-​time caring mother but the working mother (Knijn, Martin, and Millar 2007; Skevik 2005, 2006). Care, however, continues to be largely implicitly and explicitly framed almost exclusively as a women’s (mothers’) issue, as an only partially reducible (through the provision of childcare services) constraint on their availability for labor market participation. In his influential 2002 chapter, Esping-​Andersen did advocate a “new gender contract” to underpin a new welfare state and support a child-​centered social investment strategy (Esping-​Andersen 2002). But in his vision, this new gender contract is mostly skewed toward supporting women to develop a life-​course model as similar as possible to the male one. According to his argument, which is driven by concerns both for human capital and for demography, postindustrial economies and modern families depend on women’s employment. But women are having fewer children, thus creating a demographic

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imbalance. The defamilialization of care for preschool children should allow women to successfully combine employment and motherhood. It should also, however, provide the educational resources needed to support the development of the human capital of children, particularly of those whose parents, particularly mothers, do not have enough financial and cultural capital toward this end. While Esping-​Andersen is very explicit concerning the advisability of a “masculinization” of the female life course in terms of labor market participation, he considers the obverse as a good idea in principle but difficult to realize (Esping-​Andersen 2002, 94–​95; see also Esping-​Andersen 2009, 80, 90). Fathers do not appear to have a strategic role in the social investment approach. Their responsibilities as main or sole breadwinners are reduced, if not denied, since mothers are also expected to provide income. But their other family roles are not the object of major expected changes. To be sure, the availability of paternity and parental leaves for fathers is explicitly supported. But, rather than an acknowledgement of fathers’ rights to family life and time, it appears as instrumental to freeing mothers from part of their caring duties, so that they can return earlier to work. The idea of the right to care for both men and women, fathers and mothers, which had to a large degree inspired the extension of the right to parental leave to fathers, particularly in some of the Nordic countries (Leira 2002), risks being overshadowed by the employment-​first imperative and by a narrow construction of work-​family conciliating policies as instrumental to push or pull more women into the labor force, while not discouraging fertility. “Reconciling” paid work and family responsibilities is the new imperative for women (but not for men), which should be supported by policies (Daly 2011; Jenson 2015). As a consequence of the undervaluation both of care work and of the need to rebalance gender arrangements on the men’s side, however, a higher labor market participation of women/​ mothers does not necessarily imply a higher gender equality in wages and jobs. Thus, the dual-​breadwinner family model is a gender equal one neither in unpaid nor in paid work (see, e.g., Razavi 2014, 6–​7). As Jenson (2015) has observed, gender awareness is not the same as gender egalitarianism. Things look different in the developing countries, where family policies are implemented under the social investment framework, often with the support of the World Bank. In the first place, due to the absence of well-​developed welfare state provisions (Daly 2018), here policies address mainly or exclusively (very) poor households, through a combination of conditional cash transfers and the provision of services for children, mainly free schools and health services (e.g., Bourguignon, Ferreira, and Leite 2003; Knijn and Patel 2018; Sandberg and Nelson 2017; Soares et al. 2009). Support is provided to poor families, and specifically to mothers, under the condition that their children attend school regularly (even when the school is far away and transportation is not always provided) and have regular health checks, instead of letting them start an early career of irregular and low-​qualified jobs in the informal economy. Children, therefore, are the only target of social investment, and mothers are only supported as essential means toward this end and

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as long as their behavior, and that of their children, fulfill the expectations of the programs (Molyneux 2006; Molyneux and Thomson 2011; Nagels 2018). The Mixed Role of Childcare Services as Work-​Family Conciliating Instruments and Child Development Resource Undoubtedly, the social investment approach has contributed greatly to put the provision of early childcare services at the center of the family policy agenda (Barnett and Nores 2015; Cantillon and Van Lancker 2013; Leon 2017; Lopreite and Macdonald 2014; Rostgaard 2018). At the same time, it has offered common ground and cultural legitimation to two objectives that historically have long remained distinct and even in conflict: supporting mothers’ paid work and offering early education opportunities to preschool age children under the early childcare education and care (ECEC) framework. Traces of this distinction may be found in the different status preschool services had, and sometimes still have, depending on whether they are framed within the former or the latter objective, as “reconciliating” or educational services, particularly when services for children under three are concerned. Even the dual system—​for children under two and for children from three to school age—​which still characterizes some country, is an inheritance of that distinction. These two approaches, and goals, were in tension with each other, insofar as the argument in favor of the right, necessity, or “adulthood duty” of mothers of small children to stay in paid work did not deal explicitly with issues concerning the well-​being and needs of children. Childcare was discussed more in terms of quantity than of quality (Campbel-​Barr and Bogatić 2017). Conversely, ECEC, targeted mainly to children age three and over, was concerned with quality, less with quantity and with schedules coherent with working time ones. These two approaches have also for some time distinguished the EU and the OECD motivations and arguments in advocating an expansion of formal childcare services. The EU stressed its “reconciliating” role in support of mothers’ labor force participation both in the Lisbon strategy launched in 2000 and in the Barcelona targets introduced in 2002. Social investment, not yet part of the official European jargon, concerned, if at all, women and particularly mothers under the adult worker model that became incorporated in EU discourse and targets (Annesley 2007; Daly 2011). Only in 2013 did the European Commission, with the document Investing in Children, Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage, explicitly define early childcare as also educational and as an important stepping stone for individual development, lifelong learning, and social integration (Rostgaard 2018). ECEC instead had pride of place in the OECD documents since 2001, with the Starting Strong I and II country studies. Supporting mothers’ employment and therefore reconciliation took priority over quality issues later, within the Babies and Bosses studies framework (Mahon 2012). ECEC returned, however, to the forefront for the OECD with the 2009 report Doing Better for Children. Both the OECD interest for ECEC and the more recent shift in focus of the EU are strongly influenced by the, mostly US, empirical studies performed in the 1990s in the

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neurosciences on brain development during the first thousand days, and on the impact on this development of contextual conditions, together with studies on the impact of social inequality on school achievement (e.g., Duncan, Brooks-​Gunn, and Klebanov1994; Duncan and Brooks-​Gunn 2000; and more recently Ermisch, Jäntti, and Smeeding, 2012). These studies, in turn, have spurred a large body of research, starting from the very influential study by Heckman (2006) on the positive impact of very early family formal childcare and education on cognitive development, particularly in the case of children belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged families. Heckman went so far as to argue the financial advantage of investing in good-​quality early childcare, in that it would produce savings later on in terms of reduction of public expenditure for social assistance, teenage pregnancy, delinquency, and so forth. The trade-​off would be even more advantageous considering the gains obtained in productivity and in the fiscal basis with more mothers in the labor market. Whether the short-​term positive effects on cognitive development that are found by empirical research hold over the long term, and in what conditions, remains an open question. Findings show that the positive effect is much clearer for the disadvantaged children than for the others (Del Boca, Martino, and Piazzalunga 2017; Heckman 2006), or only for some of the former and is mediated in complex ways by the mother’s employment situation (e.g., Waldfogel et al. 2002). The positive findings, however, have offered an empirical basis for advocating the promotion of childcare and education services as a form of investment in children across many parts of the world and in different kinds of welfare regime, positing childcare as a “global policy agenda,” as argued by Rostgaard (2018). They also offer to the social investment approach the arguments to overcome, at least at the discursive level, the tensions between the reconciliating and the ECEC approach, insofar as childcare services may be understood as both good for children and useful for reconciling work and family responsibilities, at least with regard to very young children. As it happens in general in policy discourses concerning the care and supervision needs of children, these needs seem to stop when a child enters elementary school, whatever the school schedule. The social investment approach is also much more concerned with attaching an education dimension to early childcare than with enlarging the boundaries of parents’ (de facto mothers’) work-​family reconciliating problems beyond those of parents with pre-​school-​age children. Large cross-​country differences remain both at the EU and at the OECD level, with regard both to coverage and quality of care and education services, particularly for under-​threes (e.g., Leon 2017; OECD Family Database; Rostgaard 2018), notwithstanding a widespread adherence to the child investment discourse. Furthermore, while services for children age three to school age have a well-​established educational dimension and are staffed with personnel trained as educators, the situation is more diversified in the case of services for the under-​threes, where personnel may not always be specifically trained and both cross-​and intra-​country variations may be fairly large (Leon 2017). Yet there is no denying the important discursive lever the social investment approach has offered and offers to argue in favor of an expansion of good-​quality and

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accessible ECEC services, and also of equal opportunities among children, irrespective of their family background. The popularity and narrative efficacy of the social investment discourse in arguing in favor of early childcare and education notwithstanding, concerns have been raised over the image of the child and its needs that such an approach presents. Critics argue that the focus on the child as “future human capital,” on “preparing rather than repairing” (Morel et al. 2012; see also Lee and Baek 2018)—​sidelines children as independent actors on their own, and also means that childhood itself as a specific life phase and experience loses value (see e.g., Lister 2003; Jenson 2012). Also, the almost exclusive focus on cognitive development and learning is criticized as underestimating the emotional and relational dimensions, an underestimation that, on the one hand, devalues what is involved in parental (mother’s and father’s) caring (e.g., Saraceno 2015, 2017); while on the other hand, it risks framing early childcare and education services and activities in terms of early schooling, as well as imposing a standardized decontextualized vision of child development (e.g., Moss and Urban 2017, Moss et al. 2016). Other critiques concern the fact that while early childcare and education is most beneficial for children belonging to poor and deprived households, it is more likely that the majority of the actual beneficiaries belong to better-​off households with well-​ educated parents. These households, in fact, are not only more often dual-​earner ones, but they are also more sensitive to the cognitive development appeal of these services. In other social groups, the emphasis may be rather on the emotional and physical dimensions of care and on the crucial role of mother’s care. There is, in fact, no universal agreement across class and cultures on what is the best care and the best interest of children, particularly when very young, as the social investment approach tends instead to assume (Urban 2017). Whatever the cultural motivation, research has found that even in countries where the offer of childcare services is comparatively generous and accessible, these services are disproportionally used by the educated middle and upper middle classes (e.g., Pavolini and Van Lanker 2018). This unforeseen counter-​ distributive effect of social investment policies (the so called Matthew effect) has also been observed for other fields, such as labor market activation measures (e.g., Cantillon 2011; Bonoli, Cantillon, and Van Lancker 2017, Bonoli and Liechti 2018). It might be argued, however, that this critique does not concern the social investment approach as such, but rather the contextual conditions in which it is implemented and that the Matthew effect risks point to the need of further and more diversified investment measures, and possibly also of revising its narrative. End of Maternalism or a New Form of Maternalism? Interestingly, the explicit and implicit expectations concerning women in general, and mothers of small children in particular, supported by the social investment approach have been criticized both for marking the “end of maternalism” and for the disappearance of

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mothers as caregivers from the policy agenda (e.g., Knijn and Ostner 2008; Orloff 2006), and for, on the contrary, representing a modernized form of maternalism (Jenson, 2015). The former critique addresses the downplaying, under the adult worker perspective, not so much of the mothers’ need, and duty to care, as its weakening as a basis of entitlement to social rights and provisions and as a valued activity and capability in itself. Thus, as mentioned previously, poor single (but also partnered) mothers of young children are told that their main responsibility is to be adequate breadwinners, not caring mothers. Thus, they may lose entitlement to income support and be required to be available for work, as has happened in recent years in many countries where poor lone mothers on social assistance had previously been exempted for the requirement to be available for work until their children had grown up (see e.g., Knijn, Martin, and Millar 2007; Mink 1999; Skevik 2005, 2006). Behind this change in policy there is certainly the concern for the risks of social exclusion and long-​term dependency these mothers incurred. Yet the way this shift in policy is argued may suggest a devaluation of mothering as a socially valuable activity in itself. With regard to maternity leaves and benefits, which are a specific mothers’ entitlement, they have always been framed as labor market measures, conditional on (ongoing) labor market attachment and favoring a return to work, the controversies being on the impact of length and generosity of leave on the likelihood of return. The social investment discourse risks accentuating this instrumental role with regard to labor force participation (while hopefully also keeping up fertility), ignoring, or downplaying, the value, and pleasure, of the time devoted to care and nurture the child. The critiques of the social investment approach as a new form of maternalism do not deny the weakening of older forms of maternalism in social policies. But they point to an apparent paradox of the “adult worker” and “child investment”–​centered social investment: women are perceived at the same time as “ungendered workers” (e.g., Daly 2004) and as mothers of small children. Thus, equal opportunities between men and women and equality in the labor market and in wages tend to disappear as issues, notwithstanding the persistence and sometimes the increasing of inequality (Jenson 2015). Equal opportunities policies are increasingly reframed as, or substituted by, work-​family conciliation for mothers (e.g., Mahon 2002; Stratigaki 2004). In Jenson’s (2015) words, women’s supposed identity is “narrowed down” to the maternal one, resulting in what she defines as a new, or modernized, form of maternalism. This is different from previous forms of maternalism, which stressed the capability to mother (and more generally to care) as an autonomous basis for social and political citizenship (see e.g., Hobson 1994; Lister 2003a; Fraser’s “care parity model”; and Koven and Michel 1990, from a historical perspective). The strong focus on children as human capital, and on the importance of the early years of the social investment approach, increases the attention for the responsibilities, rather than the rights, of mothers, and for the quality of their mothering. This, in turn, may cause different kinds of tensions for mothers of different social classes and levels of education (Saraceno 2015, 2017). If they have a low level of education, spending “too much” time with their children

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might be presented as a liability for the latter, who would fare better if they spent that time in a good-​quality childcare and education service, as particularly Esping-​Andersen fairly explicitly suggests (Esping-​Andersen 2009; see also Lewis’s critique in Lewis 2010). If they are social assistance recipients, in addition to being incentivized to work, they are also the target of “parenting” (de facto “mothering”) support activities, in order to improve their “mothering” skills and practices. Attendance to courses on parenting may be a condition to continue to receive support (e.g., Clarke 2006 on the UK; Bertaux 2019 on Canada). If mothers are well educated instead, their caring time is perceived as an asset for their children. They are also encouraged to have more than one child in order to keep up, under the best conditions, the dwindling demography of their countries. But if they devote “too much” time to childrearing, the social investment approach suggests that they waste their own human capital to the detriment of economic efficiency and the size of the tax basis. It must be added that the focus on mothers and mothering as important for early child development, in interaction with ECEC, is not accompanied by an equivalent focus on fathers, on their roles in shaping the early development of their children. This unbalanced view of the respective role of mothers and fathers is a further example of the difficulty the social investment approach has in actually rebalancing gender arrangements. The “new maternalism,” stressing mothers’ responsibilities and duties rather than rights, is more straightforward in the case of the income support policies targeted to poor households with children in Latin America and other developing countries. In this case, in fact, based on the widespread and deeply rooted belief shared by local administrators and international bodies that mothers are more responsible parents than fathers (e.g., Fiszbein and Schady 2009, 11), mothers become the sole persons responsible not only for monitoring the welfare of their children, including their behavior with regard to school attendance and so forth; they become also totally responsible for the family budget, both for spending in an efficacious way and for guaranteeing the conditions for income support to keep flowing. They may be perceived as “empowered” as mothers, insofar as they are the ones who are responsible for obtaining support and managing it (e.g., Knijn and Patel 2018). But, the argument goes, they are not empowered as individuals, as women, since their needs and aspirations outside their role and responsibilities as mothers are not considered, including their wish to be educated or to have a regular job and be economically autonomous. The jury is out on the (poor) mothers’ empowerment impact (for an overview of research findings and interpretations concerning the impact of these conditional programs, see Milazzo 2009). What is clear is that, while their peers in the developed societies are more or less forcibly “activated” in the labor market, under the conditional cash framework these mothers in the developing countries do not receive any encouragement or support toward this end. The only forms of education and training they receive concern their responsibilities as mothers (Molyneux 2006; Molyneux and Thomson 2011; Nagels 2018). Furthermore, fathers are absent from view as responsible parents to a much larger degree than in the “gender aware” social investment discourse in the developed countries.

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The “new maternalism” argument finds support in what has been called a recent development in policy discourse and practice that has been indicated as the “parental turn” of family policies (Hopman and Knijn 2015): the recruiting of parents—​de facto mostly mothers, since the gender division of responsibilities in the household is not addressed—​ as “frontline” educators (Daly 2013), “both on behalf of the children and on behalf of the society” (Hopman and Knijn 2015, 4; see also Martin, 2015; Morrison et al. 2014). The specific orientation, the cultural traditions that inform them, and the organization of such policies may differ according to the specific history and institutional framework of each country (Knijn, Martin, and Ostner 2018 and, for a global view, Daly, 2018). They share, however, the common view that parents—​particularly, but not only, the poorer and less educated ones—​should be educated about childrearing and be engaged “in activities that seek to change their approach to managing and controlling their children’s behavior” (Daly 2013, 223). Even more exclusively focused on “investing in children” than the social investment discourse, these policies share with it the stress on the importance of the early years for child development and therefore for the future adults, although not only as a future worker, but also as well-​behaved and socially integrated citizens. Concerned with adolescent-​specific risks of misbehavior, these policies also prolong the need for direct parental intensive responsibility well beyond the early years, until their children turn 18. Although the two approaches to “investing in children”—​through universal ECEC and through parenting policies—​are ideationally different (Daly 2018) and may be differently emphasized in the specific countries, they often exist side by side. The possible tensions between the expectations concerning good mothering and those concerning the “adult worker” model are therefore likely to be strengthened—​the more so if the gendered dimensions of parenthood as they are inscribed in family and social service cultures (Knijn, Martin, and Ostner 2018; Bertaux 2019), on the one hand, and the contextual circumstances, and constraints, of labor market organization, on the other, are not explicitly and systematically addressed. The different resources mothers have to deal with these tensions, in turn, may strengthen social inequalities. Conclusion Social investment discourse, with its focus on human capital and equal opportunities, offers a powerful set of argumentations in support of specific kinds, and goals, of family policies throughout the world, in developed as well as in developing countries (Häusermann and Palier 2017). While one goal—​investing in children in order both to strengthen equal opportunities at the start and to support human capital development—​is widely shared in the social investment argumentations across the world, however, that of supporting women’s, and specifically mothers’, labor force participation is not. It plays an important role in the developed countries, both as an outcome of an increased gender awareness and as a concern over the “new social risks” arising from the deinstitutionalization of marriage, partnership instability, lone motherhood, child poverty. It plays,

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however, no specific role in the various forms of conditional cash transfers that are implemented in the developed countries under the social investment (in children) perspective. The images of the family that underline these two ways of arguing from a social investment perspective are accordingly different, although both are centered on mothers’ roles and behavior. In the developed countries, the model family seems to be the dual-​ breadwinner middle-​class one. This is also the family that is likely to benefit most from social investment policies. In the developing countries, it is rather poor households that will benefit. Interestingly, however, the conditional (on “good motherhood”) approach that is increasingly used in policies addressing poor household with children is also being implemented in the developed countries with regard to poor mothers, although in combination with that of being available for (paid) work. Poor mothers, therefore, seem to be caught under the pressure, and the possible tensions, between these two mandates more than middle-​class and well-​educated ones. Finally, within the developed countries, the shared language of social investment may cover quite different degrees and patterns of implementation (e.g., Häusermann and Palier 2017), if no, or very little, implementation at all (e.g., Kazepov and Ranci 2017). These different, and to some degree divergent, emphases are the result of the different goals and targets to which the social investment approach is put to use, possibly because of its efficacy as policy advocacy tool, rather than its theoretical soundness or the coherence of the instruments it proposes. Actually, the diversity of functions and policy instruments envisaged by the social investment approach, as detailed by Hemerijck (2015, 2017), offers both to policy advocacy actors and to policymakers the possibility to adapt selectively the social investment discourse. References Annesley, Claire. 2007. “Lisbon and Social Europe: Towards a European ‘Adult Worker Model’ Welfare System.” Journal of European Social Policy 17 (3): 195–​205. Barnett, William S., and Milagros Nores. 2015. “Investment and Productivity Arguments for ECEC.” In Investing against Evidence: The Global State and Early Childhood Care and Education, edited by P.T. Marope and Y. Kaga, 73–​90. Paris: UNESCO. Béland, Daniel. 2009. “Gender, Ideational Analysis and Social Policy.” Social Politics 16 (4): 558–​581. Berthiaume, Annabelle. 2019. “Active Mothering”: Social Investment and Parenting Support in Child and Family Interventions. Carlo Alberto Notebooks 597. Torino: Collegio Carlo Alberto. https://​www.carlo​albe​rto.org/​ wp-​cont​ent/​uplo​ads/​2019/​11/​no.597.pdf. Bonoli, Giuliano. 2005. “The Politics of the New Social Policies: Providing Coverage against New Social Risks in Mature Welfare States.” Policy and Politics 33 (3): 431–​449. Bonoli, Giuliano, Bea Cantillon, and Wim Van Lancker. 2017. “Social Investment and the Matthew Effect: Limits to a Strategy.” In The Uses of Social Investment, edited by A. Hemerijck, 66–​76. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bonoli, Giuliano, and Fabienne Liechti. 2018. “Good Intentions and Matthew Effects: Access Biases in Participation in Active Labour Market Policies.” Journal of European Public Policy 25 (6): 894–​911. Bourguignon, Francois, Francisco Ferreira, and Philippe G. Leite. 2003. “Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling, and Child Labor: Microsimulating Brazil’s Bolsa Escola Program.” World Bank Economic Review 17 (2): 229–​254.

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C H A P T E R

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 ublic Attitudes toward Responsibility P for Childcare in Welfare Regimes

Jing Guo and Neil Gilbert

Abstract The chapter examines the influence of personal characteristics and social contexts on individual attitudes toward government responsibility for childcare provisions. The analysis draws on data from a random sample of 24,240 respondents in 12 of the countries included in the European Social Survey (ESS) round 4 (2008–​2009). The analytic framework focuses on individual-​level factors related to self-​interest, perceptions of the current care available, and egalitarian ideology, as well as the societal context reflected in the alternative institutional arrangements for social welfare represented by the countries clustered into different welfare state regimes. The findings indicate that among the individual-​level variables, egalitarian ideology had the relatively strongest impact on the respondents’ level of support for government provision of childcare. At the institutional level the introduction of welfare regimes increased the proportion of explained variance well beyond that accounted for by individual-​level factors. Key Words: public attitudes, childcare, Europe, institutions, welfare regime

Introduction Policymakers in industrialized democracies are interested in and sensitive to public opinion polls that take the pulse of their constituencies on a range of social issues, which include citizen’s attitudes toward the role of government and social spending. Public opinion on these matters can influences government decision-​making by lending support to specific social policies, and more generally confer a sense of legitimacy to the welfare state. Thus, from a social welfare policy perspective, it is beneficial to gain insight into the factors that influence the formation of public attitudes. To this end there is a substantial body of research into public attitudes toward the welfare state. Bean and Papadakis (1998) note that reviews of opinion polls going back to the 1940s have revealed strong support for government intervention related to healthcare and old-​age pensions. Until recently this research has focused on public attitudes toward specific established welfare programs such as social security programs, unemployment, disability, and medical care, and more generally toward “welfare spending.” Thus, for example, an annual public opinion survey conducted by the German Marshall Fund asks Americans, Europeans, and

Turkish respondents whether they want to increase, maintain, or decrease the current level of welfare spending (in the United States, instead of “welfare,” the wording used is “spending on Social Security and Medicare”). In 2013, despite public support for cutting government expenditures to reduce national debt, respondents on both sides of the Atlantic wanted to increase or maintain spending on social welfare (German Marshall Fun, 2013). The focus of these polls on the general question of public support for the welfare state and for major mainstream social welfare programs reflects the conventional perspective that has framed welfare state research. Over the last several decades, the research perspective on social welfare has shifted and expanded due to significant changes in family structure and gender roles, which have generated new social needs. These changes have raised issues about the relationship between the traditional functions of the family and the policies of modern welfare states. At the same time a feminist critique emerged, which argued that mainstream welfare state research was too narrowly based on income transfer programs for the male breadwinner (O’Connor 1993; Orloff 1993; Sainsbury 1994, 2001). As a result the focus of welfare state analysis has broadened, with an increasing emphasis on the role of government in harmonizing paid employment and childcare obligations of family life. There is considerable variation among countries in the design and implementation of government initiatives to reconcile work and care (Daly and Lewis 1998; Gilbert 2008). Scandinavian countries employ a range of childcare provisions aimed at creating a dual-​ breadwinner model of family life. This approach is quite different from childcare provisions in Britain, which are primarily for children in poor families. In comparative analysis of care policies in Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands, Kinjn and Kremer (1997) found that due to the focus on care as a right of citizenship, the Danish welfare state came closest to creating a system of gender equality. Not only are there programmatic differences among individual countries, but from a broader perspective, levels of public spending on these programs vary among groups of countries that cluster in alternative welfare state regimes (Esping-​Andersen 1999). A longitudinal study of public expenditure on the full range of family policies in 18 countries representing four welfare state regimes showed that differences in the level of public spending among these regimes increased between 1980 and 1990, and then began to narrow between 1990 and 2001(Guo and Gilbert 2007). Throughout this period, however, the highest level of spending remained in countries represented by social-​democratic regimes, followed in order by countries associated with the Continental, liberal, and Southern European regimes (as seen in Figure 15.1). Who supports government provision of childcare in these countries, and why? Analytic Framework: Individual and Institutional Influences This chapter examines the extent to which different types of welfare regimes and individual-​ level factors are associated with public attitudes supporting government responsibility for childcare provisions in 12 European countries. Although individuals’ attitudes are shaped by personal characteristics and experiences, they are also influenced by the social contexts in

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4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0

Public Expenditure on Family as % of GDP

1980

1990

2001

Social Democratic Regions Continental Europe Liberal Regions Southern Europe Figure 15.1  Public expenditure on family as percentage of GDP (1980, 1990, and 2001)  Source: Guo and Gilbert (2007).

which they are formed—​such as, for example, how growing up in a religious community can influence one’s attitude toward marriage and family life. In the realm of social welfare policy, a survey of 14 OECD countries suggests that preferences for redistributive spending are related to individual-​level factors such as age and income as well as to the characteristics of the country in which the respondents lived (Busemeyer, Goerres, and Weschle 2009; Pfeifer 2009; Gelissen 2000). Similarly Pfeifer (2009) showed that attitudes toward minimum income protection in European welfare states were related to individual socioeconomic traits along with institutional welfare arrangements. Examining the influence of institutional arrangements, Gelissen’s (2000) study found that public support for the welfare state did not follow the pattern expected according to welfare regimes. In analyzing public attitudes toward welfare policy, cause and effect are difficult to untangle. Policy feedback theory argues that public attitudes toward social polices operate on a two-​way street. While public opinion has some bearing on the way government officials vote, the implementation of social policies can have an effect on public perceptions of these initiatives. Over time, for example, negative attitudes or lack of support toward welfare policies can shift in a positive direction if the public experiences the benefits of these measures (Muuri 2010). This theoretical perspective moderates the prevailing view of cause and effect between public attitudes and welfare state institutions, highlighting the role of institutional policy arrangements in shaping public support for social welfare (Jordon 2013; Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1992). There is, however, no clear calibration on the impact of alternative welfare state arrangements. Examining the relationship among public attitudes toward the welfare state between 1985 and 1990, Bean and Papadakis (1998) found only weak variations in public support among respondents in different welfare state regimes. Blekesaune and Quadagno’s (2003) analysis of support for welfare policies for the unemployed and the sick and elderly concluded that it was difficult to distinguish the differential effects of ideological positions

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at the individual or national level. Svallfors (1997) uncovered little difference among four welfare regimes in their citizen’s attitudes toward the redistributive role of government. However, Jordon (2013) suggests that the mixed results in the existing research may stem from relying on general typologies of welfare regimes and attitudinal indicators, which fail to capture the complexity of institutional arrangements and individual opinions. Exploring some of the complexities inherent in survey research on social policy opinions, Kangas (1997) reminds us that individual preferences are not necessarily straightforward or stable. He explains how the contextual framing and specific wording of survey questions may influence responses—​and cautions against simple interpretations. For example, analyzing a survey measure designed to tap altruism, Kangas shows the effect of a moral frame on responses to the statement: “In society the strong groups must care for the weaker ones.” The vast majority of those surveyed agreed. Yet by adding the term “humane society” to this statement, the level of agreement increased from 88 to 93%. Although the findings are varied, there is general agreement in the literature about the importance of considering both individual characteristics and the institutional context as factors that lend insight into public attitudes and preferences about the provision of social welfare. But there is no resolution about exactly which individual traits are most salient and how these institutional contexts are operationally defined. Our analysis of public attitudes toward childcare focuses on the extent to which individual-​ level factors as well as the societal context correlate with public support for government provisions in this area. The societal context is represented broadly by the different countries, as well as more specifically in the alternative institutional arrangements for social welfare represented by the different welfare state regimes. The individual-​level factors are (1) personal characteristics related to self-​interest, (2) perceptions of the current availability of quality day care, and (3) the degree of egalitarian ideology as illustrated in Figure 15.2. The first individual-​level factor involves a set of personal characteristics: age, gender, education, employment, and the presence of a child in the home. The selection of these

Individual Level Self-Interest Perception of Need

Public support for government provision of child care

Egalitarian Ideology

Institutional level Countries Welfare State Regimes Figure 15.2  Analytic framework 

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traits was informed by the self-​interest theory of rational choice, which suggests that social welfare policy preferences will be affected to some extent by the particular benefits respondents might expect to receive. Age, gender, and education are commonly analyzed as traits associated with self-​interest in national and cross-​national studies of public attitudes toward social welfare (Jaeger 2006; Svallfors 2008). Busemeyer, Goerres, and Weschle (2009) found significant age-​related differences in support of redistributive policy. They also noted that for the case of educational spending, one’s age or position in the life cycle is a more important predictor of preferences than income. Other studies suggest that age-​related differences in self-​interest are associated with relatively limited support of government provisions for children’s services—​from which older people are unlikely to experience a direct benefit (Goerres and Tepe 2011; Jaeger 2006; Pettersen 2001). But Goerres and Tepe (2010) also argue that age-​based self-​interest can be oversimplified. They found that the degree of intergenerational solidarity within the family expands older people’s perceptions of self-​interest and mitigates purely age-​related social welfare preferences. In comparison to the elderly, who tend to benefit indirectly, if at all, from childcare provisions, women have a larger stake in programs and policies that assist families in caring for children. And it stands to reason that this self-​interest would be heightened by the presence of a child in the home and the woman’s employment status. Studies have shown that where gender is concerned, women tend to be more positive in the support of social welfare policies than men (Blekesaune and Quadagno 2003; Linos and West 2003; Svallfors 1997). Although Goerres and Tepe’s study of attitudes toward care in Germany found positive relationships between being a woman, having a young child in the home, and the respondent’s support for public childcare, the relationships were not statistically significant. Studies have generally shown education to have a negative effect on support of solidarity and redistributive social welfare policies (Andres and Heien 2001; Arts and Gelissen 2001; Jaeger 2006). The second individual-​level factor involves the respondents’ perceptions of the provision of affordable care for working parents. This factor relates to both the self-​interest of working parents with young children who would have less need for government provision of these services and the practical assessments of others about the need for government to provide a service already available at an affordable price. Finally, the third individual-​level factor involves the respondents’ political ideology, specifically the extent to which they express egalitarian values. People’s attitudes and preferences tend to be guided by their values. In the realm of social welfare, egalitarian values are associated with attitudes that support government provisions (Hasenfeld and Rafferty 1989; Jaeger 2006). Jacoby (1994) found that the degree of liberal ideology was a strong determinant of attitudes toward government spending. Commenting on the implicit symbolic meaning of these words, he notes that the very term government spending, although it covers a vast range of public activities, tends to automatically translate into welfare spending. Egalitarian values also find expression in the second level of analysis in our study, which examines the extent to which differences in the national institutional arrangements help

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to explain the variance in public attitudes toward government provision of childcare. Here we analyze the extent to which public attitudes vary by welfare regimes, adapting Esping-​ Andersen’s (1990) typology of alternative institutional arrangements for social welfare. We employ this classification well aware that it has been criticized from various perspectives. Some have argued that Esping-​Andersen’s analysis of data from 1980 no longer captures the changing landscape of welfare state policies over the last several decades, which has led to the convergence of the three regimes (Evers and Guillemard 2013; Ferge 1996; Gilbert 2002; Rojas 2005). Others suggest that the three regimes ignore the distinctive characteristics of welfare systems in the Mediterranean countries (Ferrera, 1996; Leibfried, 1993)—​a critique initially accepted by Esping Andersen, but later rejected (Esping-​Andersen, 1999; Arts and Gelissen, 2001). Van Voorhis (2003) reveals methodological flaws in the design and calculation of the de-​commodification index. In a thorough review of the debate regarding the regime typology, Arts and Gelissen (2001) find the outcomes of comparative analyses in this area inconclusive, suggesting welfare states are rarely pure types, but the typology has heuristic value as a way of conceptualizing and analyzing institutional arrangements, which is worth pursuing. And as noted earlier in this paper, feminist scholars have argued that the welfare regime typology was too narrowly focused and lacked a gender lens for examining the impact of welfare states on women’s issues. Addressing this question, Esping-​Andersen (1999, 51) re-​examined the welfare regimes, linking them to gender issues through the concept of defamilialization—​defined as “the degree to which households’ welfare and caring responsibilities are relaxed either via welfare state provision or via market provision.” He found the original regime typology relevant to this dimension of policy. Responding to the feminist perspective, Lewis (1992) and Korpi (2000) have formulated alternative typologies that distinguish gender policy regimes according to the extent to which welfare state policies support equality in family life and the labor force. A comparison of these models in Table 15.1 finds that the countries which cluster in each of Korpi’s types (dual-​earner, general family support, and market-​oriented) match the examples of countries described as fitting into Lewis’s model (weak male breadwinner, modified male breadwinner, and strong male breadwinner) and closely parallel the conventional social-​democratic, conservative, and liberal regimes (Guo and Gilbert 2012). Data, Operational Measures, and Methods Our empirical analyses are based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS) round 4 (2008–​2009) . The study involves a random sample of 24,178 respondents selected from 12 countries: social democratic (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden), Continental Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, and Netherlands), liberal (Ireland and the UK), and Southern Europe (Portugal and Spain). Although the Netherlands was initially typed as a social-​ democratic regime, Esping-​Andersen (1999) later concluded that this country belonged in the Continental regimes. The ESS recommended design weights be used when comparing countries. Our findings report standardized beta coefficients to facilitate comparisons of the

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329

Table 15.1  Family and labor force equality in gender-​policy regimes Continua of political tendency Gender equality

Left Equal family obligations Employment equality

>-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​

Right Traditional gender relations and male employment privileged

Lewis

Weak male breadwinner (dual earner)

Modified male breadwinner

Strong male breadwinner

Korpi

Dual earner

General family support

Market oriented

Esping Andersen

Social democratic

Continental

Liberal

>-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​-​

Source: Adapted from Guo and Gilbert (2012).

relative impact of independent variables on attitudes toward government responsibility. We also include the amount of change in R squared, which allows comparisons of the extent to which the variables added in each model increase the overall proportion of explained variance. In analyzing these data, it is important to bear in mind that the survey was conducted in the midst of the deepest economic recession in recent history. In the absence of longitudinal data, we are unable to discern the extent to which the attitudes and opinions expressed represent stable views or were influenced by the uncertainty and economic stress of the times. However, an analysis of attitudes toward gender equality prior to and after the start of the recession showed, with few exceptions, a consistent trend in responses between men and women and among the countries as shown in Figure 15.3 (Guo and Gilbert 2012). The dependent variable represents the degree to which respondents express preferences for government assuming responsibility for childcare provisions. This variable is

Sp ain

ga l

ce

Po rtu

an

y Ge

Fr

rm

an

UK

m iu

ds

lg

lan er th

Ne

Be

d lan

ay

Fin

rw No

ar

Sw

nm De

ed en

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

k

Percent

Women Should be prepared to cut down on paid work for sake of family (2004 & 2008)

Agree 2004

Disagree 2004

Social Democratic

Agree 2008 Liberal Continental

Figure 15.3  Comparison of public attitudes on gender equality over time 

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J i n g Guo an d Ne il Gilbe rt

Disagree 2008 S. Europe

operationally defined based on responses to a survey question: “On the whole, do you think it should or should not be the government’s responsibility to provide childcare services for working parents.” The answers vary from 0 (not government responsibility at all) to 10 (entirely government responsibility). The independent variables included three blocks of individual-​level factors, one block of country-​level variables, and one block of regime-​level variables. The first block of individual-​level variables involves measures of respondents’ personal characteristics related to self-​interest; these measures include age, gender, education level, employment, and having children living at home. Age and education level are continuous variables. Gender, employment, and children living at home are dummy variables. Female is coded as 1, male as 0. Full-​time employment is coded as 1, part-​time employment is coded as 0. Having children living at home is coded as 1, otherwise as 0. The second block measures perceptions of the need for government provision of childcare. This variable is operationally defined in terms of the perceived availability of care in responses to another question: “What do you think overall about the provision of affordable childcare services for working parents?” The answers range from 0 as “extremely bad” to 10 as “extremely good.” The third block of variables represents egalitarian ideology in terms of the respondents’ support for economic and gender equality. Economic equality is operationally defined based on the level of agreement with the statement “For a fair society, differences in standard of living should be small,” on a scale of 1–​5, from “agree strongly” to “disagree strongly.” For coding purposes this scale was reversed so that a rating of 5 represented strong agreement with the statement. The operational measure of gender equality was based on the extent to which respondents agreed with the statement “Women should be prepared to cut down on paid work for the sake of family,” on a scale of 1–​5, from “agree strongly” to “disagree strongly.” We interpret the strong disagreement with this statement as supporting gender equality rather than the traditional gender division. The fourth block includes a set of dummy variables that represent the 12 countries in the sample. (Eleven of the countries are dummy coded, and the 12th serves as the reference variable). This contextual variable allows us to consider the degree to which additional variance in attitudes toward government responsibility is explained by the unmeasured sociopolitical, cultural, and economic characteristics in these countries. The fifth block substitutes a set of dummy variables that represent four welfare regime types for the block of variables representing the 12 countries. This block represents an alternative contextual variable that allows us to consider the degree to which additional variance in attitudes toward government responsibility is explained by the institutional arrangements for social welfare associated with social-​democratic, Continental, liberal, and Southern European regimes—​to the extent that patterned differences exist among these types. The empirical analysis involves descriptive statistics on the dependent and independent variables, and multilevel linear regression that includes the blocks of independent

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331

variables. For individual-​level variables, we also consider the interaction terms between gender and other key independent variables, such as education, employment, having a child at home, gender egalitarian, and economic egalitarian. Finally, we run linear regression of individual-​level variables by welfare regimes. Results Descriptive Results Table 15.2 shows the results of descriptive analysis of public attitudes toward government’s responsibility for childcare provisions for working parents. The mean score across all 12 countries was 7.62 on a scale from 0 to 10. That is, on average, the respondents’ attitudes showed a relatively high degree of support for public provision of family care–​related benefits. Two Southern European countries, Spain and Portugal, show the strongest support for government responsibility, with mean scores of 8.36 and 8.26, respectively. Other countries among the higher levels of public support are Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which are mostly Scandinavian countries. Countries with lower levels of support are Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Ireland, which are mostly liberal and conservative welfare states. The Netherlands shows the lowest level of support, with a mean of 6.26. Bivariate Results Table 15.3 reports the bivariate associations between the dependent and independent variables. For dummy variables, gender, employment, and having a child living at home, the numbers represent the means of agreements with the statement that it is government responsibility to ensure sufficient childcare services for working parents. Being a female, full-​time employment, and having a child living at home are associated with significantly higher degrees of support for government responsibility. The differences of means are statistically significant. For continuous variables, the numbers represent the correlates between the dependent variable and correspondent dependent variables. Age, educational attainment, and the availability of affordable childcare services are negatively correlated with the support for governmental responsibility, while economic egalitarian and gender egalitarian variables are positively correlated. All correlates are statistically significant. Multilevel Regression Models Table 15.4 gives the results of a set of five regression models that include individual-​ level and societal/​institutional-​level variables. All five models show significant coefficients; the relationships between the dependent variable and independent variables in the bivariate analysis are supported in the regression models. Model 1 contains variables that capture self-​interests in benefitting from government childcare provisions. Being a woman, full-​time employment, and having a child living at home have positive coefficients. Age and educational attainment show negative coefficients. The degree of support

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Table 15.2  Distribution measures for the DV Total

BE

DE

DK

ES

FI

FR

GB

IE

NL

NO

PT

SE

Childcare services for working parents, governments’ responsibility N

24240

1748

2726

1583

2485

2164

2058

2308

1741

1750

1541

2346

1790

Mean

7.62

7.28

7.84

8.06

8.36

8.16

7.10

6.95

6.82

6.26

7.97

8.26

7.92

SD

1.980

1.763

1.954

1.817

1.604

1.522

2.020

2.104

2.079

2.117

1.830

1.821

1.801

Notes: BE =​Belgium, DE =​Germany, DK =​Denmark, ES =​Spain, FI =​Finland, FR =​France, GB =​Great Britain, IE =​Ireland, NL =​Netherlands, NO =​Norway, PT =​Portugal, SE =​Sweden. To compare DV results for multiple countries separately, the design weight was taken into account.

Table 15.3  Childcare services for working parents as governments’ responsibility, by IVs Independence variables

Correlations

Age

–​.019** N=​24178

Education level

–​.048*** N=​24193

Gender

Male

7.48 [2.027] N=​11734

Female

7.75 [1.926]*** N=​12498

No

7.53 [1.991] N=​14801

Yes

7.76 [1.954]*** N=​9403

Part time

7.58 [1.940] N=​11901

Full time

1.70 [2.020]*** N=​8937

Having a children at home

Employment

Provision of childcare

–.035*** N=​22069

Economic egalitarian

.158*** N=​24071

Gender egalitarian

.029*** N=​24092

Compare means

Notes: *** p