Family Policies in Post-Socialist Welfare States: Where Are They Located in the European Worlds of Welfare?

Blum, Sonja

doi:10.1057/9781137371096_2

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…All three countries are characterized by universal parental leave and extensive and high quality childcare services, but only Lithuania has generous parental leave, encouraging women to resign from paid employment, which is in contrast to Latvia and Estonia. The typology of the Baltic countries proposed by Szelewa and Polalowski (2008) has been confirmed by Blum (2016) using more recent data about childcare rates for families with children aged under three and the duration and generosity of paid leave. It is worth noting that typologies can differ depending on the sort of family policy examined and the indicators used for its analysis.…”

Section: Family Policiesmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…After the collapse of communism, several authors have detected a re‐familiarization process in these countries (Blum ; Robila ; Szelewa and Polalowski ), especially through the reduction of the provision of public childcare services. Nevertheless, Pascall and Lewis (: 376) highlight that several CEE countries maintain their tradition of state involvement in childcare and resemble the Scandinavian model, although with much lower living standards.…”

Section: Family Policies and Public Attitudes Towards Care In Nordic mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast to childcare policies in Baltic countries, which have received less attention (Szelewa and Polakowski 2008), the Scandinavian model has been studied for many decades by social scientists. Although we can find some differences between countries in these models, they seem to 'make the strongest case' (Hiilamo 2002: 143) and tend to cluster together no matter which dimension of family policy is examined (Blum 2016). In all Nordic countries, comprehensive childcare policies have permitted the development of a dual earner/dual career model, promoting gender equality (Leira 2006).…”

Section: Family Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responsibility for Child and Elderly Care: Who Should Cover the Costs? A Comparison of Baltic and Nordic Countries

2017

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Baltic and Nordic countries share historical and political connections as well as geographical proximity. Nevertheless, when their welfare regimes are compared, Baltic countries can be included in a post‐communist model that differs from the social‐democratic model of Nordic countries in many respects. This article focuses on one of these aspects, the opinion expressed towards the financial responsibility for the care of children and the elderly. In particular, childcare policies have been used to explain the development of a dual earner/dual career model in Nordic countries. Nevertheless, full‐time employment of women is widespread in Baltic countries too, although family policies and attitudes strongly differ from Nordic ones. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (2012), we compare public attitudes towards who should cover the costs of caring in five Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark) and two Baltic ones (Latvia and Lithuania). We find remarkable differences between both groups of nations: citizens from Baltic countries consider the role of the family more important than their counterparts in Nordic countries. Results show Latvians holding the most familistic views in terms of covering costs, and Swedish people the least. Individual socio‐demographic variables are less important than national contexts in explaining these attitudes. We find important variations among the social‐democratic countries and, surprisingly, in the case of childcare, Sweden shows higher differences to Denmark than to Latvia and Lithuania. This finding suggests that the social‐democratic bloc in this respect is more heterogeneous than what is generally thought.

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Section: Family Policiesmentioning

confidence: 79%

Section: Family Policies and Public Attitudes Towards Care In Nordic mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Family Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responsibility for Child and Elderly Care: Who Should Cover the Costs? A Comparison of Baltic and Nordic Countries

2017

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“…The Russian case presents an interesting dynamic between the structure of the family policies and old-age pensions given that Russia remains one of the last developed states with the lowest female retirement age, still at 55 years. The literature on postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) fits the region in the broader family policy context of developed democracies (Gal and Kligman, 2000;Fodor, 2007, 2011;Szelewa and Polakowski, 2008;Fodor and Kispeter, 2014;Javornik, 2014;Blum, 2016;Razzu, 2016;Roosalu and Hofacker, 2016;Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2017;Fodor and Glass, 2018). In the past, socialist governments pursued full employment of mothers by funding paid maternity and parental leave, governmentsubsidized childcare and subsidies for families with children (Rudd, 2000;Haney, 2002;Cook, 2007;Rivkin-Fish, 2010).…”

Section: The Russian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In sum, this paper expands on the institutional approach to explaining causes and mitigating effects of motherhood penalty in the context of the post-socialist family policy setting (Blum, 2016 ). The literature belabors the impact of various configurations of separate leave policies on maternal employment and the size of motherhood penalty.…”

Section: Theoretical Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding Understanding of Motherhood Penalty: How Gaps in Family Policies Contribute to Gaps in Old-Age Earnings in Russia

Kingsbury

2019

Front. Sociol.

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This study identifies policy shortcomings in the structure of Russian family policies and old-age pension calculations and shows how gaps in coverage contribute to the motherhood penalty in Russia. I first show that shortages in access to affordable childcare contribute to mothers' involuntary labor market inactivity leading to loss in earnings. I then discuss how childcare breaks are treated in terms of pensionable experience and present simulation of pension outcomes to show the negative impact of long childcare breaks on mothers' pensions.

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Let's have more Russian babies. How anti-immigrant sentiment shapes family leave policy in Russia

Kingsbury

2018

Communist and Post-Communist Studies

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This paper builds on scholarship of welfare chauvinism in Europe to present evidence of the relationship between xenophobia and family leave policies in contemporary Russia. I argue that popular anti-immigrant moods pressure government into providing more generous family benefits to Russian families while proposing restrictions to migrants. Findings are based on elite interviews, as well as content analysis of mass media, policy documents, public speeches, and party manifestos. I show that xenophobia is widespread in Russia among the public and policymakers alike, and find that xenophobia is embraced by policymakers to guide decisions regarding the allocation of social benefits.

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Family Policies in Post-Socialist Welfare States: Where Are They Located in the European Worlds of Welfare?

Cited by 5 publications

References 27 publications

Responsibility for Child and Elderly Care: Who Should Cover the Costs? A Comparison of Baltic and Nordic Countries

Responsibility for Child and Elderly Care: Who Should Cover the Costs? A Comparison of Baltic and Nordic Countries

Expanding Understanding of Motherhood Penalty: How Gaps in Family Policies Contribute to Gaps in Old-Age Earnings in Russia

Let's have more Russian babies. How anti-immigrant sentiment shapes family leave policy in Russia

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