How Welfare States Care : Culture, Gender and Parenting in Europe

Abstract

h a n g i n g w e l f a r e s t a t e s Culture, Gender and Parenting in Europe how welfare states care CHANGING WELFARE STATESProcesses of socio-economic change − individualising society and globalising economics and politics − cause large problems for modern welfare states. Welfare states, organised on the level of nation-states and built on one or the other form of national solidarity, are increasingly confronted with − for instance − fi scal problems, costs control diffi culties, and the unintended use of welfare programs. Such problems -generally speaking -raise the issue of sustainability because they tend to undermine the legitimacy of the programs of the welfare state and in the end induce the necessity of change, be it the complete abolishment of programs, retrenchment of programs, or attempts to preserve programs by modernising them.Th is series of studies on welfare states focuses on the changing institutions and programs of modern welfare states. Th ese changes are the product of external pressures on welfare states, for example because of the economic and political consequences of globalisation or individualisation, or result from the internal, political or institutional dynamics of welfare arrangements.By studying the development of welfare state arrangements in diff erent countries, in diff erent institutional contexts, or by comparing developments between countries or diff erent types of welfare states, this series hopes to enlarge the body of knowledge on the functioning and development of welfare states and their programs.editors of the series

Institutions as reference points for parents-to-be in European societies: a theoretical and analytical framework

“…For these couples, the norm of the 'good' mother who cares for her child full-time during its first years has been and still is a central point of reference. Parents-to-be in the Netherlands grew up with a stay-at-home mother and a full-time employed father as well, but quite abruptly in the 1980s, Dutch policymakers started advocating a new ideal of both parents sharing childcare and paid work after the transition to parenthood (Kremer 2007). Hence, the Dutch couples represented in this volume grew up in a social climate of rapidly changing gender ideology -from traditional to more egalitarian.…”

“…First, despite the efforts made by the Dutch government in recent decades to establish a new family ideal of dual caring (Kremer 2007), cultural support of gender equity and men's care among the Dutch population is still surprisingly low. Second, policy attempts to meet the Dutch populations' positive attitudes towards mothers as workers have been rather limited as childcare is private and thus costly and parental leave is unpaid (see Chapters 2 and 6).…”

“…Parentingunderstood as allocating time and resources to one's children -is essential to secure the survival and well-being of children and societies at large. European societies promote distinct gender ideologies of how new parents should allocate their time and resources, thereby directing fathers and mothers to have particular experiences in these emotionally significant relationships (Kremer 2007). These gender ideologies, so we claim, are intertwined with the roles ascribed to the state, market and family in the provision of paid and unpaid forms of work and care.…”

“…The analytic perspective applied in this book draws on approaches which emphasize the role of care and culture for attaining gender equality in Europe (Kremer 2007;Saraceno and Keck 2011). We draw on three dimensions of welfare state policies that appear most relevant with respect to the comparative analysis of transitions to parenthood.…”

“…The Catholic Church has, for instance, been influential to different degrees in advancing the ideal of a 'good mother' (Gerber 2010;Gerend 2005), as were middle-class groups and developmental psychologists in broadcasting the importance of a 'resilient' and 'happy' child (Hoffman 2010;Ramaekers and Suissa 2010) and the primacy of mothers (and not fathers) in childcare (Romagnoli and Wall 2012). Governments currently promote different degrees and notions of 'active fatherhood', 'shared parenting' (Kremer 2007) and mothers as primary carers by default. In this sense, various national and regional institutional domains have developed their own internal gendered logics, which are in different ways related to one another (McNay 1999, p. 106) and to other historical and political events.…”