Family Policy and Fertility Intentions in 21 European Countries

2014 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 428-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunnee Billingsley ◽  
Tommy Ferrarini
Keyword(s):  
Family Policy ◽  
Fertility Intentions ◽  
European Countries

scholarly journals Social Investment in an Age of Austerity: A Comparison of Family Policy Reforms in Four European Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-267
Author(s):  
Sonja Blum ◽  
Tatjana Rakar ◽  
Karin Wall
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War

The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its interaction with alternative social-policy perspectives, namely social protection and austerity. We identify different variants along the degree of social-investment: from comprehensive, over crowding out, towards lean forms. While the empirical analysis highlights variation, it also shows how there is a specific crisis context, which may lead to ‘crowding out’ of other policy approaches and ‘leaner’ forms of social investment. This has led to strong cutbacks in family cash benefits, while public childcare and parental leaves have proved more resilient in the investigated countries. Those findings are revelatory in the current Covid-19 pandemic, where countries are entering a next, possibly larger economic crisis. Key words: family policy; crisis; social investment; austerity; case studies denoted as the end of the ‘golden age’ of the welfare state, putting a halt to its expansion in post-war prosperity. Faced with low growth rates and rising unemployment, the recipe chosen by many countries was to ‘relieve’ labour markets. Alongside such measures as early retirement schemes, family policy was a key part of the reform programme and recourse to parental leave

The Triumph of Novelty over Experience? Social Policy Responses to Demographic Crises in Hungary and Poland since EU Enlargement

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 984-1004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Inglot
Keyword(s):  
Family Policy ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Demographic Challenges ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Domain I

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Politics and Current Demographic Challenges in Central and Eastern Europe,” guest-edited by Tsveta Petrova and Tomasz Inglot. During the past two decades, many European countries, including Germany, Italy, and Spain in the west, and Poland and Hungary in the east, encountered prolonged demographic crises. These challenges first became evident in the late 1990s as fertility rates declined rapidly, much below the level necessary to ensure a simple replacement of generations. Moreover, since the EU accession, mass labor migration from the new Member States to the more developed western European countries added yet another dimension to the growing population problems. This article attempts to explain variation in governmental policy responses to these developments between two countries, Poland and Hungary. Hungary, owing to its long-term tradition of relatively generous and extensive social programs directed to families, youth, and children, should be expected to handle its population emergency much better than Poland. Yet, the opposite has happened. In the last few years, Poland has proposed and implemented several innovative measures to address fertility and migration pressures while Hungary has remained committed to its traditional social policies in this domain. I will analyze and compare the two cases by examining a combination of historical factors related to the legacies of demographic emergencies defined in terms of national strength and survival, and by examining the politics of family policy, with a special focus on the creation of coalitions of governmental and/or nongovernmental actors that either facilitate or obstruct effective policy innovation.

scholarly journals Does Regional Political Representation affect the Provision of Childcare in Austria?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Walenta-Bergmann
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Longitudinal Dataset

Historically the provision of childcare was one of the forgotten areas of Austrian family policy. During the last decade, a lot of effort was made to catch up with other European countries, but notable subnational differences between the regions and municipalities persist. This paper engages with the arising question: Does regional political representation affect the provision of childcare in Austria? Based on a unique longitudinal dataset (2003-2018) containing yearly measures for 1789 Austrian municipalities, several hierarchical regression models are calculated. The results reveal a significant effect of gender and partisan dimension, as well as an interaction effect between those dimensions.

scholarly journals Value Orientations and Fertility Intentions of Finnish Men and Women

2003 ◽  
pp. 201-226
Author(s):  
Anneli Miettinen ◽  
Pirjo Paajanen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Gender Role Attitudes ◽  
Fertility Intentions ◽  
Value Orientations ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Childbearing Intentions ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

In thispaper we examine howpersona! values and attitudes are related to childbearingintentions among 18-40-year-old Finnish men and women. Wefocus on religiousand individualistic values and on attitudes towardschildrenand thefamily, as well asattitudes towards work and gender roles. The impact of value and attitude orientationsand situationalfactors onfertility decision-making are investigated separatelyat parities 0, 1 and 2 using logistic regression. Our study uses a subsample of 1,237men andwomen drawnfrom thePPA2survey ofthe attitudes ofFinns towardsfamilyand children,family policy measures, values in life as well as theirfertility intentions.Wefind that information on persona! values and attitudes does increase our knowledgeon determinants of childbearing intentions and decision-making, although notali our initial hypotheses concerning the association, or direction of the association,between certain attitudes and fertility intentions were confirmed in the data. Religiousvalues, as well as work-relatedattitudes and individualistic values appeared tohave little bearing on childbearing intentions, while various attitudes towards childrenwere related to intentions to have (more) children. In addition, a conservativefamilistic attitude was related to intentions as well as gender role attitudes. The impactof values and attitudes varied by parity, providing support to the nation thatchildbearing decisions are made sequentially".

scholarly journals Changes in European Welfare State Regimes as a Response to Fertility Trends: Family Policy Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Suzana Bornarova ◽  
Natasha Bogoevska ◽  
Svetlana Trbojevik
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Demographic Trends ◽  
Demographic Indicators ◽  
The Family ◽  
Employment Of Women

Following 1945, that is the Second World War, Europe faced a huge demographic increase in the number of births, known as baby-boom. Encouraged by the improvement of the living conditions after the devastating war, the return of the optimism, opening of the employment opportunities and the renewal of the idea about the family, this demographic trend entailed the so-called familism tide. In the mid 1960-ies however, demographic indicators in almost all European countries began to change suddenly. Massive development of contraception, increased birth control and family planning, as well as higher employment of women and their integration in the labour market, took place. As a result of these trends, in the 1970-ties European countries faced a considerable drop in fertility rates. This trend reached its peak during 1970-1980-ties when a dramatic drop in fertility rates took place, known as baby-bust. As a consequence, almost everywhere in Europe, the fertility rate dropped below the level needed for simple population reproduction or below 2.1 children per woman. Several related trends also contributed to the change in the demographic picture of Europe, such as: dropping birthrates, shrinking of the population, delay in births (increase in the age of birth of the first child), increase in the number of one-child families, as well as growth in the number of couples without children (universality of births is no longer present – at least 1 child per family). Similar trends are evidenced in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CIE), with one considerable difference – they took place around a decade later compared to the developed European countries. One common characteristic which shaped the demographic changes in CIE countries was the fact that they occurred simultaneously with the radical changes of the societal system from socialism towards democracy in the 1990-ties. Due to this, demographic changes in CIE countries gain in weight, are furthermore under the influence of the transitional processes and thus differ considerably compared to those in the developed countries. The differences are heavily attributable to two sets of factors: a) different institutional settings, especially in the family policies related to employment of women and child raising; and b) different effects of these family policies upon fertility rates and participation of women in the labour market. Given the above demographic trends, welfare states in Europe, adjust accordingly, predominantly through the policies and measures of family policy as one of the social policy domains. Following a detailed statistical analysis of demographic indicators in Europe, this paper will produce an analysis of the family policy responses to demographic trends based on the Esping-Andersens’ classification of welfare states: universal welfare states (Nordic countries); conservative welfare states (Continental European countries); liberal social states (Anglo-Saxon countries) and South-European social states (Mediterranean countries). A specific focus in the paper will be also given to the demographic trends and corresponding family policy developments in the Republic of Macedonia, as a country of South Europe. Cross-cutting issues in the analysis of the family policy models will be: the extent to which family policies are gender-neutral or gender-specific (are they women-friendly and do they promote active fatherhood?), measures for harmonization of work and family life (are women appropriately supported in performing their roles of mothers and active participants in the labour market at the same time) and the scope in which family policy is being designed to serve the purposes of population policy (how the concern and the interest of the state to increase fertility rates shapes family policy?).

scholarly journals FEATURES OF FAMILY POLICY IN EUROPE

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
Svitlana Batychenko
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The State ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Full Time

Goal. Analysis of the peculiarities of family policy in European countries, such as France, Sweden, Germany, Great Britain. Method. The study is based on general scientific methods, namely, analysis and synthesis, descriptive, analytical. And also socio-geographical - comparative-geographical. Results. Family policy in European countries focuses on the life position of young people, promotes gender equality, creates opportunities to combine work, education and family activities through a well-developed infrastructure. The establishment of the modern family model in which both parents work and the expansion of public education and services for children and families reduce relatively high child poverty, create new jobs in services, and reduce social inequality. Although European countries pursue a common family-gender strategy, they also have their own traditional model of family protection. The Scandinavian model is characterized by comprehensive support for working parents with young children (under the age of three) through a combination of material mechanisms, holidays and wide access to childcare facilities. An important aspect is the policy of gender equality and women's integration in the labor market. The main source of funding for family policy - taxes. Anglo-Saxon - is characterized by deliberately less financial support from families by the state, giving priority to low-income families. The main idea is the non-interference of the state in family and marriage processes and ensuring the well-being of families through the general development of the welfare of society. "Napoleonic" - use intangible forms of support: tax benefits, targeted loans. France has the highest level of state support for families with children and support for working women. The principle of subsidiary security is professed. Taxes and financial contributions are used. The German fiscal system does not encourage couples to work equally, as the tax burden on domestic work is much higher for two full-time employees. Parental leave allows mothers to leave the labor market for up to three years for one child. Scientific novelty. Analysis and comparison of family policy features in European countries. Practical significance. Implementation of family policy measures in domestic practice based on the experience of European countries, choosing the most successful option. The best option is to improve the demographic situation in the country.

scholarly journals THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE FAMILY POLICY IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: CHANGING PROBLEMS, PRIORITIES AND PRACTICES

2013 ◽  
pp. 291-302
Author(s):  
A. V. Noskova
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Family Studies ◽  
The State ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
The Family ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
European Family

The paper describes some common peculiarities in evolution of the State family politics and policies in Europe since the middle of the XIX century to our days. Неге we define the family policy widely enough as the state activity (ideological, legislative, economic, social) concerning a family. The State family policy has four main dimensions such as demographical, social, gender and existential ones. The analysis of the long-term trends in European family policies made it possible to draw four main periods in its evolution. A set of the main problems, priorities and practices is defined for each period. The article also presents the links between the origin of every new period and the changing families, demographical and social realities. The first period (from the second half of the XIX century till the end of the 1940th) is described as the institutionalization of the European family policy. The main problem of this period is the demographic one. The links between the institutionalization of the European family policy and the changes in family life, demographic and social changes in the boundary of the XIX-XX centuries are shown. The second period (the 1950th) is characterized by the development of the social dimension as a part of the becoming European welfare state. In 1950-s, the main focus in family policies was made on the overcoming of the family poverty. The third period (the 1960th – the end of the 1980th) is characterized by a pluralization of the problems, strategies, measures of family policy under the influence of the differentiation of family structures and styles of family life. The fourth period (from the beginning of the 1990th to the present time) deals with reformatting of the conventional relations of the state and a family in the conditions of a new family, demographic, social and economic European context. The article presents the diversity of the family policy models in the European countries in their connection with the political and ideological factors. Special attention is paid to interdisciplinary scientific family studies which are directed to the practical solution of the modern family problems. It is noted that the European scientific centers for family studies and researches play a significant role in the scientific maintenance of European family policy.

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