scholarly journals Family Policy and Child Well-Being: The Case of Montenegro in the European Perspective

Author(s):  
Branko Bošković ◽  
Harriet Churchill ◽  
Oriola Hamzallari

Family policies and family support measures have been identified as having major implications for child well-being, particularly through their role in influencing parental and family resources, circumstances and behaviour. The official approach to family policies focuses on opportunities for families to balance their work and family duties and care for their children. This paper analyses the type of policies available in Montenegro compared to the European Union. Potentially, Montenegro will become an EU member state, thus it is important to take a look at Montenegrin practice, as children should have equal life chances and protection of their well-being. Having a solid legal framework per se does not necessarily result in significant positive outcomes, and this paper analyses whether children in Montenegro have the same opportunities for development, in the context of family policies, as their counterparts in the rest of Europe. The focus of the paper will be on the criteria that define family rights and obligations, eligibility, availability and use of family policies in Montenegro. Based on the specific measures and datasets examined, the analysis considers the degree to which a period of family policy investment in Montenegro has been accompanied by improvements in child well-being and family resources, and undertakes comparisons in these regards with EU-wide family policy and child well-being trends. The paper uses a welfare state theoretical approach, with the focus on social investment and relevant data on children’s well-being obtained from the Eurostat, the OECD and the official national statistics.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-169
Author(s):  
Irena Avirovic Bundalevska ◽  
Makedonka Radulovic ◽  
Angelka Keskinova

Ensuring children's rights and family well-being is a priority of every European country. The Republic of North Macedonia, as a candidate country of the European Union, shares the same family values and family policies as the remaining EU member states. However, despite the past governmental efforts in the area of legal harmonization, several gaps have to be fulfilled and policies to be improved to achieve efficient institutions at the European level. To expand existing policies regarding family support, we consider crucial the analysis of the factual situation in the country, as a basic step towards further research. Therefore, this paper aims to initially provide an analysis of the family support legal framework of the country. Secondly, we intend to map governmental and non-governmental institutions in the Republic of North Macedonia which is responsible to provide family, children, and parents' support. By doing so, we can develop additionally omitted family policies or improve existing ones. Finally, the paper will present a list of competencies of the employees of family support institutions to evaluate more peculiarly their staff's skills standards.


Author(s):  
Chantal Remery ◽  
Joop Schippers

Today, as an increasing share of women and men is involved in both paid tasks at work and unpaid care tasks for children and other relatives, more people are at risk of work-family conflict, which can be a major threat to well-being and mental, but also physical health. Both organizations and governments invest in arrangements that are meant to support individuals in finding a balance between work and family life. The twofold goal of our article was to establish the level of work-family conflict in the member states of the European Union by gender and to analyze to what extent different arrangements at the organizational level as well the public level help to reduce this. Using the European Working Conditions Survey supplemented with macro-data on work-family facilities and the economic and emancipation climate in a country, we performed multilevel analyses. Our findings show that the intensity of work-family conflict does not vary widely in EU28. In most countries, men experience less work-family conflict than women, although the difference is small. Caring for children and providing informal care increases perceived work-life conflict. The relatively small country differences in work-family conflict show that different combinations of national facilities and organizational arrangements together can have the same impact on individuals; apparently, there are several ways to realize the same goal of work-family conflict reduction.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerlinde Mauerer

The presented empirical data analysis aims to shed light on the persistence of gender inequalities in sharing parenting responsibilities and addresses possible improvements for realising gender equality. In recent decades, family policies in the European Union have targeted the increase of men’s shares in parental leave (= paternal leave) as well as women’s participation in the labour market. Following the results of the Lisbon Treaty in 2000, many EU member states including Austria introduced non-transferable fathers’ quotas in their regulations on parental leave. Subsequently, the share of men on parental leave increased. Nevertheless, both in number and duration, men’s childcare allowance claims have remained lower than women’s claims. This paper investigates shared parental leave practices based on 36 interviews with fathers on paternal leave, and 14 follow-up interviews with parents after paternal leave. The qualitative data reveal the challenges that arise when both parents are faced with reconciling work and family during and after parental leave. Although the data showed that progress has been made in reducing gender inequality, the interviews make clear that employers’ attitudes perpetuate traditional gendered expectations of parental leave claims and still focus on images of a male breadwinner. Also, the distribution of gainful and family work reveals gender inequalities. The paper therefore discusses challenges that arise in the realisation of current gender and family policies in order to provide a basis for making changes that further enhance the opportunities for dual-career couples within the organisation of parental leave laws.


Author(s):  
Rense Nieuwenhuis ◽  
Wim Van Lancker

AbstractThis chapter introduces a multilevel perspective on family policy, ranging from family policies at the levels of supra-national (and inter-national) organizations such as the United Nations, OECD, and the European Union; national or federal policies and legislation; the subnational municipalities, states, or regions in which people live; and finally the organizations or in which people work. At each of these levels of governance, family policies are formulated, voted for, implemented, and carried out—or not. And it is this whole set of multi-level policies that ultimately affect families’ and individuals’ choices, opportunities, constraints, and capability in terms of work, care, and wellbeing. This handbook brings together research on each of these four levels, is sensitive to heterogeneous policy impacts, and brings together scholars from different academic communities.


Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner

This book critiques the expectation embodied in American public policy today that families will privately provide the resources and circumstances they and their members need through the market and without the help of government. This expectation, it argues, is eroding the well-being of American families across the economic spectrum. Free-market family policy, it asserts, is undermining the promise of the American Dream, which envisions a social order that helps all people reach their full potential and that supports the opportunity for all to lead rich, fulfilling lives. Without thriving families, children can’t reach their full promise; nor can most adults live happy lives without strong family ties. Despite this, under free-market family policy, market forces are decimating the well-being of families. Part I demonstrates how the rising economic inequality and insecurity of the past several decades are making it increasingly difficult for family members to reconcile work and family, are destabilizing marriages and cohabiting relationships among poor and working-class adults, and are making it impossible for families at all income levels to secure for their children the circumstances they need to flourish. Part II shows that, for much of our nation’s history, government’s responsibility to buffer families from market forces was considered a key part of the social contract. It is only in recent decades that free-market family policy has supplanted this social contract. Part III considers how the United States can construct an economy that supports families and truly enables them to thrive.


Author(s):  
José Aurelio Medina-Garrido ◽  
José María Biedma-Ferrer ◽  
María Vanessa Rodríguez-Cornejo

The retention of key human resources is a challenge and a necessity for any organisation. This paper analyses the impact of the existence and accessibility of work-family policies on the well-being of workers and their intention to leave the organisation. To test the proposed hypotheses, we applied a structural equation model based on the partial least squares path modelling (PLS-SEM) approach to a sample of 558 service sector workers. The results show that the existence and accessibility of work-family policies directly reduce the intention to leave the organisation. Moreover, this relationship also occurs indirectly, by mediating the well-being that is generated by these work-family policies. We also analysed the moderating role that gender and hierarchy could have in the above relationships. In addition to the above theoretical implications, this study has practical implications. The findings show that employees with family and work balance problems experience lower emotional well-being, more health problems and eventually higher turnover rates. To avoid these problems, management must focus not only on the implementation of work-family policies but also on their accessibility, without subsequent retaliation or prejudice to employees. Additionally, management should pay special attention to female managers, given their greater difficulty in balancing work and family life.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reto Bürgisser

This chapter sheds light on the role of political parties as social investment protagonists, consenters, or antagonists in the reform of labor market and family policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Drawing on original, hand-coded data of three decades of labor market and family policy reforms in Southern Europe, the findings show divergent social investment trajectories. While Spain and Portugal have started to develop contours of a social investment agenda, little progress has been made in Italy and Greece. Programmatic political competition and government partisanship play a role in accounting for these divergent trajectories. Center-left parties have acted as the primary social investment protagonists in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. However, the Italian center-left remains fragmented and has rarely been in government. In stark contrast, both center-right and center-left parties in Greece have acted as social investment antagonists. Political and economic turmoil in the wake of the Eurozone crisis paint a bleak picture for the further development of social investment in Southern Europe. Once fiscal constraints can eventually be overcome, a core question remains to what extent an inclusive social investment coalition can be formed in an ever more fragmented political landscape.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Natalija Berlach ◽  
Oleksandr Kulyk ◽  
Sergii Losych

The study of shadowing processes in the economy is an integral part of the methodological knowledge, aimed at forming the security environment of the world community, its development on the way to overcoming crisis situations in the economy, politics, and society. This being said, it is difficult to overestimate the role of the state in determining appropriate approaches to assessing the results of such activities, justifying the selection of certain current methods of influencing public relations in the economic field in order to ensure their functioning within the legal framework. Drawing empirical conclusions and recommendations in this article are aimed at substantiating the links between the result of economic activity and economic activity as such, which determines the characteristics of welfare and well-being of a person, his/her enrichment. Thus, the formation of a cognitive social link between human welfare, emotional factors, and the economic crisis situation in the state has a common denominator, which makes it possible to assess the level of economic development of the country as a whole, to identify processes of shadowing of the economy, provided that illegally-obtained income is determined in its structure. Coming up with “regulatory filters” that allow synthesizing the object (illegally-obtained income), at which measures for detecting and transforming it into the legal economic field are aimed, it is possible to achieve a real result in counteracting the shadowing of national economies. Certain measures currently being taken at the level of national legal systems in this area should be compatible with those adopted by the European Union and, at least, as stringent as other measures applied at the international level. The specified determines the necessity to search for optimal ways of defining the concept of illegally obtained income, its place and role as a structural component of shadow processes in the economy. Methodology. The solution to the set goal is realized using the cognitive potential of the system of philosophical, general scientific and special methods. Analysis and synthesis allowed identifying the signs of illegal income, the shadowing of the economy, counteracting the shadow economy, and forming the last concept. Methods of grammatical review and interpretation of legal norms contributed to identifying gaps and other shortcomings of legislation on problems of ensuring counteraction to the legalization (laundering) of illegally-obtained income, developing proposals for its improvement, in particular, regarding the specifics of defining the meaning of the concept of “illegally obtained income” in domestic legal framework, the relationship of this concept with other economic and legal concepts. The comparative legal method allowed determining the development directions for domestic normative acts in order to bring them in line with the generally accepted European standards.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANE JENSON

AbstractPolicy perspectives of the European Union as well as those of member states currently link the concepts of social investment and social entrepreneurship in order to advocate both where and how to intervene. The argument of this article is that the explicit linking of these two notions, by policy-makers at several different levels and scales of authority, constitutes an emerging policy paradigm. The article identifies three characteristics of any paradigm, including that a policy paradigm must provide a perspective on the maintenance of the well-being of both society and individuals. Despite variation across countries and levels of authority (a characteristic of any paradigm) policy communities proffer the quasi-concepts of social investment and social entrepreneurship in combination as the appropriate ways to govern financing and the delivery of social investments. Therefore, social enterprises are targeted to receive public financing in order to deliver social investments in activation (training, employability, job support and wage supplements) as well as childcare. Reliance on this assemblage is documented across scales from the local through the national, transnational and international.


2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly M. Schwind ◽  
Remus Ilies ◽  
Daniel Heller

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