Fathers on Leave: Experiences of Middle-Class Fathers on Parental Leave in the City of Zagreb

Parental leave reforms that aimed at higher father’s involvement in childcare began in the 1970s. However, the number of fathers who took parental leave increased only in the 1990s when Scandinavian countries began introducing father’s quotas or paternity leaves, that is, earmarked leave periods to be used by fathers or otherwise lost. Croatia introduced the two-month father’s quota as late as in 2013. Although the reform did not contribute to a sudden increase in the number of fathers on parental leave, there is always a steady, albeit small, number of fathers taking up leave. This article aims to provide an insight into fathers’ experiences on parental leave in Croatia. Relying on interviews with 11 middle-class fathers in the City of Zagreb, the article explores father’s motives for taking leave, their experience regarding the initial decision and the procedure of exercising their right to leave and their experience of being on leave. Results suggest that the fathers were very eager to use their right to leave and spend time with their children. They mostly used longer leaves (more than 3 months) and the experience of being home alone with the child made the fathers learn new skills in relation to childcare and housework, but also rethink their relation to work and family. Key words: parental leave policy, parental leave, father’s quotas, fathers’ experiences, Croatia

John Senior and Éva Gyarmathy: AI and Developing Human Intelligence, Future Learning and Educational Innovation

AI is a branch of computer science that emphasises the development of intelligent machines that think and work like humans. Examples of AI applications are speech recognition, natural language processing, image recognition etc. The term ML represents the application of AI to enable systems’ ability to learn and improve based on experience, without the explicit need for programming, using various problem-solving algorithms. For example, in machine learning, computers learn based on the data they process, not program instructions

Early Childhood Education and Care in Kosovo: A Targeted Educational Approach Producing and Maintaining Social and Gender Inequalities

This article examines participation in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Kosovo based on a recent survey and administrative data. Kosovo’s ECEC policy aims to provide education and care for children aged 0 to 6 through an approach consisting of highly targeted public services for more vulnerable social groups, while expecting the rest to rely on the market or the family. It also provides a universal, public (2.5 hours a day) school preparatory programme for children aged 5-6 years. Availability of ECEC services has been rising, but remains well below the levels of the countries in the region. New services are increasingly coming through a market-based provision which leaves large social groups such as low-income families, rural families, parents with lower educational status and other socio-economically disadvantaged parents worse off. Since ECEC is considered highly relevant for children’s personal development and success in school, as well as for female participation in the labour market, the findings suggest that the current policy contributes towards cementing and furthering social and gender inequalities in the long run. In the absence of more comprehensive public services and other supportive family policy measures, Kosovo maintains a strong implicit familialistic policy with a weak potential to contribute to women’s employment. Key words: Kosovo, ECEC, defamilialisation, familialism, privatisation.

Gojko Bežovan i sur.: Socijalna politika Hrvatske (II. izdanje)

University textbook Social policy In terms of content and concept, Croatia continues the textbook of the same name from 2008, which testifies to the continuity of systematic research at the Department of Social Policy at Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, whose employees actively monitor and evaluate old and new social risks and new programs and social policy measures.

Anke Hassel, Bruno Palier (ur.): Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies − How Have Growth Regimes Evolved?

This extensive book is the result of longer ones research that began in 2014 and considers the main economic challenges facing advanced industrial democracies faced since the early 1990s and government responses on them. There are three clearly defined goals of the book: First, expand our understanding of how political economy has changed since the 1970s; second, to analyze the contribution of governments to these changes, looking at their growth strategies and third, to shed light on and analyze the role of reforms social policy systems in these transformations. In short, this book also shows gives a general understanding of the evolution of the regime growth in the advanced capitalist OECD countries.

Care Triangle or Care Diamond? The Case of Childcare and Eldercare in Serbia

Overall changes in political, social and economic spheres in Serbia, along with ongoing demographic processes, have affected various policies and all aspects of people’s lives, including system(s) of care. While care became an important analytical concept and category of social policy analysis internationally, it has not been systematically applied in the analysis of the Serbian welfare state. Incorporation of care in welfare state analysis is much needed as its organisation in the national context reveals a lot about the nature of the welfare state, changes in its socio-institutional arrangements and, most importantly, the effects of provision. This article thus aims to outline the evolution of childcare and eldercare policies in Serbia over the last decade, employing the concept of the care diamond developed by Shahra Razavi, which allows examining the “architecture” through which the care is provided: families/ households, markets, the state and the voluntary sector. By analysing the prevalent care policy “architecture” for children and the elderly in Serbia and the roles of different sectors in that respect, as well as by identifying similarities and differences in the provision of childcare and eldercare in the national context, the article exposes developments and current state in childcare and eldercare provision in Serbia. The analysis indicates the profound role of the informal sphere in both care systems in Serbia, childcare and eldercare. Some differences between the two care domains could also be noted. These relate to the configuration of welfare sectors involved in care provision, revealing the modified shape of the care diamond in the case of childcare. That is, while all four sectors are involved in providing care in the case of eldercare forming an eldercare diamond, this is not the case with childcare. In the latter case, the voluntary, nonprofit sector does not exist as a care provider in Serbia, with childcare “architecture” having a shape of a care triangle. In light of this evidence, the role of families and the voluntary, nonprofit sector should be taken into account in future planning and funding of policies as well as in their implementation. Key words: care, childcare, eldercare, care diamond, policy, provision, Serbia

Care Policy in Slovenia: Divergent Trends and Convergent Attitudes

Slovenia makes a compelling case for care policy analysis since it is marked by extreme dichotomy in care. Therefore, placing Slovenia on a continuum of care regimes ranging from defamilialised to familialised with respect to care is difficult, with care for children being highly defamilialised, and care for older people highly familialised. The country’s childcare policies build on a historically well-developed system of public childcare provision and generous leave policies, together with a well-developed social protection system targeting families. These have been retained and, in some cases, were expanded, still following the 2009 economic crisis, certain austerity measures were introduced. On the other hand, care policies for older people started to develop later and after the initial growth they relatively stagnated (especially the social homecare system). A comprehensive long-term care system has yet to be developed and become a subject of ongoing political debates. Further, unlike in childcare, the increasing role of private actors can be observed in this sector. In the article, we discuss these care policy developments in Slovenia in terms of the role of relevant actors (state, family, private actors) with an emphasis on the views of people regarding care, based on data gathered within an innovative method of democratic forums. The article reveals that the dichotomy of care policies, as well as the differing recent trends in family policies for children and care for older people, is not present in people’s attitudes and their preferences for the arrangement of such policies. Key words: care, social policy, Slovenia, older people, childcare, democratic forum, attitudes.

Rust Roland and Huang Ming-Hui: The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy

“The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy”, a book written by distinguished business scholars, professors Rust and Huang from the University of Maryland and National Taiwan University, looks at the ramifications of developing AI for the population. To help demystify the levels of intelligence required of AI, the book classifies different types of economy using three concepts: mechanical (physical), thinking, and feeling economy regarding the relationship with AI primarily, but not exclusively.

Velimir Šonje i Kristijan Kotarski: Korona ekonomika: pet jahača apokalipse

Relatively fast due to the large number infected and killed in a pandemic COVID-19, the World Health Organization, pointed out that this is an extraordinary event situation for public health of international importance, which certainly has an impact on society and social policy. Numerous countries around the world are implementing diverse measures to stop the spread of the virus. This inevitably affects a number of constraints in much of society and has very adverse economic consequences. The situation is so much more complex and demanding that in fact and a year after the outbreak of the pandemic yet not all the determinants of hers are always known and how to determine and implement measures to save human lives, but also to preserve the economy as much as possible. ON the complexity of this relationship is extremely interesting the book was prepared by Velimir Šonje and Kristijan Kotarski and published in 2020 by Arhivanalitika from Zagreb. On the whole, the authors very argumentatively and clearly state the economic and health costs of lockdown that may also be measurable and the loss of human lives.

Politike roditeljskih dopusta, sustavi ranog i predškolskog odgoja i obrazovanja, rodne i društvene nejednakosti u postjugoslavenskim zemljama

Access is to well-paid parentsleave and affordable and quality early childhood and early childhood education (R & D) services in the early parenting phase, in order to create the preconditions for equal parental participation in labor market and care and enable equals opportunities for every child. In spite of, many parents and children do not have (adequate) access to these measures. Moreover, with gender inequalities in care and employment, studies growing indicate the so-called. the effect of St. Matthew (Matthew effect) in the use of parental leave and services of the RPOO, ie how disadvantaged familiesbenefit less from paid parental leave and RPOO services (Ghysels and van Lancker, 2011; Pavolini and van Lancker,2018; McKay et al., 2016)576 / 5.000 Rezultati prijevoda Such an outcome is primarily related to the design of parental leave policies and the RPOO system, as indicated by the analysis presented here within the InCARE project. The analysis highlights the multidimensional character and complexity of the system of parental leave and RPOO in post-Yugoslav countries. care and employment (more details in Dobrotić, 2019, 2021).