RESUMENLos cambios familiares acontecidos en España en las últimas décadas han propiciado un fructífero debate teórico y empírico sobre las nuevas formas familiares. En base a los hallazgos de los estudios internacionales sobre actitudes y valores familiares, el principal objetivo del presente trabajo es realizar una exhaustiva revisión de la literatura científica sobre los modelos familiares en España, con el fin de ofrecer una propuesta de modelos teóricos que puedan contribuir al futuro análisis empírico. El debate planteado se sustenta en la reflexión crítica sobre los fundamentos normativos que explican la coexistencia ambivalente de dos modelos familiares, por una parte, el modelo de cuidado tradicional y, por otra, el modelo de dos sustentadores (ambos trabajan y cooperan en las responsabilidades de cuidado). Dicha coexistencia se produce en un contexto social de escaso apoyo institucional al modelo más igualitario de cuidado.Palabras clave: Modelos familiares, actitudes, preferencias, expectativas, conciliación trabajo-familia. Los modelos familiares en España: reflexionando sobre la ambivalencia familiar desde una aproximación teórica. ABSTRACT The family changes in Spain in recent decades

Family policies to reduce conflict in work-life balance and promote gender equality advanced significantly at the legislative level in Spain in the first decades of the twenty-first century. These advances include the 2007 Law for Equality between Men and Women and the extension of paternity leave to 16 weeks in 2020. However, advances in care work and at the professional level have been limited. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified existing imbalances in family-work responsibilities in general and the ICT gender gap in particular. In crisis situations, women adopt the role of caregivers more easily than men, and women with fewer educational, economic, and job resources are more likely to assume this role, contributing to increasing gender inequalities at work and in the family. COVID-19 has exposed these imbalances, highlighting the need for new narratives and laws that encourage gender equality. Post-COVID-19 scenarios thus present an opportunity for reflection and progress on Spanish family policy. From this perspective, the paradigm of work-family conflict, although interesting, must be examined and resignified. This article proposes to critically resignify the paradigm of work-family conflict based on the new narrative generated by COVID-19. The present analysis suggests a resignification that should involve changing the expectations and practices around work-family balance, based on family diversity, job insecurity, the technological revolution, and new masculinities. It is proposed a prior reflection to clarify definition of the indicators and indexes that enable operationalization of the concept of work-family reconciliation. It is expected that these measures will help to facilitate practical application of reconciliation in areas such as public or/and private organizations, while also enabling international comparative analysis.

This paper explores the workÁfamily conflict as perceived by working parents in two European countries, Spain and Great Britain (GB). Using data from the International Social Survey Programme, ISSP 2002, we examine the factors that explain the high level of conflict in the two countries, for both men and women. Whereas sex, age and having children at home impact the level of conflict in Spain, education level as a proxy for class is more relevant in the GB. The contrasting perceptions of the workÁfamily conflict in the two countries may be taken as indicators of each country's stage in what has been called the 'modernization process'. This study seeks to understand the relationship between the level of 'modernization' and the perception of a high level of conflict in the attempt to reconcile the workÁfamily conflict, focusing on the process of 'individualization' on the one hand and measurement of 'the perception of the level of conflict by sex' on the other. 1 The study argues that the difference between these high levels of conflict is explained by variables that refer to ascribed status in Spain (a protraditional model) but to acquired status in GB (a non-interventionist model) indicated by the influence of education level as a variable resulting from a person's effort.

This paper analyses informal social support as a relevant factor in the process of maintaining the Spanish welfare state. There has been considerable theoretical discussion but little empirical work done to determine the factors that influence the provision of this type of support. More specifically, this article explores the factors that determine the provision of informal social aid in Spanish society at the beginning of the twenty-first century.Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), we examine three kinds of informal social support offered by the Spanish: emotional, domestic and economical. The form of aid they offer most frequently is emotional support. Gender has a significant impact on emotional and domestic support, although we do not observe a gender effect in the case of economic support.

Since the early 1990s, the diversity of work–family arrangement models has increased in Spain. It is difficult to understand this phenomenon without attending to the Spanish population’s preferences for such models. This article analyses the attitudes towards gender roles, and family model preferences within a normative and socio-structural framework. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme 2012, we developed descriptive and explanatory analyses. The findings reveal contradictions between attitudes towards the mother’s and father’s work intensity and gender roles that seem to be resolved through preferences for a “hybrid” or “adaptive” family model. We also identified the determinants of family model preferences for both men and women. The results show that gender plays a significant role in explaining preferences (women are less likely than men to prefer the male-breadwinner family model) and that socio-structural factors such as age, education level, immigrant condition, religious status and social class influence the preferences of men and women differently. Ultimately, these results contrast with Hakim’s Preference Theory, which emphasises individuals’ choices over socio-structural factors as determinants of family models, and align with Crompton’s and Pfau-Effinger’s theories.