This article analyzes eligibility for parental-leave benefits in twenty-one European countries. It distinguishes four ideal-type approaches to how leave-related benefits are granted (in-)dependent of parents’ labor market position: universal parenthood model, selective parenthood model, universal adult-worker model, and selective adult-worker model. An eligibility index is created to measure the inclusiveness of parental-leave benefits, alongside the degree of (de-)gendered entitlements. The importance of employment-based benefits and gender-sensitive policies increased between 2006 and 2017. Eligibility criteria remained stable, but due to labor market trends, such as increasing precariousness, fewer parents may fulfill the conditions for employment-based benefits.

Two problems are discussed in the—surprisingly unconnected—literatures on the multiple‐streams framework (MSF) and on knowledge utilization. In the MSF, the concept of coupling has been overlooked, namely the mechanisms of linking between the problem, policy, and politics streams. In the knowledge‐utilization literature, it is discussed whether political–strategic issues are the preserve of policy‐makers, or also considered by scientific experts. Through connecting both literatures, this article develops the concept of argumentative coupling, that is the linking of problem, policy, and politics issues through arguments. This follows the recently rising call of reading the MSF through an argumentative lens. Building on an ethnographic account of research–policy interactions, different types and three different logics of argumentative coupling are systematized: consequential, doctrinal, and political. Argumentative coupling illuminates how the ground for “final couplings” is prepared: by constructing canals between the streams, which entrepreneurs may sail when the wind is blowing.

Narrative stories are crucial to policy change, as they decisively contribute to how policy problems and policies are defined. While this seems to apply for social policy in particular, narrative stories have remained under-researched and not systematically compared for this area. In this article, we theorise on narratives in social policy by focusing on how similarities and differences between narratives in old-and new-social-risks policy reforms can be conceptualised, taking into account expansion and retrenchment. To systematically link those types of social policy reform with narrative elements, we rely on stories of control and helplessness, as well as the deservingness or undeservingness associated with different target populations. Thereby, distinct types of social policy reform narratives are identified: stories of givingto-give, giving-to-shape, taking-to-take, taking-to-control, and takingout-of-helplessness. The article concludes with empirical illustrations of those narrative types, which stem from the case studies presented in this Special Issue.

From mid-March 2020, childcare services and schools were closed around the globe in the fight of the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation, unprecedented in the history of modern welfare states, brought striking crosscountry differences in pandemic childcare-policy responses. They varied particularly in the reopening phaseboth in being more lenient or strict, and in being universal or selective. This article presents a conceptual framework that allows to unpack and classify variations in the design of immediate childcare-policy responses to COVID-19, which became (primarily) driven by public-health-related goals and therefore transverse existing conceptualisations. We argue that specific responses are resulting from a country-specific combination of pandemic prevention strategy (either focused on high-risk groups or the whole population), and childcarerelated policy concerns (e.g. educational goals, or work-family reconciliation). The distinct childcare-policy responses are then developed, and empirically illustrated on the basis of data collected for 28 European countries. This provides a basis for future research into the crosscountry variation of responses, as well as gender and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The economic crisis has significantly challenged national welfare states and has often led to retrenchment. The question arises how countries have reacted to the crisis in the area of family policy – not directly connected to rising unemployment and also not as demanding for state spending as for example the pension system. This article analyzes family policy reforms during the crisis in three small European welfare states – Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Focusing on the ‘rationale’ behind the reforms, it aims to explore how family policy was affected by the crisis and whether the crisis gave rise to new policy pathways and ideas in the area. The exploratory case studies of reforms conducted in the three countries between 2009 and 2013 show that everywhere the pre‐crisis policy pathways were also continued in the period of crisis. The reforms were framed by diverse paradigms related to national‐specific contexts along with newly emerged austerity arguments. The Czech Republic shows a continued focus on a neo‐liberal paradigm, utilizing the crisis to introduce further residual measures, i.e. mostly negative re‐familializing reforms, mixed with de‐familializing policies based on the workfare paradigm. Strong crisis‐related discourse in Slovenia was accompanied by diverse austerity measures, which strengthened the social dimension of family policy and weakened a de‐familialistic effect of the pre‐crisis reforms. Austria, much less affected by the crisis, continues to combine social investment and ‘freedom of choice’ paradigms, introducing an ambivalent amalgam of positive familialistic and de‐familialistic family policy reforms.