Conceptualizing and Analyzing Family Policy and How It Is Changing

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the conceptualization of family policy as well as identifying the main trends and policy reforms. The chapter first sets out an analytic framework. This underlines the complexity of family policy and the necessity to see it as relating to both family structure and family-related behavior. The chapter then proceeds to identify major contemporary trends, focusing on three main areas of family policy: income supports for families with children, early childhood education and care and parenting-related leaves from employment. It shows family policy as dynamic and seeking to balance a series of tensions between resourcing families on the one hand and regulating them on the other. At issue is the balance to be struck between continuity in the structure of families, in their economic and social organization and in regard to the relative resourcing of different generations and life phases.

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

“…It also examines key findings in light of additional national data and comparative studies. The review of family policy reforms at both the national and EU level considers the key features of national policy measures, including their goals, instruments, funding and implementation [3].…”

“…In what follows, family policies are taken to be "policies associated with families with children", and as policies that seek to promote the functionality and well-being of families with children [3]. In Kamerman and Kahn's [4] terms, the focus of this paper is explicit family policies.…”

“…Furthermore, this paper takes a critical perspective that challenges the inequalities and risks associated with family constructs and dynamics. The analysis presented here has as one of its background commitments that children's rights, gender equality and social justice are crucial and necessary family policy goals [3,5].…”

“…The family policies explored and analysed in this paper are those that exist at the national level, created by national legislation and funded by a state's central government. This is important to emphasize, as policy can also be established at subnational or supranational level and even at the level of individual private companies and organisations [3]. Additionally, family policy is not amongst the EU's direct competences.…”

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

“…ECEC is associated, among others, with social investment interests (quality education towards future highly skilled labour force), children-centred rights, and gen-der equality (e.g., Bonoli et al, 2017;Daly, 2020;Esping-Andersen, 2009;Palme and Heimer, 2019;Scheiwe and Willekens, 2009). Systematic reviews of empirical evidence suggest that ECEC has wide-reaching benefits for children in terms of their development and personal agency.…”