Solidarity between the sexes and the generations. Transformations in Europe

Abstract:

This book is from the Edward Elgar series Globalization and Welfare, which aims to make an important contribution to the principles of comparative social policy.

The work is organised over twelve chapters divided into three parts. The first chapter examines the history of family solidarity and identifies two phases - from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s and from 1985 to 1995. Chapter two explores the links between family solidarity and the wider social solidarity of the welfare state. The friction arising from differing views on government policies within the family group are the focus of chapter three. The shift in perceptions on how the family works away from the stereotypical male oriented breadwinner towards and individual adult worker model are addressed in chapter four with particular emphasis on the gender elements of this change. Chapter five looks at trends in income-tested family benefits in various European countries.

Part two consists of chapter six, which examines trends in patterns of family solidarity over time and across Western European countries, and chapter seven which explores demographic changes in the CEE countries.

In part three, chapter eight studies the extent to which family solidarity is a positive or negative experience. Chapter nine goes on to explore the experience of care for the young and the elderly in Spain and France. The reciprocity and solidarity across generations - parents to children and vice versa - are the focus of chapter ten. The formal definition of familial obligations in welfare legislation with particular focus on the family-state relationship in Scandinavia is examined in chapter eleven. The final chapter explores the role of working mothers and the continuing unequal division of care in the home which is often dealt with by the hiring of home help mainly by immigrant women.

The work will interest scholars and researchers of social policy, sociology and welfare as well as women and gender studies.

Trudie Knijn is Professor of Social Science at Utrecht University. Aafke Komter is Professor of Social Science at University College, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

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