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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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From subsidiarity to 'free choice'
— child- and elder-care policy reforms in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands | | Author(s) | Nathalie Morel |
| Journal title | Social Policy & Administration, vol 41, no 6, December 2007 |
| Pages | pp 618-637 |
| Keywords | Services ; Social welfare ; Social policy ; France ; Germany ; Belgium ; Netherlands. |
| Annotation | Patterns of reform in care policies in Bismarckian welfare systems since the 1990s are analysed. Based on a comparison of France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, this article shows that these reforms share similar logics and trajectories, which can be explained by the shared conservative and corporatist traits of Bismarckian labour markets and welfare state institutions and their impact on labour market adjustment possibilities and preferences. Indeed, it is argued that care policy reforms have been very closely linked to specific employment strategies; and the politics of welfare without work and subsequent attempts to shift away from such a labour-shedding strategy go a long way to explaining both the nature and the timing of child- and elder-care policy reforms in Bismarckian welfare systems. The article also shows how a focus on promoting 'free choice' in all four countries has justified the introduction of measures that have simultaneously reinforced social stratification in terms of access to the labour market - meaning that some women have much more 'free choice' than others - and weakened certain labour market rigidities. It concludes by arguing that care policy reforms have provided a back door for introducing labour-cheapening measures and for increasing employment flexibility in otherwise very rigid labour markets. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-071107213 A |
| Classmark | I: TY: TM2: 765: 767: 76E: 76H |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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