In person icon Work-family Policies across Regimes and Regions: Insights from East-Central and Southern Europe and South America

Abstract

Work-family reconciliation policies have recently garnered more attention from policy-makers and academics alike, and have been noted as an area where European countries have witnessed policy innovation despite economic austerity measures. The vast bulk of analysis, however, centers on the core of advanced industrialized countries. Our panel proposal seeks to examine the policy trajectories of countries beyond Esping-Andersen’s classic welfare regimes, including Central/Eastern and Southern Europe, and South America, and thus extend the parameters of this debate. The past decade in Europe has been one of responding to economic austerity, while South American countries have experienced commodity booms, allowing for expansions of social policy but without the umbrella of the European Union and its directives on gender equality. The papers on this panel examine how work-family reconciliation policies have fared in these different socio-economic and political contexts over the past decade. While social pressures for public services, especially child care, are high across countries, regime legacies, economic pressures, and political factors mediate policy responses.