The labor and family policies of the Norwegian and Swedish states offer a remarkably wide selection of publicly funded social welfare programs and services. In keeping with the strong egalitarian traditions of these countries, their welfare policies are “universal” in orientation—that is, they are available for everybody—and aim for a decommodification of social rights. Like the other Scandinavian welfare states, they are maintained by a high level of direct taxation on both the working population and businesses, as well as a variety of special taxes.¹ Indeed, given their scope, in order to function effectively they require a large...

The Scandinavian countries are often described as prominent examples of social democratic welfare regimes characterized by universalism.¹ According to sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen, who has identified three major types of welfare states (social democratic, liberal, and conservative), the social democratic regime is defined by a welfare policy that not only targets those most in need but also seeks to cover the entire population. It accomplishes this through a high level of wealth redistribution and social insurance. This welfare state model assumes full employment and a high degree of social solidarity.² However, Esping-Andersen’s welfare-state typology is analytical rather than empirical. As recent...

Together with the countries of Scandinavia, France leads the European Union in public childcare provision and benefits aimed at reducing childcare costs for families.¹ Since the late 1960s, female participation in the French labor force, as is the case in nearly all states of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has increased steadily. What distinguishes France, however, from many other economically similar European states—with the exception of the Nordic countries—is its high rate of maternal employment. In 2007, 75.4 percent of mothers with two children under sixteen years of age were employed outside of the home...

The education systems of France and Italy both feature an all-day time policy for their pre- and primary schools. But while in France all-day education has long since been the norm, in Italy it is only one option in a hybrid system that continues to be dominated by part-time schooling. One result of this difference is that the termtime policyis only known in Italy. Here the phrasepolitiche temporali(literally, “time policies”) was introduced some years ago by educationalists and social scientists who studied social and family policies.¹ According to a study produced by the Italian National Institute...

After its bitterly fought civil war of 1936–1939, Spain was governed for the next three and a half decades by a right-wing authoritarian regime headed by General Francisco Franco. The only legal party under Franco’s regime was the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, known as Falange, an authoritarian party, which emphasized anticommunism, Catholicism, and nationalism. But in the 1960s, Spain began a period of unprecedented economic growth—the so-called Spanish miracle—and thus resumed the long-interrupted transition into a modern industrial economy. Still, it was only after the death of General Franco in November 1975, when Spain...

In January 2006, Beverley Hughes, British Minister of State for Children, Young People, and Families, gave the keynote address at a conference in New York about economics and early childhood provision. Hughes’s speech was described as “a victory lap,” celebrating what she called a “revolution in early years policy” in England.¹ June 2006 government figures show the results of this revolution: near universal part-time educational provision for three- and four-year-olds in nursery classes and nursery schools as well as more than 1.5 million childcare places spread across a wide range of schedules and settings. In addition to increasing the number...

In March 2007, the last report of the English Equal Opportunities Commission, before it was merged with a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, concluded that women with young children suffered more discrimination at work than any other group. This came as little surprise for most working mothers, who are accustomed to searching for a part-time job that can accommodate their children’s needs or being shunted onto what is now known as the “mummy track” in business or the professions. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported in 2005 that 70 percent of all British women aged fifteen...

In its statement on theSeventh Family Report, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany announced in April 2006 that it had “initiated a paradigmatic shift and was orienting its family policy more towards expanding an effective infrastructure which supports families and children for education and care as well as towards measures to integrate women into the world of work and allow for a better balance between family and work.”¹ With this major policy shift, the federal government was following the recommendations of the report, which a group of experts had prepared for the Ministry for Family Affairs. They...

The public education system of the Swiss Confederation has undergone relatively few changes since it was institutionalized throughout the country during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Swiss political system is characterized above all by two closely linked principles: federalism and subsidiarity. Under the federal structure of the Swiss republic, the confederation possesses competency only where it is specifically empowered under the federal constitution. Prior to the passage of the new constitution in 2006, which enabled the creation of a more centralized and coordinated education policy, Switzerland’s twenty-six cantons were responsible for compulsory education.¹ These cantons are politically...

Since the Russian Revolution of 1917, time policy in Soviet school education has been driven not only by the desire to increase the effectiveness of education and issues of children’s health but also by ideology, economic considerations, demographic changes, and family policy. This basic path did not change after World War II. Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged victorious from the conflict and became an acknowledged superpower and the primary model for other communist states during the Cold War. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, almost all former Soviet republics, including the Russian Federation,...

With its high rate of female employment and its elaborate infrastructure of state-run childcare, East Germany differed greatly from its Western counterpart. In 1989, more than 91 percent of working-age women (including students and apprentices) were gainfully employed. Moreover, 95 percent of all three- to six-year-old children attended preschool, and 81 percent of primary school children went to an after-school childcare center.¹ Until reunification in 1990, all-day education and childcare was thus the norm in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Even today, all-day childcare and mother’s employment remain widely accepted in the six eastern Länder (federal states) of the unified...

Hungary has long been a leader among European countries in the development of publicly supported family policies. This has been true both in the case of direct payments to families and state provision of social services such as early childhood care. Despite the implementation of neoliberal economic policies since the political transition of 1989, most of the family policy measures and basic childcare arrangements that were established during the communist era have been kept in place. The real value of those payments, however, has fallen steadily throughout the 1990s.¹ Nevertheless, the level of cash transfers and the extent of childcare...

In the aftermath of the revolutionary political changes of 1989, the overall number of childcare facilities and preschools in the newly founded Czech Republic¹ declined rapidly. Most notably, day crèches (Denní jesle) for children under the age of three effectively disappeared. Since 1990, their number shrank from 1,040 to a mere 54. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that center-based, municipal day crèches provided care for less than 0.5 percent of all children under three; almost all children in this age group are now cared for by their families or through informal care arrangements. In its...