Search results for ""author anne lise ellingsæter""

This insightful book provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of the formation and evolution of Nordic earner-carer policies over five decades. Spanning parental leave, father quotas, daycare services, and cash for childcare allowances, it explores the key roles that ideas and political parties play in the policy reform process.Examining earner-carer politics across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, Anne Lise Ellingsæter summarises and advances existing family policy literature by adopting a long historical perspective on policy reform. Highlighting how political processes shape policy trajectories, the book focuses on interpretative struggles in political discourses and reform processes, reflecting on the highly politicised and value-laden nature of family policy. It argues that bloc politics – the left against the centre-right – have been a central driving force, energised by differing ideas about relationships between state, family and individual, and between state and market. Ellingsæter also explores gender equality and parental choice, two strong and at times competing ideas influencing family policy.Drawing on and furthering extensive theoretical and empirical research on family policy and welfare state change, Nordic Earner-Carer Politics will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of social policy, sociology, political science, and gender studies.

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How to respond to the needs of working parents has become a pressing social policy issue in contemporary Western Europe. This book highlights the politicising of parenthood in the Scandinavian welfare states - focusing on the relationship between parents and the state, and the ongoing renegotiations between the public and the private. Drawing on new empirical research, leading Scandinavian academics provide an up-to-date record and critical synthesis of Nordic work-family reforms since the 1990s. A broad range of policies targeting working parents is examined including: the expansion of childcare services as a social right; parental leave; cash benefits for childcare; and working hours regulations. The book also explores policy discourses, scrutinises outcomes, and highlights the similarities and differences between Nordic countries through analyses of comparative statistical data and national case studies. Set in the context of economic restructuring and the growing influence of neo-liberal ideology, each chapter addresses concerns about the impact of policies on the gender relations of parenthood. "Politicising parenthood in Scandinavia" is a timely contribution to ongoing policy debates on welfare state models, parenthood and gender equality. It will be of particular interest to students and teachers of welfare studies, family policy and gender studies.

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