The articles in this issue of the journal comprise four articles on ‘Formal and Informal Care’ and two articles in the area of ‘Income, Poverty and Social Capital’.
In their article ‘Towards the Universal Care Course Model’, Barbara Haas and Margit Hartel of Vienna University of Economics and Business examine two models of the care giver. Comparing policies and practices in The Netherlands, Sweden, and Austria, they contrast Nancy Fraser's ‘Universal Breadwinner’, ‘Universal Caregiver’, and ‘Caregiver Parity’ models. The three models require differing levels of private provision and part-time employment on the part of parents, and specifically of mothers. They trace the national differences and question the contrast generally drawn in terms of the ‘triad’ of public care, home care, and private external care. To resolve the difficulties experienced in each society they propose a modified version of Fraser's Universal Caregiver model, which they refer to as the ‘Universal Care Course’ model, towards which the various societies may move.
Dawn Lyon of the School of Social Policy at the University of Kent, UK, is concerned with care patterns for older people. Her paper on ‘Intersections and Boundaries of Work and Non-work’ compares Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, and England. Using data from interviews undertaken along with Miriam Glucksmann, she discovered three themes or dimensions in work and non-work patterns. These are the dimensions of love/money, morality/instrumentality, and professional demarcation/everyday embeddedness. These dimensions constitute what Talcott Parsons may have referred to as ‘pattern variable’ organising variations in cultural responses and definitions. The boundaries established in work and care patterns reflect the relative emphasis accorded to the various poles in these dilemmas of choice.
Patricia Kennedy, of the School of Applied Social Sciences at University College Dublin, and Heili Einasto, of Tallinn University, Estonia, wrote their article on ‘Changes and Continuity in Maternity Policies’ in order to compare the situation in Ireland and Estonia. Maternity policy, they argue, is an outcome of the complex intersections of legal regulations in relation to social security, employment, and health, which are themselves rooted in deep ideological and cultural differences. They employ path dependency ideas – widely discussed in previous issues of this journal – to explore the trajectories taken in the two societies. Their varying histories have resulted in persisting continuities in practice and provision, with patterns of change also being shaped by historically specific processes. This path dependence affects the ability of governments and agencies to implement Europe-wide policy initiatives.
The paper on ‘The “Active Welfare State” and its Consequences’ by Mikael Holmqvist of the School of Business at Stockholm University looks at sheltered employment policies for occupationally disabled people in Sweden. The emphasis on activity and ability in welfare provision reinforces the disabling consequences of social conditions by negatively stereotyping those seen as unable to live up to the ‘normal’ image of the active citizen. Activist policies have unintended disabling consequences.
Our two papers on ‘Income, Poverty, and Social Capital’ explore the implications of well-being and risky life events. Jakub and Katarzyna Growiec of the Warsaw School of Economics and the Polish Academy of Sciences investigated the subjective sense of well-being in relation to level of earnings and forms of social capital in Poland. They show that while ‘bonding’ social capital (ties with similar individuals) has a negative and linear relationship to earnings, ‘bridging’ social capital (ties with differing individuals) shows an inverse U-shaped relationship to earnings. Both forms of social capital, however, have an inverse U-shaped relationship to the felt sense of well-being. They conclude that the most effective way of enhancing both income and well-being is through investment in bridging social capital.
In ‘Poverty Trajectories after Risky Life Course Events in Different European Welfare Regimes’, Leen Vandecasteele of Manchester University, UK, examines the consequences of such life course transitions as partnership dissolution and leaving the parental home. She employs latent class analysis to identify distinct categories if individuals in terms of the particular poverty experiences and poverty trajectories that they undergo after such events. Data from the European Community Household Panel for Germany, Spain, Denmark, and the United Kingdom disclose four categories of trajectory, their size and composition varying from one society to another according to the welfare regime.
The articles highlighted in the discussion forum this month are those by Dawn Lyon and Leen Vandecasteele. Please log on to the site (http://www.europeansocietiesforum.com) and contribute your thoughts to the debate.