Changing Family Life in Europe_ Significance for State and Society

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Changing family life in Europe:

Significance for state and

societyMary Daly

a

aSchool of Sociology and Social Policy, Queen's

University, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

Version of record first published: 01 Sep 2006.

To cite this article: Mary Daly (2005): Changing family life in Europe: Significance for

state and society, European Societies, 7:3, 379-398

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Changing family life in Europe:Significance for state and society

Mary DalySchool of Sociology and Social Policy, Queen’s University, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK

ABSTRACT: Family change and the risks associated with it form the

departure point of this article. The intent is both to elaborate the nature of

family change in European societies and to interrogate contemporary policy

on the family in the light of emerging changes and risks. The first part of the

article undertakes an overview analysis of the main changes affecting

families, looking at structure, organisation and relations. It then moves on to

consider the key risks and challenges posed by recent changes for

individuals, states and society. The risks discussed include the seeming lack

of readiness to commit to parenthood, a polarisation between parenthood

and partnership, overburdening of women and risks around care. The final

section of the article turns to the state’s response, in terms of what it hasbeen and what it might (need to) be. It shows how policy on the family, while

a growing area of intervention, has actually narrowed in scope, becoming

more an arm of employment policy and operating to a rather unidimensional

model of family, viz . the two-income family. The underlying story is of a

continuing divergence between states’ responses and what people wish for

their family life. When it comes to the family, states it seems are always out

of date.

Key words: family change; family policy; family and welfare state reform;

demographic and social risks; gender and family relations; family in Europeansociety

Europeans have always held high expectations about the kind of family

lives that they wish for themselves. Moreover, they seem intent on

realising their expectations even if these differ from the model of family

life envisaged by the state. This article investigates how the forms and

meaning of family are changing in Europe, in their own right and in the

context of the prime orientations of family policy. My intention is, on theone hand, to identify the main changes characterising family life and the

risks that arise from these changes and, on the other, to problematise how

the state is responding to these risks. The article is intended to provoke

DOI: 10.1080/14616690500194001 379

European Societies

7(3) 2005: 379 Á /398

– 2005

Taylor & Francis

ISSN

1461-6696 print

1469-8307 online

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thought on the matter of the future of the continuously evolving

relationship between family, state and society. It should be read, therefore,

along the lines of an overview of the key issues on the family landscape in

Europe and the dilemmas or challenges that they raise. The article is

divided into three sections. The first describes the main changes andtrends affecting family life in Europe in the last decade or so. The second

seeks to identify the crucial risks that arise from these changes and the

third draws out some resulting challenges for the state and public policy.

1. Change and families

Before beginning the discussion of change, we should take note of a

primary insight from existing work which cautions against viewing family

as a receptacle, in the sense of a passive object of changes occurring

elsewhere. To quote Strohmeier (2002: 344): ‘families are remarkably

autonomous, self-determining social systems’. Scholarship today high-

lights how family is itself a wellspring of change, especially in regard to

family-related roles and relations among family members (e.g., changes in

parent child relations, changes in spousal roles). With this in mind, this

article advances from the premise that a differentiated approach to family

change is needed. In contemporary discourse when reference is made tofamily change it is usually the structure or form of families that is alluded

to. I suggest that this is too narrow and so adopt a three-fold framework to

analyse family change. This differentiates between change in the structure

or form of families, in family organisation, and in family relationships and

values. In essence then, demographic changes are seen as associated with

and accompanied by changes in social practices, social relations and values.

It should also be noted that since the comparative canvas is very large Á /

the EU member states Á / the analysis undertaken is by necessity broad

brush in nature. The review that follows makes no claim to completenessbut is sufficient to point to significant aspects of family change in Europe

at the present time.

1.1. Change in family forms

As economic welfare increases in more countries, people have less need to

share their living arrangements and be part of the same household

(De Jong Gierveld 1998: 31). One very strong trend in Europe overall istowards living alone. The number of household units in Europe has

increased sharply and is predicted to continue on an upward curve. In

1961 the EU-15 had 92 million households with an average of 3.3 persons

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per household; by 1995 the figure had risen to 148 million with the average

per household at 2.5 persons (EUROSTAT 2003b). The main cause of the

increase is the sharp rise in the number of persons living alone Á / there are

now 42 million persons in this living situation across the EU-15 countries,

representing some 28 per cent of the total population. Solo living is

primarily a Northern European phenomenon. Although the number of

one-person households has grown in almost linear fashion since the 1960s

in practically all EU member states, Germany and Finland have seen the

largest increase. Looking to the future, Ireland, closely followed by Spain

and Luxembourg, is predicted to record the largest increase in one-person

households in the coming years (ibid). This scale of living alone is in

Europe historically unique. The trend is associated with a fundamental

change in both the structure of households and the life course. Key in this

respect is a move away from multi-generational households and an

intensification of a trend towards individualisation of the life course.

A second notable trend is a fall in fertility. While varying in intensity

from region to region, this is a robust pattern and has made under-

replacement fertility levels the norm in Europe. Between 1980 and 2003

the total fertility rate in the EU-25 fell from 1.88 to 1.48 (EUROSTAT

2004b). As is well known, the countries of Southern Europe (in particular

Greece, Italy and Spain) have not only seen a large fall in the shortest

period but they have the lowest replacement rates in the European area.They are now joined by the new EU member countries in Central and

Eastern Europe. This part of Europe had remarkably high and generally

stable fertility levels until the mid-1980s, after which began a decline that

has accelerated steadily over time. Today Slovakia and the Czech Republic

have the lowest replacements levels in Europe. The change in this part of

Europe has not only been very rapid but has occurred over a shorter

period than in Western Europe. Ireland occupies the opposite end of the

continuum Á / at 1.98 Irish fertility is considerably in excess of that of both

the next highest country (France at 1.89) and the EU average (1.48). Whilefalling fertility tends to be equated in the popular mind with increasing

childlessness, delayed family formation and decreasing propensity to

marry are also involved. Indeed, the increase in the mean age of

childbearing that results from the ongoing postponement of births (the

so-called ‘tempo effect’) leads to a significant and lasting loss of births that

greatly contributes to population decline and ageing in Europe (Lutz

2004). Falling fertility too feeds into the move towards smaller households.

It has also, together with an increase in life expectancy, resulted in a

dejuvenation and aging of the population (De Jong Gierveld 1998: 38).This has meant in some countries a shift in the age distribution.

A third trend that points away from the past is a downward movement in

the number of marriages. Kaufmann (2002: 423) speaks of a growing

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disinclination towards marriage and an increasing social recognition of

forms of partnership and parenthood outside of wedlock. For the EU-25

the crude marriage rate fell from 6.7 to 4.8 between 1980 and 2003

(EUROSTAT 2004b). It is hard to discern a regional pattern here,

however Á / Denmark, for example, has not only seen an increase in the

marriage rate since 1980 but as of 2003 had the highest crude marriage

rate in the EU, whereas neighbouring Sweden experienced a small fall and

had the lowest marriage rate of the EU-15. The overall trend in divorces,

which is upwards, contributes also to the destabilisation of marriage (as

well as to a process of individualisation of childhood). The crude divorce

rate per 1,000 population increased from 1.5 in 1980 to 2.0 in 2001 (ibid).

Matthijs and Van den Troost (1998) characterise what is happening as a

‘divorce explosion’ and underline the fact that the high rate of divorce thatnow exists in many countries is completely new. Unlike marriage, there is a

discernible regional variation in the prevalence of divorce and it is in the

expected direction: divorce rates are lowest in the Southern countries and

highest in the Czech Republic, the Baltic states and Scandinavia.

Alongside and associated with these changes, there has been a growth in

cohabitation. The sociological distinctiveness of marriage and cohabitation

should be underlined. Marriage is typically associated with long duration,

a high level of sharing and exchange of resources and heavy institutio-

nalisation. In considerable contrast, cohabitation is open as regardsduration, conditional about the amount of sharing involved and has

more the character of a private arrangement than a public institution

(although there are obvious moves underway to increase rights for

cohabitees).1

All of these changes are leading to and are accompanied by increasing

variation in the composition of households and families. This trend has

different constituents. One contributory factor is an increase in extra-

marital births. In 2003 30.2 per cent of all births in the EU-25 were

outside of marriage (compared to around 9 per cent in 1980) (EURO-STAT 2004b). This spells different arrangements within and across

countries. One trend that is quite widespread is the growth of lone

parenthood. For example, in 2001 lone parents comprised 9 per cent of all

households with dependent children in the EU-15 (EUROSTAT 2004a).

The underlying process of change that is involved is encapsulated in the

literature by the concepts ‘new family forms’ and ‘new biographical

models’. These are meant to refer, on the one hand, to the growth of

1. For evidence that consensual unions with children represent a different type of family

to marriages with children see Jensen (2003). The higher rate of dissolution and of

employment of both partners in the former indicates that it is a lifestyle with a greater

degree of emphasis on individual choice.

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cohabitation or partnership (including among same-sex couples) and the

many combinations of family type that these and other changes engender

and, on the other, to a change in people’s life forms and biographical

sequencing. In effect, the interweaving of marriage, sexuality and

procreation is being unpicked (Matthijs and Van den Troost 1998: 112).Looked at overall, while there are strong similarities, it would be ill-

advised to make a simplified argument of European convergence, not least

because the starting points are different and convergence implies similarity

of outcome. Boh’s (1989) term ‘convergence to diversity’ continues to have

resonance. In terms of trends, countries are moving at their own pace and

developments are embedded in national cultures and traditions. Kuijsten

(2002: 50) summarises well with his observation: ‘pluralization is every-

where but everywhere it has another face’. In terms of patterning, cross-

country differences persist. One must, at the minimum, draw attention to

the fact that Europe has (at least) two kinds of pattern in relation to family

composition and structure. These tend to follow (loosely) a North/South

continuum. In Northern European countries, especially Scandinavia, in

comparison to those further south more people live alone, average

household size is smaller, marriage is less common and alternative living

arrangements more diverse and prevalent. Whether there is also an East/

West gradient of change is something that needs to be investigated as

developments unfoldÁ /

at the moment patterns in Central and EasternEurope appear to be in flux and so it is difficult to characterise them

definitively.

1.2. Changes in family organisation

A move to two-income families captures a primary line of change in this

regard. One of the main motors of change is the increase in labour market

participation of women. This, although not completely independent of thestate of the economy, has in fact been one of the most dominant and

persistent trends to be seen in Western European countries over recent

decades (Rubery et al. 1998; Daly 2000; EUROSTAT 2002a). The

movement in participation levels is inexorably upwards. While a predic-

tion of the disappearance of the housewife might be premature, increased

employment among women is associated with a move towards two-income

families and a decline in the male breadwinner/female homemaker

household arrangement. The two-income family is now the dominant

form of household in most EU-15 member states among households withtwo people of working age. For the 10 member states for which

comparable data are available, households with both partners in the labour

force were in 2000 almost twice as numerous as those with only one,

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averaging around 62 per cent of the total (EUROSTAT 2002a). A marked

divide is evident, however, between the northern member states, together

with Portugal, where two-thirds or more of households were dual-

participant, and Spain, Greece, Ireland and Italy where the proportion was

less than 50 per cent. In both groups of countries, however, the 1990s saw

an increase in the prevalence of dual-participant households. The growth

was particularly pronounced in Ireland, The Netherlands, Belgium and

Spain. Dual participation is increasing most among couples with children.

However, as always, one must probe the amount of participation, in terms

of the hours worked. The available data reveal considerable variation,

although the most common form of dual participation in all countries

apart from The Netherlands2 is one where both participants work full time

(ibid: 3). The one-and-a-half model Á / where he works full-time and shepart-time Á / is found in about 30 per cent of all couple households in the

10 countries.

This is a far-reaching change in a number of respects (Lewis 2003).

It signifies first a process of alteration in the relationship between family

and economy, and in particular between family and employment. In

addition, the relationship between family and society is being recast

since the breadwinner/homemaker model is far more than an economic

arrangement, spelling also a particular form of relationship between

spouses/partners, an arrangement for the care of children, a pattern of

intergenerational relationships and a division of labour between state and

family. Continuity sits alongside change though, for part and parcel of

these trends Á / and a feature of the evolving two-income family form Á / is a

(continuing) inequality in the distribution of household work. In other

words, there is little evidence of the emergence of household working-time

arrangements that are compatible with a more equal sharing of paid and

unpaid work. The disparity is mirrored especially in the distribution of

unpaid work among women and men. However this is not a pattern that isset in stone. There are certainly some social class variations involved: the

educational attainment of women has a significant effect on whether they

as well as their partners are employed and whether they have part-time or

full-time jobs (EUROSTAT 2002a: 5). Women with higher education are

more likely to be members of dual-earner households as compared with

their less well-qualified counterparts.

2. This country is quite exceptional not just in terms of the low proportion of

households where both partners are employed full-time (36 per cent) but the high

prevalence of the male full-time/female part-time arrangement (58 per cent). The

Netherlands is effectively a new and distinct model in the European context, wherein

part-time employment is increasing for both women and men.

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1.3. Family relations and values

Not alone has the numerical composition of households fallen sharply over

the past century but the lifestyles and relations of those who share the

same household have also changed. Research suggests that there arefundamental shifts underway in the social organisation of intimacy and

sociability and that the trend is, on the one hand, towards increasing

individualisation and, on the other, towards increasing diversity of

relationship practices (Giddens 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995).

The emotional interior of the family has changed as a result. In

comparison to the past, families today are arguably more complex, more

heterogeneous and more often in flux and mutation (Matthijs and Van den

Troost 1998: 111). A key aspect of change is that the balance of power

within families is altering. ‘The modern family in most European

countries has turned from an authority-oriented family to a negotiating

one’ (Du Bois-Reymond 1998: 59). This has at least two dimensions,

affecting relations between partners/genders and those between parents

and children. Women have gained greater power in their relations with

men, a development characterising intra-familial relationships as well as

those outside the family. While it is premature to pronounce a radical

change in this regard, there are distinct signs of a move towards more

egalitarian familial relations. Both women and men are now normativelyoriented to a combination of family roles and participation for both in paid

work, although the degree of sharing of household work has not radically

altered. Another aspect of family life that is changing is the role of

children. Occasioned by general social change and expedited by the

tendency for states to grant children autonomous rights, children are

increasingly seen as and enabled to be agents in their own right (Brannen

1999). It is important not to overstate the degree of change that has taken

place in this regard either, however because patriarchal norms have a long

shelf life.One of the most significant developments is the emerging divergence

between partnership (or coupledom) and parenthood. A growing divide is

to be observed at the level of desires and emotions as well as at a more

practical level in terms of life organisation and trajectory. It seems that

partnership and parenthood are not just two different types of social

relationship/institution but diverging life choices. As evidence, consider

the growth in the proportion of partnerships or marriages without

children and how being in a partnership is itself now a legitimate ‘family

end’. In sum, we see a move away from the biographical pattern of loverelationship leading to marriage and then, more or less immediately, to

child bearing, to one characterised by a sequence of romantic relationship

and partnership/cohabitation to parenthood that may include marriage or

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to continued partnership without children (Tyrell and Schulze 2000).

These authors suggest, further, that partnership and parenthood are

becoming increasingly incompatible. Partnership demands mobility and

typically is not founded on a long-term commitment, whereas the

increasingly child-centred family of today requires immobility andstability from parents who are put under growing pressure around the

quality of their parenting.

2. Emerging risks and unmet needs

There is no doubt but that families present a complex environment for

policy because, as Gonzalez-Lopez (2002: 23) points out, the map of living

arrangements and the individual life cycle has become more difficult to

predict and read. However while a wider range of options for private living

has opened up, it is also true that the current changes are patterned

(lending some assistance to the analyst and policy maker). Cantillon (1998)

is correct to point out that a new relationship is being forged between

needs, risk and risk coverage. This is true in two senses: the occurrence of

the risk events traditionally covered by the social security system

(unemployment, sickness, old age, death of a breadwinner) no longer

automatically triggers a situation of need and new risks have arisen whichare not covered by social security and income policy. Social protection, she

says, has to be adapted to the new family context (1998: 230). What risks

are we talking about?

Taking patterns together, and focusing on their implications for state,

family and society, I suggest that there are four key family-related ‘risks’ in

contemporary Europe.

2.1. The disappearing family: Lack of readiness to commit toparenthood

If in the past policy could take the existence of the family for granted, it

can no longer do so. For people’s readiness to form families at all is now at

stake. One result is that Europe has a shrinking family sector and that

children have become a relatively scarce resource. It seems that couples

today weigh up the pros and cons of having children through a process

in which a complex calculus (a mix of material and self-development/

self realisation considerations) looms large. To understand the process,it is insightful to take the perspective of the young couple. Huinink

(1997), cited in Kaufmann (2002: 451), identifies three problems that

young couples face before they commit to parenthood: the problem of

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co-ordinating the long-term perspectives of both partners; the problem of

insufficient resources to have children; the problem of the compatibility of

public and private commitments, especially in regard to the relationship

between work and family. In sum, children are fitted into life plans of

adults and the ‘having’ of children is potentially in conflict with theachievement of other goals (Jensen 2003).

Looking more closely, attention turns on the extent to which people feel

that their circumstances are in line with their desires. There is evidence

that people across Europe wish to have a larger number of children than

they succeed in having. A recent study reports a gap between people’s

actual and ideal family size (of about 0.29 children for the EU-25) (Alber

and Fahey 2004: 45 Á /6).3 Circumstances are perceived to be preventing

people from having more children. When women who do not fulfil their

fertility aspirations were asked why they had fewer children than they

wished, they pointed mainly to reasons of a broad economic character. The

authors are keen to point out that this is less a matter of a lack of resources

in an absolute sense than of opportunity costs in terms of a woman’s time

and career in the labour market. This kind of interpretation is supported

by other work, especially research that seeks to link fertility to policy

provision. This is a notoriously difficult relationship and so any suggested

patterns need to be treated with great caution. However, one can make a

general case that countries with higher gender equality exhibit higherfertility scores than those where women find it difficult to reconcile an

independent life with family obligations (Kaufmann 2002: 450).4 More-

over, a positive relationship is also observed between the supply of child

care and fertility. Hence, it appears that a somewhat counterintuitive

relationship prevails: the more ‘modern’ is the provision the higher the

likelihood of having children.

The desired family arrangement and the chances of attaining it form

another part of the explanation for falling fertility. The evidence suggests

that people in Europe do not have what they want in this regard. Despitesignificant focus on reconciling work and family life and policy reform

towards this end, there exists a wide divergence between the actual

employment/family arrangements that people have and those that they

would prefer (OECD 2001). In general, across Europe the model that

3. This gap is made up of about 55 Á /60 per cent of women who achieve their ideal

fertility, around a third who under-attain and around a tenth who over-attain.

4. It is important to point out that the cross-country correlations of female employment

levels and fertility change over time. Strong negative correlations up to 1980 indicate

that in countries where a higher proportion of women worked the fertility rate was

lower (Engelhardt and Prskawetz 2004). But around 1985 Á / when the Mediterranean

countries entered the very low fertility group Á / the nature of the correlation

completely changed to a strong, positive one.

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people have too much of is the traditional male breadwinner model

(of employed father and home-making mother). In Germany, for example,

this is the actual arrangement of 52 per cent of the population but for only

6 per cent is it their preferred arrangement; similar levels of dissatisfaction

with employment/family arrangements are to be found in Italy. In general,the two-earner family form is more sought after than the traditional model

of a male breadwinner/female caregiver. The model that is considered as

too seldom available across Europe as a whole is the ‘one and a half earner’

arrangement whereby the man works full-time and the woman part-time.

One has to ask how sustainable such a gap between expectations and

reality is, especially in countries such as Germany and Italy, and to a lesser

extent France and Ireland, where the opportunity for people to realise

their preferred family/employment arrangement seems to be quite

compromised.

2.2. A polarisation between family (parenthood) and non-family

(partnership)

In many countries there is occurring a dislocation between partnership

and family. This is not equivalent to an ‘us and them’ development Á /

partners versus families with children Á / but it seems as if they are twoquite different sectors of the population and two different styles of life.

Change is driven by the younger age cohorts and the upper social classes Á /

the likelihood of wanting or having children is therefore structured around

the two axes of age and social class. To risk some exaggeration, it seems

that Europe’s younger generations, especially those from the upper classes,

are prepared to forego family life with children. In the event, the task of

reproduction is left increasingly to the lower income groups, and to

immigrants. There is a polarisation taking place and it is multi-layered.

For example, in regard to gender, women in almost all countries face large(although cross-nationally varying) trade-offs in combining employment

and motherhood. In regard to socio-economic differences, it is now the

case that families with children have a much higher likelihood of being one

income as against two income. In regard to nationality, there is a widening

gap between fertility rates, family size and income levels of immigrants

vis-a -vis nationals. So what one has is a layering of the presence of

children and family size around age, income and education and ethnic

origin.

Whether one or both partners works outside the home has also becomea (new) factor in social inequality. As Matthijs and Van den Troost (1998:

113 Á /4) put it: ‘some of the single earners are elbowed into lower income

groups while the double earners climb into the higher prosperity groups’.

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Double income, therefore, has become the wealth norm today. The main

reason why couple families with children are one income is because the

second partner is involved in care. There is no inevitability about this

however Á / at least some families are low income because care, or unpaid

work more generally, is not considered either a legitimate social risk forsocial security and other policy purposes or as gainful work in its own

right.

The ultimate outcome may be a process which Strohmeier (1993, cited

in Schulze and Tyrell 2002: 88) describes for Germany as a movement

towards class-specific family structures. What we are seeing, then, is an

interweaving of social inequality with family whereby the upper income

groups are increasingly less children-oriented and the presence of children

is ever more closely associated with social class position.

2.3. Overburdening of women

There are different ways to state the contemporary gender problematic. A

relatively benign characterisation is that the modernisation of gender roles

and relations is incomplete, whereas a more trenchant interpretation is

that women are so disaffected by the current scenario that they are

effectively on a baby strike. One of the main problems is that themovement of women into the labour force has not resulted in a sharing of

home-based or labour-market work between women and men. Women

continue to be responsible for the bulk of work in the home; the average

woman doing between two and three times the amount of unpaid work

carried out by men (Gershuny 2000). In addition there is a large disparity

in the hours worked by employed women vis-a -vis their male counter-

parts. ‘Work/life balance’, such a widely-used term today, takes on a

completely different meaning in this context, suggesting that the task of

‘reconciliation’ is a female responsibility.Recent research in Ireland reveals the kind of complexity involved. As

well as logistical difficulties in making arrangements and finding care for

their children, women are finding it increasingly difficult to combine their

two worlds (Daly 2004a). A national consultation exercise with more than

700 people found that the role of mother is far from settled and is a source

of considerable tension (if not dissatisfaction) on the part of women.

Emotional difficulties are rife. Ambivalence is the lot of many mothers and

they feel torn between children and work. Against a background of

massive increase in female labour force participation in the last decade Á /

resulting from buoyant economic growth and state policies that encourage

women into employment Á / one of the most strongly and consistently

expressed views was that mothers must have more options or choice

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around whether they want to take up paid employment or not and the

conditions under which they make the choice.

2.4. Risks around care

As is well known the dejuvenation of the population and the stretching of

life at the upper end raises issues (for states, families and individuals)

around care. There is a series of risks involved. One such risk is that states

will not be able to (afford to) provide quality care in the volume needed,

mainly because of insufficient resources. A second is that family members

will not be able to care for or see their relatives cared for in a manner that

satisfies them. In this regard it is important to note that a strong ethic of informal and family care is integral to the European value frame and that

informal care is quite widespread. Recent research by the European

Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

(Alber and Fahey 2004; Alber and Kohler 2004) shows that about four out

of five people across the EU-25 consider it a good thing to strengthen

family responsibility in looking after elderly persons. Domestic care for

older people is almost ten times more popular than residential care. This

same research reveals a remarkably vital network of informal help

throughout Europe. In acceding and candidate countries, roughly aquarter of respondents are engaged in some form of regular help of others;

in the EU-15 the proportion is about 21 per cent.5 These results lead

Alber and Kohler (2004: 70) to speak of a ‘strong and rather unbroken

tradition of family support in Europe’. Moreover, the enlargement of the

EU strengthens the ethic of family care in Europe.

Among the issues that states have to keep a close eye on is the

production of welfare, and especially care, within the family. In this

regard, the ‘care potential’ is critical: the availability and ability of

people to care for their relatives. Research on care patterns suggests thatwhat really matters in this regard is the presence of spouses (de facto the

main carers of elderly people) and of daughters and sisters (De Jong

Gierveld 1998). Decreasing population and increased mobility reduces

the care potential. Willingness to care of course also comes into question

and here what seems to matter (in terms of the next generation’s

willingness to care) is the quality of the relationship between parents

and children. Overall however, the most recent research indicates that

intergenerational solidarity is strong in Europe, with the younger

5. In both new and old EU member states, informal care activities peak at prime age in

the middle of the life cycle. The level of activity is found to be almost as high among

economically active persons as among pensioners or the unemployed.

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generation expressing a wish to undertake care for their elderly relatives,

just as the current older generation seem willing to shoulder their part of

the costs of care and do not advocate shifting the cost to the younger

generation any more frequently than do the young themselves (Alber and

Fahey 2004).

3. Problematising state intervention

The role of the state is central in all of this. One can characterise the key

challenge of and for family policy as being to reconcile the modernisation

of family relations with the economic, social and demographic needs of the

society (Kaufmann 2002: 462). However, it is an open and difficultquestion of how much the state should ease the passage of families.

Arguments against an interventionist approach are easily marshalled. If

families are left to their own devices they might be better able to weather

whatever storms they encounter. Interventionist policies may also be

charged with social engineering. However, counter arguments are also

compelling, not least the claim that the development of a family policy is

integral to the future of European market societies. In addition, the fact

that people have high expectations about their family lives Á / and that

many consider these expectations to be unfulfilled at present Á / may renderit impossible for governments to avoid instituting policies to effect

particular outcomes in family life (Alber and Fahey 2004).

In any case, states have not been indifferent. While it may not always be

named as ‘family policy’, the domain of family is an expanding area of

policy intervention in Western Europe and the ‘family question’ is to the

fore in contemporary public debate.6 Indeed, as Martin (2004: 14) points

out, the ‘family question’ is coming to be seen as a component of the

‘social question’ whereby the family’s contribution to social order, social

stability and even social inclusion is increasingly debated. In an earlierarticle (Daly 2004b), I identified a number of characteristics of recent

policy in Western European countries as they target and respond to family

change. While we need to underline that there is no single or uniform

response on the part of states and indeed that historically Europe was

characterised by different types of family policy, it is possible to discern

some general trends in current policy.

As I read it there are two lexicons currently informing policy in Europe

as it relates to family. One is an instrumentalist type of discourse whereby

the primary orientation of policy is to address particular ‘problems’ of family life (mothers’ (under)employment, paternal responsibility, the

6. See the various contributions in the collection edited by Knijn and Komter (2004).

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quality of parent Á /child relations, family poverty, child well-being, family

stability, social order). A second lexicon Á / dominated by a liberal language

of ‘quality’, ‘choice’ and ‘self-fullfilment’ Á / now sits alongside the first.

This is informed especially by the recognition of disaffection with some

of the conditions of child-rearing in today’s market society (low income,

lack of opportunity for women to be employed and at the same time

reduced opportunity to care for family members). It has another side too,

though, in that it both emerges from and lends itself to a critique of how

people, parents especially, manage their family lives. This kind of

discourse serves to justify a focus for social policy on the ‘performance’

of family roles and responsibilities and greater regulation on the part

of the state of the nature and quality of family-related activities and

relationships.In terms of concrete policies, the big story now is of an ever closer

relationship being forged between family policy and employment policy.

Measures to achieve the ‘reconciliation of work and family’ are now the

dominant theme threaded throughout European and especially EU policy

on the family Á /work relationship. The most widespread framing of this as a

policy objective is, on the one hand, to enable workers to attend to some of

their family-related concerns or responsibilities and, on the other, to

ensure that family exigencies or desires do not get in the way of able-

bodied adults becoming and remaining paid workers. Tax credits,employment leaves for parental and care purposes and growing childcare

provision are the flagship policies oriented to this end. Eschewing the

expansion of general or generic subsidies to families with children,

financial support to families nowadays is directed towards specific

employment-related costs such as those associated with service procure-

ment or the loss of (potential) wages. This is a significant change because

traditionally in Europe cash support to families was oriented to assisting

them with the direct costs involved in rearing children (those associated

with food, clothing and education for example).

A related trend in recent family policy is for one type of ‘model family’

to be replaced by another. One could put this otherwise: the problem of

the false generic in family policy continues. Historically the most

widespread family model underlying social policy in European countries

was the breadwinner/homemaker model (whereby the man worked

outside the home and the woman within it). The cardboard cut-out

family of policy today is different but equally particular: it is the working

family, wherein men fulfil their obligations to be active fathers emotionallyand economically and women act as good citizens by being employed. The

imprint of this kind of family model is to be seen in policies that encourage

and normalise employment for both parents.

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Thirdly, there is a movement away from some of the old principles

underlying family policy. Traditionally, family policy was quite a distinct

domain of social policy in Europe, with emphasis (varying across national

settings) on promoting fertility, addressing poverty and seeking horizontal

equity (the latter in the sense of compensating families for having children

by reducing income disparities between them and families without

children) as well as, more recently, gender equality (Wennemo 1994;

Gauthier 1996). Over the course of time, pro-natalism has waned as a

policy orientation, just as equity and anti-poverty are generally less visible

as principles of family support in Europe today as compared with the past

(although they appear quite prominently in the rhetoric). In particular, the

emerging policy consensus around ‘reconciliation’ has acted to blur

concerns about equity and, even in some cases, to corrupt the traditional

compensation and assistance function of family policy (it is not uncommon

nowadays to hear child benefits being referred to as a payment for the care

of children for example). Gender equality is also less emphasised in

contemporary family policy (although it must be said that, outside of

Scandinavia, it was never as deeply entrenched in family policy as some of

the other principles). This is not to say that family policy and social policy

are not concerned with matters relating to gender Á / they are Á / consider

the emphasis on getting fathers more involved in the life of their children

through the expansion of paternity leave and also parental leaves.However, the language and problematic of contemporary social policy

tend towards gender neutrality and so gender differences or inequalities or

the specific situation of women are not per se being problematised for the

purposes of social or family policy (Daly 2004b).

The material presented throughout this article underlines the need

for diversity in policy response. This is not what is happening. For all

the diversity that there is on the family/household front and in the

types of approach taken to the family by social policy historically in

European welfare states (Saraceno 1997), policy on the family today is,I would argue, becoming narrower in focus. Witness the focus on a

singular family model, the closer relationship between family policy

and employment policy, the narrowing as compared with the past of

some of the key principles of ‘family policy’. Overall, and not for the first

time, a series of disjunctures are to be observed between family life and

family policy. Europeans are being let down in three key ways by current

policy.

The first is in regard to the financial security and well-being of families

with children. As we have seen having children is associated with incomeconstraint and relative disadvantage vis-a -vis other sectors of the

population. Considered as an issue for policy, the critical challenge here

is redistribution and to achieve a balance between horizontal and vertical

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equity. Given the ever closer relationship between large family size and

low income, there is a need for policies to focus more closely on vertical

equity. In addition, as Alber and Fahey (2004) and others point out,

measures must also have a horizontal cast (in terms of redistributing

resources and opportunities between those with children and those

without). An anti-poverty orientation would also appear to be essential,

given that there is a growing generational gap in poverty, to the detriment

of children (Clarke and Joshi 2003).

A second issue is around fertility and child-rearing (which should be

seen together). These are by no means easy issues for policy, although

looked at historically Gauthier (1996) suggests that concern for declining

fertility has been the strongest motive for governments to take action on

matters of family policy. The evidence available suggests that pronatalistpolicies would have greater effect if targeted (also) on those for whom the

opportunity costs of children are highest (women with high earning

power). The likely effectiveness of an approach that focuses solely on more

generous cash benefits is low in that allowances can never be high enough

to motivate someone in the higher income category to have a child. As

Strohmeier (2002: 355) says in relation to Germany: ‘Despite the

particular emphasis on economic intervention in the national policy

profile, lack of money is a bottleneck only for those who already have

children, but it is not the main reason to be childless of those withoutchildren’. The main problems are, rather, of restricted social and economic

participation of women, the continuation of relative inequality in the

internal division of labour in families and constrained opportunities for

people (men as well as women) to care for their families.

The third failure is an inability, or unwillingness, on the part of policy

to feed people’s appetite for quality in their family lives. Quality is denied

people most often because of stark trade-offs, especially between family

and labour market or children and partnership. However it must be

pointed out that what people understand by quality is not by any means

unidimensional Á / it is closely related to diversity in the sense that what

constitutes quality may change as family life progresses. Policies which

ease trade-offs are necessary as are those which recognise a diversity of

family life situations across the life course. It seems at the moment that the

state is stuck in a groove of defamilialisation (of women especially) and

marketisation. These, the main ideas of recent years, are unlikely to prove

a sufficient response. At root is a profound set of questions about the

assumptions that state actors make about family and the relationshipbetween family, market and state. They do not appear now to be any more

capable than they were in the past of delivering on people’s preferences in

relation to family life.

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Mary Daly is a Professor of Sociology at the School of Sociology and Social

Policy at Queen’s University Belfast. Among the fields on which she has

published are poverty, welfare state, gender, family and the labour market.

Much of her work is comparative, in European and international context.

Among her recent relevant publications are Care Work: The Quest for

Security (ILO, 2001), Contemporary Family Policy (with S. Clavero, IPA,

2002), Gender and the Welfare State: Care, Work and Welfare in Europe and the USA, (with K. Rake, Polity Press, 2003)

Address for correspondence: Mary Daly, School of Sociology and Social

Policy, Queen’s University, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK. Tel.: '/44-2890973164;

Fax: '/44-2890973943.

E-mail: [email protected]

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Changing Family Life in Europe_ Significance for State and Society

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Transcript of Changing Family Life in Europe_ Significance for State and Society