IMPACT OF LOCAL WELFARE SYSTEMS ON FEMALE
LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND SOCIAL
COHESION
....
The analysis of childcare systems in 11 European cities shows the importance to study not only
national childcare systems but also local variation within the national frameworks. Many cities have
created their own childcare policies, which are often more generous than the national policy, and
the use of formal services is at a higher level locally than at the national level. The most evident
examples of progressive local policy-making identified in this project are the two Southern
European cities, Bologna in Italy and Terrassa in Spain. This research shows also that it is
necessary to take different age groups of children into account when childcare systems are
analysed. There are major differences in the formal service provisions and in the use of them
between different age groups of children in all cities, except in Aalborg (Denmark) where
affordable, good quality public services are available and widely used also for the youngest age
group. There is a major gap in most cities in public or publicly subsidized affordable services
especially for children aged 1-2 years. The main problem in the care services for older children is
limited time replacement, as the opening hours of the services do not meet the needs of
mothers/parents working full-time. There are also gaps in services in atypical hours.
With regard to elder care, it was found that (1) local welfare systems with a high level of generosity
towards public or publicly paid formal care for senior citizens are usually also generous in relation
to support for family care; (2) the degree of generosity of local welfare systems differs according to
the type of welfare regime of the national welfare state to which the city belongs, according to
Esping-Andersen’s classical welfare state typology (1990, 2001); (3) in the majority of cities, the
extent of the actual care-provision widely corresponds with the degree of generosity of care
policies. However, the findings also show that it is not possible to treat the care structures and care
provisions as a direct outcome of care policies; i.e. policies do not automatically trigger practices.
This is because older people in need of care, their families, and those employed in care work all
act within the broader framework of complex and often contradictory cultural, institutional, social
and economic contexts of their specific local ‘care arrangements’. The same challenge resulted in
different solutions with different effects for formal female employment in different local contexts
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http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/pdf/policy_brie...

http://cordis.europa.eu/result/rcn/54141_en.html