Child and Family Benefits in Eastern and Central Europe and in the West: Learning from the Transition

S B Kamerman and A J Kahn

Environment and Planning C, 1993, vol. 11, issue 2, 199-211

Abstract: As countries in Eastern and Central Europe attempt the transition to market economies, they challenge the theoretical and applied repertoires of political economy. It is the premise in this paper that the transition tests the social policy ‘wisdom’ of the pluralistic, democratic ‘Western’ societies and offers scholars the opportunity for monitoring and learning. The paper is focused on family benefits, a component of social policy, and is concentrated on Hungary, Poland, and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. A contrast is made to European countries of the European Community and the European Free Trade Association. The United States is also covered. The discussion is concentrated on maternity and parental leave, care for infants, toddlers, and preschool children, and family allowances. One important question addressed is whether with current financial constraints the East will be forced to relinquish its family benefit policies as the West expands such policies. Or, to the contrary, will these policies be expanded further in the East, as a substitute for unemployment insurance and to solve other labor-market problems?

Date: 1993
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c110199 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:11:y:1993:i:2:p:199-211

DOI: 10.1068/c110199

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning C
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().