The politics of family and childcare policy reform: do parties still matter?

Manuel Alvariño and Margarita León

Chapter 21 in Research Handbook on Social Care Policy, 2025, pp 328-346 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In this chapter, we review new political explanations for reforms in the realm of family and childcare policy. Analysing recent policy shifts in Germany, Spain, and Sweden, we assess the limitations of traditional partisan theories in explaining substantial policy changes. While German and Spanish centre-right parties have endorsed a shift in family policy towards promoting dual-earner models, Swedish left-wing governments have refrained from challenging marketization reforms introduced by previous administrations. Given the challenges faced by the conventional ‘parties matter’ thesis in elucidating these trends, we turn to explore recent studies that consider other demand and supply-side factors. Socioeconomic changes like increased female employment, work-family conflicts, secularization, and cultural shifts have been identified to boost ‘demand’, sparking party competition for progressive family policies. Moreover, political ‘supply’ can be modulated by the political-institutional context or may directly arise from new functional needs, ideational paradigms – e.g. Social Investment, or changes in the constellation of political actors – e.g. women.

Keywords: Welfare reform; Partisanship; Family policy; Childcare; Parental Leave; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781839103681
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