Abstract
This article investigates the politics of ‘defamilialization of care’ in four familialist countries – Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain – during the past 15 years. By ‘defamilialization of care’, we refer to those public policies, which aim at reducing the care responsibility of the family – both for the young and the old. We build upon the existing literature on new social risks by highlighting the role of those macro-political institutions such as electoral systems and government types in order to demonstrate that there are two very different types of politics of defamilialization: (1) election-oriented and (2) problem-oriented. We attribute different policy outcomes in the four familialist countries to their specific institutional configurations rather than to partisan government composition or different cultural orientations.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 327-343 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Journal of European Social Policy |
Volume | 26 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 1 2016 |
Keywords
- Childcare
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Spain
- elderly care
- familialism
- gender
- new social risks
- welfare
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Social Sciences
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law