Youth, family change and welfare arrangements

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the main characteristics and welfare rationale of the Mediterranean typology. Familism, female employment and care are singled out as three representative areas which provide data on the dynamics of continuity and change in the Southern European countries under examination. Particular attention is paid to the increasing female participation in the labour market and the gradual disappearance of the so-called Mediterranean ‘superwomen’. The process of female labour activation is already having a great impact in all activities concerned with the type of care traditionally carried out within Mediterranean households. Final remarks stress the need to pay attention in future research to ongoing societal changes which are bound to have knock-on consequences for Southern European welfare as we have known it until now.

Key words:

• familism
• female labour participation
• household care
• societal change
• welfare arrangements

Notes

^1. This article was drafted within the SOLFCARE project (‘Solidaridad familiar, cambio actitudinal y reforma del Estado de bienestar en España: el familismo en transición’), under the ‘Plan Nacional de I+D+i, Spain’ (CSO2011-27494).

^2. The crude marriage rate is the number of marriages formed each year as a ratio to 1000 people. This measure disregards other formal cohabitation contracts and informal partnerships.

^3. Respondents are asked if they justify divorce in a scale, where 1 means never and 10 always. We draw out responses from 8 to 10.

^4. For instance, variation between male cooperation in Portugal, where the level of female labour participation is higher but the proportion of cooperative men is significantly lower.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luis Moreno

Luis Moreno, Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (IPP-CSIC) in Madrid. As a political sociologist, two are his long-standing fields of research: (a) Social policy and welfare state; and (b) Territorial politics (decentralisation, federalism, nationalism and Europeanisation). Both have been carried out from a comparative perspective. His books include: The Territorial Politics of Welfare (& N. McEwen, co-eds., 2005), Diversity and Unity in Federal Systems (& C. Colino, co-eds., 2010), and La Europa asocial (2012). E-mail: [email protected]

Pau Marí-Klose

Pau Marí-Klose, Assitant Professor at the University of Zaragoza. His research interests lie in areas of childhood poverty, family relations, and social policies. He is currently the principal investigator of an R + D + I project financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness that studies the interface between transformations in families and social policies in Spain. He has published nine books and several articles. His books include: Childhood and the Future (2010) and Edad del Cambio (2006). E-mail: [email protected]