The Myth of Mediterranean Familism

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to re-open the consensus concerning the interrelationship between family values and public support for government versus private family provision. We offer new results from analyses of 2001 data from the International Social Survey Programme for a wide range of countries and world regions. Refining conventional scholarly wisdom, Southern European publics' have high levels of traditional family values, but mainly in contrast to other European countries; familism is also notably strong in Eastern Europe and several of the English-speaking democracies. Even more surprising, family values support is strongly and positively associated with support for public child care provision. We discuss implications of results for understanding the nature of public attitudes and familism in cross-national perspective, and the limits of theorizing identifying family values as the primary cause of welfare state development in Southern Europe.

Key words:

• welfare attitudes
• familism
• Mediterranean model
• childcare

Notes

1. The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Rosa Gutiérrez and of three anonymous reviewers. This article was written under the framework of the research project ‘Social policies for the elderly and children: preference formation and welfare reform’, funded by Fundación CSIC-Caixa.

2. Response categories for the item have been recoded so that higher values indicate higher support.

3. Recodes for questions 3,7,9 and 11: Lives in the same household=30 visits per month; Daily=25 visits per month; At least several times a week=16 v.p.m.; At least once a week=6 v.p.m.; At least once a month=2 v.p.m; Several times a year=0,5 (6 times a year); Less frequently=0,2 (2,4 times a year). For question 14: More than twice in last 4 weeks=4 visits per month; Once or twice in last 4 weeks=2 visits per month; Not at all in last 4 weeks=0,3 visits per month (3,6 times per year); No living relative of this type=0.

4. This structure remains stable using different linkage methods (within-group, centroids, medians, Ward's). Interval: Euclidean Squared Distance.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ines Calzada

Inés Calzada, Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council and Lecturer of Sociology at Linköping University. She works in topics related to comparative social policy, public opinion and migration. E-mail: [email protected]

Clem Brooks

Clem Brooks, Rudy Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. His interests are in political sociology, comparative politics, political psychology, and quantitative methods. With Jeff Manza, he is the author of Social Cleavages and Political Change, Why Welfare States Persist, and Whose Rights? E-mail: [email protected]