CAN WE IDENTIFY INTERGENERATIONAL POLICY REGIMES IN EUROPE?

ABSTRACT

This paper examines whether it is possible to recognise specific patterns of institutionally regulated downward (towards children) and upward (towards the old) intergenerational obligations with regard to care and financial support, and to identify specific country profiles and clusters of countries in Europe. Based on the three-fold conceptualisation of familialism by default, supported familialism and de-familialisation, and using a complex set of indicators, we describe how countries, by means of policies, allocate intergenerational responsibilities between families and the state, also paying attention to their gender impact. The study includes all 27 EU countries and for the first time offers a comparative overview of a diversified set of policies with regard to both children and the old. It concludes that although specific policy profiles emerge with regard to the two sets of obligations, these do not always coincide. Furthermore, contrary to widespread opinion, supported familialism and de-familialisation are not always contrasting policy approaches. In some countries, they actually represent part of an integrated approach to public support of intergenerational obligations. Moreover, the gender impact of supported familialism may be different and even contrary, depending on the specific instrument. Finally, once the road of oversimplification is excluded, only one statistically sound cluster of countries emerges. It is, however, possible to detect groups of countries that are similar. These only partly overlap with prevalent welfare regime types.

Keywords:

• intergenerational obligations
• intergenerational regimes
• social policies
• care
• transfers
• gender

Acknowledgement

This paper is the outcome of work performed within the EU-funded MULTILINKS project. The broader theoretical approach and the description of indicators' conceptual framework may be found in Saraceno and Keck (2008).

Notes

2. We are aware, of course, that caring needs of children do not stop when they turn or when they enter school. But the age bracket we consider is that where care needs are more intensive and presence of non family care more different, and controversial, across countries (see also Saraceno forthcoming)

3. The data for the indicators were collected through a variety of comparative and national sources, in many cases also with the help of national informants. For the conceptualisation of indicators, see Saraceno and Keck (2008); for the methodology in constructing them and the sources used, see Keck et al. (2009).

4. On the ‘dependent variable problem’ in comparative research, see, e.g., Clasen and Siegel (2007).

5. We only consider fathers’ entitlement to parental leave, not the few days of paternity leave that fathers may take in many countries soon after childbirth.

6. Deviating from Plantenga et al. (2007), we have chosen the average and not the minimum wage, as we believe it offers a more realistic approximation of the actual compensation rate.

7. Statistics on childcare provisions should be interpreted with caution (Eurostat 2004). Coverage rates may depend on the types of care provision that are considered in a given source. Also, the distinction between market and public (or publicly financed) services is not always clear in the sources and sometimes also difficult to detect in practice. We are also aware that in some countries (i.e. Germany or The Netherlands) childcare services are often part time. This means that they can serve a higher percentage of children, for fewer hours/days (as in The Netherlands), or cover only part of the day (as in Germany). Due to lack of comparable and exhaustive information on these aspects, however, we have treated each childcare place as being potentially used by one child only, without distinguishing between part and full time use. In some countries – Ireland, Malta, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom – compulsory schooling starts before the age of six. In these cases, we assume a 100 percent coverage rate for the age brackets under six of compulsory school age in that country.

8. Bradshaw (2006) and Fagnani and Math (2007) have calculated the support received by 16 different kinds of households, differentiated by composition, income level, number of earners and so forth, for a limited number of (Western European) countries.

9. Data on Cyprus are missing.

10. The Estonian figure on home-based care, provided by our national informants, seems to be very high compared to all other Central and Eastern European Countries.

¹¹Data for Cyprus are missing.

¹²For the sake of simplicity, we excluded services for children aged over three, because cross-country differences in this field are less relevant. In all countries, childcare or school places are available for the majority of children aged three to six years and only in four countries are coverage rates below 70 percent. In the case of the elderly, we considered only institutional care because information on homecare was missing for too many countries. We know, however, that there is usually a positive correlation between the two. The exception is Estonia, where homecare is relatively high, while institutional care is low. We also had to exclude cash for care in the chart because the available information is not always precise or comparable with respect to amounts and criteria for entitlement. Notwithstanding this simplification of indicators, not all countries can be included in each chart because of missing information.