3. Gender, Families and Children in Mediterranean Welfare States
Convener: John Gal
Manuela Naldini (University of Torino, IT) and Teresa
Jurado UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia - Madrid, ES)
Families, Markets and Welfare States: The Southern European Model
Helman Sara and Maron Asa ( Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, IL )
"Let us help them to raise their children into good citizens": The Mono-Parental Families Act and the Wages of Care-Giving in Israel
Migliavacca Mauro (IRPPS CNR and University Cattolica of Milan, IT)
Transformation in the labor market and the impact on the households. The work-family structure in the Mediterranean case
Campos Pinto Paula (York University, Toronto, CDN)
Politics of Gender, Work and Care in Mediterranean Welfare States: The case of Portuguese families of children with disabilities
Distributed papers
Doron A. (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, IL )
The Evolution of Children Allowances in Israel: From the pursuit of equality to the challenge of demography
The Mediterranean region (comprising countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey and Malta) can be seen as a distinctive group of welfare states, especially with regard to families, women and children.
One characteristic of the welfare states in the Mediterranean is that the family plays a major role in providing support for its members and thus the state is less involved in their everyday lives. This has major implications for both women, children and fertility levels in these countries and it has led to much lower labour market participation of women and lower fertility levels than in most other countries. In addition, the level of decommodification is typically low in the welfare states in this region. One consequence of this is a relatively high level of poverty and inequality in these nations.
Clearly, these characteristics also have major implications on the status and well-being of children as well as on the status of childhood as a whole. While the Mediterranean welfare regimes has been the subject of growing scholarly interest, issues of gender, families and children in the welfare states in this region have remained a relatively neglected area of research and one that demands further inquiry and explanation.
The proposed stream seeks to focus on the status of families, women and children in welfare states in the Mediterranean region. It also seeks to study investigate the influence of traditional culture, religion and the structuring of welfare state and government institutions on the formation of families and the relations between families and the workforce.
The papers presented in the stream will focus upon issues of gender and families in specific Mediterranean welfare states or, preferably, compare between different welfare states within this extended family of welfare states, by focusing on commonalities and differences and their implications for gender and families.
John Gal
Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare
Hebrew University,
Mt. Scopus
91905 Jerusalem – Israel
Tel: +972 2 5881804
msjgsw@mscc.huji.ac.il
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