German and French childcare policies under the impact of the European Union 12+

📒 Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 2,0, University of Twente , 31 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In most European societies, it is women who are considered responsible for raising children and caring for dependent family members, whereas men's task is to cater for the family financially. On the one hand, this prevents mothers from participating actively in the labour market, while on the other hand, it gives fathers little time to spend with their children. Traditionally, national welfare states have regulated this kind of inequality in accordance with society's norms and values, by providing a framework of services (e.g. public childcare facilities), monetary transfers (child-rearing benefits), and leave regulations (parental leave), thus creating incentives and disincentives for mothers (and fathers) to work and/or to look after the children at home. National arrangements vary considerably across the different states, whether they be geographically and culturally close or remote, whether they belong to the same or to a different welfare state regime. A good example for such differences are child-care arrangements in Germany and France. Although neighbours and both conservative-corporatist welfare states, they have developed very different approaches in dealing with the problem of labour market participation of women with children. In the past 20 years, welfare s...