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Drawing on research conducted during the project, this policy brief addresses care work for elderly people in European Union countries in the context ofthe right to free movement of labour. Despite a range of guidelines and directives in the past decades, the European Union still faces the intersectional problem of an ageing population, gender inequality, and lack of rights for caregivers, the latter being mainly women and – in some countries – increasingly migrant women. The risks of older European citizens in need of care to be excluded from the right to care as well as the risk of female caregivers, in particular migrants, to work in unprotected and precarious jobs have increased in recent years, and the European Union seems so far not to be able to address these risks. The right to free movement of labour has been recognised by European member states as essential for integrating the European market and was established as one of the fundamental principles of the European Union. In fact, the preamble to the Amsterdam Treaty was "[c]onfirming [member states'] attachment tofundamental social rights as defined in the European Social Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961 and in the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers." In relation to this, "[o]ne of the most important conditions for achieving the free movement was considered to be the co-coordination of the national social security systems of the Member States." This policy brief is based on the assumption of the right to give and receive care, which appeared to be an accepted solution by many member states during the 1990s for dealing with a) an ageing population and b) unpaid female care work, though in different shapes and degrees. This extension of citizenship rights, from the definition postulated by T.H. Marshall as the right to work, income, housing, education, and health5, to the right to care got shape during that decade by the implementation of cash-for-care schemes in many European Union member states. These schemes ...

Work, Family Policies and Transitions to Adulthood in Europe systematically applies insights from social policy and gender studies to the new generation that are entering the labour market and trying to create their own autonomous household, with or without children. What does it mean to be a young adult in Europe during the economic crisis; how do they find their way on the increasingly flexible labour market, what are the social, economic and institutional barriers to leave their parental home and do social policies help them to combine work and family life? This book provides an analysis of ambivalent academic paradigms and EU policies, their implementation in national welfare states and offers comparative analyses of the demographic life course transitions of young adults, their entrance in (non) permanent jobs, their income (in)security, and the wide variety of childcare and working time policies and practices across Europe, revealing striking evidence for the geographical disparity of chances and options for young European adults.

Boekbespreking van Reset van Mark Elchardus.

"Dutch family policy has been caught between social policies focusing on income redistribution and the labour market, policies that are increasingly inspired by a 'welfare-to-work' agenda, and a gender equity policy trying to encourage both men and women to share work and family responsibilities. Currently, the dominant idea about the relationship between work and care is being transformed by combining its traditional corporatist traits, i.e. the familialisation of care responsibilities, with an even less prominent role of the state. New laws have been introduced, such as The Work and Welfare Act (Wet Werk en Bijstand), the Social Support Act (Wet Maatschappelijke Ondersteuning), a new childcare law (Wet Kinderopvang), and the Life Course Saving Scheme (Levensloopregeling). The overall direction is to encourage Dutch citizens to liberate themselves from the state with respect to work and care: national public policy should not be understood as a problem-solver in this area. Individual citizens are supposed to become more autonomous in how they reconcile work and care obligations. This article evaluates two aspects of the Dutch family policy. First, it describes changes in procreation rights, family law, and the rights and obligations of parents and children. Then it explores the way successive coalition governments have struggled to reconcile work and care responsibilities." (author's abstract).

"Dutch family policy has been caught between social policies focusing on income redistribution and the labour market, policies that are increasingly inspired by a 'welfare-to-work' agenda, and a gender equity policy trying to encourage both men and women to share work and family responsibilities. Currently, the dominant idea about the relationship between work and care is being transformed by combining its traditional corporatist traits, i.e. the familialisation of care responsibilities, with an even less prominent role of the state. New laws have been introduced, such as The Work and Welfare Act (Wet Werk en Bijstand), the Social Support Act (Wet Maatschappelijke Ondersteuning), a new childcare law (Wet Kinderopvang), and the Life Course Saving Scheme (Levensloopregeling). The overall direction is to encourage Dutch citizens to liberate themselves from the state with respect to work and care: national public policy should not be understood as a problem-solver in this area. Individual citizens are supposed to become more autonomous in how they reconcile work and care obligations. This article evaluates two aspects of the Dutch family policy. First, it describes changes in procreation rights, family law, and the rights and obligations of parents and children. Then it explores the way successive coalition governments have struggled to reconcile work and care responsibilities." (author's abstract)

Engaging with the acclaimed American sociologist Eliot Freidson's argument about professionalism's 'third logic' (a viable alternative to bureaucracy and consumerism), Dutch, British, French and German contributors to this volume bring together three political and academic debates rarely tackled jointly: professionalism, change, and policy, in the context of the increasing marketization and bureaucratization of healthcare and welfare. As attempts to cope with Europe's increasingly ageing and multicultural societies are being implemented, this first title in a uniquely positioned series provides an exhaustive analysis of the road travelled so far.

This article evaluates recent transformations in social policy that reflect the tendency towards individualisation in The Netherlands. Such transformations have taken place in old age pensions, widows' pensions, social assistance and taxation, and in respect of child support following divorce. Interestingly most reforms have not resulted in 'full individualisation', but rather have taken into account the fact that people, in particular women, are not or cannot be assumed to be full-time adult workers. Such a 'moderate individualisation', however, is not without risks for women's economic independence, especially when the developments of the Dutch 'life course perspective' on social security are considered.

"Es kann nicht davon ausgegangen werden, dass die Arbeits- und Betreuungspolitik der Zukunft kohärent und konsequent sein und zur Geschlechtergleichheit beitragen wird, denn in keinem Land Kontinentaleuropas steht eine allgemein akzeptierte Alternative für das Familienernährermodell zur Verfügung. Politiker wollen eine zentrale Rolle des Staates bei der Gestaltung solcher Politiken verhindern, außerdem ist die Befreiung der Frauen von Familienpflichten nach wie vor nicht akzeptiert. Statt die öffentlichen Dienstleistungsangebote auszubauen, zeigen die europäischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten die Tendenz, neue Verbündete zu suchen, die die Last der Familie übernehmen oder sie mit ihnen teilen. Hier kommt der Markt ins Spiel. Die den derzeitigen Transformationen der kontinentalen Wohlfahrtsstaaten zugrunde liegende neo-liberale Ideologie kann als ein Versuch gedeutet werden, die staatlichen Pflichten auf das Minimum zu beschränken, statt sie zu erweitern. Weil ein eindeutiges, klares Modell fehlt, werden allerlei ad-hoc-Anpassungen vorgenommen, eine Tendenz, die sich in absehbarer Zeit nicht ändern wird." (Autorenreferat)

This work highlights the extent to which EU citizenship is different for women and men, for the young and the old, for those who stay in their own country and for those who move within the European Union. It covers diverse aspects of EU citizenship ranging from the political citizenship of young Europeans, the civil and social rights of migrant care workers, reproductive rights and variations in family law among Member States, to EU gender politics and policies. Social, economic and civil citizenship rights related to gender equality and care arrangements have been high on the agenda of the EU for a long time. Because most of these EU policies have been implemented only via 'soft law' – the open method of coordination (OMC) and benchmarking, which are not free from ambiguities or tensions (Room, 2005; Verloo, 2005) – they are sensitive to national political agendas. More than any other social dispute they seem to be very much influenced by national and cultural and institutional path dependency, and therefore form a barrier to equalizing the status of all European citizens by EU policy.