Cultural differences between present and future member countries of the European Union - The example of family and gender concepts

Cultural differences between present und future member states will make the European integration process more difficult. We examine to what extent citizens of present and future member countries of the European Union differ in respect to their attitudes toward family and gender roles. In a first step we reconstruct the ideal concept of the family as it is favored by EU institutions. It turns out that the EU promotes a family model in which both husband and wife are fully employed, in which housework is shared equally, and in which children are brought up at least partially in childcare institutions. In a second step we analyze to what extent the family model of the European Union is accepted by citizens in Western and Eastern European countries, for which we use a secondary analysis of opinion poll data. The empirical data show that the two groups of countries differ considerably. The citizens of the present EU member states support the EU model significantly more strongly than citizens of Eastern European countries do. We interpret this difference most of all as a result of the lower level of economic modernization of Eastern European countries and the dominance of Catholic values in these countries. Within the group of present EU member states we find significant differences between Protestant and Catholic countries. Protestant countries, which in most cases have developed welfare systems which foster employment of women, come closest to the EU family model. Finally we interpret our results in terms of the classical sociological question about the relationship between economy and culture, and we discuss the conclusions which can be drawn from our results for the future integration process of the EU.