Welfare state policies and the development of care arrangements

In many European welfare states in the last decades, the state provision of social care services has increased, in part even in spite of retrenchment policies in other areas of state welfare policies. Informal childcare has, however, survived everywhere in Europe, until today a substantial proportion of care is provided informally in the family. The degree to which informal care has been formalised, and the social rights and state provision in relation to formal and informal care, differ substantially in comparison of European societies. In comparative social policy analyses, the explanatory framework is often based on a kind of evolutionary approach. According to this argument, the degree of formalisation of informal care is determined by the degree to which welfare states support gender equality and the labour market integration of women. It is argued here that such explanatory framework is not sufficient. It is not taken into consideration that informal care has itself been modernised: and that the promotion of informal family care does not necessarily contradict ideas about gender equality. Within Western Europe, with respect to the role of informal care, at least two different development paths can be distinguished. Differences with respect to the underlying family values contribute considerably to the explanation of such differences. The quality of social rights in relation to informal care, on the other hand, varies according to the welfare regime and the underlying welfare values.