Focusing on Care : Family Policy and Problems of Analysis

Abstract

gänglich gemacht werden. Focusing on Care: Family Policy and Problems of Analysis 3 This paper addresses problems of analysis in family policy and suggests new standards of examination. The first part of the paper outlines Esping-Andersen’s interpretation of family policy and its functions within the wel-fare state from his 1999 work “Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies. ” I explain how the terms defamilialization, familialism and non-familialism and their influence on other authors incompletely address families with regard to current issues. I show that the conceptualization, measurement, and interpretation of family policy are lacking. This has consequences for addressing and interpreting overall welfare state devel-opment. In the second part of my paper, I propose a conceptualization to interpret family policy which especially addresses the perspective of the general carer in the welfare state. Here is a focal point that gives better in-