Arnlaug Leira

The mass entry of women into the labour market, the decline of the male breadwinner norm and the rise of the dual-earner family have all profoundly transformed the societies of the Western industrialised world. This book argues that childcare has become increasingly 'defamilised' or collectivised as mothers have joined the labour market, causing significant impact on welfare policies. As a result, the complex relationship between family change and policy reform calls for a rethinking of the relationship between the welfare state, labour markets and working parents. Rather than concentrating on the changing models of motherhood, Leira advocates the need to consider the effects of the gendered division of work and welfare on fathers' opportunities to be supported as carers for children. Her analysis incorporates important new empirical data from Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

What is the relationship between women and the welfare state? How do women reconcile paid work and family responsibilities? These questions are of central political concern to nearly all Western industrialised countries and have provoked considerable scholarly disagreement. In this timely book, Dr Arnlaug Leira presents both a theoretical and an empirical analysis of the relationship between women's lives, employment practices and childcare provision. Focusing upon the social construction of motherhood in Scandinavia, Arnlaug Leira shows how, contrary to common perceptions, there is no shared model of welfare policies and women's work. Instead, the position in Norway is significantly different from that in Sweden and Denmark. The author then presents an ethnographic analysis of the lives of working mothers in Norway. She details the complexity of the strategies by which women cope and support one another in combined earning and childcare in a situation where state provision is limited. Welfare States and Working Mothers will be widely read by students and specialists of sociology, social policy and administration, political science and women's studies. It will also be of interest to policy makers, social workers, teachers and nursery-school workers.

This is a collectively written, inter-disciplinary, thematic cross-national study which combines conceptual, theoretical, empirical and policy material in an ambitious and innovative way to explore a key concept in contemporary European political, policy and academic debates. The first part of the book clarifies the various ways that the concept of citizenship has developed historically and is understood today in a range of Western European welfare states. It elaborates on the contemporary framing of debates and struggles around citizenship. This provides a framework for three policy studies, looking at: migration and multiculturalism; the care of young children; and home-based childcare and transnational dynamics. The book is unusual in weaving together the topics of migration and childcare and in studying these issues together within a gendered citizenship framework. It also demonstrates the value of a multi-level conceptualisation of citizenship, stretching from the domestic sphere through the national and European levels to the global. The book is aimed at students of social policy, sociology, European studies, women's studies and politics and at researchers/scholars/policy analysts in the areas of citizenship, gender, welfare states and migration.