What Adult Worker Model? A Critical Look at Recent Social Policy Reform in Europe from a Gender and Family Perspective
What Adult Worker Model? A Critical Look at Recent Social Policy Reform in Europe from a Gender and Family Perspective
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DOI：
10.1093/sp/jxr002
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发表时间：
2011-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.9
通讯作者：
Daly, Mary
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Daly, Mary
分析中经常出现这样的说法：欧洲福利国家正在创造一种成年工人模式。本文首先考察了成年工人模型的概念基础，然后考察了西欧社会政策改革在多大程度上符合这一论点，从而考察了这一论点的理论和经验基础。有人认为，成年工人的配方没有明确规定。一个包含四个方面的框架，即为实现社会权利而对待个人的家庭角色和地位，对待照料，对待作为社会机构的家庭，以及性别不平等问题的严重程度，现已制定并加以应用。实证分析表明，随着社会政策促进和强化个人能动性和自给自足，并将一些托儿工作从家庭转移出去，个性化的趋势正在强烈发展。然而，也有证据表明，家族主义仍在继续（尽管有所改变）。因此，不是明确地转向个性化的工人模式，而是提倡双职工、性别专门化的家庭安排。后者是介于旧的依赖和新的独立之间的中间道路。这使政策变得复杂，甚至含糊不清，其表现之一是国家内部的改革涉及在几个方向上同时采取行动。
Analyses regularly feature claims that European welfare states are in the process of creating an adult worker model. The theoretical and empirical basis of this argument is examined here by looking first at the conceptual foundations of the adult worker model formulation and then at the extent to which social policy reform in western Europe fits with the argument. It is suggested that the adult worker formulation is under-specified. A framework incorporating four dimensionsthe treatment of individuals vis--vis their family role and status for the purposes of social rights, the treatment of care, the treatment of the family as a social institution, and the extent to which gender inequality is problematizedis developed and then applied. The empirical analysis reveals a strong move towards individualization as social policy promotes and valorizes individual agency and self-sufficiency and shifts some childcare from the family. Yet evidence is also found of continued (albeit changed) familism. Rather than an unequivocal move to an individualized worker model then, a dual earner, gender-specialized, family arrangement is being promoted. The latter is the middle way between the old dependencies and the new independence. This makes for complexity and even ambiguity in policy, a manifestation of which is that reform within countries involves concurrent moves in several directions.