Changing Relations of Welfare: Family, Gender and Migration in Britain and Scandinavia

Changing Relations of Welfare is concerned with the complexities of family relations and practices in the recent past and how these have been imagined, addressed or elided in present policy making. It uses rich and varied sources to offer an innovative approach to the analysis of meanings afforded to the family in different policy, legal and welfare contexts in Sweden, Denmark and Britain. This book considers how debates about responsibility, obligation and rights have been gendered in social policy and welfare practice, whilst also focusing upon the intersections of family, gender, race and ethnicity and the different ways in which legislation and policy in northern Europe have been used to regulate not only immigration but also the lives of migrant families. Presenting a historically informed, comparative analysis of the shifting dynamics in the relationship between family and the state, this volume offers new pathways for exploring questions of change and continuity.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction, Janet Fink and Åsa Lundqvist; Part I Family, Gender Relations and the Welfare State: Overshadowed by the male breadwinner: care in 20th-century Britain, Hilary Land; Competing meanings of gender equality: family, marriage and tax law in 20th-century Denmark, Anna-Birte Ravn and Bente Rosenbeck; The institutionalization of family and gender equality policies in the Swedish welfare state, Åsa Lundqvist and Christine Roman; Paradoxes of gender and marital status in mid-20th century British welfare, Janet Fink and Katherine Holden. Part II Gender, Migration and Social Inequalities: Migration, family and British social policy in the late 20th century: British Pakistani perspectives, Kaveri Harris and Alison Shaw; The multicultural challenge to the Danish welfare state: tensions between gender equality and diversity, Birte Siim and Anette Borchorst; Postcolonial encounters: migrant women and Swedish midwives, Diana Mulinari; Afterword, Janet Fink and Åsa Lundqvist; Index.

About the Author :
Janet Fink is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at The Open University, UK and Asa Lundqvist is Associate Professor at the Centre for Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden Janet Fink, Asa Lundqvist, Hilary Land, Anna-Birte Ravn, Bente Rosenbeck, Christine Roman, Katherine Holden, Kaveri Harris, Alison Shaw, Birte Siim, Anette Borchorst, Diana Mulinar.

Review :
'This book brings a new dimension to the feminist analysis of family policies by introducing the issues of race and ethnicity. Viewing family policies in the UK and Scandinavia across time and from a transnational perspective, it exposes not only the gendered but also the racialized assumptions embodied in supposedly neutral and universal measures. Changing Relations of Welfare is essential reading for all those seeking to understand the politics of social policy in an era of globalization.' Sonya Michel, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, USA 'Despite being written by different authors with different disciplinary backgrounds, the book succeeds to compare the welfare regimes of Britain, Denmark, and Sweden in a relatively short number of pages... This is an important contribution at a time when efforts toward European Union integration have led to a growing interest in comparative studies that assess different welfare models within the Union... this book provides an innovative way of understanding welfare states more generally, and their corresponding gender and migration regimes. This, in my view, is a true achievement, and I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in gender, family, or migration studies, as well as those with a more general interest in welfare states.' Nordic Journal of Migration Research