How Welfare States Affect Family Relationship? : A Comparative Study on Family Policies and Gendered Division in Care Time

Power-resource approach based on Esping-Andersen’s views has been criticized, not considering women’s different experience on family care work. The welfare state should be understood as ‘a gendered power’ which enhances or alleviates gender inequality, supporting different type of family provisions embedded in institutional frameworks. Family policies involve gendered conceptions who are primary care givers, affecting gendered division of care work in family relationship.
Family policies can be divided into the following three types; Time-off, Cash, and Service as care provisions of family policy. Time-off involves a care conception of private duty, releasing economic needs. Cash indicates direct benefit transfer to private households increasing purchasing power. Service conceives care by public institutions to replace private care duty of families or women.
I will examine how different institutional frameworks embedded in family policies conceive care relation and how these affect gender inequality in care work. Especially, I will focus on different care time within couples and relational dynamics held in household contexts. For empirical evidence, I will use multilevel/hierarchical model to analyze both country and individual level. As data sets, I will use MTUS (Multinational Time Use Study) and OECD statistics.