Local Welfare Policy Making in European Cities

This book focuses on how EU welfare policies are implemented at the local level in 11 European cities and how local policy making addresses women’s care responsibilities. The book studies the complex combination of and the relationships between local political processes, policies, institutions, structural conditions and outputs, as well as outcomes for the women’s labour market integration. It demonstrates how cultural settings and multi-level governance patterns form the “playground” for local policy makers to formulate their welfare policies concerning service provision. The book further demonstrates how local production systems and the situation of the local labour market influence the prospects that women have in working and caring.

EU welfare policy promotes the labour market integration of women as well as gender equality. The provision of adequate care services is vital in supporting women’s employment. Within comparative welfare research, the focus has been on the national welfare systems and policies even if care services are overwhelmingly provided by local authorities that in many EU member states enjoy considerable autonomy. This book fills the gap in understanding local welfare policy making from a comparative perspective.

Dagmar Kutsar, PhD., is an Associate Professor of Social Policy at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Her research interests are around family, childhood and welfare research and policies. She has been a partner in several international research projects such as EU 6FP PROFIT, IPROSEC, NoE EQUALSOC, EU FP7 FLOWS and others. She has been a member of a Standing Committee of Social Sciences of the European Science Foundation, member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the National Associations Council of the European Sociological Association and Expert of the EU 7FP Youth Social Inclusion Cluster at the European Commission. She has co-edited a book by Routledge ‘Internationalisation of Social Sciences in Central and Eastern Europe. The ‘Catching Up’ – A Myth or a Strategy?’ in 2010. Marjo Kuronen received her PhD at the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK in 1999. She is professor in social work at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, adjunct professor at the University of Tampere,Finland and visiting professor at the University of Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. Her research interests combine family research, feminist research and social work research. She has studied e.g. the relationships between women, family and the welfare state and gender division in parenting. She has recently been involved in two EC FP7 funded projects, FAMILYPLATFORM (2009–10) and FLOWS (2010–14) and a Finnish Academy funded project on Children’s Emotional Security in Multiple Family Relations (2011–14).