No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Different, Yet the Same: Three Decades of Family Policy Change in Hungary, Lithuania and Romania
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2021
Abstract
The article analyses over-time changes in family transfers in Hungary, Lithuania and Romania from 1990-2018 to seek evidence of similarity in the ethos of policy adaptation. Informed by recent scholarship signalling growing disparities in social entitlements along socio-economic lines in Hungary and Romania, the analysis assesses whether three decades of change in family transfers in three different policy contexts might exhibit the selective, pro-wealthy ethos of social policy transformation described. Using data from an original dataset drawing on exhaustive social legislation pertaining to family allowances, family tax breaks and paid parental leave-related transfers, the article shows that, for most of the last three decades, institutional dualisms in the protection of families with dependent children have grown. Policy drift undercuts the rights of the neediest and policy layering leads to programme expansion targeting dual-earner, high-income families especially. This trend has intensified over the last fifteen years and is most evident in paid leave schemes.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Social Policy and Society , Volume 22 , Issue 4: THEMED SECTION: Social Policy and the Climate Crisis , October 2023 , pp. 655 - 670
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
Aidukaite, J. (2018) “Baltic welfare state’ or ‘welfare states’? A comparative analysis of social security systems in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania’, in Sengoku, M. (ed.), The Great Dispersion: The Many Fates of Post-Communist Society, Sapporo: Hokkaido University, 3–21.Google Scholar
Busemeyer, M. and Kemmerling, A. (2020) ‘Dualization, stratification, liberalization, or what? An attempt to clarify the conceptual underpinnings of the dualization debate’, Political Science Research and Methods, 8, 2, 375–9.Google Scholar
Clarke, J., Bainton, D., Lendvai, N. and Stubbs, P. (2015) Making Policy Move: Towards a Politics of Translation and Assemblage, Bristol: Bristol University Press.Google Scholar
Emmenegger, P., Häusermann, S., Palier, B. and Seeleib-Kaiser, M. (eds.) (2012) The Age of Dualization: The Changing Face of Inequality in Deindustrializing Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Ferge, Z. (1997) ‘The changed welfare paradigm: the individualization of the social’, Social Policy and Administration, 31, 1, 20–44.Google Scholar
Ferge, Z. (2001) ‘Disquieting quiet in Hungarian social policy’, International Social Security Review, 54, 2-3, 107–26.Google Scholar
Fodor, E., Glass, C., Kawachi, J. and Popescu, L. (2002) ‘Family policies and gender in Hungary, Poland, and Romania’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 35, 4, 475–90.Google Scholar
Gábos, A. (2000) ‘Családok helyzete és családtámogatások a kilencvenes években’, in Kolosi, T., Tóth, I. C. and Vukovich, G. (eds.), Társadalmi Riport 2000, Budapest: TÁRKI, 99–122, http://old.tarki.hu/adatbank-h/kutjel/pdf/a845.pdf [accessed 28.02.2019].Google Scholar
Gal, S. and Kligman, G. (2000) Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gavelis, V. and Visockas, E. (2013) ‘Family policy and its realisation trends in Lithuania for 2005-2012’, Ekonomika, 92, 3, 141–65.Google Scholar
Hacker, J. S. (2004) ‘Privatizing risk without privatizing the welfare state: the hidden politics of social policy retrenchment in the United States’, American Political Science Review, 98, 2, 243–60.Google Scholar
Haney, L. (1999) ‘But we are still mothers’: gender, the state, and the construction of need in postsocialist Hungary’, in Burawoy, M. and Verdery, K. (eds.), Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, INC., 151–87.Google Scholar
Haney, L. A. (2002) Inventing the Needy: Gender and the Politics of Welfare in Hungary, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hašková, H. and Saxonberg, S. (2016) ‘The revenge of history - the institutional roots of post-communist family policy in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland’, Social Policy and Administration, 50, 5, 559–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglot, T. (2008) Welfare States in East Central Europe, 1919-2004, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglot, T. (2009) ‘Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia: adaptation and reform of the post-communist ‘emergency welfare states’, in Cerami, A. and Vanhuysse, P. (eds.), Post-Communist Welfare Pathways: Theorizing Social Policy Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 73–95.Google Scholar
Inglot, T., Szikra, D. and Raţ, C. (2012) ‘Reforming post-communist welfare states: family policy in Poland, Hungary, and Romania since 2000’, Problems of Post-Communism, 59, 6, 27–49.Google Scholar
Javornik, J. (2014) ‘Measuring state de-familialism: contesting post-socialist exceptionalism’, Journal Of European Social Policy, 24, 3, 240–57.Google Scholar
Kertesi, G. and Kezdi, G. (2013) School Segregation, School Choice and Educational Policies in 100 Hungarian Towns, Budapest: Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, https://ideas.repec.org/p/has/bworkp/1312.html [accessed 21.02.2020].Google Scholar
Kovács, B. (2018) Family Policy and the Organisation of Childcare, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovács, B., Polese, A. and Morris, J. (2017) ‘Adjusting social welfare and social policy in Central and Eastern Europe: growth, crisis and recession’, in Kennett, P. and Lendvai-Bainton, N. (eds.), Handbook of European Social Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 194–217.Google Scholar
Leave Network (2019) Annual Reports Archive, https://www.leavenetwork.org/introducing-the-network/ [accessed 18.06.2019].Google Scholar
Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. A. (2010) ‘A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change, in Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. A. (eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–37.Google Scholar
Morel, N., Palier, B. and Palme, J. (2012) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Morel, N., Touzet, C. and Zemmour, M. (2018) ‘Fiscal welfare in Europe: why should we care and what do we know so far?’, Journal of European Social Policy, 28, 5, 549–60.Google Scholar
Nemzeti Foglalkoztatási Szolgálat [National Occupation Service] (2020) ‘Mi mennyi?’ [How much?’], NFSZ.
Google Scholar
Open Society Institute (OSI) (2007) Equal Access to Quality Education for Roma - Vol. 1: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Budapest: Open Society Institute.Google Scholar
Pascall, G. and Kwak, A. (2005) Gender Regimes in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Popescu, R. (2015) ‘The evolution of the financial support for family in Romania after the economic crisis’, Journal of Community Positive Practices, 15, 1, 93–106.Google Scholar
Rostas, I. and Kostka, J. (2014) ‘Structural dimensions of roma school desegregation policies in Central and Eastern Europe’, European Educational Research Journal, 13, 3, 268–81.Google Scholar
Rueda, D. (2014) ‘Dualization, crisis and the welfare state’, Socio-Economic Review, 12, 2, 381–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saxonberg, S. (2013) ‘From defamilialization to degenderization: toward a new welfare typology’, Social Policy and Administration, 47, 1, 26–49.Google Scholar
Saxonberg, S. (2014) Gendering Family Policies in Post-Communist Europe: A Historical-Institutional Analysis, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Saxonberg, S. and Sirovátka, T. (2006) ‘Failing family policy in post-communist Central Europe’, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 8, 2, 185–202.Google Scholar
Sinfield, A. (2012) ‘Fiscal welfare’, in Greve, B. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, London: Routledge, 20–9.Google Scholar
Szalai, J. (2012) ‘Fragmented social rights in Hungary’s postcommunist welfare state’, in Evers, A. and Guillemard, A.-M. (eds.), Social Policy and Citizenship: The Changing Landscape, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 283–304.Google Scholar
Szelewa, D. and Polakowski, M. P. (2008) ‘Who cares? Changing patterns of childcare in Central and Eastern Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy, 18, 2, 115–31.Google Scholar
Szikra, D. (2018) Welfare for the Wealthy: The Social Policy of the Orban-Regime, 2010-2017, Budapest: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/budapest/14209.pdf [accessed 13.05.2018].Google Scholar
Szikra, D. and Tomka, B. (2009) ‘Social policy in East Central Europe: major trends in the Twentieth Century’, in Cerami, A. and Vanhuysse, P. (eds.), Post-Communist Welfare Pathways: Theorizing Social Policy Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 17–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tárkányi, Á. (2001) A Családdal Kapcsolatos Jogszabályok Magyarországon 1980-98-ig [Legislation Concerning Families in Hungary Between 1980-98], Budapest: Központi Statisztikai Hivatal (KSH), http://www.demografia.hu/kiadvanyokonline/index.php/kutatasijelentesek/article/viewFile/422/175 [accessed 26.04.2019].Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (1987) ‘The social division of welfare: some reflections on the search for equity’, in Abel-Smith, B. and Titmuss, K. (eds.), The Philosophy of Welfare: Selected Writings of Richard M. Titmuss, London: Allen and Unwin, 39–59.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. (2006 [1968]) ‘Welfare state and welfare society’, in Pierson, C. and Castles, F. G. (eds.), The Welfare State Reader, Cambridge: Polity Press, 124–37.Google Scholar
Kovacs supplementary material
Kovacs supplementary material
File
156.4 KB