In Turkey, Early Childcare and Education (ECCE) policy has never been prioritised in the social policy agenda and was even further pushed back with the welfare state’s weakening role in the 2000s. The private sector, inaccessible for many, particularly low-income households, has tried to fill the significant gap in the supply side of these services. Municipalities and the Presidency of Religious Affairs (PoRA) have also recently become new actors in the provision of low-cost ‘care services’. This article compares the quality of these services by examining the number of students served, regulations, infrastructure, curricula, cost, and staff. Although neoliberalism has had an impact on welfare regimes in the European Union (EU) context, more established welfare and gender equality regimes have modified those impacts, resulting in a new institutionalisation, based on non-institutionalisation, of childcare services in Turkey’s national policy frame.

Hong Kong society has put family-friendly workplace policies under serious discussion, but the investigation of the views of employers remains insufficient. Adopting the structure-agency paradigm, this study used survey data to examine how structural constraints in business and the subjective world of individual employers influence their support to paid family leave. We found that industry categories were significantly associated with employers’ support but not the size of their enterprises. Employers’ personal stereotypes of family caregivers and their awareness of relevant laws did not exert significant independent effects on their policy support, but the significant interaction of the two suggested that employers with knowledge of regulations were less likely to formulate attitudes towards paid family leave based on their own stereotypes. Policy practices therefore need to consider the rationality of employers in the local contexts of Hong Kong, and aim to integrate legal education with de-stigmatisation of family caregivers in advocacy programs.

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.

Informal care provision is an integral part of the long-term care system. However, it has been shown to have negative effects on the carers’ economic activity, and understanding the mechanisms behind this is crucial for social policy design. This study provides new insight into mid-life carers’ decisions to reduce their economic activity through a convergent mixed-methods design. Quantitative analysis of a sample of 2,233 carers aged fifty from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) Wave 8 with follow up at age fifty-five, and qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews of forty-eight carers between 2008-2010, were used. The combined results indicate that being female, single never married, having financial issues, being an employee, and frequently meeting a parent are associated with economic activity reduction; the carers’ own perspectives further elucidate key factors, such as their value and identity, family structure, life course events, and care intensity, which affect their decisions.

This article uses Taiwan as an example to examine how families manage work and care when the government and workplace provide limited support. Many Taiwanese households employ live-in migrant care workers to negotiate care responsibilities and adults’ paid jobs. Based on interviews with employers of live-in migrant care workers and workers, the findings demonstrate that daughters-in-law and occasionally daughters and sons become employers of live-in migrant care workers because of the limitation of public care services and lack of support they receive in seeking to combine paid work and family care responsibility. Even after employing migrant workers, women retain greater care responsibility in daily practices than their husbands. Hiring live-in migrant care workers also imposes risks to all parties involved in the processes of organising, coordinating, and providing care due to the uncertainty of care quality and the nature of care work.

The following is a list of learning and research resources on topics that are central to this themed section, namely the male-breadwinner and adult worker models, and their alternatives; intersectionality; the views of employers and workplace culture; the role and influence of informal care; and the tendency toward dualisation.

This article begins by discussing some of the main approaches that have emerged to gender and family policy, before proceeding to discuss more modern trends. It begins by discussing institutional approaches, such as the male-breadwinner model, defamilialisation, degenderisation. Then it discusses cultural approaches, such as the national ideals of care, gendered moral rationalities, and Hakim’s preference theory. Then this article continues by briefly discussing attempts to broaden the discussion by bringing in children (including through the capabilities approach) and by adding an intersectional perspective.