Leave policies in Southern Europe: continuities and changes
This contribution addresses the challenge of reviewing Southern European welfare states by analysing how developments in leave policies are generating common or divergent trends across Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. These societies offer a mixture of family patterns and family policies.
Over the last decade they have developed significant work–family arrangements both in terms of parental leave and early education childcare services. The four countries have been moving in the direction of longer paid leave and the promotion of paternal leave, allowing for family diversity
and new gender-equality incentives. Besides these common trends, the four countries also reveal differences enabling them to shift towards alternative leave models, such as the one-year gender-equality-oriented model or the choice-oriented leave model. However, for the time being, taking into
account take-up rates and the impact of the economic crisis, the four countries conform to what we have characterised as an ‘extensible early return to work’ leave model. Leave policies are reviewed in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain mainly between 2004 and 2014, drawing on data
from the Annual Reviews of the Leave Policies and Research Network, Eurostat and the OECD Family Database.
Keywords: Estados de bienestar; Southern Europe; Sur de Europa; conciliación laboral y familiar; gender equality; igualdad de género; leave models; licencias parentales; modelos de políticas de licencias parentales; parental leave; welfare states; work–family
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Sociology and Organisational Analysis, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 2: Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
Publication date: 03 April 2015
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