Cristina Solera

Female employment and elderly care: the role of care policies and culture in 21 European countries

To what extent and in what ways do welfare state policies and cultural values affect the employment patterns of mid-life women with care responsibilities toward a frail parent? The study draws on Eurobarometer micro-data integrated with country-level information to respond to this question. Performing a multilevel analysis across 21 European countries, it considers macro factors that influence the decisions of mid-life women to give up or reduce paid work in order to care for a frail elderly parent. The results show that, while the overall level of expenditure on long-term care is not influential, settings characterized by limited formal care services, and strong norms with regard to intergenerational obligations, have a negative impact on women’s attachment to the labour market. Policies and cultural factors also influence the extent to which women are polarized: in more defamilialized countries, regardless of their level of education, female carers rarely reduce their level of employment.

National attitudes as a barrier to European citizenship rights? The case of parenthood and partnership rights for individualsin diverse family forms

This chapter explores national attitudes towards civil and social rights across diverse family forms in Europe and the role of European Union in harmonizing these rights across Member States. It uses cross-national data from a pilot study among students in Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Italy and the Netherlands to investigate cross-country differences in these attitudes. It concludes that respondents from more traditional countries tend to privilege the rights of married heterosexual couples over other family forms than respondents in non-traditional countries. In more traditional countries, respondents were less likely to agree that equality on civil rights is necessary. In all countries, advocating a common legal framework across Europe regarding parenthood rights appears to be stronger, and in the field of partnership rights when it concerns civil unions rather than marriages, with no differences across family types. In the field of social rights, the support for a common legal framework across Europe is weaker in less traditional countries.

Attitudes Toward Parenthood, Partnership, and Social Rights for Diverse Families: Evidence From a Pilot Study in Five Countries

ABSTRACT Attitudes toward the civil and social citizenship rights of individuals in diverse family forms are underresearched. We use cross-national data from a pilot study among students in Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Italy, and the Netherlands to explore cross-country differences in beliefs about partnership, parenthood, and social rights of same-sex couples vs. heterosexual couples or married vs. cohabiting couples. The results suggest a polarization in students’ attitudes between countries that appear more traditional (i.e., Italy and Croatia) and less traditional (Spain and the Netherlands), where the rights of married heterosexual couples are privileged over other family forms more so than in nontraditional countries. Moreover, equality in social rights is generally more widely accepted than equality in civil rights, particularly in relationship to parenthood rights and in more traditional countries. We discuss the implications of these findings and the implications for further research in this underexplored area of attitudinal research.

Book review: Fabio Berton, Matteo Richiardi and Stefano Sacchi, The Political Economy of Work Security and Flexibility: Italy in Comparative Perspective

To sum up, this book fulfils its stated objectives by demonstrating that as class-labour relations co-determine local-level capitalist development, they consequently need a dialectical comprehension. Therefore, organized labour should be integrated into GCC analysis in a simultaneous focus with capital. The book should appeal to researchers, students at all levels and activists interested in processes of capitalist development, political economy, class formations and women’s employment.