Zhanna Kravchenko

Family Policy in Russia: Folkways Versus Stateways Revisited

Family policy in Russia has a long history of juggling with ideas of family autonomy and state intervention. During the Soviet period, the policies were aimed at stimulating fertility and female employment by providing institutional childcare and job protection. By the time the reforms broke through in the 1990s, the country was facing several consequences of the earlier policy design. Double burden of work and care carried by women was accompanied by virtual “crowding out” of men from the family domain. The dramatic turmoil in economic, political, and social life brought a new light on the issue of decreasing fertility and rocketing poverty. In this chapter, we focus on the interplay between several family policy sectors related to these challenges, present the current regulations, highlight their effects, and discuss possible directions for future policy realization.

Still Awaiting the Storm? The Swedish Welfare State After the Latest Crisis

This paper examines the challenges to the Swedish welfare state after the credit crunch of 2008 focusing on several major challenges: the government’s reaction to the fiscal and economic crisis and its outcomes, the (re)balance of welfare policies addressing risks and opportunities. While the situation is almost excellent from a purely fiscal point of view, the outstanding private debt, unemployment, especially among youth, pressures on the pension, health and education systems are prominent concerns. They have led to the revitalization of the social investment paradigm, strict budgetary policies, increased number of welfare-to-work programmes and focus on using tax reductions as a means of stimulating the labour market. In this context, the main demographic concerns and social integration have come to the fore to an unprecedented extent.

Close Relationships Matter: Family Well-being and its Effects on Health in Russia

Abstract Dramatic fluctuations have occurred in population health in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although many factors have been examined in connection with this, there has been little focus on the role of the family, despite evidence from Western studies linking family functioning to individual health. Using data from 1,190 respondents collected during the Moscow Health Survey 2004 we examined the association between family relations and health outcomes. Poorer family functioning was strongly associated with worse self-rated physical health and mental health. Our results suggest that the proximal social environment of the family is important for understanding health outcomes in contemporary Russia.