Abstract
Welfare-state institutions are based on the idea of social rights and equal opportunities for everyone (Dahrendorf 1988; Sen 1999; Marshall 1950). As part of the institutional and political setting, they enable people to take advantage of opportunities and fulfill their potential. Social-policy institutions reduce economic and psychological insecurity and improve the quality of life of individuals. Consequently, most citizens are financially or socially bound to the welfare state as a pensioner, client of the healthcare system, recipient of unemployment benefits or social assistance, or as a parent using public childcare services.
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- 1.
The term agency is inspired by Sen’s agency and capability approach (Sen 1993, 1992). As stated by Hobson (2011: 148), this approach asks “not only what individuals do but also what their opportunities to be and do are. For Sen, the core issue is not only what individuals choose, but the choices that they would make if they had the capabilities to lead the kind of lives that they want to lead.”
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For concerns expressed over the use of professional childcare for very young children, please refer to Belsky (2001) and Brooks-Gunn (2002).
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For a critical opinion about the stability, validity, and impact of public opinion, please refer to Papadakis (1992).
- 4.
This study focuses on attitudinal and institutional differences among different countries. However, it is critical to note that the nation-state may not always be the only or most relevant explanatory unit and that institutional variation is also present within the same nation-state (see Svallfors 1997).
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The design weights are computed as the normed inverse of the inclusion probabilities (for more details, see the ESS documentation Report: European Social Survey 2011).
- 6.
The questionnaire includes no question asking about the likelihood of future dependence on family-policy benefits or services.
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© 2014 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
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Mischke, M. (2014). Introduction. In: Public Attitudes towards Family Policies in Europe. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-03577-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-03577-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-03576-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-03577-8
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