Family policy in Europe in the era of austerity and populism

The 2008-2009 financial crisis put European social policy under increasing pressure. As a way of restoring financial stability, many governments took to austerity and started to make cuts in public expenditures, including those meant for families. The aim of this chapter is to discuss family policy change in Europe against this backdrop. First we will outline some of the characteristics and varieties of European family policy. Second, we will assess the overall development of European family policy since the early-2000s until 2015, and especially focus on the amount of retrenchment that has befallen public spending on family cash transfers and spending on services. Third, we will shortly discuss how austerity has been linked to populism and nationalism. We show that while most European countries conducted cuts in their public spending on cash benefits to families during and after the financial crisis, some countries did not and instead increased their spending. As to public spending on benefits in kind, however, we can see a different trend, since almost all countries have increased their spending in this area during and after the financial crisis. These spending patterns reflect growing investments in public childcare and other ‘social investments’, whereas in other countries it was related more to improvements of family-related cash transfers. This suggests that some countries have used spending on social investments and services to foster gender equality and dual parental employment, while others have instead used spending on cash transfers for building political support and strengthening nationalist/populist family values.