The Politics of Work-Family Policies in France, Germany and Japan with Patricia Boling

Low fertility countries in Europe and Asia have adopted new work-family reconciliation policies, with varied results.  Boling analyzes the politics of work-family reconciliation policies in three conservative welfare states, arguing that in this policy area, politics gets in the way of policy learning, making it difficult to borrow the “best practices” of other countries.  The reasons for this differ, but relate to policy histories and repertoires, political institutions, labor markets that exact high opportunity costs from mothers who spend time at home with children, and cultural expectations about good mothering. Speaker: Patricia Boling, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Purdue University