"Post-Crisis Family Policies in Europe: An "Age of Austerity"?

The fiscal and economic crises have seriously challenged European welfare states. Among the welfare state reactions - such as austerity programmes or targeting measures towards vulnerable groups - the area of family policy has received comparatively little attention. Based on an ongoing research project, in this paper we compare post-crisis family policy reforms in Austria, Finland, Portugal, Slovenia, and the UK. The five countries have been hit by the crisis to varying degrees. While they are often assumed to represent distinct welfare state regimes, all of them were, before the start of the crisis, on - more or less longstanding - pathways of promoting work-life balance and mothers' employment, by expanding public childcare or introducing gender-equal leave policies. In the paper we ask to what extent these policies, often connected to ideas of social investment, have entered an "age of austerity" - also when compared to other family policy areas, such as cash benefits.