A comparative view of working women and the family in the welfare systems of southern Europe. The continuance of the male breadwinner

Abstract

This article analyses, from a comparative view, the association existing for southern European countries (Spain, Italy and Greece) between the persistence of traditional family models such as the extended family —based on solidarity, family dependence— and family and employment policies. With this aim in mind, a study is made of the way the permanence of family strategies associated with the limited participation of women in the labour market and the male breadwinner model are linked in these countries with a limited social and labour policy to support families with family burdens and two economic providers. The conclusion reached from these analyses refers to the fact that in southern European countries, the institutional context in which family and employment policies develop would partly explain the continuity of family strategies based on inter-generational solidarity, the small amount of female employment, reduced fertility rates, economic and family dependence on women and therefore the maintaining of the traditional family based on the male breadwinner figure.