Family policies in different welfare state models: Spain and Sweden examples

The purpose of this study is to examine the family policies in welfare states and to emphasize how important the family policies implemented in those countries. Policies concerning the family, which is the main unit of the society, are directly related with the development level of that country. When we handle the family policies of today and the past, we see that women are still considered as the main providers of care in the house even if more effective policies are developed. Therefore, we can state that family policies cannot be handled comparatively without incorporating social equality dimension in all measurements aimed at family policies.For this aim, the family policies of two different welfare states, a Mediterranean country, Spain and a Nordic country, Sweden will be shortly analyzed as for their welfare state typologies and the family policies of these countries will be examined under the titles of child care, parental leave, child/family allowances and taxation. Finally, the family policies of these two countries will be briefly compared to each other.When compared with other European Union Spain?s welfare system does not provide a good example of the effects of social security and other policies on gender roles because, by comparison with other European countries, provision in areas such as maternity benefit, child and family policy is limited. Sweden, though it is currently undergoing welfare reforms, is still one of the most generous and comprehensive examples of a welfare system, which is supposed to help women, especially in policies which are meant to ease women?s re-entry to work and support them in the task of balancing family and paid work responsibilities.Keywords: Gender, family policy, welfare state, child-care, parental leave, taxation, women