This text explores the topical issue of the gender divide of welfare. A common characteristic of welfare states of the OECD countries is a profound gender division of paid and unpaid work and care. This affects womens position in the family, the labour market and their access to social citizenship. The discussion about the interrelationship between the welfare state, market and family and its impact on womens economic, social and political (in)dependence in the modern western welfare societies is also examined.

How to respond to the needs of working parents has become a pressing social policy issue in contemporary Western Europe. This book highlights the politicising of parenthood in the Scandinavian welfare states - focusing on the relationship between parents and the state, and the ongoing renegotiations between the public and the private.

What is the relationship between women and the welfare state? How do women reconcile paid work and family responsibilities? These questions are of central political concern to nearly all Western industrialised countries and have provoked considerable scholarly disagreement. In this timely book, Dr Arnlaug Leira presents both a theoretical and an empirical analysis of the relationship between women's lives, employment practices and childcare provision. Focusing upon the social construction of motherhood in Scandinavia, Arnlaug Leira shows how, contrary to common perceptions, there is no shared...