Children, Gender and Families in Mediterranean Welfare States

* John Gal is professor of social policy at the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His fields of interest include social policy in Israel and in a comparative perspective, and the link between war and welfare. Recent books include a study on income maintenance in Israel, a study of the history of unemployment policy in Israel and Professional Ideologies and Preferences in Social Work: A Global Study with Idit Weiss and John Dixon. His e-mail address is: msjgsw@mscc.huji.ac.il. * Mimi Ajzenstadt is a professor at the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare and at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests lie in the areas of sociology of law, qualitative research methods and in the areas of social policy and the welfare state. She has examined the establishment and operation of social policy towards women in the Israeli welfare state, and has analyzed the history of the social construction of attitudes towards juvenile delinquency in the Jewish community in pre-State Palestine and in the State of Israel. Her articles were published in journals such as: British Journal of Criminology, Social Problems, Social Policy , Symbolic Interaction, Qualitative Sociology and Theoretical Criminology.

• Key Concepts.- Investing in Children? Changes in Policies Concerning Children and Families in European Countries.- Understanding Gender Economic Inequality Across Welfare Regimes.- Neighborhoods and Families.- Setting the Scene.- Exploring the Extended Family of Mediterranean Welfare States, or: Did Beveridge and Bismarck Take a Mediterranean Cruise Together?.- Country Studies.- Children, Gender and Families in the Italian Welfare State.- The Erosion of “Familism” in the Spanish Welfare State: Childcare Policy Since 1975.- Children, Families and Women in the Israeli State: 1880s–2008.- Gender, Family and Children at the Crossroads of Social Policy Reform in Turkey: Alternating Between Familialism and Individualism.- Gender, Children and Families in the Greek Welfare State.- A Cross-National Comparison.- Is There a “Mediterranean Welfare State”? A Country-Level Analysis.