Guest Editorial: Welfare-state change, the strengthening of economic principles, and new tensions in relation to care

Care work is still to a substantial degree provided in private households in unpaid or paid informal forms of care work, but many welfare states in Europe have extended financial support and public provisions in the field of childcare and elderly care, and have established new social rights for care recipients (Anttonen & Sipilä 2005; Kröger & Sipilä 2005; Rostgaard 2002). Pay for family care in the framework of parental-leave schemes and elderly care has been introduced (Pfau-Effinger 2007). This measure implies that care work produced within the private household by family members or relatives is to an increasing extent organized as semi-formal care. Such policies have contributed to diminishing the tensions between family and employment that had been developing as a consequence of the increase in labour-force participation rates of women. However, in many European countries, these tensions between care responsibility and employment still exist.