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European Sociological Review 18:51-64 (2002)
© 2002 Oxford University Press
The Family Economy in the Development of Welfare Regimes: A Case Study
The Economic and Social Research Institute, 4 Burlington Road, Dublin 4, Ireland. tony.-fahey{at}esri.ie
Comparative welfare state research has developed an interest in the role of the family in welfare regimes and in agrarian social classes as influences on the formation of welfare states. This paper seeks to bring together and extend these perspectives by exploring the role of state support for family-based economic production, especially family farming, in the evolution of welfare regimes. Family employment is a de-commodified alternative to wage labour. As such, it received extensive support in many of today's advanced welfare states at various points over the past century, giving rise to a form of social protection which differed from that offered by welfare provisions in the usual sense. The paper illustrates this contention by reference to Ireland from around 1870 until the Second World War, where massive state intervention in social and economic life designed to promote small-scale family farming was a core element of ‘social policy’ broadly defined. The paper also points to other emerging welfare states where broadly similar processes could be found. Though the details and outcomes of those processes varied widely, they point to ways in which both the familial and agrarian dimensions of social policy have a greater significance in welfare regimes than has yet been adequately recognized.
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