Family values and social policy in member and applicant countries of the European Union

Abstract

This paper explores the relation between family values and options for social policies of representative citizens from thirty European societies, constituting member and applicant countries of the European Union. It seeks to understand the values and value orientations supporting specific family structures and options for social policies of distinct groups of nations, corresponding to the various waves of accession or application for membership to the European Union. These include European Union (EU) members identified for an IPROSEC (Improving Policy Responses and Outcomes to Socio-Economic Challenges: changing family structures, policy and practice) project according to their welfare system and wave ofEU accession as Continental (France, Germany, Italy [joined in 1951]), Universal (United Kingdom, Ireland [1973]), Latin Rim (Greece [1981], Spain [1986]) and Nordic (Sweden [1995]) countries; post-communist (Hungary [applied in 1994], Poland [ 1994], Estonia [ 1995]) and Mediterranean (Malta [ 1990]) applicant countries (Hantrais 2001); and the remaining countries taken together: members, applicant and non-applicant countries of the European Union.