A Means to a Changing End. European Resources: The EU and the Reconciliation of Paid Work and Private Life
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271101300102 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
26 Intersentia
A MEANS TO A CHANGING END.
EUROPEAN RESOURCES: THE EU AND
THE RECONCILIATION OF PAID
WORK AND PRIVATE LIFE
S J*, C L** and B P***
Abstract
European resources related to reconciliation policie s have been inc rementally
developed and transformed. ree main phases of this process can be distinguished
in the progressive institutionalisation and evolution of this eld of action at the EU
level. At rst, the reconciliation issue appeared on the European agenda as a spill-
over i nterpr etation o f ‘equal treatme nt’. It the n acquir ed great er autono my, becom ing
an equal opportunity policy, leading to the development of various (legal, nancial,
cognitive and political) instruments around the objectives of improving work/family
balance and the division of labour between women and men. Finally, this eld has
been converted into an economic employment policy eld aimed at modernising
welfare systems and guaranteeing budgetar y sustainability through increases in
fertility rates and, most importantly, female employment rates. However, this has
come at the expense of the initial gender equality goals. e conclusion underlines
the diverse and evolving meanings of the ‘reconciliation’ issue and its or ientation.
is diversity in meanings and orientations allows greater room for manoeuvre at
the domestic level and even more diverse patterns of national usages of Europe , as is
shown in the rest of this special i ssue.
Keywords: European integration; reconciliation policy; us ages; welfare state reforms;
work-life balance
* Sciences Po, Centre d ’études européennes , 27 rue Saint Guillau me, 75 337 Paris Cedex 07, France;
phone: +33 01 45 49 83 59; email: sophie.jacquot @sciences-po.fr.
** Sciences Po, Centre d ’études européennes , 27 rue Saint Guillau me, 75 337 Paris Cedex 07, France;
phone:+33 01 45 49 83 59; e-mail: clemence.le doux@sciences-po.fr.
*** CNRS, Scienc es Po, Centre d’études europ éennes, 27 rue Saint Guil laume, 75 337 Paris Cedex 07,
France; phone:+33 01 45 49 83 59; e-mail : bruno.palier@scienc es-po.fr.
e authors would l ike to thank Sil ke Bothfeld and Yves Surel for t heir helpful comments.
A Means to a Chang ing End
European Jour nal of Social Secu rity, Volume 13 (2011), No. 1 27
1. INTRODUCTION
e common question of the resea rch project presented in this special issue is
to understand whether and how the EU has contributed to changing nationa l
reconciliation regimes. In order to investigate the mechanisms according to which
the various EU initiatives matter at the national level, we have chosen to concentrate
on Europeanisation and on the national ‘usages of Europe’ (see introduct ion to this
special issue; and, for a general presentation of this analytical approach, see Jacquot
and Woll 2010). In this perspec tive, analysing the way EU resources are used at the
national level requires rst analysing what k ind of resources the EU ca n provide
national actors with.
Generally Europe is perceived i n the literature as a speci c const raint which leads
to n eg ati ve i nt egr at ion , li mi ti ng t he nat io nal gov er nme nt’s so ver eig nt y an d/o r ro om t o
manoeuvre Leibfried a nd Pierson 1995, Scharpf 1999). However, the EU has not only
provided national actors and welfare sy stems with new constraints, it has a lso created
new opportunities. ECJ c ases, directives, EC commu nications, EES or OMC are full of
new resources that national actors may have taken up, tra nslated, and shaped in order
to follow their own national strateg y. is w ide range of resources highlights the fac t
that studying the usages of EU resources is not synonymous with simple discourse
analysis. Implementing EU reg ulations or directives or using EU funds are also part
of the usage of European re sources. Opportunit ies and constraints provided by t he EU
have to be transformed into spec i c national tools by actors (even the transposition of
directives ca nnot be reduced to a cut-and-paste process), which implies political work
and hence involves power, transaction, fra ming, con ict, and so on.
e aim of this article is to provide a panoramic view of the resou rces provided
by the EU to national actors in the eld of reconciliation between paid work and
private life. We can disting uish four types of resources provided by the EU: legal
resources (primary legislation, secondary legislation, case law, etc.), budgetary
resources (budgetar y constraints but also new funding opport unities), cognitive
resources (communications, ideas, etc.) or politica l resources (argumentation, blame
avoidance mechanisms, mu lti-level games, etc.). In order to list them as e xhaustively
as possible and to analyse their changing nature, we will trace their emergence and
development.
We ha ve ident i ed three main sequences during which these di erent policy
tools have been created and tran sformed at the EU level. At rst, reconciliat ion issues
emerged through a spill over interpretation of ‘equal treatment’. It then acquired
greater autonomy, became an equal opportun ity policy, developing various (legal,
nanci al, cognitive and political) inst ruments around the objectives of improving t he
work/family balance and the division of labour between women and men. Final ly,
this eld has been converted into an economic employment policy eld aimed at
modernising welfare systems and guara nteeing budgetary sustainability t hrough
increases in fertility rates and, most importantly, female employment rates, at the
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