Child Care in Post-communist Romania between Familialist Ideology, Labour Market and Gender Roles
Child Care in Post-communist Romania between Familialist Ideology, Labour Market and Gender Roles

Summary/Abstract: Child care is an issue that should be studied as a social and political process involving several dimensions of public policies, social representations, cultural values and social practices. This article starts from the premise that child care is a key indicator for the well-being and family policies of modern democratic societies and of their gender regimes. It seeks to analyse the Romanian postcommunist legislative framework and public policies architecture regarding the child care regulations, provisions and ideologies. After a brief survey of the principal concepts employed, the author refers to a brief historical context, the Communist period being indispensable for understanding the political, economic and social factors affecting child care since 1989. The second part of the article examines the post-communist policies concerning child care and equal opportunities (the state of legislation, statistics, government strategies and the resources deployed). The main hypothesis of the article is that in post-communist Romania, at the level of legislation and public provisions, child care is implemented through the lens of a political ideology and within some public policies strongly influenced by familialism, while labour market is governed by competitions and neo-liberal perspective. Thus, the principle of gender equality plays a marginal role in child care provisions.

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