(Im-) Possibilities for Case Work in Socialist Bulgaria at the Example of Extramarital Motherhood
(Im-) Possibilities for Case Work in Socialist Bulgaria at the Example of Extramarital Motherhood

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is to highlight some problems of the social policies in socialist Bulgaria as regards to extramarital births and motherhood. The possibilities and the impossibilities for case work and social control in this specific field result from the inherent contradiction between pronatalism and the affirmation of marriage. On the one hand, motherhood and child welfare services stood in the center of the socialist paternalistic and pronatalistic policy. Extramarital births also contributed to the intended population growth, but on the other hand, they seemed problematic from the point of view of family stability. Depending on policy priorities official attitudes towards extramarital births and single mothers, therefore, changed.

• Details
• Contents