Defamilialisation in a “caricature” of the liberal regime: Large social strata worse-off from the expanding privatisation

Session

Political Science

Description

This article examines the extent and the determinants of defamilialisation of child care in Kosovo. It uses a recent representative survey covering the whole country, other administrative data and existing literature. The article argues that the defamilialisation rate in the country and its mode demonstrate in unique ways that policy matters: namely, it is shown that when a public universal right is in place, like the tax financed pre-school preparatory classes, it may be extensively used despite low existing employment rate of women or a weak policy on leaves from work. It is also shown that targeted eligibility conditions for public child care services might result in relevant defamilialisation for the lower income class, but the defamilialisation through these services is not limited to “market failures” only as it tends to correlate positively with public employment and upper income class as well. However, the overall residual-liberal leaning policy and regime produce growing defamilialisation through private child care services, particularly for children under 5 years old, leaving large social strata worse-off. Similar outcomes are observed in terms of childlessness. As some family policy literature expects, Kosovo’s defamilialisation could be furthermore impacted from factors beyond labour market such as social modernisation.

Keywords:

Kosovo, defamilialisation, child care services, privatisation, childlessness

Session Chair

Ridvan Peshkopia

Session Co-Chair

Dritëro Arifi

Proceedings Editor

Edmond Hajrizi

ISBN

978-9951-437-96-7

Location

Lipjan, Kosovo

Start Date

31-10-2020 9:00 AM

End Date

31-10-2020 10:55 AM

DOI

10.33107/ubt-ic.2020.454

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Oct 31st, 9:00 AM Oct 31st, 10:55 AM

Defamilialisation in a “caricature” of the liberal regime: Large social strata worse-off from the expanding privatisation

Lipjan, Kosovo

This article examines the extent and the determinants of defamilialisation of child care in Kosovo. It uses a recent representative survey covering the whole country, other administrative data and existing literature. The article argues that the defamilialisation rate in the country and its mode demonstrate in unique ways that policy matters: namely, it is shown that when a public universal right is in place, like the tax financed pre-school preparatory classes, it may be extensively used despite low existing employment rate of women or a weak policy on leaves from work. It is also shown that targeted eligibility conditions for public child care services might result in relevant defamilialisation for the lower income class, but the defamilialisation through these services is not limited to “market failures” only as it tends to correlate positively with public employment and upper income class as well. However, the overall residual-liberal leaning policy and regime produce growing defamilialisation through private child care services, particularly for children under 5 years old, leaving large social strata worse-off. Similar outcomes are observed in terms of childlessness. As some family policy literature expects, Kosovo’s defamilialisation could be furthermore impacted from factors beyond labour market such as social modernisation.