Policy Discourses on ‘Reconciling Work and Life’ in the EU

Abstract

This paper outlines the development EU policy discourse on ‘the reconciliation of work and family life’. This imposes a policy disjuncture on New Labour, for, while the British government may be ideologically more attracted to the liberal US model of ‘flexible’ labour, it is bound by EU law to implement a more corporatist gender equality model. The paper notes how themes of economic competition, democratisation, and protecting gender contracts emerged at the foundation EU gender policy. It traces these themes into an ‘equal opportunities at work’ discourse during the 1970s and 1980s and, with the increasing importance of the ‘demographic time bomb’ discourse and of Scandinavian style gender equality, into discourses stressing the ‘reconciliation of paid work with family life’ and gender mainstreaming. The paper ends by addressing the ‘half-empty or half-full’ assessments of EU gender policy.