James, Grace; Callus, Thérèse --- "Child Welfare and Work–Family Reconciliation Policies: Lessons from Family Law" [2011] ELECD 871; in Busby, Nicole; James, Grace (eds), "Families, Care-giving and Paid Work" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Families, Care-giving and Paid Work

Editor(s): Busby, Nicole; James, Grace

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802628

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Child Welfare and Work–Family Reconciliation Policies: Lessons from Family Law

Author(s): James, Grace; Callus, Thérèse

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

10. Child welfare and work­family
reconciliation policies: lessons from
family law
Grace James and Thérèse Callus

INTRODUCTION
The true measure of a nation's standing is how well it attends to its children ­
their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation
and their sense of being loved, valued and included in the families and societies
into which they were born. (UNICEF 2007)

Work­family reconciliation policies seek to help workers participate in the
labour market and care for dependent family members. Legislation is
principally focused on enabling parents to provide care for their children
through a variety of measures including maternity, paternity or parental
leave provisions and rights to request flexible working arrangements. The
legislation that exists in developing countries often highlights the need to
achieve gender equality and/or facilitate parental choice, and whilst this
ought clearly to guide policy formation it is nonetheless curious that
children's need to receive care from their parents (or other carers) features
so little in the packages of rights on offer. At an EU level for example,
relevant laws have been developed to promote reconciliation between work
and family life primarily as a means to achieve equality between women
and men (see Caracciolo di Torella in this collection and Caracciolo di
Torella and Masselot 2010) and so children's welfare is not a fundamental
aim, per se, of policies instigated at this level. Even rulings of the Court of
Justice (CoJ), which often pursues a purposive ...