We invite scholars to submit papers that examine the interplay of both policies that provide services (‘care’) and policies that provide financial support (‘cash’). Details are below:

Welfare states are in constant transition, with policy makers seeking solutions to address old and new social risks, while facing budget constraints. A useful distinction can be made between policies supporting well-being by providing ‘care’ in the form of public services, and policies providing ‘cash’ in the form of transfers. This distinction and changing balance between care and cash policies raises important new questions. To what extent may cash and care policies promote virtuous circles in welfare state reform? Are care policies adequately designed to compensate for reduced cash transfers? To what extent do cash and care policies depend on each other for maximum effectiveness and efficiency?

The general questions pertain to a wide range of policy areas. For instance, in labor market policy, the question can be raised whether active labor market programs (Bonoli, 2013) support employment adequately in order to compensate for reduced cash transfers in areas of unemployment and social assistance. In family policies, maternal employment are found to be higher in relation to work-family reconciliation policies such as childcare, but lower in relation to financial support policies as child benefits (Nieuwenhuis, Need, & Van Der Kolk, 2012). Yet, to reduce child poverty, both work-family (care) policies and financial transfers such as child benefits are thought essential and complementary (Maldonado & Nieuwenhuis, 2015). Policies can be distinguished that ensure care for the elderly through professional social services, and cash-for-care payments paying children to provide care for their elderly parents (Schmid, Brandt, & Haberkern, 2011). Publically funded education may have more equal outcomes when students can receive student grants to cover living expenses. Health and mortality are found not only to be affected by healthcare services, but also by minimum income benefits (Nelson & Fritzell, 2014). The effectiveness of public healthcare services may further depend on the presence of sickness benefits to allow patients to recover before having to go back to work.


This stream invites empirical papers that explicitly analyze the intersection of cash and care in welfare states, in any area of social policy. Contributions that examine policy developments, including the shift from cash to care, are welcome as well as contributions examining various types of policy outcomes.

Full details of all conference streams can be found at: http://espanetlisbon2017.eu/streams/

Deadline: March 15, 2017

The call for papers and full description of the stream can be found online.

From the stream description:

Who benefits most from family policies?

Family policies have received ample attention in the (comparative) study of welfare state outcomes. The attention now seems to turn to the question whether these family policy outcomes are homogenous across the population, or varies across people with different social backgrounds. Examples of such studies show that uptake of public childcare is biased against lower educated parents (Ghysels & Van Lancker, 2011), and that both paid leave and family allowances reduce poverty more strongly among single-parent families compared to two-parent families (Maldonado & Nieuwenhuis, 2015).

This stream seeks to bring together theory-driven, empirical studies on the question who benefits most from family policies. We welcome comparative papers as well as case studies, preferably using quantitative approaches to these questions.

Examples of possible contributions include, but are not limited to:

• Fathers or mothers: with fathers taking up leave becoming (somewhat) more common in various countries, the time seems right to address the question whether and how it affects their careers differently than is the case for mothers, how it impacts on household financial resources, and which kind of fathers actually make use of these leave schemes.
• Children from high or low SES parents. Does early childhood education and care level the playing field, or does it exacerbate existing differences in children’s outcomes? What are the redistributive effects of ECEC policies?
• The ‘institutional design of family policy’: Does universal coverage lead to universal use or take up? What kind of policy design yields the most equal outcomes? How do complementarities between policies come in to play to achieve more equal outcomes?
  The whole of society: in addition to papers examining specific sub-groups, we also invite papers addressing outcomes at the societal level, such as economic growth, inequality, and trends in poverty.
• Other options include differences in family policy outcomes across families with different levels of education, changing family structures, migrant histories, children with special needs etc.