Introduction

This chapter considers the range of resources available for working parents in different national contexts. We draw on material from countries with different levels of public and private support, working hours and childcare, to provide a systematic overview and some cross-national comparisons of types and sources of constraint and support for working parents. Unlike Chapters Four and Five and the following chapter, the analysis is not based on the case studies of individual parents. Rather we conceptualise differences across countries with reference to the structural characteristics that provide support or constraints – the resources that can be drawn on to make working parenthood possible. Thus we analyse what the national contexts are ‘cases of ‘, where support for working parents is concerned. We have categorised sources and levels of support (see Table 6.1). We have also distinguished between three main types of support within these levels – regulatory, practical and relational (support from relationships within a workplace). Countries are first examined and categorised according to some of the key categories and comparators which were relevant to our research questions (see Tables 6.2 and 6.3) and which is in line with our multilayered case study approach (see Chapter Three), notably, formal state supports, organisational supports (policies, culture, managers and colleagues), childcare support, support from partners and wider family support. All of these are considered below, and we explore the links to gendered and cultural assumptions.

A cross-national comparative perspective delineates the social structural context of people's lives – in this study, public policy provision, workplace support and community and family support available. Whether this is identified by respondents as being of value to them in their everyday lives is, however, another matter. We therefore also take into account the kinds of support and constraints respondents take as given or fail to mention – what goes unsaid or is not viewed as important or relevant, and what is seen as an entitlement in each country.

Formal support from the state in the form of regulations and laws

Formal state support is greater in the Scandinavian and Eastern European countries than elsewhere. Employers in these countries are bound by regulations laid down by the state to implement lengthy paid parental leave, and in Sweden and Norway in this study, to provide flexible working hours during the period of breastfeeding.